Romney's Tax Plan

[Master of Ossus]

Only if you include those who aren't contributing to the economy. If the goal is to find links between those who make money in the economy, including the bottom who make none due to illness, unemployment and so on is retarded.

And of course the practical reality is that taxes (what this thread is about, god) are assessed not through a continuous function but through brackets, step functions. So it will resemble a pyramid, the steps being rather abrupt and without question. For exmaple, 1000 dollars this tax bracket, 1001 dollars that tax bracket.

But only for the last dollar. Do you really not understand how income taxes work? How old are you, anyway?

[brianeyci]

How is understanding how income taxes work a rebuttal to my point it's a fucking step function which will form a pyramid and not a hershey kiss?

How the fuck rich are you? You have a callous disregard for the poor (wealth does not equal happiness; I'll show you how much happiness wealth can bring) and you don't think that frozen wages for years is a problem at all. What a douche.

[K. A. Pital]

It shows significant discontinuities

Of course it does - nonetheless it does resemble the US one. And yes, of course the urban-rural split. Were China ideally modelled after the US, it would be an identical syphon, end of story - just as I said from the start.

Moreover, you'd have to ignore the bottom 25% of the income bracket to argue that the "base" got bigger as you went down

Why would I do that? I didn't 'ignore' them for the US, contrary to what you're posing. Merely noted that the reduction model holds for 80%. For China, it would be 75%. And yes, the fact that rural and urban China are like different entities allows for two "peaks" to be formed. Just like there's a "peak" in every country. But so? You could see that reverse works only for 25% of people - whilst 10% of Chinese still live in extreme poverty.

Does there exist a country which has a more equal curve like distribution? Where some 40-50% are in the left slope? Quite possibly, but somehow I doubt it and until shown such a country I don't think such examples exist.

[Master of Ossus]

How is understanding how income taxes work a rebuttal to my point it's a fucking step function which will form a pyramid and not a hershey kiss?

How the fuck rich are you? You have a callous disregard for the poor (wealth does not equal happiness; I'll show you how much happiness wealth can bring) and you don't think that frozen wages for years is a problem at all. What a douche.

Again, you have not even ATTEMPTED to address the article that I posted which consists of a major study by well-respected academics. You cannot dismiss this by sticking your fingers in your ears. Moreover, how does income tax represent a "step function?" What are you even talking about?

Taxes ARE assessed on a continuous function. You pay 10% on the first ~$8000 you make. You pay 15% on the amount of money you make OVER $8000, and so on and so forth. That's continuous. It's not like making the $8001st dollar suddenly costs you 15% on the first $1000 you made, instead of 10%.

[K. A. Pital]

While the Filthy Socialist Liberal Dirtbag in me howls to scream at MoO on this, I don't think you are getting what he's saying, Brian. None of those charts look like a pyramid. They are distributions. That means they are small at the bottom of the chart and at the top. A pyramid is large at the bottom and tiny at the top.

The US chart is large at the bottom with each new lower level except the last quintille (20%) being larger than the previous.

A distribution such as the one you folks are talking about, even with a DRAMATIC right skew (as you find in those income charts with the logarithmic abcissa)

The logarithmic abcissa does offer a right skew, which makes it's areas totally irrelevant to population sizes. A log income graph for the US has areas and peaks which do not correspond to actual peak number of people and the peak number income (10,000). Therefore, it's wrong to use it's areas as estimates of population sizes for each level of income.
[/quote]...which in the case you are talking about would have the highest percentage of the population in extreme poverty and then ascend the chart from there. This is not what the chart shows, you are wrong.[/quote]
I never asserted that extreme paupers were the base of a pyramid, that's ridiculous. However, once we move out of poverty percentages, the graph usually takes on a slope shape, which means each new income level houses less people than the previous, end of story - which means it's pyramidal, at least what concerns the people not in the "extreme poor" state.

[brianeyci]

Wow do you even know what a continuous function is you retard?

A function is continuous implies that the limit of x -> a f(x) is f(a). Approaching from the left we have 10% taxes. Approaching from the right we have 15% taxes. So the left and right limits are not equal, so the limit does not exist. So the function of tax is discontinuous.

