patrick.net

Ruki says

In a nut shell:

DISCIPLINE: ECONOMICS
Capital-labor ratio is the percentage capital to labor in a business, industry, or economy. Capital-intensive businesses, industries, or economies have a higher capital-labor ratio than those who are labor-intensive./p>

What the nutshell is for workers:

When there is lots of capital, then labor is in demand and is well-used. When there is not enough capital, labor is in surplus and is underused.

Here's a good article that explains it fully: http://www.newworldeconomics.com/archives/2008/033008.html

You should understand these concepts already, given how you work in start ups. Where do start ups get their funding from? Poor people?

That's a rather simplistic model. Per the criteria of your reference this economy should be booming but it is not. The problem today is not a lack of capital - if anything there is too much floating around. The bigger problem is a lack of consumerism. Companies need customers as much as they need capital. Unemployed or underemployed consumers have far less purchasing power.

Ruki says

And, it has nothing to so with anything being discussed either.

I beg to differ - one's economic situation is highly influential on the politics of most rational people. The OT is what will it take for you to switch sides. Do you feel your income level and type of income are such that Republican politics work for you? Unless you make considerably more than I do and/or most of your income is from capital gains I think not.

Ruki says

being used as a cash cow to subsidize others via the coercive power of government is definitely not what I want.

Unfortunately both major parties insist on using most people that way. The Republicans want to tax the middle to subsidize the military-industrial complex. The Democrats want to tax the middle and the rich to subsidize the medical-industrial complex. Both share the fundamental dynamic that you object to, they merely favor different patronage networks; your only solution is to vote libertarian.

Ruki says

I never have nor will get a job from a poor man or someone funded by poor men, either.

Nixon proposed, and some Democrats supported, a "negative income tax" to give some income to people who have none. The idea survives as the "earned income tax credit," which subsidizes low wage employers, and food stamps, which get tied in with massive USDA subsidies to ADM and HFCS, and Medicaid, which ends up subsidizing PhRMA to put kids on untested combinations of toxic pills. (In a prior era, that last one might have been called child abuse, but now it's called compassion.) Nixon's idea was, rather than pay professional "helpers" and what some call the "homeless industrial complex," it would be cheaper and more genuinely compassionate to give everyone a little bit of money and let them decide for themselves how to spend it. That doesn't happen though, because powerful lobbies get $ from the current system, which means many jobs depend on the exploitation of poor people.

CL says

Under what conditions would you vote for the other side?

Both sides are the other side to me. But here's what I'd want a candidate to do. OK, it's what I would do if I were elected and had sufficient power -- oh wait, via the Patriot Act I could do anything.

• 1. Prosecute both the Bush and Obama administrations for crimes against humanity in an international court.
• 2. Repeal the Patriot Act, NDAA, and the DMCA.
• 3. Dismantle the TSA and replace it with nothing.
• 4. Dismantle the DHS and replace it with nothing.
• 5. Prosecute the government and major telecoms including AT&T for warrantless wiretapping.
• 6. Immediate close down Gitmo, arrest all those involved, and prosecute them in an international court.
• 7. Immediately withdraw troops from the Middle East and the rest of the world. The U.S. can't fix what it fucked up so badly.
• 8. Cut defense spending across the board by 90%.
• 9. Eliminate social security for anyone born after Victory over Europe Day. Keep social security for those born before then, but the Baby Boomers and Gen X will simply have to sacrifice to eliminate this spending.
• 10. Immediately outlaw inflation and fractional reserve banking. This will make saving and planning for retirement possible without government programs.
• 11. Repeal Obama/Romney-care.
• 12. Implement the following health care reform package.
• a. Single Payer (centralized, transparent clearinghouse)
• b. Divorce of health insurance from employment.
• c. A public option.
• d. No restrictions on companies offering issuance in any state.
• e. No mergers or buyouts of insurance companies.
• f. The following tort reform.
• i. Individuals responsible for malpractice are fined enough to make due diligence a no-brainer, but not enough to ruin the individual. If the malpractice is gross, then revoke the license(s) of the individual.
• ii. No liable insurance for those practicing medicine as this undermines the financial incentive created by the fine system and increase health care costs.
• iii. No punitive damages other than the fine system.
• iv. Compensate those affected by medical malpractice generously, but socialize the cost via a per capita tax on health insurance. Overall, this would save lots of court costs, legal fees, and other expenses while still compensating patients for malpractice.
• 13. Eliminate the current income tax all together.
• 14. Implement the following income tax. Sort individuals by income ascending. Find the pivot, starting from the lowest income, where the slope of the implied curve is one. Call the value of the income at the pivot p. For all persons to the right of the pivot (higher incomes), set the income tax for that person to x - arctan((x - p) / p) * p - p where x is the person's pretax income. See spreadsheet for an example of how this affects taxes.
  

  Basically, this limits after tax income to three times the pivot forcing the rich to make everyone else wealthier in order to make themselves wealthier. Yet it rewards true productivity more than the current system. This tax system makes everybody's financial interests into the interests of the wealthy aristocracy.

