Economics for idiots

[Boss]

Truth is, Pol Pot was a Marxist ideologue. 

[Pureblood]

Fantastic stuff. 

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, Boss said:

Truth is, Pol Pot was a Marxist ideologue. 

You need a pot noodle and a wank mate. 

[Boss]

1 minute ago, Bjornebye said:

You need a pot noodle and a wank mate. 

I do to be fair.

[Boss]

Anyway i don't want to sidetrack the thread. The point i was trying to make (in a roundabout way) is you've got the likes of Angry wanting Capital Gains Tax to be 75%, right? Which is absurd. And this is what i'm trying to talk about. Ideologues are dangerous because they start with their ideology and disregard pragmatism.  Marx was an ideologue. Smith was a pragmatist. 

[Strontium]

I think the salient point is that any ideology, like Marxism, which is based on populism - ie one which pits "the people" against a parasitic "elite" - is vulnerable to being taken to extremes.

[Duff Man]

1 hour ago, Boss said:

Anyway i don't want to sidetrack the thread. The point i was trying to make (in a roundabout way) is you've got the likes of Angry wanting Capital Gains Tax to be 75%, right? Which is absurd. And this is what i'm trying to talk about. Ideologues are dangerous because they start with their ideology and disregard pragmatism.  Marx was an ideologue. Smith was a pragmatist. 

I realise you're referencing something AoT said, but aren't Labour just planning to reverse the cuts the Tories made? i.e. putting the rates back up to 28% and 18%.

[s(k)aturation]

2 hours ago, mattyq said:

I'm not a Marxist by any means but there is no denying that he is one of the giants of Western political/economic theory

You can disagree with a lot of his ideas, as i do, but to label him shite is a bit... benighted

Yes, I was definitely being a bit facetious.

 

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

2 hours ago, Boss said:

Anyway i don't want to sidetrack the thread. The point i was trying to make (in a roundabout way) is you've got the likes of Angry wanting Capital Gains Tax to be 75%, right? Which is absurd. And this is what i'm trying to talk about. Ideologues are dangerous because they start with their ideology and disregard pragmatism.  Marx was an ideologue. Smith was a pragmatist. 

Utter cockwash.

 

What is "absurd" about wanting the sort of levels of progressive taxation that drove capitalist reconstruction and increasing prosperity throughout the West for over 3 decades?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

1 hour ago, Sixtimes Dog said:

I think the salient point is that any ideology, like Marxism, which is based on populism - ie one which pits "the people" against a parasitic "elite" - is vulnerable to being taken to extremes.

You don't think Capitalism is also vulnerable to being taken to murderous extremes?

[Mudface]

4 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

You don't think Capitalism is also vulnerable to being taken to murderous extremes?

Or 'austerity'?

 

That article of faith that Clegg insisted was necessary lest we turn into Greece.

[Boss]

1 hour ago, Duff Man said:

I realise you're referencing something AoT said, but aren't Labour just planning to reverse the cuts the Tories made? i.e. putting the rates back up to 28% and 18%.

From what I gather, and I could be wrong. There's a personal allowance of £12,000 and anything after that is taxed at either 10% or 18% (on residential property). Then it goes to 20% or 28% (on residential property) based on basic or higher rate. I think the basic rate is up to £50,000 but i'm not entirely sure. Perhaps someone on here with more knowledge of tax and capital gains could clarify.

 

Just to clarify, i'm explaining the current system not the one Labour propose.

[Duff Man]

7 minutes ago, Boss said:

From what I gather, and I could be wrong. There's a personal allowance of £12,000 and anything after that is taxed at either 10% or 18% (on residential property). Then it goes to 20% or 28% (on residential property). I think the basic rate is up to £50,000 but i'm not entirely sure. Perhaps someone on here with more knowledge of tax and capital gains could clarify.

The current rates are 10% for lower rate earners, and 20% for higher. Labour plan to revert to 18% and 28%, respectively. That doesn't seem radical, to me.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Boss, what are your opinions on Estate Duty/Inheritance Tax?

 

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the 19th Century writer who argued "By taxing estates heavily at death the State marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction... Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estates which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the State, and by all means such taxes should be granted, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, at least the other half comes to the privy coffer of the State."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_Wealth#Assertions

 

 

 

[Boss]

10 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Utter cockwash.

 

What is "absurd" about wanting the sort of levels of progressive taxation that drove capitalist reconstruction and increasing prosperity throughout the West for over 3 decades?

 

I don't mean to call you absurd, i'm just saying the idea that increasing capital gains to 75% would have any beneficial effect is absurd. When has capital gains been 75% in this country?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

On 20/06/2019 at 18:56, Boss said:

 

Sure. Let's say my income tax is 45% on short term capital gains. It's 28% on long term capital gains. You propose to increase income tax to 75% so that means short term capital gains becomes 75% because it's taxed based off your income. You increase long term capital gains also to 75%.

 

I have, let's say £100,000 in long term investments. I could pull my money out before your laws come into play and make £72,000. Otherwise, once your laws come into play, I'll only make £25,000. How many other people with long term investments will have the same thought as me? Chances are, all of them. 

