46 replies to this topic

[James Quillian]

James, I understand your point here on democracy and the markets. My question is how can we use this situation to our advantage? Every negative economic period has some who emerge as winners, even in the midst of wholesale price destruction. Do you see the DOW going to 2,500? Do you see entire industries in utter collapse? Do you see unemployment at 20%. Defining an economic problem is just the 1st step in using it to your advantage. Project for me here and show how we can reverse engineer a winning speculative hand out of what appears to be this garbage we're being dealt.
U.F.O.

As odd as it might seem, I am on balance long right now. There is so much money being thrown in devoted mostly to turning the financial markets around I don't see how the effort can fail in the short run. Also, I see this developing into a very inique recession. Lower income groups may end up benefiting. I am betting that the over all numbers will look bad but that indiividual suffering will be minimal. There can be possitive effects to lower prices (gas) but it is impossible to know thow the low price influence will work out. I expect to be totally short again before the year is out but I can change my mind about that.
It is no secret that I lost a fortune during 2006 and 2007 by taking my own advice. That was the third fortune that I have made and lost trading during my lifetime. Things are going so well right now that I am almost afraid that I will completely recover. I kind of like going to work every day. Being poor three times has taught me something meaningful. Becoming poor is a miserable experience but the actual state of having very little money is not that bad at all.
The point of all of this is that I really don't think any one should take my advice.
The reason I argue about things like economic policy is that if I am wrong somebody is going to make a fool out of me and I'll find the error in my reasoning. It is better to do it like that than to find out the hard way, by investing money according to a flawed method of reasoning. As it is, if most the 14 day slow stochastic get under 10 on the Russell 3000 and most of the short term sentiment indicators line up right I''ll start putting buy orders in under the market.

Otherwise I won't make any changes. Thats not advice to anyone. Thats just what I am doing.

[OEXCHAOS]

One wonders how much MORE "the wealthy" would have made and produced if government hadn't been taxing and regulating them so much...

I love it when folks ASSUME that the wealthy benefited from this country and thus somehow owe the less productive a hand out. Seems to me that the country got a better deal out of the "wealthy", otherwise they wouldn't have freely paid them for the product of their minds and hard work.

Virtually every non-criminal millionaire made others far better off than himself, otherwise folks would have done something different with their money. It's axiomatic.

So, if you excessively tax them, then you are deterring the most beneficial people from doing what they seem to do better than everyone else.

Mark
Mark, you know better than that. What you are saying has nothing to do with the point that is being argued.
The point is that Democracy is being used as a means to make a profit and is rapidly replacing the free market (price) as the primary means by which resources are allocated in this country. That is destroying our free market system and is potentially as dangerous as as using a planned economy as a means of deciding who gets what.
All I am suggesting is a way to take away the incentive to grow government. There is simply no way to reduce the size of government without penalizing the sector that is promoting its growth.
No one has suggested that a handout is owed to anyone. This is about damage control. I would be just as worried if the poor were using the government to their economic advantage and the rich were getting soaked. The poor using the government as a means to an economic end used to be a considerable worry.
Now roles have been reversed. There was a time when we did "freely pay the rich for the "product of their mind and hard work." If we were still in that time period, I would not be suggesting taxing them at a higher level.

James

James, I didn't take the time to respond to your post as I couldn't spare the mental energy. I was just tangentially doing a drive by as a pallative to my anti-collectivist urge.

Sorry.

I'll just say this, there are a lot of wealthy folks who live very meager lives, spending very carefully and reinvesting in their businesses and the markets. A lot. Not every multi-millionaire was at GS, yanno.

Mark

Mark
No offense, but anyone can dismiss an argument without considering its essence. That is a technique that the collectivists honed into an art form.
I am not so concerned that you didn't take time to respond to my post. I am a little concerned that you didn't read it.

James

I didn't stop to consider it. It'll be there tomorrow, as will the issue. What I was saying is that I was responding to some of the other comments. Remember, my job isn't to cogitate on all of the brilliance posted here, it's to look for problems in deviation from the TOS and to try to keep peace and keep things on track.

I didn't want you to be offended that I wasn't responding. I frankly didn't want to devote the energy that the (rather interesting) take warranted in response because that was going off task for me.

Mark

[dasein]

Sorry IT, I do not like to argue with you, but there were loopholes then and there are today -t back in the 60s and 70s, there were not exemptions written into the code for single well connected individuals as was shown to exist in the 80s, and back then, not everyone abused the loopholes as you seem to suggest, nor were the loopholes big enough to eliminate the top tier tax liability down to anything like the minute percentages paid by multimillion earners today. The tax revenues from the progressive tax on the top slices were much greater % wise of the total than anything we have seen since, and is also why at that time, the top earners - CEOs etc - only earned around 40 times as much as the average worker, whereas today it is something like 400 times - so I cannot take yours as valid rebuttal, since your argument relies on something that did not happen to be true. Further, it seems this is really only speculating about devious tax evasive behavior, not about whether the code said what it did.

