Supply side economics

[Q-Pac]

Hello, class room; today I come here to explain a subject in which liberals tend to be overwhelmingly ignorant; supply side economics. Now, you may be asking yourself; what IS supply side economics? Supply Side Economics (or SSE) is a theory that a bloated, overfunded government institution psuedo sociallism on businesses actually HURTS, not HELPS, our economy. With supply side economics, a government, instead of taxing it's citizens to all holy hell, would instead lower taxes to a complete minimum, hence creating more money, hence encouraging spending, hence improving the economy, hence making more money, hence starting the circle over. Now, a common counter to this is "what about the lower class"? Certainly, as the upper class are the most biasedly taxed, wouldn't it benifit THEM when taxes are at an all time low, especially when it isn't them who rely on government aid? Of course. And this is where trickle-down economics comes in; it's a belief that when rich CEO's get richer, everyone get's happier. Let's say I make 5 million a year, and now I barely pay anything in taxes; this means I have more money, which means, besides investing it in further business opertunities, they will also spend more on consumer goods; we're back to Supply Side Economics. By spending all this money, he's increasing the economy, making it better. And that's the genius of it; it doesn't matter WHO get's the money, since either way EVERYONE benefits from it. One of the main ideals of Communism, except without the actual communism. By giving that rich guy money over the poor guy, the poor guy will enjoy a healthy, re-energized economic gain.

[Elfer]

First of all, you're confusing supply-side economics with demand-side economics, then you're conflating it with trickle-down economics. Trickle-down economics is bullshit, by the way. It works in rhetoric, but not in reality.

This is likely because the wealthy elite do not live lives of constrained discretionary spending. There's nobody saying, "Name brand peanut butter? Honey, you know that we have higher taxes because our income is in the millions!"

[Q-Pac]

At 10/2/07 11:01 PM, Elfer wrote: First of all, you're confusing supply-side economics with demand-side economics,

No, I'm not; Keynesian economics would support a HIGH level of taxation, as well as a high level of Government funding to encourage economic growth.

then you're conflating it with trickle-down economics.

They go nicely.

Trickle-down economics is bullshit, by the way. It works in rhetoric, but not in reality.

I could also site sources saying they do; I don't want to respond to this until I have time to really study it.

This is likely because the wealthy elite do not live lives of constrained discretionary spending. There's nobody saying, "Name brand peanut butter? Honey, you know that we have higher taxes because our income is in the millions!"

Exactly; the rich don't have discretionary spending; if they did, the point would be moot; the lower class doesn't benefit from Bill Gates having 5,000,000 dollars in his sock drawer. It's the rich going out, spending money, buying yachts, creating SUPPLY that fuels supply-side economics.

[Elfer]

At 10/2/07 11:24 PM, Q-Pac wrote: No, I'm not; Keynesian economics would support a HIGH level of taxation, as well as a high level of Government funding to encourage economic growth.

Ok then, you're just confusing supply and demand. They're different.

Trickle-down economics is bullshit, by the way. It works in rhetoric, but not in reality.

I could also site sources saying they do; I don't want to respond to this until I have time to really study it.

So you created a topic "teaching" us about trickle-down economics, then you say you don't want to comment on it until you've researched it?

Then you just claim that you "could" cite sources showing evidence in favour of trickle-down economics, then fail to do so? Weak.

Exactly; the rich don't have discretionary spending; if they did, the point would be moot; the lower class doesn't benefit from Bill Gates having 5,000,000 dollars in his sock drawer.

Yes, exactly. By giving Bill Gates an extra five million to stuff into his sock drawer, you don't help anybody out, because he's already got enough money to buy everything he wants. He has enough money to shoot you in front of a cop, shit on your corpse, and still spend the rest of the day playing tennis with your naked girlfriend. Giving him even more money isn't going to make him say "Ah yes, now I can finally get that new dishwasher."

It's the rich going out, spending money, buying yachts, creating SUPPLY that fuels supply-side economics.

