The Income Inequality Hoax by William Anderson and other pertinent articles

A pestilence stalks the land. It threatens to undo the current economic expansion. It may undo any social good that has been accomplished this past decade and may even result in blood in the streets.
What is this unspeakable horror, this evil genie that, if fully unleashed, could mean the downfall of us all? What is this scourge that causes increases in heart disease, cancer, depression, and even asthma, according to the "experts?" According to some economists, this unfolding tragedy is...income equality.
Since income equality has never existed at any time in any society, on the surface one seems hard- pressed to come up with an economically sound reason for someone to use such apocalyptic language. As usual in this business, there must be some other reason as to why so many journalists and economists are beating the equality drums again.
Before going farther, we must define income inequality. Statisticians like to divide people in this country into five categories, or quintiles, according to income. They take the average and median incomes from each quintile and then compare them with each other.
For example, the average income of the people in the bottom fifth might be $12,000, and the average income of those in the next quintile $20,000. The $8,000 is the income gap. Demographers claim that during the last 10 years, the average incomes of those in the top quintile have grown more than the incomes of those in the lowest group. So even though absolute incomes have grown in both groups, the fact that the income spread between them has become greater becomes the cause for alarm.
The issue behind this differential is explained in this simple example. Jones makes $10,000 a year, while Smith earns $20,000. Assuming no inflation, a year later Jones is earning $15,000 and Smith makes $30,000.
It is clear that both Jones and Smith are better off than they had been before, although in absolute terms Smith has earned a greater increase in income than has Jones. According to the "inequality" economists, only Smith is better off. In fact, according to their logic, Jones is actually worse off after he has increased his income because the income spread between Smith and him has grown. No matter that both men are better off. Economists have declared, instead, that inequality has become greater.
This may seem impressive to statisticians and welfare-minded politicians, but, in truth, economists do not own the analytical tools that allow them to declare the change in the "inequality gap" has made Jones relatively worse off. To do so would involve what economists call interpersonal utility
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The Income Inequality Hoax - William L. Anderson - Mises Daily 11/8/14, 6:47 AM
comparisons. Economic analysis simply does not permit one to perform such analysis, as Murray Rothbard pointed out in Man, Economy, and State. Therefore, even in its inception, this fetish regarding income differences is bogus.
Nevertheless, we next need to explain how the arguments about inequality are being presented. According to a recent U.S. News article, the news of the alleged growing income gap is "deeply troubling." "The country's social and political fabric could be damaged, some economists and others fear, if the new wealthy are perceived as being more isolated, if resentment builds, and if the have- nots increasingly shun the political system."
The writer, James Lardner, then goes to the heart of the matter, declaring, "And there are more- pragmatic concerns: if too few Americans are taking part in the boom, who is going to keep buying all that stuff at Wal-Mart or Amazon.com? After all, consumer spending represents roughly two thirds of the nation's economy." In other words, it all comes down to aggregate demand. If "too much" income goes to the rich, they won't spend it quickly enough or, worse, they may actually save their money (read that, stuff it in their mattresses), and the fall in spending will ultimately lead to recession.
But wait, there's more. Lardner declares that "a spirit of egalitarianism was part of what set this nation apart in its early years." He appeals to Alexis de Tocqueville's 1831 description of America as a place with a "general equality of position among the people."
This last statement is important, as Lardner unwittingly confuses the abolition of the rigid Old World class structure with a non-existent abolishment of income differentials between Americans. The former has been a staple of this country since its beginnings, while the latter has never existed.
The "inequality" economists make their second mistake by appealing to aggregate demand, demonstrating that a certain segment of this unfortunate profession still has not progressed beyond Mandeville's Fable of the Bees. Fable was a 17th Century poem in which the author insisted that what seemed to be private virtues (saving and investing) were really harmful public vices. Three hundred years after Fable, John Maynard Keynes took the same ideas out of poetry and tried to convert them to a crude form of mathematics and logic. Mandeville, wrong as he was, actually made more sense.
Without going into a lengthy explanation of Say's Law, suffice it to say that one of the central themes of aggregate demand "theory" (we hesitate to apply such an august word to this proposition) is that production and consumption are two distinct and unrelated entities. There is a grain of truth to this idea, as the mere production of something does not guarantee its sale in the marketplace. However, as J.B. Say pointed out in 1803, the ability to consume is directly derived from what one produces, as one's income is dependent upon the productive services he or she provides the rest of society.
The only way for such a condition to change even marginally is for government to violently intervene into economic affairs, and even those actions do not change the underlying truth of Say's Law. As Rothbard has pointed out, consumption and production cannot be separated in an economic system.
Throughout modern history, governments have attempted to spur "aggregate demand" by creating and distributing new money in hopes that people will quickly spend it. As Ludwig von Mises and Rothbard successfully noted, artificial credit expansion by government is always inflationary and distorts the economy's structure of production, ultimately leading to the booms and busts of the business cycle.
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The Income Inequality Hoax - William L. Anderson - Mises Daily 11/8/14, 6:47 AM
Another government intervention scheme to promote income "equality" is the progressive income tax. While in reality this is nothing more than a naked attempt by the parasitical political classes to seize the wealth of productive citizens, some economists promote progressive taxation as an "automatic stabilizer." According to these economists, the government will wisely spend the money that the taxpayer would have foolishly saved (stuffed in his ever-present mattress).