This review of first year Calculus brought to you by someone who thinks you're a fucking moron and hopes one day you'll turn out poor. Then maybe you'll finally get it.

What academics would that be? What file? If you posted it already then please post it again, some relevant parts, and not just link a whole fucking file.

[K. A. Pital]

Also, before people start endlessly harping about "disrepancies", "differences", etc.

US is the model capitalist economy. It's aged, well-developed, both industrially and socially.

Abberations from that are produced from developent disparities and anomalies (like that China rural-urban), serious economic cataclysms, or conscious policy aimed at changing this, like some sort of tax which "burns" out people around some level of existing incomes, for whatever reason the government does it.

It would be foolish to say that the whole system isn't hooked up like a huge pyramid, because that's what it is for, as I have said already, the absolute majority of people, and an even greater majority if we only count those integrated into the system. So, the more people who're out of productive system, pauperized, unemployed or just abject poor, or entire nations who aren't seriously involved in the world trade yet, we put out, the MORE these graphs would resemble a pyramid.

Therefore, for the majority the system is a pyramid where there's less people on every higher income level. The poorest and most uninvolved segments of society are the only true abberation which comprises the entire "left flank" - and it would really be strange if those were the most numerous.

[brianeyci]

You pay 10% on the first ~$8000 you make. You pay 15% on the amount of money you make OVER $8000, and so on and so forth. That's continuous. It's not like making the $8001st dollar suddenly costs you 15% on the first $1000 you made, instead of 10%.

The amount of payment for taxes has nothing to do with the number of people in a certain tax bracket. Below, in this tax bracket, above, in another tax bracket. With the y-axis as income and x-axis income level A, B, C, D, E, there'd be declining numbers of people going to the right in steps.

Of course you keep denying this for some unfathomable reason. Maybe you'll bring up that I can pull arbitrary brackets out of my ass, like is done in real life. How disconnected from reality are you?

[brianeyci]

Sorry, that's y-axis as number of people.

What a dick Master of Asses is. I wonder where he gets off on telling people that frozen wages is okay, everything is happy.

[Master of Ossus]

Why would I do that? I didn't 'ignore' them for the US, contrary to what you're posing. Merely noted that the reduction model holds for 80%. For China, it would be 75%. And yes, the fact that rural and urban China are like different entities allows for two "peaks" to be formed. Just like there's a "peak" in every country. But so? You could see that reverse works only for 25% of people - whilst 10% of Chinese still live in extreme poverty.

Does there exist a country which has a more equal curve like distribution? Where some 40-50% are in the left slope? Quite possibly, but somehow I doubt it and until shown such a country I don't think such examples exist.

Oh, I see what you're looking for. Sure. Countries like Scotland or England.

Greece, Spain, France (to a lesser extent), etc. show similar patterns. I don't know why you would find this interesting, though--it's a pretty useless measure. Income distribution is always skewed right, because it has to stop at zero (or near there).

[Beowulf]

Wow do you even know what a continuous function is you retard?

A function is continuous implies that the limit of x -> a f(x) is f(a). Approaching from the left we have 10% taxes. Approaching from the right we have 15% taxes. So the left and right limits are not equal, so the limit does not exist. So the function of tax is discontinuous.

This review of first year Calculus brought to you by someone who thinks you're a fucking moron and hopes one day you'll turn out poor. Then maybe you'll finally get it.

What academics would that be? What file? If you posted it already then please post it again, some relevant parts, and not just link a whole fucking file.

Wow, you really are a retard. Taxes are continuous. If you take a graph of taxes paid, compared to wage income earned, it looks roughly like a step-wise approximation of a hyperbola. There are no breaks where the amount paid suddenly jumps up. If you still can't picture it, I can make a nice little graph for you.

[brianeyci]

Wow, you really are a retard. Taxes are continuous. If you take a graph of taxes paid, compared to wage income earned, it looks roughly like a step-wise approximation of a hyperbola. There are no breaks where the amount paid suddenly jumps up. If you still can't picture it, I can make a nice little graph for you.

Who the fuck cares about the amount of taxes paid when the entire discussion up to this point between me and Asses has been numbers of people in certain income brackets? Number of people who earn between A and B, number of people who earn between B and C, this is a step function.