Consumption is not production. Going out and buying shit is an increase in demand, not supply. Supply-side economics is about increasing production through direct incentives for production, not increasing production by increasing demand.

[tony4moroney]

At 10/2/07 11:24 PM, Q-Pac wrote:

Exactly; the rich don't have discretionary spending; if they did, the point would be moot; the lower class doesn't benefit from Bill Gates having 5,000,000 dollars in his sock drawer. It's the rich going out, spending money, buying yachts, creating SUPPLY that fuels supply-side economics.

You're an idiot. That's creating DEMAND and i read through your hypothesis and it is epic fail it's hilarious how you think trickle-down economics is gospel when it is one of the most flawed theories in economics, Reagan for one did not understand the concept of budgets and deficits.

Firstly there are factors that affect consumer confidence besides corp. taxes and when you consider their economies of scale and profit margins it is an absolutely negligible cost and is an opportunity cost to the govt. when they sacrifice these proven revenue streams for a theoretical altruistic affect. Secondly, the trickle-down affect is dependent on the wealthy spending a large amount of their wealth when the reality is they become wealthy from being relatively frugal and intelligent about their purchases. Businessmen =/= rappers.

[therealsylvos]

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

Yes, exactly. By giving Bill Gates an extra five million to stuff into his sock drawer, you don't help anybody out, because he's already got enough money to buy everything he wants. He has enough money to shoot you in front of a cop, shit on your corpse, and still spend the rest of the day playing tennis with your naked girlfriend. Giving him even more money isn't going to make him say "Ah yes, now I can finally get that new dishwasher."

we would like to prevent this
also correct me if im wrong isn't the highest tax bracket defined as people who a quarter of a million? thats quite long jump to bill gates

[tony4moroney]

At 10/2/07 11:41 PM, therealsylvos wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

we would like to prevent this

That will never happen. The U.S is one of the most business-friendly nations in the world, and in some indexes is only exceeded by singapore and a few other nations. With current taxation rates people aren't going anywhere, even with a marginal increase in taxes on assets people won't move because the U.S is the most prosperous nation with the most consumers and amongst the most business and entrepreneur friendly countries and amongst that has a grand history, attractions and a great living standard. Frankly I don't understand how you can assume that will happen when France taxes it's citizens much more than our own and from my understanding they have a progressive tax scheme that is a little punishing for it's extremely affluent people. Assuming the worst scenario when the criteria necessitated isn't even there yet? Please.

also correct me if im wrong isn't the highest tax bracket defined as people who a quarter of a million? thats quite long jump to bill gates

There are tens of thousands of people who have so much wealth they don't know what to spend it on, they invest or expand their businesses to attain such wealth and in order to do so they don't idiotically and frantically spend it on g+s that you all like to assume.

[Q-Pac]

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

Ok then, you're just confusing supply and demand. They're different.

No, I'm not. The two are a duelty; increase demand, and you increase production.

So you created a topic "teaching" us about trickle-down economics, then you say you don't want to comment on it until you've researched it?

I don't want to comment on your graphs until I research them. Nice spin.

Then you just claim that you "could" cite sources showing evidence in favour of trickle-down economics, then fail to do so? Weak.

I could cite sources claiming that supply-side economics leads to a direct increase of homosexuality. The point is that what matters isn't whether or not you bring up supporting evidence, but whether or not that evidence is actually valid. Hence why I want time to actually look at your graphs, analyze them, and research any other sources to deny or support them.

Yes, exactly. By giving Bill Gates an extra five million to stuff into his sock drawer, you don't help anybody out, because he's already got enough money to buy everything he wants. He has enough money to shoot you in front of a cop, shit on your corpse, and still spend the rest of the day playing tennis with your naked girlfriend. Giving him even more money isn't going to make him say "Ah yes, now I can finally get that new dishwasher."

