I've never met a person who kvetched about overdraft fees that was actually struggling to make ends meet, it's always people who have zero financial literacy and don't seem to understand the concept of a loan. I'm far from the most financially savvy individual myself but it astounds me the sheer amount of blindness around even the most basic aspects of banking, credit cards, so on and so forth I see more and more not just in the youngest age cohort but my own.
Having to pay for everything - literally daggum everything - is the historical norm. Welfare, all this free stuff, it's something that's less than 200 years old. And it may not even last that long. It emerged out of industrialization and the rise of the administrative state.
I just find it mind-boggling that self-described educated people think loans can be given out for free. We all know they, of all people, would never do that. It wouldn't be called a loan, otherwise. It'd be called charity and leftists are also less likely to partake in that as well.
According to ChatGPT, UK government spending is 44% of GDP and taxes are 38%. In Canada spending is 40% and taxes are 34%. But my top marginal tax rate is above 50%, and then there are countless taxes on top of that. I don’t think there’s much left to give.
I think we’ve reached the era of predatory taxation where governments are just grabbing whatever they can to try to stay afloat. Strikingly I get very little for your taxation. The streets aren’t clean or safe, my kids don’t even get textbooks at school anymore and healthcare is indifferent. We’re basically supporting the elderly, foreign welfare scroungers, bureaucracy and corporate welfare.
I think DOGE’s findings are overblown and it’s just publicizing what any educated person already knew. But what I think is striking is how much white collar work is essentially artificial and propped up by government spending: academia, media, consulting, etc.
It’s also important to note that these goofy foreign aid projects don’t actually benefit the countries they ostensibly are meant to benefit. Everything goes to Western firms, academics, etc. That accounts for Zelensky’s point that he had never seen most of the money supposedly sent to Ukraine. Entirely true - very little cash was sent over, especially from the USA.
Does anyone in Canada pay above 50%? American liberals often point out the marginal tax rate was 90% in the 1950s, but nobody actually paid taxes at that rate.
Yes, the top marginal rate in Ontario is 53.5% and it kicks in at $246k or $172k USD. It’s pretty easy to get to, especially if you have some investments or a second property. The tax brackets in the US are a lot less steep, so people in mid ranges also pay a lot less in the US.
While we agree that Gary Stevenson is an ignorant (but highly credentialed) nut, I think you and I come down differently on wealth taxation.
"Man was not made for the market; the market was made for man" - Pope JPII
This ought to be the beginning of all economic policy. Economists usually begin with efficiency. Up to a certain income level, efficiency at all costs is correct since it promotes growth and increased material prosperity -- market prosperity = people prosperity. However, man does not live by bread alone, and as national median income rises, it become possible to consider things behind Pareto-optimality. Things like clean air, clean water, unionization, protectionism, and income inequality.
The reason for that is that beyond your basic needs (your definition of "basic" varies with your neighbors' lifestyles), happiness and money aren't particularly correlated. Once you're not suffering, more money != more happiness.
Does heavy taxation of the rich stunt economic growth? Perhaps. But beyond basic needs, people are motivated by other things (prestige, social acclaim, sense of purpose, competition, meaning, etc...) far more than by money.
In that summary, Daniel Pink summarizes the goal of management as, "pay enough to take money off the table as an issue, and then motivate people by other means." That sounds like a great goal for managing a business or a society.
The thing is, taxing wealth works in a more cohesive, homogeneous, virtuous society. In a multicultural, pluralistic society with no unifying moral code, taxation is merely a means of redistribution from disfavored groups to favored groups. If the argument by people like Stevenson is that we must tax the wealthy because we have too many poor people in the country, then the game is already over. It's what I meant when I said it's a last-ditch attempt at staying alive.
Damn. That's profound, that last sentence especially. I'm going to steal that.
It's the great contradiction in our society - we're not supposed care about what other people do, yet we're still supposed to care about them as people. The two aren't unrelated. What are we if not our actions? How are we supposed to live among each other without casting any judgment on one another?
And why should I ever give money to someone whose face I can't even see? Why do I have a responsibility to help my fellow man when that fellow man has no obligation to me? Doesn't even speak the same language as me? Doesn't hold the same values as me? Us all being humans and occupying this same planet has never been enough, like it or not. We're all in a fight for survival on our own, ultimately.
