patrick.net

Which countries are those?

Bigsby says

Which countries are those?

For example Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Belarus, Romania.

mell says

I have shown examples of countries with less wealth disparity than the US who
run on flat taxes. There is no correlation

I'm sure you know this, but just because there are one or two special cases does not invalidate a correlation.

It is pretty simple and impossible to deny really. In order to raise the same revenue under a flat tax system, the middle and lower classes would be forced to pay more taxes. That is undeniable. Do you disagree??

And if the middle and lower classes are paying more while the super rich are paying less--doesn't that guarantee wealth disparity will increase??

mell says

However that would need to go hand-in-hand with abandoning the causes of wealth
disparity such as Fed/govt bailouts and crony capitalism (subsidies, deductions,
loopholes), money printing which gets held up mostly at the first-in-line
receivers and does not trickle down, not adhering to the rule of law and
clearing bad debt via bankruptcy as designed, propping up favorited sectors
suchs as the FIRE sector, prosecute fraud and counterfeiting for everybody
instead of selectively applying and abandoning the rule of law etc. etc. These
are the real reasons for wealth inequality, flat vs. progressive tax and the tax
percentages (as long as applied equally) have very little to do with it.

The rest of your post is your usual trite garbage.

mell says

For example Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Belarus, Romania.

You mean they aren't worse yet, right?

tatupu70 says

The rest of your post is your usual trite garbage.

You can be dismissive without arguments all you want, I am asserting that flat vs progressive tax does very little to increasing/diminishing income/wealth disparity given there are no exemptions/loopholes/deductions. So if it's not that it must be somethin else, could be what you call "trite garbage".

mell says

You can be dismissive without arguments all you want

Uh, I think my argument was directly above the part of my post that you copied and pasted.

mell says

I am asserting that flat vs progressive tax does very little to
increasing/diminishing income/wealth disparity given there are no
exemptions/loopholes/deductions.

And I showed why that assertion is undeniably incorrect.

tatupu70 says

mell says

For example Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Belarus, Romania.

You mean they aren't worse yet, right?

Well, lets keep following the data over the years. I am still waiting on any explanation on how my outlined simplified flat tax example - given there are no Fed/govt subsidies/deductions and money printing - leads to wealth inequality. Person A pays 10K taxes on 50K income, Person B pays 1M taxes on 5M income. Let's see how Person B grabs all the wealth from Person A in a free market without any "outside" or higher power help.

Mell, I agree with the general idea... in fact my final paper for my second master's was written on this very topic. I'm too busy right now getting ready for a walkthrough of my house tomorrow to go into the details, but one thing I found necessary for it to work is that you have to have a realistic wage exemption specific to a particular county. This would remove some of the regressive nature of a garden variety flat to those most vulnerable. I wish I had more time. I love this topic. Break's over.

mell says

Well, lets keep following the data over the years. I am still waiting on any
explanation on how my outlined simplified flat tax example - given there are no
Fed/govt subsidies/deductions and money printing - leads to wealth inequality.
Person A pays 10K taxes on 50K income, Person B pays 1M taxes on 5M income.
Let's see how Person B grabs all the wealth from Person A in a free market
without any "outside" or higher power help.

I already explained it above. Did you not read it?

The flaw in your thinking is that you need to understand that a capitalist economy naturally leads to wealth inequality. You need a tax structure to slow this natural trend. A flat tax by itself doesn't lead to inequality--it just doesn't stop it. A progressive tax does.

turtledove says

Mell, I agree with the general idea... in fact my final paper for my second master's was written on this very topic. I'm too busy right now getting ready for a walkthrough of my house tomorrow to go into the details, but one thing I found necessary for it to work is that you have to have a realistic wage exemption specific to a particular county. This would remove some of the regressive nature of a garden variety flat to those most vulnerable. I wish I had more time. I love this topic. Break's over.

Looking forward for more on this later - I'm open to all models given that they are as simple as possible which IMO not only ensures fairness but also does away with most of the hassle dealing with tax attorneys, accounts etc. for those who don't want to or cannot afford to as well as for those who exploit deductions, subsidies and loopholes.

thomaswong.1986 says

That's where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected.