Yet somehow when he makes more money, he still uses it. Like I said (and I believe you did two), rich people DON'T have discresionary funding, they DON'T put 5 million in a sock drawer. They invest it, they donate it, they lend it to banks, they do things with it. I'm sure there are a few nuts that keep millions in a piggy banks, but they in no way represent a large enough amount of people to actually dent the theory.

Consumption is not production. Going out and buying shit is an increase in demand, not supply. Supply-side economics is about increasing production through direct incentives for production, not increasing production by increasing demand.

No; going put and buying shit is increasing supply. No one goes "Woo-hoo, my first car sale, time to close the lot forever!". They sell a car, so they make another one to replace it. The workers who made the car get compensated, at which point THEY buy things, etc. As long as we live in a nation with enough wealth that any whim of the public can be seen to, demand will always mean supply. In supply side economics, by lowering taxes and needless government intrusion, people are free to spend their money as they please.

[Elfer]

At 10/3/07 12:06 AM, Q-Pac wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

Ok then, you're just confusing supply and demand. They're different.

No, I'm not. The two are a duelty; increase demand, and you increase production.

But you're missing the point: That is not the mechanism of supply-side economics.

[therealsylvos]

At 10/3/07 12:02 AM, tony4moroney wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:41 PM, therealsylvos wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

That will never happen. The U.S is one of the most business-friendly nations in the world, and in

some indexes is only exceeded by singapore and a few other nations. With current taxation rates people aren't going anywhere, even with a marginal increase in taxes on assets people won't move because the U.S is the most prosperous nation with the most consumers and amongst the most
business and entrepreneur friendly countries and amongst that has a grand history, attractions and a great living standard. Frankly I don't understand how you can assume that will happen when France taxes it's citizens much more than our own and from my understanding they have a progressive tax scheme that is a little punishing for it's extremely affluent people. Assuming the worst scenario when the criteria necessitated isn't even there yet? Please.

obviously it won't happen on such a high scale but the more you tax the more millionaires will go
here. Its exactly like the tax bloomberg wants to put on in new york city. will it cause everyone to not go into the city? no only a small amount. the higher the less traffic. It works the same with all taxes, cigarette, alchohol etc.

also correct me if im wrong isn't the highest tax bracket defined as people who a quarter of a million? thats quite long jump to bill gates

There are tens of thousands of people who have so much wealth they don't know what to spend it on, they invest or expand their businesses to attain such wealth and in order to do so they don't idiotically and frantically spend it on g+s that you all like to assume.

So you are saying that the more money they have they will spend on investing in the expansion of their business? this is a good thing is it not? bigger business = more jobs and more wealth

[goozebump]

You forget that with money=power. And with trickle down economics those few with the money control also have the control of power . Thats not democracy. Think about how we always elect Wealthy people into office to control even more money. D'ont youthink a large segment of the rpopulaton wouldbe misrepresented? Don't you think they could get us Into a war with another country who did absolutely nothing to us? You know what difference between our system and communism? Instead of a small number of people given power and f*ck over the rest, We "earn" power and f*ck over the rest. To me thats still a lose-lose situation.

[ReThink]

Supply side economics (Reganomics) does not work, plain and simple.

Rich people do not have anywhere near the motivation to spend than poor people. Think of it this way: if you gave a $100 tax break to 100,000 people at the poorest levels all of that money is going to get spent because they need that money to survive off of and there's a lot of luxuries they do not have. Now if you gave that same $10,000,000 of tax breaks to one billionaire he's already got most all of the luxuries he'll ever want. He might buy another mansion, a couple more Ferrari's or buy up a competitors company (which by the way makes the market less competitive) but he's a lot less likely to spend it all.

Simple logic, putting that $10,000,000 into the hands of people who are going to spend it makes a lot more economic sense than putting it where it's not going to be spent.

[WolvenBear]

At 10/2/07 11:01 PM, Elfer wrote: First of all, you're confusing supply-side economics with demand-side economics, then you're conflating it with trickle-down economics. Trickle-down economics is bullshit, by the way. It works in rhetoric, but not in reality.

