tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post3286784705947438497..comments2024-03-18T17:28:44.693-07:00Comments on Rondam Ramblings: What should be done about wealth disparity (if anything)?Ronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-65889576629417933242016-01-22T12:02:21.344-08:002016-01-22T12:02:21.344-08:00@Unknown:
What you say is true for dividends (and...@Unknown:<br /><br />What you say is true for dividends (and that really is a problem that ought to be fixed) but not for actual long term capital gains and income that can be structured to look like long term capital gains but really isn't, like carried interest and ISOs. Furthermore, if you're going to compare apples and apples on the double-taxation question then you also have to Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-77800638346216398632016-01-22T11:31:13.894-08:002016-01-22T11:31:13.894-08:00Ron,
You are very well spoken but still manage to...Ron,<br /><br />You are very well spoken but still manage to include demagoguery in your supposedly factual observations: tax rates on qualified dividends (equivalent to capital gains as compensation for the capital resource) are lower because these funds are taxed twice: once at the corporate level, once at the receiving level. Try to do that with wages paid by businesses! Once you include the Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03670798049177146193noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-62497634744983102372016-01-14T23:27:38.164-08:002016-01-14T23:27:38.164-08:00> Even with payroll taxes, the average (not ma...> Even with payroll taxes, the average (not marginal!) tax rates are clearly progressive.<br /><br />No. That figure is misleading because it doesn't take into account the lower rate on capital gains and carried interest.<br />Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-61022519196966724142016-01-13T15:23:34.636-08:002016-01-13T15:23:34.636-08:00@Publius:
> you were going to weigh in with yo...@Publius:<br /><br />> you were going to weigh in with your solution<br /><br />I'm not sure I have a solution. But shooting from the hip, I'd say that it's moral to sell a kidney (provided you have two healthy ones to begin with) but not to sell a heart. But it's a tough call. I can imagine scenarios where I'd consider selling a heart to be moral (e.g. a serial murdererRonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-26231264623411712072016-01-12T23:54:22.989-08:002016-01-12T23:54:22.989-08:00A Moral Puzzle ... Left Puzzling
> how is this...<b>A Moral Puzzle ... Left Puzzling</b><br /><br />> how is this ethically different from selling their organs?<br /><br /><i>I'm not sure it is. Have I ever said that it's moral to sell organs? (I may have, I don't recall. If I did, I'm sure I restricted it to things like kidneys where you can lose one and not suffer any ill effects.)</i><br /><br />Well, no, you never did sayPubliushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00647613579979908182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-23000132164338292492016-01-12T21:57:38.245-08:002016-01-12T21:57:38.245-08:00@Don: "How can there not be some young energe...@Don: "How can there not be some young energetic hot-shot newly-minted Ph.D. in 1905, who buries himself in SR and then races to beat Einstein in figuring out GR?"<br /><br />Good question. AFAIK the only other physicist who was seriously trying for a relativistic theory of gravity was Nordstrom; but the theory he came up with didn't predict bending of light by gravitating bodies, Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-34557853648692602862016-01-12T19:59:31.401-08:002016-01-12T19:59:31.401-08:00@Peter Donis: "I actually think Einstein'...@Peter Donis: "<i>I actually think Einstein's genius was even greater ... in coming up with GR vs. coming up with SR.</i>"<br /><br />I agree with you, and would actually say it's even greater than that! As I said before, SR was an unlikely win, and I think there's a good argument that contemporary physicists "shouldn't" have been looking, where Einstein Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-23747479313023325392016-01-12T12:52:43.824-08:002016-01-12T12:52:43.824-08:00@Don: One other comment: it's not just that th...@Don: One other comment: it's not just that there is politics in macroeconomics. Economics has a sort of self-fulfilling aspect to it that physics, for example, does not have. We can't make a spaceship go where we want it to just by convincing enough people that that's where it should go. But we can, at least sometimes, fix economic problems simply by getting enough people to believe Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-50093961183310394262016-01-12T12:44:03.013-08:002016-01-12T12:44:03.013-08:00@Don: "you're presenting it as though mac...