[IYB]

....Democracy is being used as a means to make a profit...... There is simply no way to reduce the size of government without penalizing the sector that is promoting its growth.

I would be just as worried if the poor were using the government to their economic advantage and the rich were getting soaked. Now roles have been reversed. There was a time when we did "freely pay the rich for the "product of their mind and hard work." If we were still in that time period, I would not be suggesting taxing them at a higher level.

If it's any consolation, James, I have carefully read and considered your argument, and only then rejected it. I see that it's the same one that you constantly make here--for years now--that certain interests are controlling everything that happens in this country- banking, politics, voting, money--everything. A good example is your post from a few months ago where you suggested that "lives were in danger" if they dared vote against the first version of TARP-- a few days before it was voted down. I've seen a lot of conspiracy theory posts here at FF, but always have considered this one to be the granddaddy of them all!

You are now saying that government is getting bigger because the "rich" are promoting this growth so that they can hijack all the loot in this country--so that they can manipulate this large government to make them more rich and powerful. They are intentionally and covertly driving this process for their own benefit, and to our detrement. Your solution to this "problem" is to tax these guys to the point where they give up the path they are on- of manipilating the government to become larger and shift everyones resources to them.

You are, of course, entitled to believe what you wish and express whatever you believe. But call it what is. Your argument is based on conspiracy theory, not on the nature of democracy. You are wanting to excessively tax the rich because you believe that they have hijacked our entire country for their own personal interest, and that the problems we face were engineered by them for that very reason.

Call me naive if you wish {it won't hurt my feelings}, but......I just don't buy any of it. Regards, D

[Iblayz]

Contrary to what we have been taught, productive people produce not because of economic incentives, but because they prefer to be productive.

You may believe that (and I am stunned that you would) but, go ask the Russians and East Germans about that. And just how did Communist China break the grip of economic malaise?.....well lets see....the biggest reason is....wow..how novel....they transitioned to a system that rewards hard work with economic benefit. As RD showed, even William Bradford figured that out in the 1600's.....just by observing real....and not imagined pie-in-the-sky....human behavior.

[linrom1]

Dasein and James, very well thought out arguments. In my opinion, high progressive taxes are going to be one of the proposed solutions to keep the system from falling into what Martin Armstrong calls a 23-26 year long Depression--- if not by Obama then by the next President. It might seem counter-intuitive, but it is not because the alternative will be higher user fees and taxation on the middle and lower classes to keep the government finances from imploding: this is a recipe for prolonging depression. During deflation lower and middle class wage earners are stressed not only by declining incomes but also by the burden of appreciating debt and imposition of fixed costs and fees by utilities, municipalities ,creditors etc that will reduce their spending power. While I believe that dollar devaluation is a better alternative, in either case all the fictitious capital that people accumulated during boom times and call wealth(debt obligations backed by dubious assets or nonexistent future income) will disappear regardless of method used to blow it up.. Progressive taxation will become part of the new regulatory measures that will become law to prevent future speculation; it's a lesson learned from the last Depression.

Edited by linrom1, 20 January 2009 - 12:31 AM.

[James Quillian]

IYB
Thanks for taking the time to read my posts. That way we have an honest disagreement and there is nothing wrong with that.
Let me clarofy a couple of things. My contention that there has been organized support for the equity could be classed as conspiricy theory if you want to use that term.
The problem with democracy is something different and has nothing to an organized effort. That is just the way things turn out over time.
That is a minor point but I thought I would take the time to clarify regardless.

James

....Democracy is being used as a means to make a profit...... There is simply no way to reduce the size of government without penalizing the sector that is promoting its growth.

I would be just as worried if the poor were using the government to their economic advantage and the rich were getting soaked. Now roles have been reversed. There was a time when we did "freely pay the rich for the "product of their mind and hard work." If we were still in that time period, I would not be suggesting taxing them at a higher level.

If it's any consolation, James, I have carefully read and considered your argument, and only then rejected it. I see that it's the same one that you constantly make here--for years now--that certain interests are controlling everything that happens in this country- banking, politics, voting, money--everything. A good example is your post from a few months ago where you suggested that "lives were in danger" if they dared vote against the first version of TARP-- a few days before it was voted down. I've seen a lot of conspiracy theory posts here at FF, but always have considered this one to be the granddaddy of them all!

You are now saying that government is getting bigger because the "rich" are promoting this growth so that they can hijack all the loot in this country--so that they can manipulate this large government to make them more rich and powerful. They are intentionally and covertly driving this process for their own benefit, and to our detrement. Your solution to this "problem" is to tax these guys to the point where they give up the path they are on- of manipilating the government to become larger and shift everyones resources to them.

You are, of course, entitled to believe what you wish and express whatever you believe. But call it what is. Your argument is based on conspiracy theory, not on the nature of democracy. You are wanting to excessively tax the rich because you believe that they have hijacked our entire country for their own personal interest, and that the problems we face were engineered by them for that very reason.

Call me naive if you wish {it won't hurt my feelings}, but......I just don't buy any of it. Regards, D