And Lusty Lad and WTF are arguing over whether GDP growth of 3% per annum is high

[WTF]

Originally Posted by lustylad

Are you coyly suggesting Professor Poofter actually developed some kind of "brilliant model"?




Oh wait... you couldn't have meant Professor Poofter!

That phony flatulator flunked math, can't find his way around his own "model" home, and (when he was asked) couldn't even begin to explain how one might find the revenue-maximizing marginal tax rate, let alone offer up a "narrative" that "seems to comport with logic and reason"!

Just because you can not understand that there is most efficient tax rate but that it is fluid or elastic because of the millions of different factors that are constantly changing.

If you were any kind of economist worth a lick, you'd know that the is a fluid number but that there is no way to calculate it. It would be like try to calculate your rifle hitting a target 1600meters away during a tornado. Impossible for a human to calculate but there is a sweet spot that is constantly changing that would actually hit the target.

Originally Posted by Tiny

WTF does often sound like he believes the chief end of man is to maximize tax revenues. That makes me believe he’s not paying anywhere near the 40.8% maximum federal income tax rate. I believe that WTF should have the right to pay 84% of his income to the government if he wants to. Just don’t make other people do it too.

Awww but you are lying about my beliefs yet again...

I believe in paying for services rendered and promised. Therefore I think it the duty of government to try and both pay for services and do so at the mist cost efficient way.

Maybe if this generation would actually have to pay for things they wanted (wars, SS, Medicare) they would properly pay and fund those wants. If we did so .... my view is that we would be much more judicious in starting wars, we would be wary of promising full medical benefits if we had to fund the expected costs.

So while I do not WANT higher taxes....I do want our taxes to be in line with out wants. That way we just may decide we do not need or can afford certain things.

Originally Posted by lustylad

I have no objections to that. In fact I think 84% just may be his personal "sweet spot"!

Sounds like you're licking Tiny's sweetspot the way you two go on about each others economic prowess

[Tiny]

OK WTF, exactly how do you define sweet spot? Is it the tax rate that maximizes government revenues from all Americans? The maximum amount of money you can extract from upper income Americans without causing them to leave the country? Or perhaps a rate schedule that causes the Gini coefficient to be "0", by taking money away from everyone who makes more than the median income and giving it to those who make less, so everyone ends up making the same?

There are lots of economists who tried to figure out what the rate is that maximizes revenues. Some of them work at places like the Fed and the CBO. There are academics like Saez and Zucman at the Peoples Republic of Berkeley and think tanks like the Tax Foundation. Do some googling and you'll see their estimates.

Your reply to my post makes sense. I agree we'd spend less money on wars and have more efficient medical and retirement systems if people actually had to pay for what they get. As to the medical and retirement, I've thrown out Singapore and Australia as countries to copy.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

OK WTF, exactly how do you define sweet spot? .

Somewhere between 100% and Zero.

The sweet spot pays for all government expenditures at the most efficient rate.

That rate changes constantly.

You seem to be having trouble grasping the fact that nobody knows wtf the most efficient rate is. They can model all they want....no computer in the world can plug in all the variables to know what the number is.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by WTF

Somewhere between 100% and Zero.

The sweet spot pays for all government expenditures at the most efficient rate.

That rate changes constantly.

You seem to be having trouble grasping the fact that nobody knows wtf the most efficient rate is. They can model all they want....no computer in the world can plug in all the variables to know what the number is.

oh that's brilliant. somewhere between something and nothing. did you have to look that up on the internet?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

oh that's brilliant. somewhere between something and nothing. did you have to look that up on the internet?

Maybe you should have. Tiny and lustylad sure seem to be oblivious to it's meaning. Tiny...I'll cut some slack to...he doesn't claim to be an economist. lustylad does and were he, he'd have pointed this out long ago.

https://www.investopedia.com/article...ffer-curve.asp


Determining the tax rate at which productivity and revenues are both maximized is the subject of great political debate, as the Laffer curve does not provide a clear numerical answer to the taxation question; it merely suggests that such a hypothetical rate does exist.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by bambino

But but but, he would have to divest his large energy holdings!!!!!!

I've heard you're heavily invested in buttplugs

Hopefully you use that oil by product, Vaseline! Making me money every time you live up.

