alexeisadeski3

You're totally correct, but so is the paper discussed in the WSJ link.

Different measures of life expectancy for different purposes.

It's a bit like the inequality data "showing" that the US has higher post-tax&transfer inequality than does France. -News flash- nations with stronger social safety nets have stronger social safety nets!

It seems that the pertinent measure would be pre-tax&transfer income inequality... a measure which just so happens to show the US and France have identical GINIs. But you won't read that in the NYT...

>>No totalitarian state has ever lasted for an extended period of time.

?

>>Perhaps in 10-15 years, there will be predictions of India as the new number one.

Already happening... http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=7402

Actually, the US probably does lead in life expectancy... As usual, you can make the data do anything you like, but this methodology makes a lot of sense.

http://blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-the-us-lead-in-life-exp...

How do you interpret articles which proclaim that other articles proclaiming huge shifts are overblown?

Because that's what this article is doing.

1. Automation would hit Chinese workers harder than Americans.

2. PPP incorporates living conditions already. GDP@PPP is already standard.

"China’s demography is a disaster. About 2015, the seemingly boundless labor pool will begin to shrink. One reason is rapid aging, which presages that China will become old before it becomes rich. By 2050, China will have lost one-third of its working-age population. Meanwhile, the U.S. will bestride the earth as the youngest industrialized nation after India."

Pretty obviously not a monopoly.

The point of moving regulation to the states is to foment competition amongst said states - this should exert downward pressure on corruption, but how much we don't really know. Certainly we currently have some states which are more corrupt than others. Which would certainly be an improvement on the status quo.

Copyright is certainly a popular issue here on HN, and I'm sure K Street makes a lot of money on it, but again it's like the EPA - something which the government has to by definition regulate in some way.

In fact, moving Social Security and Obamacare subsidies to the states would probably put a larger dent in K Street than all of the other issues you've mentioned combined (military, EPA, copyright, antitrust). You're talking about trillions in handouts, issues which impact every single citizen, massive bureaucracies fighting for power.

It's interesting that you bring up environmental issues. Those are especially tricky, since they deal with the commons: our air and water, which are typically not privately owned and thus are legally forbidden from being handled by the free market.

And the military? Well, sure there are issues there. We can all agree on that.

Now, the military and environmental regulation are inextricably linked to the economy, no doubt about that. And their impact on the economy can be large, no doubt about that either. But there is so much which the government gets involved with - and where there is SO much money to be made via lobbying and influence peddling - which the government really doesn't need to be involved in.

I guess I'm saying that if the EPA and military corruption were the only issues we had to deal with, we'd be in a much better space than we are now.

Unfortunately, these myths about low effective rates are rather difficult to shake.

But they are just that, myths.

1) Passive income (wealth income) is taxed as regular income. There is actually an extra 3.8% federal tax on passive income. You were probably thinking of capital gains in your reference, but cap gains aren't income. It's investment.

2) The low effective rates frequently cited for corporate income are well known to be false. For a primer: http://tax.org/TAXCOM/TAXBLOG.NSF/PERMALINK/MSUN-99DKXS?OPEN...

3) If the wealthy could live in Switzerland for a few months every year and pay 20% on their international investments, like every other wealthy person in the world, I think that they would quite like that option!

The only solution is to take power out of the hands of politicians.

Get rid of K Street and something worse will take its place.

Get rid of Congresses ability to regulate every detail of the economy and K Street will have a lot less to lobby for.

I'm sure it's the only paper ever written on the subject.

I provided concrete examples of issues which impact all wealthy people in the US. If they could get behind any one policy with some degree of unanimity, surely it'd be the insanely progressive and aggressive nature of US taxation.

But no, there's a study on some other issue which shows that they're so well organized as to have a huge impact on US policy. Right.

a) We're talking about people with annual incomes in the tens and hundreds of millions. Their effective rate in a state like CA will be in the 40s or 50s.

b) The low effective rates published by the GAO and others are well known to be utterly false. Here's a primer: http://tax.org/TAXCOM/TAXBLOG.NSF/PERMALINK/MSUN-99DKXS?OPEN...

c) Again, we're talking about estates worth billions. 50% effective.

d) Talk to some tax accountants in other nations to get a feel for how strict US tax enforcement is. The differences are glaring and obvious. It'll also dispel any notions you had about the US tax rates being lower in practice.

2. Effective rates are higher due to closed loopholes and tighter enforcement and the inability to leave the US with ones assets.

3. I've lived in several different nations. You may be interested to know that, for example, the US government spends more on public healthcare per person than does the UK.

The jump is from "wealth inequality" to "power inequality." It's not clear that the former causes the latter.

If one wants the reader to be concerned about power inequality, then he should focus his efforts upon this dynamic. Whether or not wealth inequality is rising, falling, or remaining the same is essentially irrelevant to this issue.

And, in fact, it's quite obvious that the wealthy do not wield much power: Are we really to believe that the wealthy in some parts of the US prefer a 45% corporate tax rate, a 50%+ income tax rate, the inability to leave the country with their assets intact, a 50% death tax, and FATCA?

It is to laugh.

The problem is that the policy prescriptions he recommends are not really related to his data.

Probably: http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/wha...

I recommend reading what Tyler Cowen has to say on the FT piece:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/wha...

Would that also be a suitable response to "Capital in the 21st Century"? If not, why not?

"In some ways the new FT criticisms may not matter much, although I think not in a way which is reassuring for Piketty." - haha

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/05/wha...

Correlation is not evidence for causation.

2% would be more accurate...

This version is better:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...

According to the internet, the combined net worth of both GWB AMD GWHB is $40MM. Not a lot in the big scheme of things.

It lists $80MM for Clinton.

@Tormeh, yes most US states do, but they're small (zero to nine percent, typically). I said US import duties were low, not nonexistent.

Wealth does not equal political power in our world.

The Bushes and Clintons did not derive political power from wealth. Likewise, their great political power does not bestow upon them great wealth (though they certainly are wealthy, they're not in the same universe of, say, Donald Sterling).

And those with wealth, such as the much discussed Koch brothers? Their influence on policy seems to be near zero. Bill Gates had his company dragged through the mud several times.

The poor spend a larger share of their income on items covered by VATs and excise and import duties than do rich people. Conversely, rich people save and invest a larger portion of their income. Point being that Europeans, who "see more from the taxes they pay," are really just paying themselves.

The question was why did he say one thing then do another.

A wealth tax is "eating the cake."

It's society deciding that we've already done everything worth doing, now it's time to destroy what has been built. Such irrational occurrences are not without historical precedent. Just hope you don't personally have to live through one.

Neither lawyers nor fund managers are rentiers.