Taxes on the rich already gone...

The top 1% take about 20% of the nation's income and pay about 20% of the federal taxes. They're not doing too badly.

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There was no unusual spike in housing prices during the time Clinton was in office, nor were interest rates abnormally low.

 

Right. WWII, that massive spend and borrow stimulus program, knocked out the remnants of the great depression in no time. It made Obama's stimulus look like a bread crumb tossed to a beggar.

But the spending cut "austerity" measures in 1937 certainly was not a big help. A second recession in 1938 soon followed, in which unemployment jumped back up into the 20% range.

But it seems we are destined not to learn from our own history.

 

We would get better public policies; that is only reason for wartime tax rates on the wealthiest, even for a War on Drugs.

The only reason the wealthiest pay more in taxes, is because they have the most wealth to tax. What is so difficult to understand about that?

 

I'm sure you are not suggesting we declare some kind of global warfare, right? BTW, it wasn't just stimulus, it was mobilization like the world has never seen.

 

Nothing is difficult to understand about our system of taxes. We have a progressive income tax on individuals, and I believe that is just how it should be. Like I said before, eliminate all the regressive taxes which hurt the poor the most, like sales, VAT, excise and fuel. That would give the poor more money to buy their needs. If the current rates don't collect enough revenue then create surcharges such that the government has enough money to pay for structural deficits and the debt they incur during off business cycles.

Then legalize drugs, and channel them through pharmacies at their real costs and eliminate the criminal element of the drug trade.

 

Of course not. I'm just demonstrating how your own example demonstrated how a massive tax and spend and borrow policy stimulus powered us quickly out of the remnants of the great depression, in contrast to spending cuts which put the country back in recession.

Again, it seems we are destined not to learn from our own history.

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Sounds like a step in the right direction.

 

Why engage in any public sector intervention in private sector markets, at all, if there are no beneficiaries?

It can't be a real times of war if the wealthiest are not paying wartime tax rates.

 

What is this concern about "war time rates?" Why should there be a difference except during national mobilization?

 

The difference is the massive wartime mobilization for which machines of war were necessarily manufactured and paid for by higher taxes. The issue during a non-major mobilization is the lack of things for which we can pay to buy as opposed to simply giving away money to those who are less well off (not the truly needy). Gifts of welfare do not accomplish the same things as paying those to manufacture what we need to win a war. Human behavior being what it is tells the whole story when trying to parallel giving money as opposed to paying for function. One cannot even come close to comparing the two situations.

 

Of course, we need to pay taxes, but let's not forget who generates this money...not the government. The wealthy pay enough taxes.

 

Price always makes a difference, under any form of Capitalism.

 

I am not saying the wealthiest are not paying "enough" taxes, I am only claiming we need wartime tax rates, even for a War on Drugs, merely so those public policies won't become boondoggles and generational forms of theft, for the least wealthy who are least able to profit from any public policy schemes through mere use of money.

 

Which in what way relates to the question, "war time rates?" Why should there be a difference except during national mobilization?"

 

I don't see the distinction. Massive taxing and spending and borrowing to build military stuff is less productive than even direct redistribution of income to people who spend it on economically beneficial things the economy produces.

 

The difference is major. During WWII we had from 14 to 16 million service members in the armed forces during WWII from a population of about 134 million or a little over 10% of our population. Prior to the war most women worked in the home.

The 1940's were dominated by World War II. European artists and intellectuals fled to the United States from Hitler and the Holocaust, bringing new ideas created in disillusionment. War production pulled us out of the Great Depression. Women were needed to replace men who had gone off to war, and so the first great exodus of women from the home to the workplace began. Rationing affected the food we ate, the clothes we wore, the toys with which children played.​

It is estimated that between 6 and 8 million women substituted for the men in uniform working in factories and other war time occupations. In 1940 our unemployment was around 8.5 million. Women became habituated to the work and freedom and never again did we have as high a % of women working in the home. In fact productivity reached a peak during mobilization and money earned through production is much better appreciated than that which is received in welfare and basic consumerism took a back seat to the war effort which effectively made every $$$ better spent.

Some economists predicted that because of the change in the way unemployment was counted we would forever have to presume a higher rate of unemployment after the war as women who worked in the home were not considered part of the work force. The consensus was that there was a finite number of workers required to produce the goods consumed by individuals and industry thus with so many women working who would choose to remain in the workforce it would be normal to have a higher level of unemployment than had the war not occurred. This mobilization and such full employment it caused, cannot be compared to a peace time employment situation. Full mobilization production was virtually fully consumed, much by the soldiers and the war effort. There was virtually no "make work" situations and little to no need for welfare for able bodied people.

Trying to compare a situation like that to direct or indirect aid does not compute, as direct aid to able bodied people produces a degree of habituation and waters down the rate of production.

