making sense out of nonsense

[Sean Wheeler]

Maybe Facebook wasn't the best example, because I see what you're saying. And that comic is pretty funny.

But the larger point still holds, particularly with Wikipedia, Linux, and flickr's creative commons image bank. I'm interested in the ways in which Kate's 5 sentences fail to consider the "long-tail" or j-curve distribution and how that might apply to economic and political ideas surrounding socialism. Clay Shirky explains what I mean pretty well in the following video;

http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_on_institutions_versus_collaboration.html

[Roy Pitchford]

No one is arguing that the tax code right now is great. How you want to fix it is a matter of policy preference. Still not socialism though.

redistribution of wealth via progressive taxation most certainly is a tenet of socialism. sources of this fact are too numerous to list.

What are these numerous sources?. What are the tenets of socialism? And which kind of socialism since there are at least 3.

A progressive tax does not necessarily redistributed wealth in the manner you suggest. We have a progressive tax code now. And have had it in the past. In fact, if you were to look up the data, you would find that we actually had MUCH higher rates of taxation historically. They are at record lows now, for good or bad, that is an opinion question.

Go on wikipedia and type in progressive tax. Under the "history of the intellectual debate" section you might find some interesting facts. Including that Adam Smith even believed in progressive taxes. And the French written Declaration of the Rights of Man also advocated for equally distributed taxation. Don't think they were socialists.

In my Intro Microeconomics class, we learned that our overall tax system is progressive, but really only for those who make over 100k. But our tax system DOES NOT redistribute income. The simple math just does not work out to redistribute. That doesn't indicate socialism, which is just the collective ownership of the means of production, not collective ownership of personal property or income. So, it would be collective ownership of say, a utility, but not of your bank account.

Our tax code is not socialist.

Ummm, wait one second. Back the trolley up.
Assumption: Socialism is a stepping stone to Communism. If we can agree on that point, then allow me to share a small quote (and back it up):

Well today, in this lifetime, we've seen that law grow from 31 words to more than 440,000 words beginning at 20% now and rising to 91% of a man's earned income. This progressive income tax was spawned by Karl Marx a hundred years ago. The steepest rate of increase in the surtax brackets occurs through the middle income range where to be found the bulk of our small-businessmen, our professional people, our supervisory personnel and many of our farmers. It reaches 50% and incidentally, these are the people that Karl Marx said should be taxed out of existence.
--Ronald Reagan, 1961, Encroaching Control speech

Now, I did a little search of my own. The 10 planks from The Communist Manifesto:
1. Abolition of private property and the application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communications and transportation in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state, the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries, gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Communist_Manifesto

Next:
Adam Smith. I would like to direct you to a blog written by David Friedman, where he dispels most, if not all, those assertions.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2011/03/misrepresenting-adam-smith.html

Next:
The French "Declaration of the Rights of Man"
Since you cited Wikipedia once, let me continue the trend. The source of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man" is the French Revolution. If you read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article about the French Revolution, it says, specifically, that "French society underwent an epic transformation as feudal, aristocratic and religious privileges evaporated under a sustained assault from radical left-wing political groups, masses on the streets, and peasants in the countryside."
Are Socialists and Communists "left-wing"? I thought they were.

Finally:
Our tax system doesn't redistribute??? I don't know what college you're going to, but if you or your parents are paying for that education, its too much. That is among the most irresponsible things I've ever heard. Welcome to the indoctrination!
If you are offended, well, maybe you should be because your teacher is, well, let me speculate that his/her eyes are brown...that's because of how full of it he/she is.

There is a segment of the population which receives more money in its tax return than it pays in over the course of the year. Where'd they (the government) get that money? Then there is food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment...that money had to come from somewhere too. It didn't shoot from Geitner's butt. Some it probably came from the Chinese, but that's a whole other issue...or is it because we're right back at Communism.



Just because I wanted to share:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/entitlement-america-head-household-making-minimum-wage-has-more-disposable-income-family-mak

[Jim O'Bryan]

There is a segment of the population which receives more money in its tax return than it pays in over the course of the year. Where'd they (the government) get that money? Then there is food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, unemployment...that money had to come from somewhere too. It didn't shoot from Geitner's butt. Some it probably came from the Chinese, but that's a whole other issue...or is it because we're right back at Communism.

Roy

I have two simple Observations, maybe.

1) Some of the programs listed are paid for by those benefiting. Social Security and
Unemployment, are both subsidized by forces outside the government. The government just
acts as the agent, and because of that has decided to skim, and use the money until
needed for other things. While the government also pays into unemployment as well as
every business. Is it not at least fair for those that are complicit in the loss of job in
America to share some of the pain they cause?