Yet, all 4 graphs show the same thing. When taxes drop, whatever each graph represents go up (usually with a single exception).
Furthermore, even under their assumptions, the evidence doesn't prove the assumption. Economics involves so many factors that it's simply not possible to look at raw numbers and, without looking at context, say which factor is to blame. For example, the federal government drops it's rates, but the state of Illinois raises taxes like crazy, as does the city of Chicago. Which one of those factors affects the job picture of Chicago the most?

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

Exactly; the rich don't have discretionary spending; if they did, the point would be moot; the lower class doesn't benefit from Bill Gates having 5,000,000 dollars in his sock drawer.

You mean that guy who's giving all that money to various charities? And has given moreso since the tax cuts? You could argue that the charities benefit quite a bit by that extra cash flow.

Even ignoring the consumption part, the rich tend to invest their money. So them having more money means they spend more, invest more, and by proxy, create more.
Dropping taxes on businesses is more effective for the economy, but we're not hurt by the rich paying less taxes.

At 10/3/07 12:02 AM, tony4moroney wrote: That will never happen.

Liberals keep raising taxes on businesses and the rich cause they can "afford it".

[RommelTJ]

The poor spend more than the rich, because the rich are constantly trying to convince the poor to spend more. The money goes and stays on the top 5%, it doesn't "trickle down".

[Elfer]

At 10/4/07 09:26 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:01 PM, Elfer wrote: First of all, you're confusing supply-side economics with demand-side economics, then you're conflating it with trickle-down economics. Trickle-down economics is bullshit, by the way. It works in rhetoric, but not in reality.

Yet, all 4 graphs show the same thing. When taxes drop, whatever each graph represents go up (usually with a single exception).

No, they don't show that at all. Where the fuck did you learn to read a graph? All they show is variation within the general fluxuation observed at a constant tax rate.

Sure it does flip up briefly, but then dips back down again. There's no actual trend to it. It's like flipping four coins and getting three heads. Not that significant.

[WolvenBear]

At 10/4/07 11:42 PM, Elfer wrote: No, they don't show that at all. Where the fuck did you learn to read a graph? All they show is variation within the general fluxuation observed at a constant tax rate.

I was simply pointing out correlation. That all four show peaks in their respective categories in 2 out of the 4 tax cuts. And more often than not, the increases in tax show a decrease in each graph. So they show exactly what I said they do.

Sure it does flip up briefly, but then dips back down again. There's no actual trend to it. It's like flipping four coins and getting three heads. Not that significant.

Yea, but the graphs are supposed to "prove" that Reaganomics don't work. The case is weak enough on it's own to just compare the result to a single factor and make sweeping decisions. That, more often than not, it seems to have an effect makes the case weaker.

Your link (and by extention you) take inadequate information, that proves inconclusive, even by itself, and judge something a failure. National taxes matter, of course, but there's also state and city taxes. Various sales taxes. There are dozens, if not hundreds of taxes to consider. And that's just taxes. That doesn't consider regulations, laws, the economies of other countries which affect ours, droughts, floods, gov't spending, etc. The picture is so complex with so many factors that you can't see the effects of any of them without looking at the whole thing.

Examples:
The one spike coinciding with the Clinton tax raises ALSO coincides with the massive amount of small dot com companies and the massive tax cuts in New York city/business coming back to the city-reinvigorating it. (Just as New York's crime rates going down affected the national picture, so too does the economics of the Big Apple massively affect the nation.)
The tax cuts in 2001 might have helped the nation had it not been for 9/11, which caused massive effects.
The recent housing crunch will negatively impact the economy, despite taxes being lower.

To put it in perspective. You're doing an experiment. You have 30 vials of unknown liquid in front of you that all include water, you have no clue what else is in them. You also have 30 vials of powder that all include sodium. You don't know what else. You dump one vial of powder into each beaker. The results of each experiment are different...so you conclude sodium has no effect on water. How reliable is your conclusion?