 

OK. And with a massive tax and spend and borrow program we could employ millions in infrastruction improvement and many other programs.

Just like civilian production could have pulled us out of the Great Recession.

We don't need to do that.

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Fascinating. I agree we don't need a tax and spend and borrow program as relatively large as WWII.

Fascinating. I agree we don't need a tax and spend and borrow program as relatively large as WWII.

 

I do not believe it would have the same result even if we were to provide every single person what they need through make work infrastructure expansion or direct welfare.

It is my opinion that to motivate people to work and produce and create such mobilization would require a war time attitude as "can't lose". I don't believe human behavior works out as well when just living, as it does in a must win situation such as war. The reason I went back to grad school to study human behavior and psychology was to try and develop an insight into what people will do under certain conditions. Working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor during my internship to earn my Ed.S gave me an understanding of marginalized people from the ground up. We like to think people will live up to their expectations, but in fact they tend to live down to their barest needs. Peacetime attitudes simply do not give people the same ambitions as war.

Nap time, will be back later.

 

Why not?

It is my opinion that to motivate people to work and produce and create such mobilization would require a war time attitude as "can't lose". I don't believe human behavior works out as well when just living, as it does in a must win situation such as war. The reason I went back to grad school to study human behavior and psychology was to try and develop an insight into what people will do under certain conditions. Working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor during my internship to earn my Ed.S gave me an understanding of marginalized people from the ground up. We like to think people will live up to their expectations, but in fact they tend to live down to their barest needs. Peacetime attitudes simply do not give people the same ambitions as war.

Nap time, will be back later.[/QUOTE]

That is a fair point. I agree that in WWII there was a motivation to produce that was the result of the nation being engaged in an all out war.

On the other hand, what was being produced (if you put aside the need to win the war) was an economic waste. All those tanks and planes did little or nothing to improve the infrastructure or enhance the production of economically beneficial goods and services, except for the fact that millions were employed that otherwise wouldn't have been, which you get regardless of what the spending is on. The Govt employed millions and created demand for production which employed millions more, sending the unemployment rate to near -0-. While you might not get the same level of enthusiasm with, say, infrastructure spending or even transfers of money to people who spend it in the economy, you are still having the effect of lowering unemployment and getting more money spent in the economy, driving greater demand and lowering unemployment. And again, we don't need to do it on the same scale as WWII to still have a positive effect.

 

Simply because it cannot be a real time of War sufficient to deny or disparage our privileges and immunities merely due to allegations of war instead of real war, the "proof" of which is wartime Tax rates on the wealthiest.

 

I agree to disagree that money circulation needs a distinction if it generates a positive multiplier effect on our economy. One of the reasons for the relative "communism" of our wartime economy was to focus on the war effort and not consumer products.

Infrastructure improves the efficiency of our economy and sufficiently large enough infrastructure can engender production runs as long as our wars on abstractions.

Simply paying the least efficient labor market participants to not provide labor input to the economy for the equivalent to a minimum wage should be better than engaging in any "War" on any abstractions such as crime, drugs, poverty, or terror and that form of "war effort". Money would be circulating more and creating more demand based on consumer preference instead of central planning for our wars on abstractions.

 

Are you suggesting we just increase government spending until everyone is employed?

What would the government spend the money on? And, what would they do with it? When, and how would you stop, government spending?

How much would you have to pay someone that is quite happy living on their barest needs? What else would motivate them to work?

 

Have you ever been in the projects?

Paying people not to work creates it's own war zone.

 

Welfare and other entitlements have created generations of poor folks. The inner city problem is a result of welfare being offered as a way of life.

 

It is my opinion that to motivate people to work and produce and create such mobilization would require a war time attitude as "can't lose". I don't believe human behavior works out as well when just living, as it does in a must win situation such as war. The reason I went back to grad school to study human behavior and psychology was to try and develop an insight into what people will do under certain conditions. Working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor during my internship to earn my Ed.S gave me an understanding of marginalized people from the ground up. We like to think people will live up to their expectations, but in fact they tend to live down to their barest needs. Peacetime attitudes simply do not give people the same ambitions as war.

I think what I said actually says it all. We have given welfare to people for half a century and all we now have is the bottom layer of the poor just better off than the poor of India, no real improvement individually.

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I'll tell you what, when you have something to say and can say it understandably, get back to me. For now all you do is rant without any direction.

 

Yes, as long as our public policies generate a positive multiplier effect on our economy. In my opinion, our civic obligation ends with the abolition of (official) poverty through full employment of resources in human capital markets for labor. Having recourse to unemployment compensation merely for being unemployed will still engender full employment of monetary resources that would otherwise be obtained in a more efficient market for labor. We could be lowering our Tax burden by drawing participants from more expensive, means tested welfare.

The laws of demand and supply work.

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It depends on implementation; unemployment compensation has not been proven to have that deleterious effect.