I have never paid tax, so I didn't know there was not a huge leap. So sue me. That is a total red herring brought up by Master of Asses to distract from the fact governments make arbitrary brackets all the time to count distribution of wealth.

[Master of Ossus]

Wow do you even know what a continuous function is you retard?

A function is continuous implies that the limit of x -> a f(x) is f(a). Approaching from the left we have 10% taxes. Approaching from the right we have 15% taxes. So the left and right limits are not equal, so the limit does not exist. So the function of tax is discontinuous.

Uh, they are continuous you idiot. The DERIVATIVE isn't continuous at the borders, but the total taxes you pay is a continuous function.

This review of first year Calculus brought to you by someone who thinks you're a fucking moron and hopes one day you'll turn out poor. Then maybe you'll finally get it.

I'm not the one who didn't know what a logarithmic scale was.

What academics would that be?

Among others, nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.

What file? If you posted it already then please post it again, some relevant parts, and not just link a whole fucking file.

Ugh. You can't be bothered to read a headline that I [url=http://www.physorg.com/news70817137.html]linked to?

Link between income and happiness is mainly an illusion.

"The belief that high income is associated with good mood is widespread but mostly illusory," the researchers wrote. "People with above-average income are relatively satisfied with their lives but are barely happier than others in moment-to-moment experience, tend to be more tense, and do not spend more time in particularly enjoyable activities."

Need I go on?

[Master of Ossus]

Who the fuck cares about the amount of taxes paid when the entire discussion up to this point between me and Asses has been numbers of people in certain income brackets?

No one. That's why none of us could even tell what you were talking about.

Number of people who earn between A and B, number of people who earn between B and C, this is a step function.

Okay, but so what?

I have never paid tax, so I didn't know there was not a huge leap. So sue me. That is a total red herring brought up by Master of Asses to distract from the fact governments make arbitrary brackets all the time to count distribution of wealth.

... I... see.

This little "bracket" thing of yours is cute but yet another strawman in your littany of absurdities. I have never denied that the government bases certain decisions on more-or-less arbitrary numbers, but what does THIS have to do with anything? I've never even denied that income brackets existed. I've said that there's no reason why there must ALWAYS be more people in lower income levels than in higher ones.

[K. A. Pital]

I don't know why you would find this interesting, though--it's a pretty useless measure.

How is that a useless measure? It shows the stratification of society by income, and pretty well. If the society would be reflected top-down (the peak would be shifted to the right and the slope be left-skewed), that would mean that it has the greater part of population living in riches whilst the less rich are fewer and fewer down the line. Therefore, a more equal distribution is desirable - less curvature in the lines, more concentration in the middle, as well as shifting the peak itself farther from the lower line (abject poverty) closer to median and if possible, even beyond.

I mean, look, in the US there's 30% of population below median before the peak, while at the Scotland graph you can see median being at peak.

That's healthier clearly, isn't it?

[Master of Ossus]

How is that a useless measure? It shows the stratification of society by income, and pretty well. If the society would be reflected top-down (the peak would be shifted to the right and the slope be left-skewed), that would mean that it has the greater part of population living in riches whilst the less rich are fewer and fewer down the line. Therefore, a more equal distribution is desirable - less curvature in the lines, more concentration in the middle, as well as shifting the peak itself farther from the lower line (abject poverty) closer to median and if possible, even beyond.

I mean, look, in the US there's 30% of population below median before the peak, while at the Scotland graph you can see median being at peak.

That's healthier clearly, isn't it?

Let me ask you to conceptualize the Scottish graph. Now, keep everything below (we'll say) the 20% marker the same, but shift the rest of the curve significantly to the right, such that the 20% marker became the new "peak," but the rest of people were "uplifted." Now, is this country better off or worse off than it was, earlier? Clearly the income distribution is less egalitarian than it was, earlier, but I would argue that this new country is MUCH better off--everyone to the right of the 20% marker now has more income, and in some cases significantly more. The 20% of people left behind haven't improved, at all, but they're not hurt, either. So you've created a society in which no one is worse off than they were before, and many people have much higher incomes. The egalitarian measure that everyone should be equal makes no allowance for this scenario: the latter country would show an income distribution more similar to the US than Scotland, clearly, but it is clear that the country as a whole would be better off.