[The_Waco_Kid]

Originally Posted by WTF

Maybe you should have. Tiny and lustylad sure seem to be oblivious to it's meaning. Tiny...I'll cut some slack to...he doesn't claim to be an economist. lustylad does and were he, he'd have pointed this out long ago.

https://www.investopedia.com/article...ffer-curve.asp


Determining the tax rate at which productivity and revenues are both maximized is the subject of great political debate, as the Laffer curve does not provide a clear numerical answer to the taxation question; it merely suggests that such a hypothetical rate does exist.

i laff at yer laffer curve. are you sure you aren't mistaking the sweet spot for the wet spot? i recall you want massive increases in personal and corporate tax rates. you rail against the debt yet never met a government social spending program you didn't like.


the Federal government needs to be eliminated to the most minimal possible short of just abolishing it altogether. the fed government is the webster's definition of waste. eliminate 75% of it.

end any and all foreign aid. to anyone. fuck them. America First!

then make it an executable offense for anyone in congress to vote to approve any "pork barrel" spending and to pass a deficit spending bill. line them up and shoot them with a firing squad and let their corpses rot for a few weeks in public.


think that's too harsh? remember that when you jabber about the debt and who's really responsible for it.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

Maybe you should have. Tiny and lustylad sure seem to be oblivious to it's meaning. Tiny...I'll cut some slack to...he doesn't claim to be an economist. lustylad does and were he, he'd have pointed this out long ago.

https://www.investopedia.com/article...ffer-curve.asp


Determining the tax rate at which productivity and revenues are both maximized is the subject of great political debate, as the Laffer curve does not provide a clear numerical answer to the taxation question; it merely suggests that such a hypothetical rate does exist.

Productivity in economics is a measure of output per unit of input, like labor or capital. What I think you're really trying to say is what is the tax rate at which GDP growth is maximized. And what is the tax rate at which government revenues are maximized. Those rates are different.

As to the first question, if you take a look at Google Scholar, the average from various papers might be around 20%. That is, federal + state + local taxes that total around 20% of pre-tax income may maximize GDP growth.

There's a lot of spread in estimates for the tax rates that would maximize government revenues, and it varies depending on the type of income -- capital gains, ordinary income, and corporate income for example. There's probably some bias involved. Supply side economists' estimates would trend towards lower numbers while Progressive economists like Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman throw out ridiculously high numbers.

But I don't think most economists would dispute the following,

(a) the overall tax rate that maximizes government revenues is higher than the rate that maximizes GDP growth, and

(b) at the range of tax rates that are levied in developed economies, lower tax rates result in higher GDP growth rates.

This fits with what I've posted here a multitude of times. The developed countries with the lowest tax revenues and lowest government spending, being Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Ireland and the USA, have the highest GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power. When you leave more money and a bigger share of the economy in the hands of the people and businesses, you end up with a more prosperous country.

My message for you my friend is that you should favor tax rates that will maximize prosperity, not tax rates that will maximize government revenues.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Bad enough was the model cited by an "economist-for-hire" quoted by Nancy Pelosi about a decade ago, when she said that "reputable economists" calculated that boosting food stamp dispensation was a "jobs program." The argument was that social spending of that nature produces a fiscal multiplier of about 1.75 (it does not!), and that this somehow means that as a result, a bunch of new jobs would be created as a direct result of the spending.

Hilarious! Food stamps may make great sense as a program to help people who otherwise would have problems putting food on the table. But yes, a side effect of boosting the dispensation would be a decrease in the number people employed.

Originally Posted by CaptainMidnight

Even worse was the nonsense propounded at about that time by an infamous duo of Berkeley professors. Their brilliant model indicated that the optimal and revenue-maximizing marginal income tax rate was about 84%.

Following their example, as well as the urgings of Professor Piketty, France raised the top-bracket income tax rate to 75% ten years ago. That backfired in spectacularly embarrassing fashion and the French soon reduced the rate to 45%.

You know how some people fantasize and abandoning the rat race and retiring to a tropical beach or a place in the country? I fantasize about retiring and enrolling in the economics program at Berkeley and ripping those bastards new ass holes. They tend to promote their ideas in books and papers that are ridiculously long, and so I haven't ever tried to dissect their work, but I suspect there must be a whole lot of stupid assumptions that go into arriving at their stupid conclusions.

I believe France abandoned its wealth tax too after all the rich people started leaving the country. Saez and Zucman, who are good buddies with Piketty, another Frenchman, learned a lesson from that. And so when they were devising tax plans for Bernie Sanders and Liz Warren they included a provision to confiscate 40% of the wealth of Americans who expatriate. French socialists devising tax plans for American presidential candidates -- who ever thought we'd come to that.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

Productivity in economics is a measure of output per unit of input, like labor or capital. What I think you're really trying to say is what is the tax rate at which GDP growth is maximized. And what is the tax rate at which government revenues are maximized. Those rates are different.

As to the first question, if you take a look at Google Scholar, the average from various papers might be around 20%. That is, federal + state + local taxes that total around 20% of pre-tax income may maximize GDP growth.

There's a lot of spread in estimates for the tax rates that would maximize government revenues, and it varies depending on the type of income -- capital gains, ordinary income, and corporate income for example. There's probably some bias involved. Supply side economists' estimates would trend towards lower numbers while Progressive economists like Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman throw out ridiculously high numbers.

But I don't think most economists would dispute the following,

(a) the overall tax rate that maximizes government revenues is higher than the rate that maximizes GDP growth, and

(b) at the range of tax rates that are levied in developed economies, lower tax rates result in higher GDP growth rates.