In reality, the idea of calling the confiscation of someone's paycheck to spend on political schemes something that "stabilizes" the economy is terminology only politicians and Keynesian economists could love.
Part of the damage Keynesians have inflicted upon economic thinking is promotion of the mistaken belief that production simply occurs automatically. There is no human element to an economy that is measured by aggregates. Thus, if production cannot be linked to the actions of each individual, then productivity has no relation to individual income. The result, according to modern macro theorists, is that income is just randomly distributed.
In fact, according to the Keynesians, capitalist economies not only distributes income unfairly, but also over time the mechanics of capitalism skew income toward the rich and away from others. In other words, to paraphrase Lardner, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The only thing that can keep such a tragedy from occurring is the wisdom of the state.
When one examines economics from a praxeological or human action viewpoint, however, a different picture emerges, as has been demonstrated by the Austrian School of Economics for more than a century. Income is not something that just randomly flows into an economy. It is the result of individuals providing productive services that are purchased in a marketplace.
The truth of this statement is self-evident. In the absence of coercion--the hallmark of a free market economy--income is either earned or given to someone in form of charity or a gift. (The source of that charity or gift is someone else's productivity.) An individual who earns income has received it from someone else in exchange for a product or service that the first person has provided.
Of course, even "inequality" economists recognize the relationship between income and occupation. Thus, they insist that patterns established by capitalism will push more and more people into menial, low-productivity jobs while creating a class of highly productive and highly paid citizens.
It is the old Keynesian argument with a different twist. Economists Robert Frank and Philip Cook even have a published theory that blames the personal computer for what they believe to be growing income inequality. According to Frank and Cook, as firms can expand their operations beyond their respective region because of the internet and other forms of telecommunications, they increase competition. The new emphasis upon technology, they say, "brings dramatically increased economic power to an elite of managers, professionals, and deal makers." This action, they say, increases market share for some and pushes others into poverty.
Some clear interpretation of their theory is in order here. What they are saying is that advances in computer technology allow for information to pass more quickly between sources and that some individuals are able to sell their products and services to a wider market than before these technologies came on line. Thus, by creating more competition, they actually create monopoly. The less-competitive, more rigid structure is replaced by a more competitive--and even more rigid-- structure. These last two thoughts do not fit together, but that is what these economists are asking us to believe.
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The Income Inequality Hoax - William L. Anderson - Mises Daily 11/8/14, 6:47 AM
Again, we see the "fallacy of the bees." In reality, this new and more productive economy has permitted low-skilled workers opportunities they never had before. News reports of lawyers quitting their jobs to become window washers or cocktail waitresses do not occur in a vacuum. As productivity increases, demand for once-mundane jobs is growing.
Take the current wave of immigration into the United States. While there are obvious problems that accompany such large migrations of people,few will argue that the vast majority of these relatively unskilled workers have found jobs and a decent standard of living in this country. If Frank and Cook, along with the Keynesians, were correct, unskilled workers would have no incentives to come here for jobs, as what jobs would be available would be so low-paying as not to be attractive.
Finally, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out on many occasions, these so-called income categories are not rigid. We do not have a fixed caste system in this country, and a free market economy allows people to move up and down the income ladder. According to Sowell, numerous studies have pointed out that few people stay in one income category very long, including poor people. In other words, the infamous "cycle of poverty" is another myth propagated upon us by the political classes.
If there are dark economic clouds on the horizon, they have been placed there by the state. Violent government intervention into peaceful exchange and production can never result in production of more wealth. Instead, government creates winners and losers and changes the system of incentives. Where once people had to be inventive and creative in order to create products that others wished to purchase, now they must pay off their respective politician who will then attempt to change the structure of property rights in order to transfer wealth from productive to non-productive people. Read the Microsoft antitrust files for the latest example of this outrage.
Then there is the Federal Reserve System, which inflates the currency and creates its own set of winners and losers. Of course, as the Austrian Economists have demonstrated, an economic boom fed by currency expansion cannot sustain itself for long, and when the inevitable bust occurs, many economic opportunities are lost.
As Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, along with other Austrian Economists, have pointed out, methodology matters. The praxeological method recognizes the importance of individual productivity and the role of peaceful exchange. Modern neoclassical economics, on the other hand, has embraced something that is unworkable and makes no sense when examined carefully. Thus, when neoclassicals declare that capitalism is causing inequality and sowing the seeds of its own destruction, remember that such talk truly belongs in the marxian dustbin of history.
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William Anderson, an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute, teaches economics at North Greenville College. Send him mail (mailto:banderson@ngc.edu)
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That was good... thanks. But you won't get much recognition of simple truths or objective examinations of results here. Topics like this blind leftists to them... they are conditioned to ignore what won't fit into social justice paradigms.