I've never met a person who kvetched about overdraft fees that was actually struggling to make ends meet, it's always people who have zero financial literacy and don't seem to understand the concept of a loan. I'm far from the most financially savvy individual myself but it astounds me the sheer amount of blindness around even the most basic aspects of banking, credit cards, so on and so forth I see more and more not just in the youngest age cohort but my own.
Having to pay for everything - literally daggum everything - is the historical norm. Welfare, all this free stuff, it's something that's less than 200 years old. And it may not even last that long. It emerged out of industrialization and the rise of the administrative state.
I just find it mind-boggling that self-described educated people think loans can be given out for free. We all know they, of all people, would never do that. It wouldn't be called a loan, otherwise. It'd be called charity and leftists are also less likely to partake in that as well.
According to ChatGPT, UK government spending is 44% of GDP and taxes are 38%. In Canada spending is 40% and taxes are 34%. But my top marginal tax rate is above 50%, and then there are countless taxes on top of that. I don’t think there’s much left to give.
I think we’ve reached the era of predatory taxation where governments are just grabbing whatever they can to try to stay afloat. Strikingly I get very little for your taxation. The streets aren’t clean or safe, my kids don’t even get textbooks at school anymore and healthcare is indifferent. We’re basically supporting the elderly, foreign welfare scroungers, bureaucracy and corporate welfare.
I think DOGE’s findings are overblown and it’s just publicizing what any educated person already knew. But what I think is striking is how much white collar work is essentially artificial and propped up by government spending: academia, media, consulting, etc.
It’s also important to note that these goofy foreign aid projects don’t actually benefit the countries they ostensibly are meant to benefit. Everything goes to Western firms, academics, etc. That accounts for Zelensky’s point that he had never seen most of the money supposedly sent to Ukraine. Entirely true - very little cash was sent over, especially from the USA.
Does anyone in Canada pay above 50%? American liberals often point out the marginal tax rate was 90% in the 1950s, but nobody actually paid taxes at that rate.
Yes, the top marginal rate in Ontario is 53.5% and it kicks in at $246k or $172k USD. It’s pretty easy to get to, especially if you have some investments or a second property. The tax brackets in the US are a lot less steep, so people in mid ranges also pay a lot less in the US.
One suspects Mr. Stevenson doesn't really grasp the concept of "rich without money".
While we agree that Gary Stevenson is an ignorant (but highly credentialed) nut, I think you and I come down differently on wealth taxation.
"Man was not made for the market; the market was made for man" - Pope JPII
This ought to be the beginning of all economic policy. Economists usually begin with efficiency. Up to a certain income level, efficiency at all costs is correct since it promotes growth and increased material prosperity -- market prosperity = people prosperity. However, man does not live by bread alone, and as national median income rises, it become possible to consider things behind Pareto-optimality. Things like clean air, clean water, unionization, protectionism, and income inequality.
The reason for that is that beyond your basic needs (your definition of "basic" varies with your neighbors' lifestyles), happiness and money aren't particularly correlated. Once you're not suffering, more money != more happiness.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1011492107
https://geraldguild.com/blog/2012/05/23/happiness-as-measured-by-gdp-really/
Does heavy taxation of the rich stunt economic growth? Perhaps. But beyond basic needs, people are motivated by other things (prestige, social acclaim, sense of purpose, competition, meaning, etc...) far more than by money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
In that summary, Daniel Pink summarizes the goal of management as, "pay enough to take money off the table as an issue, and then motivate people by other means." That sounds like a great goal for managing a business or a society.
The thing is, taxing wealth works in a more cohesive, homogeneous, virtuous society. In a multicultural, pluralistic society with no unifying moral code, taxation is merely a means of redistribution from disfavored groups to favored groups. If the argument by people like Stevenson is that we must tax the wealthy because we have too many poor people in the country, then the game is already over. It's what I meant when I said it's a last-ditch attempt at staying alive.
Damn. That's profound, that last sentence especially. I'm going to steal that.
It's the great contradiction in our society - we're not supposed care about what other people do, yet we're still supposed to care about them as people. The two aren't unrelated. What are we if not our actions? How are we supposed to live among each other without casting any judgment on one another?
And why should I ever give money to someone whose face I can't even see? Why do I have a responsibility to help my fellow man when that fellow man has no obligation to me? Doesn't even speak the same language as me? Doesn't hold the same values as me? Us all being humans and occupying this same planet has never been enough, like it or not. We're all in a fight for survival on our own, ultimately.