 

Suddenly you preside over an economy where all the shares are being sold en masse at one time. The market tanks.  

Right, so if I were to introduce this tax mechanism that I've never mentioned it would have negative impacts.  Quite silly of me not to have mentioned that, when I was saying anything at all about differentiating tax rates on short-term or long-term share income.

 

Unless I'm mistaken, UK tax law makes no distinction between short-term and long-term shares: you pay Dividend Tax on the income you get for owning shares and you pay Capital Gains Tax on the income you get for selling shares.  The sand in my vagina is that both of these rates of tax (taxes on the unearned income from owning stuff) are lower than the rates of income tax on wages and salaries (tax on the earned income from doing stuff).  Speculating and gambling with shares is more lucrative than working.  How is that supposed to incentivise productive activity?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

28 minutes ago, Boss said:

 

I don't mean to call you absurd, i'm just saying the idea that increasing capital gains to 75% would have any beneficial effect is absurd. When has capital gains been 75% in this country?

It has never been 75% (I still don't know why everyone else seems fixated on that specific figure) or anything like that high.  Is that any reason not to consider significantly raising the rates now; to dismiss the idea as absurd, without even trying to work out the pros and cons?  Before 1965 there was no CGT at all.  The Government at the time did not consider that a reason not to introduce it.

 

The beneficial effects of progressive taxation, in all its forms, far from being an absurd notion, have been demonstrated amply in millions of people's improved living conditions, in country after country, decade after decade.  (The flip-side, harmful effects of allowing increasing inequality, has also been similarly widely demonstrated.)

[AngryOfTuebrook]

Just a reminder that getting the fuckers to pay their tax is at least as important as setting the optimum rates and thresholds.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/aug/11/inheritance-tax-why-the-new-duke-of-westminster-will-not-pay-billions

 

The amount of Inheritance Tax that this wee fucker dodged would have paid the UK's unemployment benefits bill for over a year.

[Boss]

10 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

It has never been 75% (I still don't know why everyone else seems fixated on that specific figure) or anything like that high.  Is that any reason not to consider significantly raising the rates now; to dismiss the idea as absurd, without even trying to work out the pros and cons?  Before 1965 there was no CGT at all.  The Government at the time did not consider that a reason not to introduce it.

 

The beneficial effects of progressive taxation, in all its forms, far from being an absurd notion, have been demonstrated amply in millions of people's improved living conditions, in country after country, decade after decade.  (The flip-side, harmful effects of allowing increasing inequality, has also been similarly widely demonstrated.)

 

It's never been anywhere near that high. I think the highest it's ever been in the UK is 30% and it's 28% now at the highest rate. America had it at 40% at the highest rate for a very short time but for most people it was still around 20% or below.

 

Where has it been 75% anywhere in the world? Show me examples of millions of people's lives improving over decades with 75% capital gains because I can't find a single example.

[Strontium]

1 hour ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

You don't think Capitalism is also vulnerable to being taken to murderous extremes?

 

I should think that's one of the reasons we have liberal democracy.

[Boss]

51 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Boss, what are your opinions on Estate Duty/Inheritance Tax?

 

Personally, I'm inclined to agree with the 19th Century writer who argued "By taxing estates heavily at death the State marks its condemnation of the selfish millionaire's unworthy life. It is desirable that nations should go much further in this direction... Indeed, it is difficult to set bounds to the share of a rich man's estates which should go at his death to the public through the agency of the State, and by all means such taxes should be granted, beginning at nothing upon moderate sums to dependents, and increasing rapidly as the amounts swell, until of the millionaire's hoard, at least the other half comes to the privy coffer of the State."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gospel_of_Wealth#Assertions

 

I don't believe in it. Someone has worked to pay off a mortgage over 25 years. They get shafted by the bank. They've already paid tax on that income. They finally own the house outright and then you tax the kids for receiving the house in the will? Disgraceful.

[Strontium]

It's not really disgraceful. The kids haven't done anything to earn that house. And anyway, inheritance tax doesn't kick in until the estate is worth loads.

[Bjornebye]

13 minutes ago, Sixtimes Dog said:

It's not really disgraceful. The kids haven't done anything to earn that house. And anyway, inheritance tax doesn't kick in until the estate is worth loads.

No response to the example given that you were pining for the other night no? Completely avoiding getting shown up yet again? 

 

How did you fail in politics because you literally fit the bill 

[Numero Veinticinco]

On 20/06/2019 at 20:41, moof said:

I wonder where anybody could get the impression that the 100x billionaire founder of Microsoft and ceo of an “investment conglomerate” would be iffy about paying taxes? In spite of any public statements attesting to his altruistic nature 

It’s not just public statements though. He might get very well be the biggest philanthropist in the history of the world, to be fair. Same with the other squillionaire who complains at taxes (from the other angle), Warren Buffett. You be got nothing against people creating and earning wealth. It’s up to the government to deal with how they collect and use tax income. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

4 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

You need a pot noodle and a wank mate. 

Name one person who wouldn’t find that appealing.