Exactly. The republicans keep bluffing, and the democrats keep calling their bluffs. Now Grassley owns this, warts and all. The moral of the story is, don't play political games by proposing amendments as a bluff. If Obama were smart (I mean, he's smart, but if he were smarter), he would immediately coin this fiasco "Grassleycare" or "Republicare", and use that name over and over to drive home the point that this was the republicans' doing.

Those who are multi-millionaires/billionaires (the obscenely rich) should bear a progressively heavier tax burden than those making minimum wage. Otherwise, wealth disparity becomes worse and "stays in the family". The fact that a CEO can make a hundred times more money than the average-paid worker in the same company seems ridiculous. Additionally, the super rich (not someone making $250K/yr) are able to sway the rules of the game in their favor whether it be investing in stocks (or moving stock prices in their favor), buying up small companies, or buying real estate...with all that money comes power, and it no longer makes the rules of the game fair. Unfortunately, that's a downside to capitalism that needs to be regulated to some degree through a progressive tax structure.

bgamall4 says

government shutdown in September

There was a government shutdown?

Mish has been firmly in the deflationist camp since 2008.

More and more people are starting to realize that, in the medium to long time, Keynesianism is highly deflationary as capital destruction would leave less productove asset available to be borrowed against for credit money creation.

I think you have to take a long term view on gold. The investment banks and possibly the Fed are engaged in gold price manipulation. Disclosure: I have no gold position.

Health is wealth.

This fellow claims that the banks are manipulating the price of gold: http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

Lots of buzz about JP Morgan manipulating the silver market. I really don't know, of course, and frankly I can only be along for a ride created by very large and opaque forces.

Homeboy says

thomaswong.1986 says

That's where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected.

Exactly. The republicans keep bluffing, and the democrats keep calling their bluffs. Now Grassley owns this, warts and all. The moral of the story is, don't play political games by proposing amendments as a bluff. If Obama were smart (I mean, he's smart, but if he were smarter), he would immediately coin this fiasco "Grassleycare" or "Republicare", and use that name over and over to drive home the point that this was the republicans' doing.

And what would be the message conveyed by such renaming?
What's plenty good enough for us, proles is not good enough for Inner Party and Grassley is to blame for forcing the inferior product on them? Are you sure that would play out as you think it would? ;)

Blurtman says

Health is wealth.

This fellow claims that the banks are manipulating the price of gold: http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

Lots of buzz about JP Morgan manipulating the silver market. I really don't know, of course, and frankly I can only be along for a ride created by very large and opaque forces.

All markets are manipulated and the Fed has a fund specifically for that purpose.
Gold and silver impact currency exchange rates so of course they hit those markets from time to time
From the Fed's own web site
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed14.html

"A herd of idiotic Austrians"

Unlike Keynesians Austrians don't travel in herds.

It's all in the movie, 'Executive Action', starring Burt Lancaster, the head of the black ops ...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/BbF5him-EF8

The Martians have landed on earth.

Call it Crazy says

If they react abruptly to falling sales by building less, the housing market may be “on the verge of a significant correction”, argues Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics.

Are you sure they don't mean a correction upward? This is The Economist after all who believe higher home prices are a good thing.

Or actual train wrecks. Our nations infrastructure is still pretty crappy.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

Can anyone name one American who would not delight at dismembering a bankster and eating its face?

John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Henry Ford & J.P. Morgan.

Also Gordon Gekko... And also me.

I would delight at eating American peasants' faces and dismembering their children's heads afterwards.

I'm scum...

I financed George Zimmerman because I want all niggers dead.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

And you like genocidal psychopaths to fuck you in the ass while you shout, "MOMMEEEEEEE!"

Why don't you accept my financial bribes and join my side in the genocidal agenda?

You won't have to nurse from your mother's breasts anymore. You'll have enough food...

Why can't we all just love one another without the ass fucking?

As a Democrat, I hate personal responsibility, self-reliance, and America.