@Don: "you're presenting it as though macro isn't even a field of academic study at all."<br /><br />That wasn't my intent either. It's certainly a field of academic study. I am less sanguine about its predictive power than you appear to be; but the best thing I can do about that at this point is to, as you say, dig into the details of the field.<br />Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-90051267300581724422016-01-12T12:38:45.665-08:002016-01-12T12:38:45.665-08:00@Don: "As for Einstein, I think you're un...@Don: "As for Einstein, I think you're underestimating the genius of his contribution, say from 1900-1905."<br /><br />That certainly wasn't my intent. :-) I was misinterpreting your statement about a "high bar" of evidence. You've cleared that up by saying that what you meant was precisely that the old theory had to appear as a limiting case of the new one. I Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-34172561187512634892016-01-12T11:14:43.105-08:002016-01-12T11:14:43.105-08:00@Peter Donis: I agree that there is a lot of polit...@Peter Donis: I agree that there is a lot of politics in macroeconomics. And it's unfortunate that there are different "schools" of macroeconomics, rather than just a unified field of the subject. That said, you're presenting it as though macro isn't even a field of academic study at all. That goes too far. Go to any major university, any economics department (or Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-22840984223634084932016-01-12T10:39:59.024-08:002016-01-12T10:39:59.024-08:00@Don: Well, looks like we're having at least s...@Don: Well, looks like we're having at least some of that whole other discussion here. :-)<br /><br />"when the vast majority of world-class professionals who have devoted their careers to studying the subject, agree on the answer to some of the fundamental questions"<br /><br />Which fundamental questions? I don't know that "the vast majority" of economists agree withPeter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-15929317447161020002016-01-12T10:14:56.237-08:002016-01-12T10:14:56.237-08:00@Ron: "The Fed has been in place since 1913, ...@Ron: "<i>The Fed has been in place since 1913, but the disproportionate distribution of economic gains to the already-wealthy only started in 1980 or so. That fact alone makes it extremely unlikely that the Fed had anything to do with it.</i>"<br /><br />That's a really good point, and I basically agree.<br /><br />That said, if I wanted to generate an argument on the other side, IDon Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-40333025134020929642016-01-12T10:08:58.888-08:002016-01-12T10:08:58.888-08:00@Peter Donis: "the prior that economics is ri...@Peter Donis: "<i>the prior that economics is right and the person questioning it wrong is correspondingly weaker.</i>"<br /><br />Sure, sure. Granted. The confidence in economics is not at the level of the confidence in relativity.<br /><br />That said, when the vast majority of world-class professionals who have devoted their careers to studying the subject, agree on the answer to Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-20854635948548993902016-01-12T09:55:50.912-08:002016-01-12T09:55:50.912-08:00@Peter: except that you don't have to rely on ...@Peter: except that you don't have to rely on economists to evaluate theories about the Fed. You have access to first-hand data: The Fed has been in place since 1913, but the disproportionate distribution of economic gains to the already-wealthy only started in 1980 or so. That fact alone makes it extremely unlikely that the Fed had anything to do with it.Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-88198958260493041912016-01-12T09:17:25.881-08:002016-01-12T09:17:25.881-08:00@Don: "There's obviously going to be a ve...@Don: "There's obviously going to be a very strong prior that you are wrong."<br /><br />This is probably a whole other discussion, but I can't resist commenting that how strong the prior is depends on how much predictive power the professionals have. If I were to claim that relativity is wrong, for example, there would indeed be a very, very, very strong prior that I was the Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-38884201513577689862016-01-11T23:59:20.564-08:002016-01-11T23:59:20.564-08:00@Publius:
> You could use an editor.