How does it serve a country to have vast portions of its population in poverty, through
very little fault of their own? For decades people were told buy a house, most never
thought the value of their house was a made up political number. No one knew, when
congress deregulated the banking industry, that the bankers, would tear down the fire
wall that protected savings from investment and that the banking industry now
unregulated and running a muck, would break the world financially.

In this world, when you break something you are supposed to fix it. Congress, and yes
the greatest Republican President of all time Bill Clinton, screwed things up. I do not think
it is unreasonable to ask for them to make it right.

Then there is the safety issue. Are we really willing to believe those that can't find jobs will
just migrate to the curbs and storm sewers to live out their final days with their family? Or
does adverse conditions cause even the best people to do stupid and sometimes violent things? Is the system sometimes abused? Yes, but fraud is in the millions, not the billions,
and it is being prosecuted. It is inevitable with something as large as the USA that some
abuse happens, but it is less than .001%. Where with the banking industry it was in the
65% range. A very big difference.

You cannot simply look at welfare, foodstamps, as tickets to the poor. It is also tickets to
all of our safety. Look at Lakewood right now, feeling the pinch of poverty, declining jobs,
declining opportunities, crime has gone up. Is the best solution to put them in jail where
they will probably cost us much more than their welfare check? For every work program in
a prison, there are 100 jobs paying salve labor rates, that should have been outside the
prison walls, paying at least minimum wage.

A huge step to fixing much of this would have been single payer health care. By addressing
what is bankrupting so many, wrongfully, we can get this country back to the free market
dream you think can work. Trying to do it with it this broken is just asking for massive
social unrest, upheaval and the fall to communism or fascism. This is what history has taught us.

FWIW


.

[Thealexa Becker]

Let me try again.

Anyone who has ever taken a microeconomics course should have learned that the United States, aside from being one of the most capitalist countries in the world, has what is best described as a SLIGHTLY progressive tax system. Not majorly, but slightly.

Now, anyone who looks at historical income tax rates (and I mean from the inception fo the income tax, not 1980) would notice that the income tax now is LOWER than it has ever been. Seems like an odd time to complain about the redistribution of wealth. The mathematics of our current tax system certainly does not preclude any kind of redistribution of income. Therefore, I feel it is odd to discuss socialism and our current tax system.

And I still want to know what kind of socialism everyone thinks we are going towards.

[kate e parker]

Anyone who has ever taken a microeconomics course

that wouldn't be me as is probably obvious at this point. my goodness, i'd need toothpicks to prop open my eyes for such an endeavor!

Seems like an odd time to complain about the redistribution of wealth

in my view not really. with talk of tax increases and insane federal spending (obamacare just one huge example) i think it's an appropriate time for such a discussion.

what kind of socialism? the scary kind, haha!

[Will Brown]

Let me try again.

Anyone who has ever taken a microeconomics course should have learned that the United States, aside from being one of the most capitalist countries in the world, has what is best described as a SLIGHTLY progressive tax system. Not majorly, but slightly.

Now, anyone who looks at historical income tax rates (and I mean from the inception fo the income tax, not 1980) would notice that the income tax now is LOWER than it has ever been. Seems like an odd time to complain about the redistribution of wealth. The mathematics of our current tax system certainly does not preclude any kind of redistribution of income. Therefore, I feel it is odd to discuss socialism and our current tax system.

And I still want to know what kind of socialism everyone thinks we are going towards.

This is simply untrue. The first federal income tax in 1913 had rates from 1 percent to 7 percent. There have certainly been times when the top rate was far higher than today's 35 percent, but there are other times when it has been lower.

[Roy Pitchford]

Jim,
1. I would agree with you on Social Security if not for the fact that people can and do get much more out of the system than they put in (plus interest). Again, I ask, where does that additional money come from? It can't all come from people who paid in and died before they got everything back. I've shared the story of the first monthly SSI recipient, Ida May Fuller, several times before. Would you like me to share it again?

2. You ask an interesting question: How does it serve a country to have vast portions of its population in poverty, through very little fault of their own?
I am tempted to argue the merits of the question. Is it really "little fault of their own?" What, truly, is poverty in the United States?

Instead, let me ask one back: How does it serve the country to have perfectly good people in a position where the incentives for NOT working are equal or greater to the incentives for working?

3. Arguing that food stamps and welfare are good for public safety, to me, is like Nancy Pelosi's argument that extending Federal unemployment stimulates economic growth.

I am a firm believer in this Franklin philosophy:
"I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

4. How exactly does single-payer take us back to a free economy? They are polar opposites. In a free economy, there's LESS government intervention, not absolute government control.

5. Will is correct. It has been much lower and it has been much higher. In the quote I used earlier, Reagan states that the income tax was as high as 91%.
In 1913, the first year of the income tax, the lowest tax rate was 1% (0 to $20,000) and the highest was 7% (over $500,000).
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html

6. What makes the tax more or less progressive? I mean that as a serious question. Is it more progressive if the difference between the lowest and highest tax rates is greater?