Power to the (right) people..!!

And I was thinking they simply will not read anything over a tweet's length.

What a load of hooha claptrap.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2000/summer/the-neo-confederates?page=0,1

Ludwig von Mises Institute
Auburn, Ala.

Headed up by Llewelyn Rockwell Jr., the Ludwig von Mises Institute is devoted to a radical libertarian view of government and economics inspired by the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, whom the institute says "showed that government intervention is always destructive."

Indeed, the institute aims to "undermine statism in all its forms," and its recent interest in neo-Confederate themes reflects that.

Rockwell recently argued that the Civil War "transformed the American regime from a federalist system based on freedom to a centralized state that circumscribed liberty in the name of public order."

Desegregation in the civil rights era, he says, resulted in the "involuntary servitude" of (presumably white) business owners. In the past, Rockwell has praised the electoral success of European neofascists like Joerg Haider in Austria and Christoph Blocher in Switzerland.

Both Rockwell and institute research director Jeffrey Tucker are listed on the racist League of the South's Web page as founding members — and both men deny their membership. Tucker has written for League publications, and many League members have taught at the institute's seminars and given presentations at its conferences.

At the recent Austrian Scholars Conference, the F.A. Hayek Memorial Lecture was delivered by Donald Livingston, director of the League's Summer Institute. In 1994, Thomas Fleming, a founding League member and the editor of Chronicles magazine, spoke on neo-Confederate ideas to an institute conference.

Rockwell, who is also vice president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, runs his own daily news Web site that often features articles by League members.

**********

And this garbage masquerading as economic theory goes hand in hand with neoconfederates still fighting the Civil War (see link)

SheWrites wrote:And I was thinking they simply will not read anything over a tweet's length.

And I was just thinking you should read for COMPREHENSION.