[Elfer]

At 10/5/07 12:14 AM, WolvenBear wrote: I was simply pointing out correlation. That all four show peaks in their respective categories in 2 out of the 4 tax cuts. And more often than not, the increases in tax show a decrease in each graph. So they show exactly what I said they do.

You can't have a correlation without a trend. And considering that they go up and down very regularly, 2 out of 4 increases is the expected value for four random trials, it's not a correlation at all. Also, on the fourth graph, "up" is bad, which you would have known had you actually read the words that go with the pictures.

Sure it does flip up briefly, but then dips back down again. There's no actual trend to it. It's like flipping four coins and getting three heads. Not that significant.

Yea, but the graphs are supposed to "prove" that Reaganomics don't work. The case is weak enough on it's own to just compare the result to a single factor and make sweeping decisions. That, more often than not, it seems to have an effect makes the case weaker.

But it DOESN'T seem to have an effect. Again: Who the hell taught you how to read a graph? Where did you learn about what a correlation or a trend is? Whoever taught you about it did a terrible, terrible job.

Your link (and by extention you) take inadequate information, that proves inconclusive, even by itself, and judge something a failure. National taxes matter, of course, but there's also state and city taxes. Various sales taxes. There are dozens, if not hundreds of taxes to consider. And that's just taxes.

You're right, it's so noisy that there's no way to show an immediate effect of trickle-down economics where people benefit from top-level tax cuts.

However, here's the situation: Top level tax cuts cost the government money, and reduce potential funding for various programs. Since they don't have any apparent effect (i.e. they don't show any sort of trend of improvement), why do some people place so much stock in the idea?

To put it in perspective. You're doing an experiment. You have 30 vials of unknown liquid in front of you that all include water, you have no clue what else is in them. You also have 30 vials of powder that all include sodium. You don't know what else. You dump one vial of powder into each beaker. The results of each experiment are different...so you conclude sodium has no effect on water. How reliable is your conclusion?

That's a shitty analogy, because similar effects would be observed in every situation (tip: NA and H2O is a fairly dramatic reaction), and if I took enough trials, I could filter out the noise. Since there would almost certainly be a reaction every single time, coming to a conclusion that sodium has "no effect" on water would be ridiculous.

Basically, what trickle-down economics does is cut funding to programs for a presumed benefit that we can't actually demonstrate, and that the information available suggests doesn't exist. Just because the data is too noisy to PROVE that it doesn't work, it doesn't mean that it's a good idea.

[SmilezRoyale]

Sounds to me like the best policy is to prevent the reduction of 'Consuming' of goods [so to speak, purchasing] And prevent money from being built up but not being spent at all. [ALOT of money, saying people can't have savings accounts is silly]

[Slizor]

Hello, class room; today I come here to explain a subject in which liberals tend to be overwhelmingly ignorant; supply side economics.

I do wonder why it matters if liberals are ignorant of supply side economics. If I'm correct in my understanding here, it would like be saying that Conservatives are unable to understand the discipline of international relations without understanding global systems theory. I think the delusion that the topic starter is labouring under is that economics is a science........which it's not. I know that economics as a discipline doesn't like to confront this fact and prefers instead to bury itself in mathmatics while pretending that there isn't a huge normative dimension to economics and that there isn't still debate about economic theory but it is the dirty little secret of economics that will never go away. It's the same in Politics, people (read American academics) like to think that politics can be made into a science but any subject that looks at humans and human interaction will be looking at too many variables, none of which can be isolated and none of which can have tests applied to it.

[tony4moroney]

At 10/4/07 09:26 PM, WolvenBear wrote:

At 10/2/07 11:33 PM, Elfer wrote:

Exactly; the rich don't have discretionary spending; if they did, the point would be moot; the lower class doesn't benefit from Bill Gates having 5,000,000 dollars in his sock drawer.

