John D. Giorgis said:
> At 06:56 PM 1/30/01 +1300, Bob Henderson wrote:
snip
> >" Indeed, I must admit I did not initially see much
> >merit in the HDI itself, which, as it happens, I was privileged to help
> >devise."
> >AMARTYA SEN, 1998 NOBEL LAUREATE IN ECONOMICS
> >Source - UN website.
> I think this quote did not mean what you thought it meant.
No. It is straightforward. To paraphrase, he states that the only merit in
the index was to interest people in the topic of human development.
> > An
> >economist would have at the very worst a vague remembrance of the
categories
> >of govt income and expenditure no matter how specialised his work became.
> >Your statement is a fine example of bigotry. Sycophantic supporters of
the
> >rich like to blame everything on the poor and in your case you blatantly
> >state that the property of the rich is confiscated and given to the poor.
> Who's blaming anything? I simply said that a tax rate of 40% is
> confiscatory.
You snipped what you originally said in relation to what has changed in
regard to the strong having always exploited the weak.
Here is your original statement.
"now the rich are charged confiscatory tax rates of nearly 40% in order to
support the poor".
> (And that is only Federal tax, not counting local and State
> taxes.) For many rich people, for every additional dolalr they earn,
> they only see 60 cents! That is abhorrent to me.
As a recipient of some of that confiscation by your employers, the
government, perhaps you could make personal donations to the Rockefeller
family etc. This would probably ease your abhorrence in the same way that
others gain respite from thinking of the problems of the disenfranchised by
donations to charities(:>).
> >As
> >a government economist it should not be difficult for you to determine
the
> >percentage of govt revenue derived from taxes and the percentage of
> >expenditure on welfare for the poor.
> Revenue
> Individual Income Taxes : 48%
> Corporate Income Taxes : 10%
> Excise Taxes : 4%
> Other Taxes (Estate, etc) : 4%
> Spending:
> Social Security: 22%
> Medicare: 11%
> Medicaid: 6%
> Other Entitlements: 6%
> Non-defense : 17%
> Even excluding Social Security (which the rich, by definition, don't
need),
> that is at the very minimum 23% of spending on the poor.
Half of which comes from personal income tax reducing the percentage to 11%
of personal income tax. So "the rich" pay at most only 11% of 40% of their
income to the poor. ($4.40 per $100 of income.) If we define "the rich" as
those in the top income tax bracket only then the EXTRA that they contribute
to the poor compared to other taxpayers, is only 11% of 3.6% (39.6% less
36%). (40 cents per $100 income).
Your claim that "now the rich are changed confiscatory tax rates of nearly
40% in order to support the poor" suggests they pay $40 per $100 income to
the poor.
Assuming the rich actually declare all their income(hahaha), they would pay
less than $5 per $100 of income to support the poor.
My original point was that the strong have exploited the weak throughout
history. The confiscation of a maximum of $4.40 from every $100 reported as
income by the richest to support the poorest, does not refute that point.
> >Taxes are used for a variety of expenditures. But the main benefactors of
> >govt expenditure are the rich including the military/industrial complex
and
> >oil trans-nationals.
> Obviously the poor do not benefit from a strong national defense and cheap
> gasoline.
Agreed. It is an infinitely small benefit they receive in comparison to the
rich but in absolute terms there is a benefit(:>).
> > But as an economist, you will know this already. It is the working and
> >middle classes who pay disproportionate income and capital gains tax.
(They
> >are also the source of conscripted cannon fodder for the wars which
further
> >enrich America's aristocracy who are difficult to find in the infantry
ranks
> >but that is another topic.)
> Yeah, the Middle Class should never have been asked to fight WWII. That
> would have been just *awful.* After all, the middle class would have
been
> *so* much better off under Hitler or Stalin.
They were never asked. They were fed propaganda and conscripted. 87% of the
American public were opposed to the US entering WW2.
Given the CIA employment of Nazis, the birth of the PR industry as a result
of the study of the Nazi propaganda machine, the links between American
industry and the Nazis, especially the links between the Bush family, the
CIA and the Nazis, I wonder at times whether the Nazis won the war and the
German and Allied countries' peoples lost the war.
> >I assume you are aware of the Bush
> >family ownership of oil interests as it is more widely publicised than
their
> >WW2 joint ventures in banking and shipping with the Nazis.
> George W. Bush was alive during WWII? Wow, that's a good one.
Que?
> As for the rest of his family, I am sure that while George Sr. was being
> shot done over the Pacific while fighting for his country, his first
> thought was "there goes my joint ventures with the Nazis."
Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the assets of the United Banking
Corporation were seized in October 1942 whilst George Sr was still in
training. The investigation into his shooting down did address the question
of whether his first thought was for his own safety or whether he advised
the crew to bail out before he did so himself. No impropriety was proven.
Bob.