You may view this as a purely theoretical device, and to a certain extent it is. But can you seriously claim that Botswana has a healthier economy than the US? It's much more egalitarian, but even a person whose income would place them squarely below the poverty line in the US could be considered quite affluent in Botsawana, because of the huge difference in the median income. In fact, even the very wealthy in Botswana would be in that vanishing left-hand tail in the US.

[brianeyci]

You're such a fucking liar.

Survey respondents expected women who earned less than $20,000 a year to spend 32 percent more of their time in a bad mood than they expected people who earned more than $100,000 a year to spend in a bad mood. In actuality, respondents who earned less than $20,000 a year reported spending only 12 percent more of their time in a bad mood than those who earned more than $100,000. So the effect of income on mood was vastly exaggerated.

So looks like people who earn less money do spend more of their time in a bad mood than people who earn more money. Twelve percent more, but that is a crock because poor people will make the best of their lives and say they're happy even if they'd be happier with more money. You said nothing about the affect being "greatly exagerrated" -- only that money doesn't correlate with happiness at all, which is an obvious lie according to your own source.

[Master of Ossus]

You're such a fucking liar.

Survey respondents expected women who earned less than $20,000 a year to spend 32 percent more of their time in a bad mood than they expected people who earned more than $100,000 a year to spend in a bad mood. In actuality, respondents who earned less than $20,000 a year reported spending only 12 percent more of their time in a bad mood than those who earned more than $100,000. So the effect of income on mood was vastly exaggerated.

So looks like people who earn less money do spend more of their time in a bad mood than people who earn more money. Twelve percent more, but that is a crock because poor people will make the best of their lives and say they're happy even if they'd be happier with more money. You said nothing about the affect being "greatly exagerrated" -- only that money doesn't correlate with happiness at all, which is an obvious lie according to your own source.

When I posted that study, I was responding to this:

Wealth does not equal happiness... what a fucking joke.

No, it doesn't. The correlation isn't even very strong. But go on, continue to take my comments TOTALLY out of context. Do you still stand by your original argument, that:

Wealth=Happiness?

[brianeyci]

What would you think that to mean you dick?

I would think that to mean, if you have more money you are happier. Add money to the equation, more happiness. Happiness sure doesn't decrease or stay the same.

In fact you are happier... 10% happier. That is a significant margin, two hours a day. How can you deny this through your teeth, that with more money a person becomes happier?

What is your goal, to prove that wealth does not need to be redistributed as Stas Bush desires, to push the curve up to the middle? Is this a noble goal? Why would you take this position at all?

[Master of Ossus]

What would you think that to mean you dick?

I would think that to mean, if you have more money you are happier. Add money to the equation, more happiness. Happiness sure doesn't decrease or stay the same.

In fact you are happier... 10% happier. That is a significant margin, two hours a day. How can you deny this through your teeth, that with more money a person becomes happier?

I never said it didn't--that was your original strawman. You asked me why I didn't go around to the poor and ask them how much happier they'd be with money. I pointed out that economists had already done that for me, and then you started going off about how income=happiness, and how I disputed that notion. And if I had asked you how much happier wealth would make you, I'm guessing you would've said more than 10% since virtually everyone estimated that the correlation would have stronger than that.

What is your goal, to prove that wealth does not need to be redistributed as Stas Bush desires, to push the curve up to the middle? Is this a noble goal? Why would you take this position at all?

I think it's a worthier goal to raise EVERYONE's income. As I said, I want people to be able to invest for themselves and make their own financial choices--I think that that WILL improve life for middle-class Americans. But moreover I think that self-determination and individualism are important goals, too. I guess you can disagree with me by claiming that the middle class is too dumb to take care of itself, but I still think that we should let them make their own choices.

[K. A. Pital]

It's much more egalitarian, but even a person whose income would place them squarely below the poverty line in the US could be considered quite affluent in Botsawana, because of the huge difference in the median income. In fact, even the very wealthy in Botswana would be in that vanishing left-hand tail in the US.

This is due to international differences in distribution. Which are also pretty staggering. In fact, if you read the "True world income distribution research paper" by Branko Milanovic, World Bank, you'd find that the difference in incomes between nations is contributing to global inequality more than the difference in incomes inside a nation, IIRC.