From Walter Williams - Economics Professor - George Mason University


Democrats plan to demagogue income inequality and the wealth gap for political gain in this year's elections. Most of what's said about income inequality is stupid or, at best, ill-informed. Much to their disgrace, economists focusing on measures of income inequality bring little light to the issue. Let's look at it.

Income is a result of something. As such, results alone cannot establish whether there is fairness or justice. Take a simple example to make the point. Suppose Tom, Dick and Harry play a weekly game of poker. The result is: Tom wins 75 percent of the time. Dick and Harry, respectively, win 15 percent and 10 percent of the time. Knowing only the game's result permits us to say absolutely nothing as to whether there has been poker fairness or justice. Tom's disproportionate winnings are consistent with his being either an astute player or a clever cheater.

To determine whether there has been poker justice, the game's process must be examined. Process questions we might ask are: Were Hoyle's rules obeyed; were the cards unmarked; were the cards dealt from the top of the deck; and did the players play voluntarily? If these questions yield affirmative answers, there was poker fairness and justice, regardless of the game's result, even with Tom's winning 75 percent of the time.

Similarly, income is a result of something. In a free society, for the most part, income is a result of one's capacity to serve his fellow man and the value his fellow man places on that service. Say I mow your lawn and you pay me $50. That $50 might be seen as a certificate of performance. Why? It serves as evidence that I served my fellow man and enables me to make a claim on what he produces when I visit the grocer. Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page are multibillionaires. Just as in the case of my serving my fellow man by mowing his lawn, they served their fellow man. The difference is they served many more of their fellow men and did so far more effectively than I and hence have received many more "certificates of performance," which enables them to make greater claims on what their fellow man produces, such as big houses, cars and jets.

Brin and Page and people like them created wealth by producing services that improve the lives of millions upon millions of people all around the globe. Should people who have improved our lives be held up to ridicule and scorn because they have higher income than most of us? Should Congress confiscate part of their wealth in the name of fairness and income redistribution?

Except in many instances when government rigs the game with crony capitalism, income is mostly a result of one's productivity and the value that people place on that productivity. Far more important than income inequality is productivity inequality. That suggests that if there's anything to be done about income inequality, we should focus on how to give people greater capacity to serve their fellow man, namely raise their productivity.

To accomplish that goal, let's look at a few things that we shouldn't do. Becoming a taxicab owner-operator lies within the grasp of many, but in New York City, one must be able to get a license (medallion), which costs $700,000. There are hundreds of examples of government restrictions that reduce opportunity. What about the grossly fraudulent education received by so many minority youngsters? And then we handicap them further with laws that mandate that businesses pay them wages that exceed their productivity, which denies them on-the-job training.

Think back to my poker example. If one is concerned about the game's result, which is more just, taking some of Tom's winnings and redistributing them to Dick and Harry or teaching Dick and Harry how to play better? If left to politicians, they'd prefer redistribution. That way, they could get their hands on some of Tom's winnings. That's far more rewarding to them than raising Dick's and Harry's productivity.

What a load of hooha claptrap.


Smoke and mirrors. The attempt at illusion is amusing. Simply look at the median income historical chart, and then look at the GDP historical chart......some math is too difficult for the Hooha purveyors. America from the 1960s to today has seen most of its citizens turned into serfs.

2seaoat wrote:What a load of hooha claptrap.


Smoke and mirrors. The attempt at illusion is amusing. Simply look at the median income historical chart, and then look at the GDP historical chart......some math is too difficult for the Hooha purveyors. America from the 1960s to today has seen most of its citizens turned into serfs.

What happened in the sixties? It's sad that a man who enjoyed the liberty to improve his position denies that to the future generations. You're a terrible stewart. The simple truth is that there will always be winners and losers... and the social interventions have exacerbated that reality... as it appears they were designed to do. Even noble intents must be measured by the cold hard results... not continually rationalized by catchphrase populist agendas. Humans used to thrive by overcoming hardships and accomplishing things... it's our nature and should be celebrated... not exploited and used to mitigate everyone's outcomes.