You mean that guy who's giving all that money to various charities? And has given moreso since the tax cuts? You could argue that the charities benefit quite a bit by that extra cash flow.

yeah you could argue they benefit a lot from that money but what you can't argue is how stupid it is that you correlated his philanthropy with the tax cuts like it had a shoe-in relationship.

The point is that most wealthy people do not spend all of their money, they invest and much of their wealth is in non-liquidable assets this means that the trickle-down theory is flawed because it rests upon this assumption.

Even ignoring the consumption part, the rich tend to invest their money. So them having more money means they spend more, invest more, and by proxy, create more.

create more what? the argument is that the rich create demand for g+d through spending their money. investing means they do not spend that money necessitated to stimulate the economy and instead, create more personal wealth.

At 10/3/07 12:02 AM, tony4moroney wrote: That will never happen.

Liberals keep raising taxes on businesses and the rich cause they can "afford it".

they can. as long as they don't go batshit crazy a tax increase on the affluent would work fine. gini index. whats best long-term however is to reduce unnecessary expenses, like say, wars and military expansion in general.

[RommelTJ]

At 10/6/07 09:57 AM, Slizor wrote: I think the delusion that the topic starter is labouring under is that economics is a science........which it's not.

Haha, nice. That's why I study Chemistry. Like Biology, Economics is just a pseudoscience.

[tony4moroney]

At 10/6/07 03:03 PM, RommelTJ wrote:

At 10/6/07 09:57 AM, Slizor wrote: I think the delusion that the topic starter is labouring under is that economics is a science........which it's not.

Haha, nice. That's why I study Chemistry. Like Biology, Economics is just a pseudoscience.

i mustve missed the memo because biology was always a science.

[Elfer]

At 10/6/07 03:46 PM, tony4moroney wrote:

At 10/6/07 03:03 PM, RommelTJ wrote:

At 10/6/07 09:57 AM, Slizor wrote: I think the delusion that the topic starter is labouring under is that economics is a science........which it's not.

Haha, nice. That's why I study Chemistry. Like Biology, Economics is just a pseudoscience.

i mustve missed the memo because biology was always a science.

Yeah, I'd consider biology a science because you can come up with theories and actually test them.

The difference between biology and the hard sciences like physics and chemistry is that you can't really do "applied biology" in the sense you can with the other sciences, because biology is more a collection of facts than a set of laws.

You know what's seriously not a science though? Fuckin' psychology.

[SmilezRoyale]

Biology is hardly a psudoscience.

We desparatly need biology to carry out my plans for a new world order.

[Vert]

At 10/6/07 09:57 AM, Slizor wrote:

Hello, class room; today I come here to explain a subject in which liberals tend to be overwhelmingly ignorant; supply side economics.

I do wonder why it matters if liberals are ignorant of supply side economics. If I'm correct in my understanding here, it would like be saying that Conservatives are unable to understand the discipline of international relations without understanding global systems theory. I think the delusion that the topic starter is labouring under is that economics is a science........which it's not. I know that economics as a discipline doesn't like to confront this fact and prefers instead to bury itself in mathmatics while pretending that there isn't a huge normative dimension to economics and that there isn't still debate about economic theory but it is the dirty little secret of economics that will never go away. It's the same in Politics, people (read American academics) like to think that politics can be made into a science but any subject that looks at humans and human interaction will be looking at too many variables, none of which can be isolated and none of which can have tests applied to it.

I really shouldn't bother, but "there isn't still debate about economic theory"? "any subject that looks at humans and human interaction will be looking at too many variables, none of which can be isolated and none of which can have tests applied to it.". I specially love that last statement, how I do love generalizations, they are truely such a magnificient thing to witness (sarcasm off). Let's take this one by one, shall we?

"there isn't still debate about economic theory". Exactly what do you mean by debate? What aspect? If your trying to claim that economics is a area of study (since you deny it the name of science) where some sort of consensus exists (I'm pretty sure this isn't what you meant, but I have to cover all bases), then all I can say to you is that your gravely mistaken.