But so? Are you saying that un-egalitarian distribution in the world somehow makes it okay to say that egalitarian distribution is not needed inside a nation either?

And this "purely theoretical device" really could be even more simple - an economy can grow, you know, and incomes can rise for all parts of the population - however, it doesn't adress inequality in the slightest, merely moves the economy together closer to the first world from the third world.

Moreover, having a more egalitarian society is considered healthy for the society. It may be detrimental to economic matters. However, simply ignoring it isn't a good way to do things.

If you just give people in Botswana a new income level, that would mean everyone gets richer for amount X (generally it doesn't work like that, however, since in reality now the rich get more faster than any other segment of society, so growth benefits WOULD be disproportional, maintaining proportions of existing inequality). But if you maintain an egalitarian structure, that means more people, surpirse, benefit from the growth, and the middle class gets most of the benefits, as opposed to simply moving the same in-egalitarian structure forward.

The US was unegalitarian and remains pretty fucking unegalitarian, and it has, for it's income range, the highest poverty rates among developed nations, and something like 40% of the population passes through poverty in the course of a decade, isn't it? I can understand that even a U.S. pauper is doing better than a poor, even working peasant somewhere in the Third World, but within the US, he's still poor. I can't see how one could call that "healthy".

And now you have frozen wages for the middle. Which means that only the rich are getting better incomes (and the graphs we use don't even include the super-rich). But everyone else is not. And last time I saw a table, that [url=http://bbs.stardestroyer.net/viewtopic.php?t=114716]has shown quite decisively[url] that after-all-payments incomes grew more slowly from 1970s to now, than total fixed expenses, so that 1-working family in the 1970 was doing better than families with both working now!

What a fucking joke, having 1 working person do the same income-wise as both working their backs off.

I can't really see any fucking way to defend that situation.

[K. A. Pital]

I guess you can disagree with me by claiming that the middle class is too dumb to take care of itself

I think the fact that it had incomes frozen with rising fixed expenses proves it's pretty fucking dumb to hope that they'd somehow change this with the "individualism" buzzword , and the only thing you need to do is to keep those middle class folks shouting "hur-hur-hur America!" while most of growth benefits in the entire economy go straight to the rich. Hehehe.

[Darth Wong]

The US was unegalitarian and remains pretty fucking unegalitarian, and it has, for it's income range, the highest poverty rates among developed nations, and something like 40% of the population passes through poverty in the course of a decade, isn't it? I can understand that even a U.S. pauper is doing better than a poor, even working peasant somewhere in the Third World, but within the US, he's still poor. I can't see how one could call that "healthy".

It's hard to determine how well a poor person is doing in the US, because it depends on what you're measuring. Obviously, even a poor person in the US has more money, based on exchange rates, than most people in developing countries. Then again, his purchase costs for his daily needs may also be sharply elevated.

One interesting measure is infant mortality rate. In the United States, the infant mortality rate varies wildly with income and race. For example, in Tampa FL the infant mortality rate among blacks is 15.8, while the infant mortality rate among whites in the same city is just 5.4 (CDC link). And that's the infant mortality rate for all blacks in the city; the poorest strata of blacks probably have an even higher infant mortality rate. If you compare that to the UN's figures for infant mortality rates, it's not difficult to find countries which we consider to be shitholes and which still have the same or better infant morality rate.

[K. A. Pital]

Ah, indeed. The stratification may make estimates different. *looks at the US* Yeah.
Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World, according to a shocking United Nations report on global inequality.

It reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years - and is now the same as Malaysia. America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday.

Growth alone will not reduce poverty so long as the poor are denied full access to health, education and other social provision. Among the world's poor, infant mortality is falling at less than half of the world average. To tackle that means tackling inequality - a message towards which John Bolton and his fellow US neocons are deeply hostile.

Blacks in Washington DC have a higher infant death rate than people in the Indian state of Kerala

Yeah. Poor Keralite kommies outdoing Wash. DC... I actually used to stroll around the Wash. DC ghetto and I can't say it's much of an improvement over Third World shantytowns...

[Darth Wong]

That's the thing; it is incredibly oversimplistic to compare living standards of poor Americans and people in distant countries by simply doing an exchange rate comparison of their annual income.