From Thomas Sowell - a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.

The Left's 'Income Inequality' Canard


Income inequality has long been one of the liberals’ favorite issues. So there is nothing surprising about its being pushed hard this election year.

If nothing else, it is a much-needed distraction from the disasters of Obamacare and the various IRS, Benghazi, and other Obama-administration scandals.

Like so many other favorite liberal issues, income inequality is seldom discussed in terms of the actual consequences of liberal policies. When you turn from eloquent rhetoric to hard facts, the hardest of those facts is that income inequality has actually increased during five years of Barack Obama’s leftist policies.

This is not as surprising as some might think. When you make it unnecessary for many people to work, fewer people work. Unprecedented numbers of Americans are on the food-stamp program. Unprecedented numbers are also living off government “disability” payments.
There is a sweeping array of other government subsidies, whether in money or in kind, that together allow many people to receive greater benefits than they could earn by working at low-skilled jobs. Is it surprising that the labor-force participation rate is lower than it has been in decades?

In short, when people don’t have to earn incomes, they are less likely to earn incomes — or, at least, to earn incomes in legal and visible ways that could threaten their government benefits.

Most of the households in the bottom 20 percent of income earners have nobody working. There are more heads of household working full-time and year-round in the top 5 percent than in the bottom 20 percent.

What this means statistically is that liberals can throw around numbers on how many people are living in “poverty” — defined in terms of income received, not in terms of goods and services provided by the government.

Most Americans living in “poverty” have air conditioning, a motor vehicle, and other amenities, including more living space than the average person in Europe — not the average poor person in Europe, the average person.

“Poverty” is in the eye of the statisticians — more specifically, the government statisticians who define what constitutes “poverty,” and who are unlikely to define it in ways that might jeopardize the massive welfare state that they are part of.

In terms of income statistics that produce liberal outcries about “disparities” and “inequities,” millions of people who don’t have to earn incomes typically don’t.

The more people who are in a non-income-earning mode, the greater the disparities with the incomes of those of us who have to work for a living, and who have to earn more to offset high tax rates. Yet liberals often act as if this is an injustice to those who don’t work rather than an injustice to those who do work, and whose taxes support those who don’t.

Actually, the liberal welfare state is an injustice to both, though in different ways.

Despite whatever good intentions some liberals may have had in creating the ever-growing welfare state, practical politicians know that more dependency means more votes for supporters of bigger government.

There are no incentives for either politicians or the bureaucrats who run the welfare-state agencies to get people off their dependency on government programs. Moreover, the eligibility rules create a very high cost to individuals who try to rise by getting a job and earning their own money.

It is not uncommon for someone who is receiving multiple government-provided benefits — housing subsidies, food subsidies, etc. — to lose more in benefits than they gain in income, if they decide to take a legitimate and visible job.

If increasing your income by $10,000 a year would cause you to lose $15,000 worth of government benefits, would you do it? That is more than the equivalent of a 100 percent tax rate on income. Even millionaires and billionaires don’t pay that high a tax rate.

Liberals don’t talk — or perhaps even think — in terms of the actual consequences of their policies, when it is so much more pleasant to think in terms of wonderful goals and lofty rhetoric.

The simple truth is that there will always be winners and losers...

Agreed. The game was rigged with Reaganomics which created the illusion that the tax breaks to the wealthy would trickle down and be enjoyed by the American Middle Class. Reagan's own chief of the budget, David Stockman said it was vodooo economics, and a simple review of the median income since America was stolen clearly shows in the rigged game the top 1% got theirs while the American middle class was decimated. The goal today is to return tax rates to the eighties, create large job creation tax credits, increase the minimum wage, and watch consumer demand expand and the GDP to grow the pie which now will be shared with all Americans. It is time for the American middle class to be a winner, and the 1% to be a loser.

Debunking Myths About Inequality

May 20, 2014  - Source: Michael D. Tanner, "Inequality Myths," Cato Institute, M


Much of today's debate over inequality is filled with inaccuracies, writes Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute.

