WSJ : Bidenomics no basis in math
Will we have to wait until we default on what we owe our elders before we face hard math?
Remember that Europe pays for its social programs with flat payroll and consumption taxes, we alone try to live off the rich.
Pandering doesn’t impress math
Published
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
“Remember that Europe pays for its social programs with flat payroll and consumption taxes, we alone try to live off the rich.”
Uh, baloney. I lived and worked in Europe for many years and, in addition to payroll taxes and VAT I paid INCOME tax at very high rates. Here are some recent INCOME tax rates for Germany . . .
https://www.expat.hsbc.com/expat-explorer/expat-guides/germany/tax-in-germany/
If we were trying to “live off the rich” FICA would not be capped the way it is.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Didn’t read the link again.
The article points out that there just isn’t enough available from the over$400K earners Biden targets to solve the problem.
LikeLike
“Didn’t read the link again.”
It is a big part of the solution. We have been down this road before.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“The article”…
Opinion piece.
LikeLike
Math is not subject to opinion.
LikeLike
But opinions can and often do use math in an attempt to prove a preconceived notion. You make the same kind of accusations when it comes to climate science. All of the time.
LikeLike
What?!?! The Reagan tax cuts didn’t trickle down to me?? I’m shocked! Shocked I tell you!
When the uber-rich no longer have enough money to start their own private space agency, get back to me. Until then, I won’t believe there’s not enough money in the country to go around.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You do understand that Spacex can bring payloads to orbit for a fraction of what NASA could do, to the point that it is cheaper for NASA to go by Spacex. Because of Musk’s investment in Spacex, and the large increase in efficiency in getting to orbit, there is more money to go around.
Are you opposed to all progress?
Because without investment by already rich people, there is none.
LikeLike
Not all or nothing. There are two parts to a vibrant economy: sellers and buyers. Nothing wrong with sellers getting wealthy. However, if a free market economy creates a large gap then sellers are losing market share among 10’s of million who won’t buy because they can’t afford to.
You can be another Bill Gates, but you won’t sell if everyone is homeless. The bigger the middle class, the bigger the market. Plus the beauty of any economic system is that what is a cost for one company, labor, are buyers in the marketplace and income for other sellers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, we do need the really, really rich.
The periodontist down the street might be able to invest in a bulldozer, but he can’t finance a company to make bulldozers.
We have to have the Gates, and the Bransons and the Musks who are visionaries who can swing big ideas.
It’s not a zero sum game, where their wealth comes at the expense of making other people poor. They create new streams of wealth that did not exist before.
Spacex did not come from your pocket, it came from the increase in communications, location services, mapping and other low Earth orbit opportunities. That business did not exist before because the expense of getting to orbit was too high.
So, we need the multi-billionaires too.
LikeLike
You avoided my observation. I did not say wealth was bad. Poverty is. NASA paved the way for commercial space exploration. The same with most pure research. The internet. In return, some of the wealth generated should go to improving healthcare, education and security of the other 98% of the country. Nothing about making everyone equal, though I am sure you will beat that drum till the skin cracks.
There is a cost to living, working and succeeding in the US as opposed to Central African Republic or N. Korea. Nothing is free.
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’re missing something on space exploration.
When NASA was doing it, cost was not a consideration. We threw away boosters like they were cheap.
Spacex lands its boosters on their tails, like proper rocket ships, and some have been used over a dozen times.
Musk has made space cheap and reliable, something NASA never could.
A competitor, Relativity Space has used 3D printing to make rocket engines so cheap, single use may compete with Spacex’s reusable boosters.
Private sector is making leaps NASA couldn’t do in a decade every year
LikeLike
“You’re missing something on space exploration.”
No, you are. None of these Billionaires would or could have done any of this from scratch. That is the simple point being made which government hater that you are, you do not want accept.
You tout the efficiency and speed of these for-profit companies. It is easy to run full speed through a minefield when someone else has spent BILLIONS marking the mines for you.
LikeLike
Spacex’s reusable booster system has nothing in common with NASA’s attempts at partially reusable spacecraft.
LikeLike
“Spacex’s reusable booster system has nothing in common with NASA’s attempts at partially reusable spacecraft.”
Lame. SpaceX could not exist were it not for the BILLIONS invested by the government – including subsidizing their programs.
You want to totally discount the fact that more things are possible now than when NASA pioneered space flight in the 1960’s. All they had for computers, for example, that had a tiny fraction of the power of a modern wristwatch. Those fabulous returns to the landing pad were simply impossible fifty years ago. Or forty years ago. Or thirty years ago.
LikeLike
There goes that OPM mindset again. Because you lefties are so poor in math or just refuse to accept it, here are the facts.
There are roughly 735 billionaires with combined assets of $4.7 trillion. There are over 333 million people in the US. If you stole that $4.7 trillion and gave everyone an equal share, that would be a little over $14k each and would be gone in months. Who’s OPM do you steal now?
Secondly, billionaires assets aren’t cash. Investments that create jobs are leveraged against real assets and potential for profit. Assets are businesses, stocks, real property, etc so to liquidate all that to pass out to the OPM crowd someone has to BUY them. Duh…
https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#:~:text=America%20still%20leads%20the%20world,worth%20a%20collective%20%242.3%20trillion.
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/2022-population-estimates.html#:~:text=DEC.,components%20of%20change%20released%20today.
In addition the top 20% of taxpayers already pay almost 90% of all income taxes collected while the bottom 20% sucks off over 10% of that.