  Also, under this tax system, there are absolutely no deductions or other adjustments

  Going by the graph of income levels from the NY Times, the current maximum income under this income tax system would be about $750,000. In order to raise this limit, the "job creators" would have to actually create high-paying jobs. By the way, $750k/yr still makes you plenty fucking rich, more so than just about anyone reading this will ever be. In general, the maximum income in this system is always three times the pivot, but that limit is asymptotically approached.

• 15. Implement the following capital gains tax to be applied before the income tax above. Tax Rate = Min(0, 100% - N * 1%) where N is the number of months an equity is held. This effectively taxes speculation at 100% and long term investments at 0%. The tax rate goes to zero in 8 years and 4 months.
• 16. Eliminate all sales taxes.
• 17. Eliminate all property taxes except for land taxes and taxes on other rent-seeking natural resources like the electromagnetic spectrum, geostationary orbits, etc.
• 18. Set the land tax rate to 6% per year of the fair market value of the land. This will encourage the most productive use of land and discourage squatting.
• 19. Use surplus to pay off debt first, then build a fiscal buffer, and then re-invest into infrastructure.
• 20. Either remove marriage from all legislation or amend the Constitution to make same-sex marriage legally equivalent in all respects to different-sex marriages.
• 21. Immediately break up all banks that were deemed too-big-to-fail.
• 22. Give William Black authority to prosecute banking fraud and the funds to do so.
• 23. Amend the Constitution to declare that corporations are not persons and are not entitled to free speech or other rights held by people.
• 24. Amend the Constitution to provide for publicly funded elections and a ban on campaign contributions from anyone.
• 25. Amend the Constitution to make the following structural changes to the federal government.
1. a. A person who holds an office in any branch of the government is no longer allowed to hold an office or run for office in any other branch of government. This will encourage the branches to keep each other in check.
2. b. A person cannot run or hold an office in any branch if he has a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild, sibling, or first cousin who holds an office in any branch. This will discourage nepotism and prevent families from becoming a ruling political class. There are 300 million Americans, we don't need father-son presidencies. Anyone currently holding an office in violation of this rule will be allowed to carry out their term, but not allowed to run again for any office.
3. c. Eliminate the Senate and replace it with nothing. Transfer all legislative power to the House of Representatives.
4. d. Eliminate Congressional districting. Allow each party to field at most two candidates. Voters rank their top three preferences, including no-confidence votes, and the top ten candidates are elected with voting power proportional to the percentage of votes in their state and the population of their state. This fixes the House at 500 members, 10 for each state. Each member has a weighted voting power based on how many people he represents.

   The voting weight algorithm would go something like this…
   Assign each candidate 1 point for each first choice vote, 0.5 points for each second choice vote, and 0.25 points for each third place choice. Select the top ten candidates and find the total of their points. Normalize the points across the selected candidates and the result voting power of the candidate, now elected representative. When the representative casts his votes, multiple his voting power by the number of people in his state as of the time of the last census. This is his vote cast power and is used to determine if bills, motions, etc. pass or not.

5. e. Divide the presidency into the following positions: President of Military (Commander in Chief), President of Legislation and Domestic Issues (veto power, etc), and President of Treaties and Foreign Affairs. Hold separate instant run-off elections for each of these positions.
6. f. Allow the Commander in Chief to perform emergency military actions, but prevent him from running long-term operations without approval of Congress. Allow the other two presidents to override his decisions if they both agree. This will keep executive power in better check. The Commander in Chief's office is in the Pentagon. The President of Legislation and Domestic Issues gets the White House. And the President of Treaties and Foreign Affairs gets a new office in Washington or in NYC near the U.N.

uomo_senza_nome says

I am expecting an answer better than "libtards, commies, socialists, union workers and other am platitudes" but I am not holding my breath.

Did you forget that I occasionally post on this site?

Ruki says

I would require either severe brain damage or a lobotomy that causes the same loss in cognitive abilities as I would get from severe brain damage in order for me to vote Obamacrat.

If I had a sex change, that would probably put me into the 50/50 range. But I'd have to either be brain damaged or lobotomized as per the above in order to willingly submit myself to that, too. So, same thing.

Of course, I can see uomo_senza_nome's point now.

Ruki says

I'm not about to announce what my income is on the web any more than you would.

If you're decent, your income is in the low six figures like the rest of us. As such the Republican taxation policy greatly harms you while benefiting those who produce nothing but play zero-sum financial games. You're marginal tax rate would be about 30-33% whereas Romney's tax rate is about 15%.

How again does the Republican tax plan save you money? They would shift the tax burden even more to production (i.e., normal income).

Ruki says

Capital-labor ratio is the percentage capital to labor in a business, industry, or economy. Capital-intensive businesses, industries, or economies have a higher capital-labor ratio than those who are labor-intensive./p>

What the nutshell is for workers:

When there is lots of capital, then labor is in demand and is well-used. When there is not enough capital, labor is in surplus and is underused.