A common political narrative today is that America's rich continue to get richer while the poor become poorer,  leading lawmakers to call for higher taxes and increases in the minimum wage. But there are a number of fictions surrounding the inequality debate. Tanner debunks some of those myths.

Myth 1: Inequality has never been worse.

The distribution of wealth in the U.S. has been relatively stable over the last several decades. In 1965, the top one percent of Americans held 34.4 percent of the country's wealth; in 2010, that figure was at 35.4 percent.
Moreover, many statistics purporting to show inequality do not take into account welfare transfer payments, which have a serious impact on net income. Taking those into account, a Brookings Institution study reveals that income inequality actually decreased from 2000 to 2010.

Myth 2: The rich inherit their money.

Actually, 80 percent of American millionaires are the first in their families to become millionaires.
For the richest one percent of Americans, only 15 percent of their wealth is from an inheritance. Rather, wage income is responsible for the majority of wealthy Americans' net worth.

Myth 3: The rich stay rich, while the poor remain poor.

While some families are wealthy for generations, research indicates that up to 70 percent of a successful entrepreneur's wealth is lost by the end of the second generation in the family.
Moreover, close to 56 percent of Americans in the top income quintile will drop out of it within two decades, while half of Americans who begin in the bottom quintile move up to a higher quintile within just one decade.

Myth 4: An increase in inequality means an increase in poverty.

There is very little correlation between poverty rates and inequality. The economy is not a fixed pie, and a gain by one individual does not mean that another incurs losses.
While the link between inequality and poverty is tenuous, Tanner does note the link that exists between a person's choices and resulting poverty. For example, high-school dropouts are 3.5 times more likely to end up in poverty than those with a high-school education. Similarly, less than 3 percent of full-time workers live in poverty.

in the U.S., 75.4% of all wealth is owned by the richest 10% of the people. The comparable figures for the other developed countries are: Australia 50.3%, Canada 57.4%, Denmark 72.2%, Finland 44.9%, France 51.8%, Germany 61.7%, Ireland 58.4%, Israel 68.9%, Italy 49.8%, Japan 49.1%, Netherlands 54.6%, New Zealand 57.6%, Norway 65.9%, Singapore 61.1%, Spain 54.0%, Sweden 71.1%, Switzerland 71.5%, and U.K. 53.3%.


However, there are some other countries that have wealth-concentrations that are about as extreme as the U.S. For examples: Chile 72.5%, India 73.8%, Indonesia 75.0%, and South Africa 74.8%. The U.S. is in their league; not in the league of developed economies. In the U.S., the bottom 90% of the population own only 24.6% of all the privately held wealth, whereas in most of the developed world, the bottom 90% own around 40%; so, the degree of wealth-concentration in the U.S. is extraordinary (except for underdeveloped countries).

Your stats can be dissected as the truth is self evident. Since the 1960s all the attempts by teddy to speak softly and carry a big stick have been undone as the trusts and inherited wealth accumulate, and America gets rendered to a third world country which just like the British colonial days our manufacturing was restricted(ours was stolen) and our raw materials are pumped out of the ground and sent abroad. Return the tax rates to where average americans actually had real median income growth.

Giving people sumthin fer nothin... or taking from some to give to others... doesn't change the ingredients of the successful.

No matter how wonderful the idea sounds. The poor in this country prosper compared to the vast majority of the world.

ANYONE in this country with a work ethic can improve their position and prospects. Don't be such a huckleberry.

PkrBum wrote:Giving people sumthin fer nothin... or taking from some to give to others... doesn't change the ingredients of the successful.

No matter how wonderful the idea sounds. The poor in this country prosper compared to the vast majority of the world.

ANYONE in this country with a work ethic can improve their position and prospects. Don't be such a huckleberry.

Work ethics and a desire!

Nothing about giving somebody something for nothing. Rather, it is about valuing labor over capital.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.

