[Zarax]

You forget that saving money generates extra money, as most people with a noticeable cash surplus will make investments on that.
And out of theory, if you can save $1000 a month you aren't likely going to buy stocks, while if you can save $1000 you're quite likely to reinvest them.
This wouldn't be taxeable money since stocks and other financial tools aren't affected by a sales tax.
Higher incomes have the advantage because in the market (look both into theory and real world) once a certain threshold is passed "money will start generating extra money".

[Kazan]

I don't know who Aphomojb is, or why he thinks that just because he makes mile long posts he can get away with posting total and completely büll**** - but WOW what a pile of steaming horsehockey



first A) just because you don't get a "good result" on google doesn't mean the term is invalid - try googling for a lot of things and you're going to get corrupted results

let me first debunk his "Quackery" bull**** - because first i dubbed a term for conversation, to make it easy to refer to "Dollars adjusted for the Law of Diminishing Utility"*


*i have been using "The Law of Diminishing Return" a little loosely, on income you are specifically dealing with the "The Law of Diminishing Utility"


a little more indepth analysis
-----------------------


The progressive tax is the most conservative economic policy in capitalism - those who are capable of giving more back to society, since society has given them more, are responsible to do so - don't believe me? Adam Smith vs. George Bush on Taxes - don't believe them? READ HIS BOOK
So the "centuries of orthodox economics" and I are in agreement.


Your bit on disutility is inapplicable, especially for salaried employees, and people who make their money off the stock market, etc.  So in otherwords it's completely irrelevent in the realm you used it.

there is an entire post debunked

-----------------------

On taxation:

HELLO Total cost of product = Initial cost + Tax Cost

so Cost(net) = Cost(item) + Cost(Tax)

if we state them proportionately
Cost(item) = 1
Cost(tax) = .23
Cost(net) = 1.23

we then just have just made a coefficient for TOTAL COST OF PRODUCT that we then apply to prices.

The cost of the product from the perspective of the company did not rise, they're not paying their employees anymore.

However the cost of the product from the persepective of the consumer did rise, and they're not receiving any additional income.

companies pass the tax onto consumers - they even tell you they're doing it

there's another entire post debunked

-----------------------

Savings ARE antisocial

because of his savings, banks have had more money to loan out to the rest of us

 however you are overlooking the fact that this only works in theory loan demand is NOT elastic to interest rate, in most places it's very inelastic in terms of interest rate.

 we know this from expirience

The only field where there is noticeable elasticity of loan demand in relation to interest rate is long term loans such as 30-year and 40-year mortgages when the mortgage is a fixed-rate mortgage


------------------------


Your entire post is based off of neoliberal* ec

Even when the richer person SPENDS MORE they're still paying a lower percentage of their income in taxes. - You completely fail to do SIMPLE MATH OF

Effective Tax Rate = (Taxes)/(Income)

Furthermore not only does your claims about history contradict history, and Adam Smith himself, but your later claims about loans contradict all known capitalist history

[Goober5000]

Kazan, you just got completely owned by somebody with only three posts.  If I were you, I'd quit now and hope the thread slips off the page quickly and quietly.

Just to tie up loose ends...
1) A progressive tax is not a conservative philosophy.  On the contrary, the idea that certain classes of people must be taxed more than others ("from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" - great in theory, horrible in practice) is a fundamental socialist philosophy.
2) Companies can not pass the entire burden of their tax onto consumers.  Neither can they absorb the entire tax themselves.  Either the supply or the demand will shift, causing both parties to absorb part of the tax according to their respective elasticities.  This is one of the fundamental concepts taught in any Introduction to Economics courses.  If you don't know this, you have no authority on which to discuss the economics of taxation in the first place.
3) Savings is far from antisocial.  It increases aggregate equity, which enables consumers to pay down debt.  Paying down debt is A Good Thing (tm), as you have ranted so often about in your posts about the U.S. deficit.

[Kazan]

goober5000 if you consider someone  posting three long posts of complete and total bull**** "owning" then you have some pretty large intellectual problems


because you're saying he "owned me" because you agree with him, not because he's correct

1) Adam Smith is the guy who invented the idea of the progressive tax - THE FATHER OF CAPITALISM, the progressive tax, is a conservative thing

2) Companies _DO_ pass the entire burden of sales tax onto the consumer - this is one of the FACT taught in any good intro to economics, and it's a fact you should have known your entire damn life from expirience

3) if those people are in debt then their not "saving" they're paying down indebtedness -- the money is still moving through the economy

true "savings" (ie money sitting in a bank, that you don't owe to other people) slows the economy - we know this theoretcally and empirically

[Zarax]

