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Taxing Away Inequality
Boston Review ^ | 2-28-2013 | David Grusky

Posted on 03/01/2013 6:01:44 AM PST by Sir Napsalot

Last month, U.C. Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez spoke [See video below] to the Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford University about his pioneering research into global income inequality. A critical question his work raises is whether high taxes on the wealthy can curb inequality. Before his talk, Saez sat down with Stanford sociologist David Grusky to discuss further why taxation, though a blunt instrument, might be the best available solution.

(Excerpt) Read more at bostonreview.net ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; Society
KEYWORDS:
A typical question in the academics - "Should Government reduce inequality using redistribution policies?"

Don't forget the UC-Berkeley professor of economics (Christina Romer) spearheaded Obama's failed Community Reinvestment and Recovery Act (Stimulus/Stimulus II/other Keynesian policies.

These academic types keep focusing on the larger and larger "income inequality", but never fail to ask the question of 'government redistribution policies' of the past (how many decades?) did miserably to 'equal' income gap, and their contributing factors to the so-called inequality itself. .

Talking about we need new 'out side the box' thinking in our academic. In their conclusions, it is always one solution - More and Higher Taxes needed.

1 posted on 03/01/2013 6:01:46 AM PST by Sir Napsalot
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To: Sir Napsalot

I am VERY WEARY about what they promote -

“There has to be a dramatic historical event that allows a country to shift gears and change its tax policy.”


2 posted on 03/01/2013 6:02:57 AM PST by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: Sir Napsalot

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

Winston Churchill


3 posted on 03/01/2013 6:05:23 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: 2banana
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

Especially National Socialists like those Democrat Party and many in the Republican Party.

4 posted on 03/01/2013 6:11:00 AM PST by Paladin2
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To: Sir Napsalot
And near the end of the seminar, "Policy Conclusions"

4) Public will favor more progressive taxation only if it is convinced that top income gains are detrimental to the 99%

And it is clear that it is the academics' absolute duty to teach that to the 99%.

5 posted on 03/01/2013 6:13:47 AM PST by Sir Napsalot (Pravda + Useful Idiots = CCCP; JournOList + Useful Idiots = DopeyChangey!)
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To: 2banana

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy. - Alexander Frazer Tytler


6 posted on 03/01/2013 6:16:22 AM PST by BwanaNdege ("To learn who rules over you simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize"- Voltaire)
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To: Sir Napsalot

The cause of the income gap between the 1 percent and 99 percent is not caused by taxes, it is caused by free trade. The execs and CEO, financiers/bankers and etc did not get impacted when labor went global. Workers in factory or hitech can be fired as soon as a lower cost overseas worker is available to replace the American one. That is how capitalism is suppose to work except at the top. There are plenty of Japanese CEO that can work 1/3 the salary of American CEO’s/exec staff except the ones on the top play by another set of rules call facism. The ultimate question I have for all these short sighted greedy CEO’s is who will buy all their products if the working man salary is frozen or reduced by Chinese labor? Worst what will be going thru the minds of the CEO’s as they huddle in their mansions with their family as their personal guards run out of ammo as the angry and poor storm their compounds and ripping their guards apart limb from limb, and the CEO and his family lives are now measured in minutes before it meets a violent end. Was all that short sighted profits at the expense of the American middle class really worth it?


7 posted on 03/01/2013 6:49:53 AM PST by Fee
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To: Sir Napsalot
Socialism is a philosophy of Envy.
When you take money from those who work hard and give to those who don't, you take away the incentive to work from both.
How is that Fair?
The result is stagnation and then collapse.
It's not a zero-sum game anymore, it's a shrinking cake caused by those very policies.

8 posted on 03/01/2013 6:56:14 AM PST by BitWielder1 (Corporate Profits are better than Government Waste)
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To: Sir Napsalot

If everyone becomes equally poor, who will step in to provide a safety net for when some take a dive? I can picture this great “equality”, they claim to strive for, resulting in a mass of folks acting like zombies and falling upon the fallen to fill their bellies...


9 posted on 03/01/2013 6:58:38 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Sir Napsalot

The end goal of the left is to have one world government which takes money from those who produce it and gives it to slackers.
There would be nowhere on earth to hide.


10 posted on 03/01/2013 7:18:15 AM PST by I want the USA back (Democrat party = criminal organization disguised as a political party.)
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