Are you ...@Publius:<br /><br />> You could use an editor.<br /><br />Are you volunteering?<br /><br />> Could a poor person sell themselves into slavery?<br /><br />Of course they *could*, but what I think you meant to ask is: would this be moral for society to allow this. My answer is no. Explaining why is left as an exercise.<br /><br />> how is this ethically different from selling their Ronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11752242624438232184noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-73578231490084355792016-01-11T22:21:59.301-08:002016-01-11T22:21:59.301-08:00You could use an editor. That whole first part abo...You could use an editor. That whole first part about slavery was just bizarre; I think you just had a bunch of slavery trivia you wanted to get out. [plus propagate false memes about Republicans; Abraham Lincoln, anyone? anyone?]<br /><br />Since you brought it up, let me tie it back to some of your other philosophical ramblings. <br />1. Could a poor person sell themselves into slavery? The Publiushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00647613579979908182noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-868889474556175052016-01-11T22:20:21.858-08:002016-01-11T22:20:21.858-08:00@Peter Donis: Yes, you're right. From about 1...@Peter Donis: Yes, you're right. From about 1985 to 2008, the monetary base rose very slowly and steadily, from about $200B to about $900B. In a $10T market for Treasuries, the month-to-month OMOs during that period were basically noise in the T-bill market.<br /><br />But the monetary base <a href="https://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/BASE" rel="nofollow">skyrocketed</a> after 2008Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-15742845596814355452016-01-11T22:02:51.113-08:002016-01-11T22:02:51.113-08:00@Don: Yes, you're right, I misdescribed the Fe...@Don: Yes, you're right, I misdescribed the Fed's open market operations.<br /><br />I'm still not sure those operations have negligible effect on T-bill prices, however. A quick check seems to show that the US monetary base is about $4 trillion, of which at least half has been created since the crash of 2008, and the total of outstanding marketable US Treasury securities is about $13Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-35903457790544319032016-01-11T17:54:52.444-08:002016-01-11T17:54:52.444-08:00@Peter Donis: "the whole point of the Fed buy...@Peter Donis: "<i>the whole point of the Fed buying T-bills is to affect their price, since their price determines their interest rate, and the Fed is using open market operations to try to drive interest rates to whatever their current target is</i>"<br /><br />No, that's not correct, and it misunderstands both the monetary policy transmission mechanism, and also the interest rate Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-54762640746784582852016-01-11T17:09:32.604-08:002016-01-11T17:09:32.604-08:00@Don: "I -- and you likely agree -- disagree ...@Don: "I -- and you likely agree -- disagree with the Fed's banking decisions to bail out various 'too big to fail' financial institutions."<br /><br />Yes, I definitely agree.Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-28774429047211035242016-01-11T17:08:19.447-08:002016-01-11T17:08:19.447-08:00@Don: "The US Treasury market is the largest ...@Don: "The US Treasury market is the largest (in value) and most liquid market on earth. Fed purchases have little (direct) effect on the price of Treasuries."<br /><br />Just a quick comment on this (still deferring more details on a concrete example): the whole <i>point</i> of the Fed buying T-bills is to affect their price, since their price determines their interest rate, and the Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-38939958314378311522016-01-11T17:05:23.406-08:002016-01-11T17:05:23.406-08:00@Ron: "you are aware that you can delete comm...@Ron: "you are aware that you can delete comments that you've written, yes?"<br /><br />I am now. :-) I'll defer further posting until I've had more time to work things through in detail.Peter Donishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09122769947782402203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5592542.post-58961184069874795142016-01-11T17:01:10.701-08:002016-01-11T17:01:10.701-08:00@Peter Donis: "I understand that that's w...@Peter Donis: "<i>I understand that that's what the government and mainstream economists say</i>"<br /><br />OK, so you realize that essentially every trained professional economist agrees with me. It's OK for you to disagree, but I sure hope you have an airtight argument. There's obviously going to be a very strong prior that you are wrong.<br /><br />"<i>the Fed is Don Geddishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04214642122689048677noreply@blogger.com