Posts tagged economics
The Incomplete Cynic
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Reblogging this for a few things.
One, it was tagged under taxes. I can’t see the word taxes in this quote at all so I’m confused as to how a quote on voluntary, charitable giving got misconstrued into a quote to support theft and violence.
Two, I do notice the word should. Should is different than must in that it urges someone to do something, apart from threatening wealth redistribution with threats of force or imprisonment. Philanthropy can’t be forced.
Something tells me this is the only thing the economically illiterate left have actually read by Adam Smith.
Two other things: first, the obvious fact that our system of progressive taxation guarantees that the rich will be paying something more than an equal proportion of their revenue. Not only that, our system has reached a point where only half of income earners paid income taxes last year. In case you’re curious, that is most certainly the bottom half. So, if anyone’s not paying their “fair share” it’s me, the father of two who’s been in the workforce since I was 16 and never not gotten a refund.
Second, and slightly less obvious: to say something is “not very unreasonable” is not the same as saying it’s the right thing to do. There are most certainly other solutions. Of course, we’ve already chosen this one, unfortunately, a bunch of people who pay no taxes or something like 8% after credits and deductions, think it’s a travesty that someone who earns more only has to give up 30%. If that’s you’re idea of “in proportion to their revenue”, then we are, as a society, well and truly screwed.
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whakahekeheke: The Poor vs. State Aid
The poor resist the wonderful plans we think up for them because they do not share our faith that those plans work, or work as well as we claim. We shouldn’t forget, too, that other things may be more important in their lives than food…
This could explain why they focus on the here and…
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It’s a sick society that worries about the marginal cost to the guy making $100,000 a year more than the basic living conditions of those in poverty.” I think it’s a sick society that sees their fates as being in conflict; who sees this as a zero sum game. Every day, the man making $100,000 a year buys things from people that employ people who make less than he does. When you raise his taxes, who does it hurt? Does it hurt him because he has to cut a few expenses? Or does it hurt the guy who used to cut his grass? The woman who used to serve his coffee? The installer who used to service his cable?
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In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.
There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.
Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