So, your weepy pity party socialist narrative doesn’t hold MATHEMATICAL WATER.
3, 2, 1 waaaaah goes the pandering left
LikeLike
I’m opposed to greed. I’m opposed to a handful of people Hoovering up so much money there’s not enough to take care of the sick, and elderly, and the poor.
When there’s not enough money to educate our kids, there shouldn’t be people so rich they build their own “old west towns” with zero populations just so they can play cowboy. (The Koch brothers)
When there’s not enough money to keep our bridges from falling down, there shouldn’t be people so rich they can afford to buy whatever legislation they want. (ALEC)
When there’s not enough money to keep the sick and disabled from being homeless, there shouldn’t be people so rich they can afford to buy electric car companies and social media companies and play with them as if they were tinker toys. (Musk)
Spacex may be able to operate cheaper than NASA, but is it safer? Is Musk going to take responsibility when one of his toys falls out of space and lands on somebody’s house? To me he hasn’t exhibited any great level of competence. Who’s going to fire him if he gets it wrong and people get killed?
And about that “investment by rich people” — I worked for the DOD for years. The Army developed ARPANET that became the internet. Our department developed the GPS you use in your cars. Fiber optics, robotics, and an endless list of technology that was developed by the government was essentially GIVEN to guys who got rich from government research and development. Elmo wouldn’t be shooting any rockets into space if the government hadn’t given him the technology.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Your envy is a sickness that blinds you to reality.
It is investment by the rich that creates the wealth that supports us all.
The Parable of the Bulldozer
No society of equals has ever raised itself from poverty.
You really would benefit from that Milton Freidman series
LikeLike
Ah yes, the old “you hate us because you envy us” delusion. I can assure you, I am richer than Elon Musk will ever be. I have everything I need and half of what I want. I have enough. That’s something the greedy will never have.
It is the labor of the poor that creates the wealth that makes the greedy rich.
Here’s another parable for you: Deuteronomy 25:4 “You shall not muzzle the ox that grinds the grain.”
The greedy like to feel all sanctimonious about not having slaves, but the slaves got food and clothing and housing, such as it was. When a slave got too old or sick to work, he still had a place to live. Today’s minimum wage earners can’t afford housing and clothing and food. When a minimum wager earner today gets too old or too sick to work, he gets fired. He’s out on the street. Today we don’t own slaves. That’s too expensive. Today we rent them.
LikeLiked by 2 people
RE: “I have everything I need and half of what I want.”
Who is the greedy one? You are the one keeping an account book, are you not?
LikeLike
You have got to stop projecting!!
I don’t need to keep an “account book.” Obviously you do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
You didn’t read the link I provided, did you?
Or watch FREE TO CHOOSE
LikeLike
Since you have so much, let’s liquidate your assets and pass them around to the poor.
If you are one of those minimalists, not many want to live like you.
LikeLike
RE: “I’m opposed to a handful of people Hoovering up so much money there’s not enough to take care of the sick, and elderly, and the poor.”
An economist would tell you there is no such thing as “not enough money.” This is because money as a medium of exchange is inherently of sufficient abundance to support trade.
Some people worry that there isn’t enough money to go around because they think money is a store of value. But that’s stupid.
LikeLike
“. . .money is a store of value. But that’s stupid.”
Maybe stop lecturing others until you have learned enough to stop saying such dumb things? Money IS a store of value. Everyone lucky enough to have a savings account knows that. But you don’t? Very odd.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is devolving into nit picking definitions.
Money is a means for exchanging wealth, but it is not wealth. Wealth is created by raising resources to a higher value.
For example, printing money creates no wealth.
LikeLike
“This is devolving into nit picking definitions.”
Uh, no it is not. One of the primary functions of “money” no matter how you define it is to store value. Saying that it is not a store of value is beyond nonsensical. It could not serve as a “means for exchanging wealth” if it did not store value.
And add to the nonsense, the accusation of stupidity for knowing that money is a store of value and you have a really silly post. But go ahead, pretend my response was “nit picking.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
What wealth is stored by printing fiat money?
LikeLike
“What wealth is stored by printing fiat money?”
Uh, totally irrelevant to the fact that a primary function of money is to store value.
But if the Treasury would like to print up 10,000 $100 bills and give them to me, I will take them. And so would you.
By the way, is there any other kind of money in the modern world besides “fiat money?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kruegerands
LikeLike
If I buy lumber and use it to make a cabinet to sell, and use the proceeds to buy a sack of flour, what is really happening is I am purchasing the wealth created by the lumber company and adding my skill and effort to make a cabinet that has more value than the lumber I bought.
The price I am paid represents my efforts and the lumber companies efforts, which I then exchange for the efforts of the miller and farmer who provided the grain.
The money is not wealth, it is a tool for exchanging our talents and efforts.
That’s why fiat money represents no wealth and dilutes the value of the efforts we all contribute to the marketplace.
LikeLike
“Kruegerands”
Are not money.
Their value is a function of the price of gold.
The actual money of South Africa is the Rand.
Want to try again?
LikeLiked by 1 person
And yet they store value better than any Fiat currency
LikeLike
“And yet they store value better than any Fiat currency”
You might think so, but gold has its ups and downs and Kruegerands do not pay interest or dividends.
https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart
I guess you have given up on citing an actual currency that is not a “fiat currency?”
LikeLiked by 1 person