This fits with what I've posted here a multitude of times. The developed countries with the lowest tax revenues and lowest government spending, being Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Ireland and the USA, have the highest GDP per capita, adjusted for purchasing power. When you leave more money and a bigger share of the economy in the hands of the people and businesses, you end up with a more prosperous country.

My message for you my friend is that you should favor tax rates that will maximize prosperity, not tax rates that will maximize government revenues.

You still don't get it. Without taxing properly for what we want....we will continue to spend.

Would you quit buying things and living like a King if you only paid a fraction of what those things cost?

And you also do not understand the most efficient tax rate...IT CHANGES CONSTANTLY.

No one will ever be able to put a correct number on it. What was good one day can change drastically the next.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by The_Waco_Kid

i laff at yer laffer curve. are you sure you aren't mistaking the sweet spot for the wet spot? i recall you want massive increases in personal and corporate tax rates. you rail against the debt yet never met a government social spending program you didn't like.

You are lying yet again...or just a dumbfuc.

I want us to pay the true cost of of different programs.

Social programs are not in the red. We have not taxed properly the true cost of Defense spending.

So what I'd really like is more emphasis on how different taxing entities work and how certain politicians can by slight of hand fool dumb fucs like many on here into thinking that Social programs are the problem. We have not borrowed a dime to pay for SS or Medicare. Do you understand that? No debt can be attributed to SS or Medicare...and there are simple fixes to the coming shortfalls. Increase the cap on income taxed.

Can Ronnie Reagan say that about Defense spending? How about Trump or Bush or Clinton or Obama? No they can not. Why? Because your hero started spending a huge amount on Defense....and to his credit...he raised the tax rate on SS and Medicare and it has been in the black ever since.

So yes we need mandatory courses in HS to inform folks like you how the tax system really works.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

You still don't get it. Without taxing properly for what we want....we will continue to spend.

Would you quit buying things and living like a King if you only paid a fraction of what those things cost?

You're not listening. I agree with you on that. You brought up military spending, social security and Medicare a day or two ago. I agreed with you, we'd have fewer useless wars and more efficient medical and retirement systems if people paid for what they get back.

Originally Posted by WTF

And you also do not understand the most efficient tax rate...IT CHANGES CONSTANTLY.

No one will ever be able to put a correct number on it. What was good one day can change drastically the next.

No, the question is how do you define "the most efficient tax rate." Your ideal tax system would make after-tax income more equal while mine would make Americans more prosperous. We both believe we should spend roughly what we take in when the economy's chugging along in good shape.

[Tiny]

Originally Posted by WTF

We have not borrowed a dime to pay for SS or Medicare.

Well, possibly not yet. But massive borrowings are just around the corner if nothing changes:

The Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays retirement and survivors benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits on a timely basis until 2033, one year earlier than reported last year. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits.

The Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund, or Medicare Part A, which helps pay for services such as inpatient hospital care, will be able to pay scheduled benefits until 2026, the same year as reported last year. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing total program income will be sufficient to pay 91 percent of total scheduled benefits.

The Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund, which pays disability benefits, will be able to pay scheduled benefits until 2057, 8 years earlier than in last year's report. At that time, the fund's reserves will become depleted and continuing tax income will be sufficient to pay 91 percent of scheduled benefits.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/

The Waco Kid may have a point. Other than military spending, is there a spending program you don't like?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Tiny

You're not listening. I agree with you on that. You brought up military spending, social security and Medicare a day or two ago. I agreed with you, we'd have fewer useless wars and more efficient medical and retirement systems if people paid for what they get back.



No, the question is how do you define "the most efficient tax rate." Your ideal tax system would make after-tax income more equal while mine would make Americans more prosperous. We both believe we should spend roughly what we take in when the economy's chugging along in good shape.

Ok...my apologies on the first count.

Tiny...but you're still missing the point on the second. If we actually taxed properly for what we wanted....the market would determine the rate. When rates get too high taxpayers would have to quit freely spending to bring the rates back down to an acceptable level!

And I still do not think you understand the Laffer Curve. It just points out that in fact there is a "most efficient tax rate"....it just can not put a number on it.

Once you grasp that Grasshopper, all other economic matter will fall into place!

[Tiny]

WTF, So you know, one of the "likes" your post just got was because of the Grasshopper reference. You need to refine your thinking about what efficient should mean, in the context of tax rates.

Originally Posted by WTF

Tiny...but you're still missing the point on the second. If we actually taxed properly for what we wanted....the market would determine the rate. When rates get too high taxpayers would have to quit freely spending to bring the rates back down to an acceptable level!

Rates don't float based on how Americans spend. They change based on acts of Congress. Maybe it works more like this. When rates get too high, people stop working, and investing in higher risk/higher return opportunities. So government revenues go down. So then if government raises taxes more to "feed the beast," government revenues go even lower. GDP grows more slowly as government crowds out the private sector, and most of us end up poorer than we’d be otherwise