[Will Brown]

Jim,
1. I would agree with you on Social Security if not for the fact that people can and do get much more out of the system than they put in (plus interest). Again, I ask, where does that additional money come from? It can't all come from people who paid in and died before they got everything back. ...

I won't defend Socalled Security because, among other things, they pay a disproportionally higher benefit to the low-income insured than they do to the rest of the insured.

But they are like any insurer in that what you pay in over the years is very often less than the amount you collect; in other words, if you buy a $100,000 life insurance policy, you will pay in, in most cases, less than $100,000, but the beneficiary will receive $100,000. Don't ignore the fact that they invest your premiums so they have investment income to cover the "shortfall" in premiums. Socalled Security "invests" in treasury notes, so they will have that investment income to cover the costs of payments to beneficiaries, assuming that the government does not default on the notes. Treasury notes were once considered the safest investment; my personal feeling is that this is no longer true. However, because of their perceived safety, they have always paid a low rate. I think a better plan would be to invest in a mixture of good stocks and bonds because over the long term that would produce more income. Many people cite stock market collapses, but in virtually any long period stocks are the best performers, even with the collapses. Unfortunately, our leaders lack the courage to face constituents who would worry about collapses, and rather enjoy having a steady stream of money available to spend on programs of dubious value.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Roy

You arguments often make 100% total sense in a vacuum.

We do not live in a vacuum.

YOU have gotten far more from the system, than you have ever put into it. Parks, Roads,
Libraries, police, etc. So your point on SS is truly moot.

Does the system get abused, yes. Think how many abused the Library's system only to get
out of jail dog cookies in the old days. A percentage of abuse is virtually everywhere. In
SS, Welfare, Food Stamps, on the receiving side is very, very small. On the cashing in side,
much higher but still smaller than the bank fraud, etc.

Some things, you just have to take for the team.

I am not complaining about jobs going overseas. I am complaining about government
programs that grease the skids for them going overseas. Apple is a perfect example. We
should be outraged at the Apple factories in China. Again we can talk all day long about
free enterprise, but when Apple can get help from China to employ 40,000 in China and
put them to work for pennies an hour and 12 hours days. How doe we compete fairly?
We can't. A decade ago, France went after our sunflower seed business, and nearly
crushed it. It was some late minute common sense that saved it.

WE have lost millions of jobs to cheaper work markets. The trade off sucks. We can lose
out jobs and shop at WalMart? Hardly as good as working and shopping where we want.

In my heart I would love to be a Libertarian. But then I sober up, and see the darkness in
men's hearts, and know it is nothing more than fantasy. A beautiful fantasy, but still
nothing more than a dream. So the choice is D or R, Ds fall to helping individuals, Rs fall
to helping businesses. So we get gouged or screwed, in our never ending struggle to make
this non-democracy representative goverment work.


FWIW


.

[ryan costa]

America pretty much wants the same government programs it wanted in the 1950s.
America pretty much does not want to pay for it.

rich people were still rich in the 1950s. and plenty of folks were getting rich or more prosperous owning and operating their own businesses.

The new term to bandy about is "class warfare". I would say NAFTA and the WTO represent the most intense class warfare our legislature has inflicted on America.

[Ellen Cormier]

the fundamental problem of the story is that Obama is not a socialist. Calling him one does not make him one and does a grave disservice to political discussion if based on fallacies of positions. Labels mean something.

Second, are grades an accurate reflection of actual intellectual achievement?
Maybe grades or external rewards are part of the problem in the first place.

Third, I completely agree with Sean, the little forced parables of the story are complete propagandistic crap. Not because they are totally false but because of lazy half truths and false equivalencies.

Fourth, educated citizens, cleared roads, children with food in their bellies used to be hallmarks of a good society. We all get lots of things everyday from no effort on our part thanks to the hard physical and mental work done by our collective humanity over time. Get over it already.

[Roy Pitchford]

the fundamental problem of the story is that Obama is not a socialist. Calling him one does not make him one and does a grave disservice to political discussion if based on fallacies of positions. Labels mean something.

What is he then?

[Thealexa Becker]

the fundamental problem of the story is that Obama is not a socialist. Calling him one does not make him one and does a grave disservice to political discussion if based on fallacies of positions. Labels mean something.

What is he then?

A moderate politician who is the President would be my guess.

[Ellen Cormier]

Wow I missed the whole second page before I posted! It's good to see everyone keeping it up. Sorry I've been missing out by not checking in more often.

[Ellen Cormier]

Yes Roy, he's a pretty good centrist president running the country through the middle just like most American presidents have been doing except for maybe gwb, though seemingly more moderate than today's republicans. And fdr wasn't centrist but republicans have him to thank for the country not becoming socialist.