Is there anything I can do to protect these black criminals from this great American?

Ceffer says

Why can't we all just love one another without the ass fucking?

What are you talking about? Are you some kind of communist?

Nobody in the United States has had vaginal intercourse since The Columbian Exposition of 1893.

In retrospect, wasn't it obvious that the whole affair was all Trayvon Martin's fault? Yep, the Zimmerman apologists were all right. He's a model citizen and gun owner.

By rural Georgia standards, Mr. Zimmerman would be nearly unarmed.

"I bet you can squeal like a pig. Weeeeeeee! "

Ceffer says

Why can't we all just love one another without the ass fucking?

Homophobe?

Oops, that's not right.... Anti-sodomist?

Not quite...

Dick Cheney?

No, that's not right either.... Republican?

Yup. that's it.

APOCALYPSEFUCK is Comptroller says

Does Zimmiecakes say MOMMEEEEE! when he gets fucked in the ass?!

He probably will if he's convicted.

Straw Man says

And what would be the message conveyed by such renaming?

What's plenty good enough for us, proles is not good enough for Inner Party and Grassley is to blame for forcing the inferior product on them? Are you sure that would play out as you think it would? ;)

That's just it - Obama doesn't do a good job of controlling the message, and allows the right to put false messages out that become accepted as truth. Even you bought into it. This is not a difference between superior/inferior products, it is a difference between employer and individual insurance. Employer insurance has ALWAYS been a better deal than individual insurance - obviously. If it weren't, there would be no point in having it. Everybody would just buy their own insurance. What Grassley did is amend the law to say Congress, and Congress only, must buy INDIVIDUAL insurance from the exchange instead of getting the employer insurance they've always had. Well, one of the things insurance companies do to equalize the higher risk of providing individual insurance is that they charge older people more. So if republicans are going to bitch that older Congressional staff members have to pay more, I think it should be made clear that it was Grassley's idea - a republican. This has nothing to do with ACA making insurance more expensive; it has everything to do with Grassley forcing Congress to buy INDIVIDUAL insurance, which costs more, rather than GROUP insurance, which costs less. That's fine if he wanted to do that, but don't do it and then bitch about it.

Where Obama has lost control of the message is where the republicans have planted the meme that Congress is getting "the same" insurance as "the rest of us". Totally false. Most of "us" get insurance from our employers. The exchanges are only for the 10% of us who buy individual insurance. And guess what - individual insurance ALWAYS cost more for older people. In fact, it was worse BEFORE ACA, because the differential was not limited to 3X as it is now. The republicans have managed to get a completely false idea to be accepted as truth by most everyone, perhaps because it takes a little explanation and a little thought to understand the truth, and it can't really be put in a 2 second sound bite.

Zimmermann is already the GOP frontrunner for 2016.

If he shoots another black kid, he'll stomp any Democrat in the general.

bgamall4 says

Perhaps you would not be lost and confused so much if you didn't believe in Martians.

That's really funny coming from someone who believes in bubblews.

There is some truth to both your positions. Volatility means up and then down and then up. That is to be expected when the market is being manipulated. It is to be expected when the cash buyers can be all in and then unload, etc.

That is the point - Re is being manipulated higher by the artificially low rates- but there is a limit

smaulgld says

That is to be expected when the market is being manipulated. It is to be
expected when the cash buyers can be all in and then unload, etc.

Just how is it being manipulated? A buyer is a buyer whether it's with one's own cash, inherited money or borrowed from famil, friends, or co-workers, or even a bank.

It's called the market, and what it does is change constantly along with the players in it. Is the standard 'manipulation' label for something that you dislike or don't understand?

TL;DR

Austrians are calling for unbelievable Weimar-level inflation again. Nevermind that Weimar's hyperinflationary problem was deliberate government policy to get out of debts imposed by victors in a war and has no bearing on today's situation. Nor is the USA an impoverished third world country where almost all GDP comes from Agriculture and Mining like Zimbabwe.

It must suck to be a Trayvon Martin case ex-juror right now.