[jadedhacker]

The piece you're missing is that none of this is a mistake, the entire economy is designed to do this. Apathy and hoping it'll get better will if anything make it worse (not that I'm implying that's your position).

The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole program of fundamental goods provided free at the point of service like healthcare, education, and child care. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

[alasdair_]

>the entire economy is designed to do this

Unless you are a firm believer in the power of the Illuminati, we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

Just because a behavior or other feature in a complex system is emergent doesn't mean the system was initially designed that way.

[api]

I really dislike how absurd conspiracy theories are used to discredit any discussion of networks of power and how those networks operate.

There is no vast monolithic conspiracy but there are certainly many smaller ones (lobbyists, front groups, back room deals, etc.) with incentives that align. Alignment of incentives can generate a result that looks a whole lot like the result of a big organized conspiracy.

If anything the less organized network of aligned interests is tougher to resist than an "Illuminati." It's more resilient and antifragile. Big vertically integrated power structures are slow and brittle.

[heurist]

Read this book and tell me America is a free market: https://www.amazon.com/Framers-Coup-Making-United-Constituti...

In short:

1. A big chunk of the issues leading to today's constitution were tax and debt relief measures being instituted by the states in response to populist movements.

2. The framers were mostly very wealthy and biased toward preservation of capital.

3. Many of the measures instituted in the constitution were designed to preserve wealthy Americans' property (slaves, for instance). Populist debt relief efforts made this an especially high priority.

4. The only way to get the states to ratify the constitution was to concede many populist goals (state legislators were largely very wealthy as well, and apparently stubbornly pessimistic about the constitution despite its immediate necessity).

The book goes into great detail on the reasoning and compromises made to create the constitution. I think you will find that politics rigidly define the operation of our markets.

I get where you're coming from but you have some insufficient assumptions about the context in which this particular complex system operates.

[toofy]

> we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day.

I understand why this might seem like the most obvious answer, but your analysis seems to not take into account things like revolving door politics, regulatory capture, lobbyists priority access to lawmakers, citizens united, etc... etc... etc...

I don’t think most people would suggest that there is a small table surrounded by evil cackling billionaires conspiring to pull every single worldwide string, but rather there is a relatively small number of people who have enough money to buy themselves access to writing regulation and laws which favor their own interests which will often coincidentally align with the other billionaires who can afford this kind of access.

We can’t ignore the ways in which issues like this skew influence to a small number of powerful interests.

[grigjd3]

I'm not in line with jadedhacker, but its hard to ignore how often regulatory legislation is written by the industry being regulated.

[eli_gottlieb]

Then explain the extreme degree of market concentration seen in today's "free" economies.

[jadedhacker]

I am a firm believer in corporate consolidation, so yes, those smoke filled rooms do exist. However, you can consider this a systemic critique of capitalism which systemically concentrates wealth. The intention doesn't matter if the system is set up to create a particular result.

[eli_gottlieb]

>The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole program of fundamental goods provided free at the point of service like healthcare, education, and child care. We have a lot of work ahead of us.

Of course. That's no excuse to snarf your coffee instead of putting nose to the grindstone and doing the work. Agitate, educate, organize!

[pishpash]

All you're going to do with that is to piss off the upper middle class, not the people who actually got fat on the backs of the poor and who are so far ahead of the situation that you're never getting that money back. It's gone. The only equalizer left is massive inflation, which may happen for other reasons.

[aninhumer]

Inflation doesn't make much difference to inequality, because the wealth of the rich is primarily assets not cash.

[eli_gottlieb]

Insofar as those assets are actually debt instruments, they become worthless under high inflation.

[kamaal]

This is so true.

If anything inflation only makes matters worse for people who weren't careful enough to save and invest in assets(like land) early on in their life.

[jadedhacker]

Don't despair comrade, the revolution is coming (we must hope). Trump and Sanders both showed that the citizenry are restless and are ready to demand (some kind of) change.