If, and I imagine this is what you meant, your claiming that there isn't any sort of epistemological debate in economics regarding it's status as a science (or how to become a science or if it's even possible to do so), then I'd say your wrong, but only to a certain extent. The debate certainly exists and has being going on from since the 50's (at least), a starting point perhaps being Essays in Positive Economics . Actually, I'm pretty certain this sort of debate began much earlier, but the paper is a seminal one. What I can agree with you is that the debate itself has always taken second stage to other aspects of economics, but this (whilst certainly something to be critized) is true with all sciences and non-sciences, so...

"any subject that looks at humans and human interaction will be looking at too many variables, none of which can be isolated and none of which can have tests applied to it.". Ah, yes, the crucial point. I think what you mean to ask is "does economics possess fasibility"? My short answer is "probably yes, but to a limited extent". I'll be honest that I can't be bothered to formulate a long answer (I've already written more than I wanted), so I'll just ask you this: why, do you think, that Klein, Stone, Haavelmo, Heckman, McFadden, Engle and Granger have all won nobels in economics for they work in econometrics? Maybe economics can't be considered a "hard science" yet, but it's certainly trying to become one.

Oh, and small provocation (don't take too seriously) is in order: RommelTJ, you do realize that chemistry is merely a small branch of physics, right? Right? I mean, it can't be seriously considered a "branch of science", no more than than, say, quantum mechanics could or thermodynamics are. They are all merely branches of physics. =]

[Begoner]

At 10/2/07 10:51 PM, Q-Pac wrote: And that's the genius of it; it doesn't matter WHO get's the money, since either way EVERYONE benefits from it.

According to your own imbecilic logic, it doesn't matter if you give a rich guy or the government your money, since everyone will benefit from it. You just refuted your own "argument." Congratulations.

[SmilezRoyale]

I have a question for The economic intellectuals on this forum.

Lets say i make around 125,000 dollars a year when i finally have a long term carrier.

1) How much of it should go to the government, as my duty as an american citizen

2) What should this money be used for?

3) How much of it is going to benefit me based on number 2

[Q-Pac]

At 10/6/07 09:27 PM, Begoner wrote:

According to your own imbecilic logic, it doesn't matter if you give a rich guy or the government your money, since everyone will benefit from it. You just refuted your own "argument." Congratulations.

Use your fucking head; I said it doesn't matter "who get's it", as in it doesn't matter which citizen get's the money. The non-fucktarded realize that the U.S Government isn't a fucking person. It doesn't buy food to sustain itself, it doesn't buy toilets to shit. In short, it doesn't boost economy by spending. Anyone who isn't diliberately bipassing logic to make a non-existent point would see that theres a massive difference between the statement of 'It doesn't matter which citizen gets the money, since the increased spending will stimulate the economy' and 'It doesn't matter if the government gets everyones money and then just hordes it'. If "whoever" applied to inanimate objects or idea's, then no shit that would be a bad statement; "It doesn't matter if a paper shredder got 200 bucks, that would be good for the economy!"

[Q-Pac]

At 10/6/07 09:35 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote:

1) How much of it should go to the government, as my duty as an american citizen

As small of a portion as is possible for the government to function

2) What should this money be used for?

Paying workers such as the President, but sure as hell not weak social programs and useless pork.

3) How much of it is going to benefit me based on number 2

Ideally, all of it; a governments action should always benefit it's people.

[Q-Pac]

K, Elfer: Number 1 seems inconclussive; the results seem to support both sides. It seems like economic turns that don't correlate whatsoever to taxation impacts the graph far to badly for it to really show anything. And it seems like number two supports my statement; the times when tax goes lower, the blue sees a spike.

2 and 4 fall into the whole "If rich people save money, they'll give a raise to all their employee's" bullshit that I never believed.