"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Beam Me Up Scotty" wrote
in message ...
On 2/17/2011 3:04 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:
"Beam Me Up Scotty"
wrote in
message ...
On 2/16/2011 2:23 PM, Ed Huntress wrote:

Like Thomas Jefferson and Adam Smith, I favor sharply progressive
taxation.

If you tax Alcohol and Tobacco to get less of it.... then when you tax
work and success you will get less of it.

When you tell us how to equate alcohol to work and tobacco to success,
we'll
have something to talk about. Meanwhile, you have an old bromide that
has
limited application.

We had more work and "success" (or growth) when taxes were higher.
They're
the lowest now since the early 1950s.


That means you seek mediocrity where fewer and maybe no-one succeeds.

When you start with a faulty premise, you reach a faulty conclusion.


That's true about the idea that "raising taxes" means government takes
in more money and you will therefore live a better life paid for by
government.

Maybe you were playing hooky in economics class when they showed the
relationships between safety nets and entrepreneurship (you get much more
entrepreneurship when there's less fear that your family will suffer if
you don't succeed, particularly in matters like losing your home and
having healthcare and quality education for your kids). Or maybe you
skipped the chapter that showed how much infrastructure produces the best
results for economic growth (you need much better transportation than we
have, and our communication is becoming obsolete compared to the rest of
the developed world). Then there are the chapters about the state of world
competition and how the amount of indirect subsidy you can get away with
under WTO rules relates directly to your balance of trade, and, thus, your
levels of employment. We're getting creamed in that department.

Most people don't even think about how much they're dependent upon those
"socialized" aspects of government involvement in an economy. Without it,
you'd be scratching in the dirt with a stick to plant your yams.


Rising cost means people quit doing what becomes more expensive. Why
were millionaires leaving NYC and other places that raised taxes? They
were avoiding the higher cost of doing business in the places that have
higher taxes.

A complete myth, the kind of thing you'd read in a mindless right-wing
blog. Here's the fact, supported by numerous head counts from various
sources:

"According to the new Metro Wealth Index, created by consulting firm
Capgemini, the New York Metropolitan area had 650,000 high-net worth
individuals, or people with $1 million or more in investible assets in
2009. That is 18.7% higher than in 2008.

"Once again, the New York area topped the list of metro-area wealth
centers. Its total was greater than the combined total of the next three
runners up..."

This, despite having some of the highest taxes in North America.

If you want to get away, the Cayman Islands are nice. A tiny country can
run a neat little economy if it launders drug money and hides wealth for
people escaping taxes. Between that and Liechtenstein, there are a lot of
rich people with numbered bank accounts. But the combined total of all of
those, er, "special" places is a tiny fraction of the millionaires living
in NYC.

Even with many states mortgaging their childrens' futures in a low-tax
race to the bottom, expensive ol' New York is still the place to be if you
have a lot of money and appreciate the life. That's where the people are
who most wealthy people want to associate with, if they're worth 8 figures
or more.

When the effort exceeds the perceived returns, people
look elsewhere to make gains..... Some just quit the activity to cut
their losses, be they losses in cash or losses in time better spent.

If the implication is that taxes are the important driver in this, it's
another myth. A five-percent increase in a marginal tax rate doesn't make
wealthy people move out.



I won't start another business until the government changes, we have
been on a course of *REDISTRIBUTION* since 1913.

Was that when you had your last business? g With all due respect, if you
aren't going to start another business, it's because of your attitudes and
frame of mind, not because of taxes. There just haven't been big enough
changes to have any significant effect on real returns over the past 20
years.

The **** hit the fan
recently as the process had been kicked into overdrive and I got out of
business and ownership just before Obama the
*Redistributionist on steroids* got into office.

Now I know you're blowing smoke. It's your attitudes, not the financial
realities. The tax rates are the same as they've been for years, and their
progression is lower than at any time in our lifetimes, except for
something like two or three years in the '80s.

There was vastly more "redistribution" under Reagan than under Obama. And
you know I don't say things like that unless I have the data to back it
up.

--
Ed Huntress
Good to see you back, Ed. Once again, you state your case with reason and
facts to back it up. You should write a syndicated column or the occasional
editorial piece where your writing would reach more people.