Diegetics

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/0 ... my-boomed/

i'll now sit back and watch the ayn-rand-paul-ryan-supply-side-pick-your-fool misinformed heads explode........and the gelatinous mass of nothing ooze out

House Republicans would do well to follow in Reagan's footsteps.

Feel free to double all tax rates.

so much is focused on the income tax rate that all the other buggers get lost in the simple whines.

yeh yeh 30-50% out of my income, everything i purchase has atleast 10% (basic gst) and up to 100% tax on it (sin taxes, import taxes).

if you also take into account the petrol taxes and payroll taxes and healthcare taxes at supply and employment level and so forth, the actual cost of most goods is made up of tax.

so whos paying what tax *really*... at school we chased up all of australias taxes at the rates they had then and decided the average person was paying around 80% tax and rich people ended up losing big on all the sin taxes and luxury import taxes.

gak: wish i wasnt so rushed at the moment, would love to polish this and chase it up across a few countries.

Sometime ago there was a medical case where the doctors were feverishly debating on how to transfuse a terminal cancer patient with the appropriate amount, composition, and flow rate of blood to replace the patient's own fast dwindling supply. After horse trading for a lengthy amount of time those docs finally went ahead with a set formula...which didn't work. So they tried another permutation, with no luck. So they used another one, and yet another one, etc. , but to no avail. In the end, the reaper claimed his just dessert and the patient died.

But that's something medically related, which I'm sure has no bearing on economic matters.

It's always amazing to me that Reagan was pretty much the dead opposite of a fiscal conservative, and yet he is considered this fiscally conservative messiah. It's so weird.

He ran up the deficit in Cali, he ran up the deficit Federally.

So, can anyone say with certainty how higher taxes supposedly cause greater economic growth no matter what the era, or condition of the economy? Is this like the theory of radiation hormesis, where exposure to something potentially damaging puts repair mechanisms into overdrive? Is there anything more than the historical correlation? Do I need to say that this is not the eighties?

Source: OECD

Also what people often don't realize is that safety nets for people exist so that they are not subject to the vagaries of the market. Unemployment insurance exists so that a skilled workforce can maintain itself and find work within a person's skillset rather than abandoning that skillset in order to obtain whatever short term benefit they can by taking on work.

A specialized economy simply cannot exist at all without a safety net.

The interesting thing about that chart is that the US scores low on personal tax rates, and high on corporate taxes - exactly the opposite that you would expect from the rhetoric. In a period of internationally mobile capital, high corporate taxes do deter investors, and anyway big guys can find ways to avoid (registered in Delaware, or interesting transfer pricing via the Virgin Islands) and it's little companies that get stung. Also, do those rates include health care costs?

The gap in personal taxes compared to elsewhere is not so much income taxes (rates much the same, adding state and federal) as indirect taxes. Most of the world has a GST/VAT at rates between 10-20%. US sales taxes seem much lower , and don't cover non-physical transactions. Ironically VAT is regressive, although you can make it a bit progressive ( zero rate food, higher rates of luxury items). Sin taxes on alcohol and tobacco could still go higher, and of course if the weed were legalised...

High marginal income tax rates are just counterproductive leftie envy. The high earners move, avoid, or just decide it is not worth the effort. The impact on total revenue is minimal. We used to have marginal rates at the top of over 90% in the 70s, even 50% (today) is probably too high. What equalises earnings is to get away from the idea that it is OK for the CEO or top bankers to earn millions, it does not happen in Germany or Japan.

Representin' fo da Eastern Europeans, yo!

Glad you were there to do it. The region is apparently the most American friendly spot on the world, and Americans barely know it exists. I may need to emigrate to Poland soon. How's the pork over there?

You know, we could always releive tax pressure by lowering spending. Just want to put that out there.

A friend of mine moved to Warsaw from New York for the freedom.