[scarface74]

Yes and when they demand change and start "taxing the rich". You're going to find that a lot of doctors, lawyers, and people in IT who are making low six figures are going to be classified as "the rich".

[maxsilver]

> "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year."

"Doctors, lawyers, and IT people making low six figures" have absolutely nothing to fear. And for the extremely few fortunate people who actually make more than half a million dollars each year, they will easily be able to afford the new taxes.

[scarface74]

You really think the "populists" who want to "tax the rich" are going to stop At the 1%? It's not the 1% they despise - as evidence by the election - it's "the liberal west coast elites". The other 80% with households making less than $116K year would just as likely start taxing everyone who makes more than that.

Have you noticed that most tax deductions that are designed to help the middle class phase out in the $120 - $160K?

[toofy]

> You really think the "populists" who want to "tax the rich" are going to stop At the 1%?

Yep.

Most people are perfectly capable of distinguishing between a middle class 2 bedroom house and someone who owns 15 vacation homes, a private jet, and private islands.

The real question is whether or not middle class people will punch down and behave as if no one can distinguish between a multi billionaire and and a normal middle class person or whether the middle class will refuse to let the billionaires put all of the stress on the middle class.

[bzbarsky]

You should really read https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2018/0... -- whether you agree with the author's politics or not her numbers are in fact right. There's no way to pay for the sort of expansive welfare state some people want solely by additional taxes on "the top 1%". There just isn't enough money there, it turns out.

[jadedhacker]

Megan McArdle is a hardened libertarian sophist that blames poor people that die in fires for their own victimhood.

https://theoutline.com/post/2303/megan-mcardle-has-a-lot-of-...

However, to answer some of these points:

1) With respect to healthcare, investopedia has different numbers than the ones she cites: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/08061...

Some of the savings we posit from healthcare can be used to pay for other programs.

2) Eliminate Imperialism - Save > $1T dollars by not fighting wars based on lies. The Pentagon's budget was recently raised by about the amount a version of free college education would cost.

3) Tax the (Natural Person) Rich - Take their giant chunk of change and use it to buy more stuff, like infrastructure

4) Eliminate the Rentier Class - Housing is suddenly cheap and ordinary people have much more pocket change. Who will be incentivized to build housing then? Well, your representatives of course.

5) Tax the Tax Evaders - Apple, Google, and all the rest that use tricks to hide billions overseas (or have it parked here after the tax bill).

There's lots of money to find, just look under the couch.

[nightski]

I'm currently below that threshold. But I could choose to expand my business, maybe hire a few people and create some jobs and productive economic output. But if you are going to tax me heavily for that then no, I'll probably just stick to what I am doing and not bother.

[mcphage]

> But if you are going to tax me heavily for that then no, I'll probably just stick to what I am doing and not bother.

That’s fine. Since we have a free market economy, someone else who wants that money more than you will do it instead.

[mayniac]

I'm not entirely convinced by your line of thinking.

Firstly is your sole motivation for your business financial? Because if so you may as well sell it, buy property and let it out, you'll earn a comfortable living and if you use a letting agent you can get them to deal with the renters and do almost zero work, bar having to file taxes once a year (and hey you can get an accountant to do that for you). Even ignoring that, is your business something that actually generates a lot of profit or are the margins small? Whatever you're doing you could invest the time into an ICO and make millions. Point I'm getting at is that very few people start a business solely for financial reasons, there's usually some level of passion involved.

Secondly, why exactly would a high tax rate stop you expanding completely? You'll still be earning money, just less than before. And as the other commenter pointed out, someone else will step in if you don't, which could threaten your business.

[aninhumer]

Yes of course?

If you're trying to suggest that higher income socialists won't like it if they're the ones being taxed, then I don't think you understand socialists.

[scarface74]

On the other hand, I had to remind my libertarian friends who didn't want "government controlled healthcare" because it would increase taxes that we were already paying $12000 a year for family insurance - well it didn't all come out of our check but that was our contribution plus the company's contribution.

[UncleMeat]

So? I'm down to pay more taxes.