On Monday, May 18, 2009 at 13:15:45 (-0400) Max B. Sawicky writes: >A few points pro- and con- this chestnut:
Thanks for these, good points. A few comments/questions: >a. Increasingly the interest goes to foreigners, whom one might not >classify as "ourselves" Baker says this: There is an issue of foreign ownership of debt. But this is due to the trade deficit, which is a result of the over-valued dollar and has no direct connection with the budget deficit. If we had the same over-valued dollar, but no budget deficit or even national debt, then we would be in the same situation relative to foreign investors, except that they would be buying up more of the private capital stock rather than public debt. The outcome for future generations would be the same; a larger share of future income would be paid out to foreigners. >b. While bond ownership is maldistributed, income tax liability is >also concentrated on the upper income portions (top 20% pay vast bulk >of it). But don't upper income portions have a lower percentage of income that comes from wages, and more from capital gains, that is taxed at a much lower rate? Bill _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
