
Taxing the Rich to Fund Welfare Is the Nobel Winner’s Growth Mantra - ingve
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-10-21/taxing-the-rich-to-fund-welfare-is-nobel-winner-s-growth-mantra
======
kv_hrishikesh
So there goes one more Economics Nobel for telling us that it is good to
snatch from the rich and give it all to the poor. Ok, the poor will spend it
surely. On beer, bread and weed probably. Thus the money ends up back to the
producers of those items, namely the rich. While our poor wait again for the
next dole, they steadfastly refuse to earn by a honest day's work for
themselves because they no longer need to.

Poverty is not really solved by the doles. It needs real productivity
increases among all sections of the society, rich and poor. It can be brought
about by investing in education, health care and insurance, not by doling out
money to the poor. Inequality exists in societies for a reason - there are
sections of the society which are genuinely more productive in this modern,
industrial world. Why not try to provide equal opportunities to all sections
of the society to be richer instead of temporary fixes like these ?

------
mrpopo
In the US, the gap between rich, middle-class and poor has been widening for
50 years straight. This is absolutely, entirely, 100% caused by insane
economic policies, going back all the way from the Reagan era. There is no
denying this.

[https://twitter.com/WardQNormal/status/1206280031552454656/p...](https://twitter.com/WardQNormal/status/1206280031552454656/photo/2)

~~~
ailideex
> My new hobby is taking graphs of economic data over time and indicating the
> year that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, in case people find that helpful or
> informative.

This is somewhat reminiscent of [https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-
correlations](https://www.tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations)

From "Major Causes of Injury Death and the Life Expectancy Gap Between the
United States and Other High-Income Countries" \-
[https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.15564](https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2015.15564)

> This study estimated the contribution of 3 causes of injury death to the gap
> in life expectancy at birth between the United States and 12 comparable
> countries in 2012. We focused on motor vehicle traffic (MVT) crashes,
> firearm-related injuries, and drug poisonings, the 3 largest causes of US
> injury death responsible for more than 100 000 deaths per year.

> Men in the comparison countries had a life expectancy advantage of 2.2 years
> over US men (78.6 years vs 76.4 years), as did women (83.4 years vs 81.2
> years). The injury causes of death accounted for 48% (1.02 years) of the
> life expectancy gap among men. Firearm-related injuries accounted for 21% of
> the gap, drug poisonings 14%, and MVT crashes 13%.

------
aklemm
Interesting how it takes a hero to state the obvious nowadays.

------
starpilot
There was also an explanation of velocity of money on tumblr that went viral:

> Let’s say you get paid $10, you use that $10 to buy lunch from a street
> vendor, then the street vendor uses that $10 to take a taxi home, then the
> taxi driver used that $10 to pay his babysitter, next the babysitter uses
> that $10 to buy groceries, etc. That one $10 bill produced $50 of economic
> value. This is really good for the economy and why it’s bad to give rich
> people more and more money because all rich people do is horde it. They
> don’t stimulate the economy multiple times over with it.

[https://www.truthorfiction.com/velocity-of-money-tumblr-
post...](https://www.truthorfiction.com/velocity-of-money-tumblr-post/)

~~~
chrismcb
Unless they are Scrooge McDuck and storing their money in a pool to swim in
it, the rich do stimulate the economy. How did the first person get paid?
Perhaps because they work in a company the rich person invested in...

~~~
xbmcuser
Most do behave like Scrooge McDuck they park the money in real estate, bonds,
stock and gold. If the billions of dollars tax breaks the very rich get were
spend on the poor it would stimulate the economy and would create jobs a lot
more. The way the economies of most countries work these days is 90%-10% is
the take of rich and poor. But as poor have to spend all they have and rich
don't. The wealth keeps shifting towards the rich if it is 90%-10% today it
will be 95%-5% 5-10 years from now.

~~~
Turing_Machine
> Most do behave like Scrooge McDuck they park the money in real estate,

Which, besides providing places for people to live, also generates property
taxes every single year. Forever.

> bonds,

Which fund our roads, schools, public utilities, libraries, hospitals...

> stock(s)

Which fund the companies that produce all the essential (and luxury) goods and
services we need for a modern lifestyle, and provide the vast majority of
jobs.

> and gold.

Very few large investors put their assets in precious metals. The prices are
quite volatile, and precious metals don't generate interest, dividends, or
rents (like the aforementioned bonds, stocks, and real estate).