Progressive taxation is a fundamental of capitalistic economies, it is one of the first things they teach you in economic classes.
Socialism is another whole matter, and it is to each according to his own contribute. "Each according to his need" is pure communist theory, which has never been applied in practice.
Kazan is absolutely right when he says that a flat sales tax is unequally appliable.
You are forgetting a fubdamental thing of the economic system: Saving potential.
There are basically two kinds of savings, invested and uninvested one, but both counts as extra income.
If you invest your savings, say by putting it into a bank you are getting an extra income, which will lower the global amount you're taxed for, and more you will save there less you will proportionally be taxed while your income will get higher and higher.
If you don't invest your savings then you are microscopically (on indivual basis, multiply it for a large enough quantity of individuals and you will witness all negative side effects, like in 1929) artificially making a good (money is a good, this is base economics) scarcer and thus altering the balance of the economic system, while increasing the value of your saving on long term and thus getting an "income" there too (basically the same thing as if you would invest on gold or similar value stuff).

[aldo_14]

Adam Smith bio

There's a variety of thinktank articles on said website; interestingly, a lot seem to be about calling for lowering of taxes and the use of flat rather than progrssive income taxation.  But I'll leave others to pick through all that malarky.

[Kazan]

aldo: then that site isn't holding to Adam Smith and shouldn't be calling themselves the "Adam Smith Institute"

it's just like those ****ing antifirst-ammendment assholes in the "Constitution Party" calling themselves "The Constitution Party"

[aldo_14]

I am not in a position to comment on the validity of said site.  I just point it out, and leave it to other people to make up their own opinion.

Albeit this may be of reference - http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c2-article-4-ss2.htm

EDIT; link sorted.  wonder where that . came from....

oh, and for those who can't be bothered backtracking from said link to the index;

http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/won-b5-c2-article-4-ss7.htm (on taxes of luxury goods.  I think.  Hard to read this 18th century stuff...)

[Kazan]

aldo_14: 404 (remove the period at the end and it works)

[Zarax]

Quote from the Article:

"It is thus that a tax upon the necessaries of life operates exactly in the same manner as a direct tax upon the wages of labour. The labourer, though he may pay it out of his hand, cannot, for any considerable time at least, be properly said even to advance it. It must always in the long-run be advanced to him by his immediate employer in the advanced rate of his wages. His employer, if he is a manufacturer, will charge upon the price of his goods this rise of wages, together with a profit; so that the final payment of the tax, together with this overcharge, will fall upon the consumer. If his employer is a farmer, the final payment, together with a like overcharge, will fall upon the rent of the landlord. "

[Liberator]

I don't who you are Aphomojb, but you have just become very high on my bow down to list.

[Kazan]

liberator: and yet nothing he said is factual - and was demonstrated to be false decades ago

[Bobboau]

Aphomojb, I hope you've been lurking a while to know what you just got your self into

[Kazan]

yeah - into trying to look smart, when what he's posted is completely wrong


and i fail to comprehend how intelligent people like you (bobboau) and goober5000 can be so ignorant

[aldo_14]

Oooh, is it insult time already? I'll need to fetch my profanisaurus.

[Kazan]

ignorant is not an insult, stupid is an insult, retarded is an insult

ignorant just means they failed to learn something/were not taught something

[Zarax]

It depends on people's stance...

[aldo_14]

So if I were to call you ignorant in another thread, then you wouldn't be offended?

[Kazan]

you'd have to demonstrate what im ignorant about, i've already demonstrated what their ignorant about to make it clear that it is fact

the only person who gave and decent showing of support for their opinion based their position on three fundamental assertions, each assertion being false, and having known to be false for decades

they didn't know better, he should have

they are ignorant, he is an idiot

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Kazan
you'd have to demonstrate what im ignorant about, i've already demonstrated what their ignorant about to make it clear that it is fact

the only person who gave and decent showing of support for their opinion based their position on three fundamental assertions, each assertion being false, and having known to be false for decades

they didn't know better, he should have

they are ignorant, he is an idiot

Well, you've not really.  You've said they're ignorant, which is a wholly different thing.

From what I can tell you've posted one link (from the 'Common Dreams Newscentre', which may or may not be biased - i don't know), had a go at Goober because he asked for some form of explanatory information, had a go at me for posting an innocuous link to a thinktank containing Adam Smiths bio and stated a number of facts without actually giving a backup source (such as 'only works in theory', 'demonstratably false', etc without actually giving the demonstration).

In the absence of anyone actually posting a backup source to their particular arguement, the only thing I have to go on is who is the most convincing & persuasive person at arguing their position.  Which would be either Goober or Aphomojb, because they've not had to use an all caps, bold, red text sequence or the word 'bull****' once.