Capital is only a relative concept. There is never "too much" or "not enough" as the total capital (money) in an economy is a made up and meaningless number. All that matters is the distribution of that money.

As I've shown on previous posts, I could run the entire world economy on a single dollar or other unit of currency provided I could arbitrarily divide that unit into smaller parts. And under such a system, there mathematically cannot be any inflation or deflation.

Normalize the currency and you'll see just how inefficient American-style capitalism really is.

Dan8267 says

If you're decent, your income is in the low six figures like the rest of us. As such the Republican taxation policy greatly harms you while benefiting those who produce nothing but play zero-sum financial games. You're marginal tax rate would be about 30-33% whereas Romney's tax rate is about 15%.

How again does the Republican tax plan save you money? They would shift the tax burden even more to production (i.e., normal income).

How do you figure?

http://www.dinkytown.net/java/TaxMargin.html

Your Statutory Rate is about 28% anywhere in the 100K-200K range (really all the way up to high 300s), but the combined rate is maybe 20 or so if you think low 100s.

(Even lower if he's married or has any deductions.)

28% or 33%. I didn't have the tax rates memorized.

It's interesting. The real tax rate most pay is like 14%. I don't know why both sides don't capitalize on that now. Most people confuse the statutory rate with the amount they are taxed (not even understanding the marginal part), so they are surprised at how little they are taxed. Score: Obama

And it would make Romney's low taxes seem less egregious. Score: Romney

That's why I "corrected" the rate. In an age where factless Teabaggers, think they are T.axed E.nough A.lready, I bet most don't know the rate they pay, or what a marginal rate is.

CL says

Dan8267 says

If you're decent, your income is in the low six figures like the rest of us. As such the Republican taxation policy greatly harms you while benefiting those who produce nothing but play zero-sum financial games. You're marginal tax rate would be about 30-33% whereas Romney's tax rate is about 15%.

How again does the Republican tax plan save you money? They would shift the tax burden even more to production (i.e., normal income).

How do you figure?

http://www.dinkytown.net/java/TaxMargin.html

Your Statutory Rate is about 28% anywhere in the 100K-200K range (really all the way up to high 300s), but the combined rate is maybe 20 or so if you think low 100s.

(Even lower if he's married or has any deductions.)

Most 150k-250k families in SFBA will end up in AMT, so the marginal rate is 28%.

But, there is a trick. There's an AMT exemption that phases out from around 150k to 350k, phasing out at 25 cents per dollar of income. This taxes that marginal income at additional 25%. (if you had $100 of exemption, and made $100 more of income, then your exemption goes to $75, so you have $125 more taxable income). This makes the marginal rate effectively 35% for people/families in that range. But once you are over 350k, back to 28%. Unless you make enough so that your 35%-taxed income exceeds the AMT.

The Bush tax cuts didn't do much for AMT. AMT payers are disproportinately in CA, NY, MA, etc. So the Bush tax cuts helped his constituents more than those who voted against him. Very clever.

And CL, you are right, many people misunderstand marginal vs overall rate. That's why you see TEAers talking about how they pay 50% of their income in tax. Realistically a very high income person could get close to 50% marginal rate including state: 35% fed + ~1.5% medicare + 10% CA = 46.5, but not quite 50%. Of course such people have deductions and often get much of their income in capital gains, like Romney. Sadly, those of us with normal jobs do not have the option of taking salary as taxable gains; for us even stock options or stock grants get taxed as normal income.

SiO2 says

And CL, you are right

Ha. The old "broken clock" syndrome. :)

AMT is an issue for FAMILIES in the 150K to 250K range? I'd think single filers maybe.

CL says

Most people confuse the statutory rate with the amount they are taxed (not even understanding the marginal part), so they are surprised at how little they are taxed.

Both your marginal and your average (effective) tax rates are important for different reasons. When deciding whether or not it's worth buying something or working overtime, it's your marginal rate you should consider. When budgeting, it's your effective rate you should consider.

SiO2 says

And CL, you are right, many people misunderstand marginal vs overall rate. That's why you see TEAers talking about how they pay 50% of their income in tax. Realistically a very high income person could get close to 50% marginal rate including state: 35% fed + ~1.5% medicare + 10% CA = 46.5, but not quite 50%

you sit down and add up all the other taxes you pay that comes out of your current earnings.. sales tax, property tax for individuals.. for many who have their own business, they also pay the additional self employer tax. It all adds up!

Dan8267 says

Both your marginal and your average (effective) tax rates are important for different reasons. When deciding whether or not it's worth buying something or working overtime, it's your marginal rate you should consider. When budgeting, it's your effective rate you should consider.

Yeah. I just mean that most Americans (I assume) think that once they hit say a 28% statutory rate that they are paying 28% on their income, not the "last dollar". So they don't know that their combined rate is much lower, since they are also paying 10% down in the lower bracket.