Abe Lincoln (a real republican who kicked the dixiecrats asz)

When the minimum wage is reduced in real dollars since Reaganomics, and when labor unions represent fewer and fewer Americans, you have foreign capital exploiting and owning America, without a fair counterbalance. The result is the obvious. median income does not increase. The Oligarchy will try to find useful fools to propagate lies about income inequality, but the American people already know that improvements to the GDP do not equate to median income increase, and there is one certainty......the American people are not that stupid.

I think it's time to look at obamanomics right now if you're truly concerned about wages reduced by real dollars.

His monetary and economic policies have been unprecedented in real dollars... and you know there will be a price paid.

Who do you suppose that will hurt the most? Be honest if you're able.

Sal wrote:Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell ...

... lmao ...

... can we get a Herman Cain up in this bitch??

Rotflmao

Williams and Sowell are economist. Is that an issue for you?

Economists are like meteorologists, but not as accurate.

And, Sowell and Williams are really, really bad economists.

lol

Sal wrote:Economists are like meteorologists, but not as accurate.

And, Sowell and Williams are really, really bad economists.

lol

So put forth the teachings of a "good" economist in comparison of these you call "really, really bad."

Cue krugman... he's predicted fifteen of the last two recessions during repub presidencies... and zero during dems.

He actually criticized the govt intervention and doubling the debt... as way too little... lol. Keynesian economics is corrupt.

Another government intervention scheme to promote income "equality" is the progressive income tax. While in reality this is nothing more than a naked attempt by the parasitical political classes to seize the wealth of productive citizens, some economists promote progressive taxation as an "automatic stabilizer." According to these economists, the government will wisely spend the money that the taxpayer would have foolishly saved (stuffed in his ever-present mattress).
In reality, the idea of calling the confiscation of someone's paycheck to spend on political schemes something that "stabilizes" the economy is terminology only politicians and Keynesian economists could love.

I wonder just who the author of this article considers to be members of the "political classes"? The political classes are made up only of liberals who want to redistribute the wealth and not any bought and paid for by corporate money and other special interest groups pushing for more favors in the form of tax credits and more loopholes?

What exactly do the authors consider to be the "political schemes" that government revenue would be spent on? I'd like to see more government spending on infrastructure projects that would benefit the country as a whole by creating jobs, things like improving the Interstate Highway System, a high speed rail system, an updated air traffic control system, updated Internet technology, more research and development in renewable energy, etc.

It is pathetic how far behind the rest of the developed world we are on all sorts of lists. It seems foolish to try and contend that there is not a growing income/wealth gap? Look at this chart.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/the-austrian-school-and-why-it-doesn-t-work-t4689.html

http://robertnielsen21.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/the-mythical-laffer-curve/

othershoe1030 wrote:Another government intervention scheme to promote income "equality" is the progressive income tax. While in reality this is nothing more than a naked attempt by the parasitical political classes to seize the wealth of productive citizens, some economists promote progressive taxation as an "automatic stabilizer." According to these economists, the government will wisely spend the money that the taxpayer would have foolishly saved (stuffed in his ever-present mattress).
In reality, the idea of calling the confiscation of someone's paycheck to spend on political schemes something that "stabilizes" the economy is terminology only politicians and Keynesian economists could love.

I wonder just who the author of this article considers to be members of the "political classes"? The political classes are made up only of liberals who want to redistribute the wealth and not any bought and paid for by corporate money and other special interest groups pushing for more favors in the form of tax credits and more loopholes?

What exactly do the authors consider to be the "political schemes" that government revenue would be spent on? I'd like to see more government spending on infrastructure projects that would benefit the country as a whole by creating jobs, things like improving the Interstate Highway System, a high speed rail system, an updated air traffic control system, updated Internet technology, more research and development in renewable energy, etc.

It is pathetic how far behind the rest of the developed world we are on all sorts of lists. It seems foolish to try and contend that there is not a growing income/wealth gap? Look at this chart.

Perhaps you did not notice, the is 2014. Or are you afraid to post the years of semi-retired President Barack Hussein Obama?