'Lands' are also not so distant any longer so much as they are some abstract concept to most people having never traveled outside of their computer chair or suffered directly from an overtly oppressive regime or prolonged conditions of want or discomfort in the last three generations. Let the grocery trucks stop running in Canada or the United States for a couple of months and consider the change of heart and attitude. Breadlines??? Unavailability of fuels? How soon folks forget that the entire world teeters with some seriously fucked-up psychopaths at the helm in recent history.

How little people care to consider history as a warning.

@NetRunner @dystopianfuturetoday

I'm looking for debate too, but I'm not going to find it if I argue the progressive angle. I'll be Lucifer's lawyer on this one.


A few things. First, I'm with those of you who doubt the truth of Schiff's statement that he's paying 50% of his income in taxes. I demand to see his tax return!

I'm potentially sympathetic to Schiff here. As we all know income taxes, and even capital gains taxes aren't the only taxes that exist. Schiff is a business owner. I suspect his issue is with the "double taxing" of profits. His business makes a profit which is then taxed. That taxation thus reduces the value of his business. Further, the remaining profits are taxed again (in the form of capital gains) when he decides to liquidate his stake in the company. So if you basically make your money by creating value in businesses in exchange for an ownership stake, that value is taxed twice before you even see it. Now of course this comes from someone that frequently makes disingenuous claims like the majority of Americans "don't pay taxes," considering the substantial share of their income they pay in consumption taxes; but his point stands on its own. I wish we had a more streamlined tax system that did away with loopholes as well as double taxation of value creation (like a VAT).


Secondly, even if it were 50%, and it went up to 65%, in what universe is it ever in Schiff's interest to stop making money? In fact, wouldn't it be an incentive for him to work harder? If he's used to a lifestyle of consumption of $1 million a year, and suddenly he's only able to consume $800k/yr, wouldn't that mean he'd redouble his efforts and try to make more money if he couldn't accept such austerity? He certainly wouldn't dismantle his businesses and cut off the source of his income.

You clearly don't value your time. Schiff's input/brand is probably the core asset of his ventures (in fact that's something you always have to remember about the guy, he's selling himself). That means he probably leads a fairly stressful life, and might choose to exchange some of his labor for the leisure time he could clearly afford in either case. That means generating less business, and thus requiring fewer "cost centers" (like staff). One argument might be that if he does dismantle his business, someone else will just fill the void in the marketplace, and hire (possibly that same) staff. However, if it was the case that there was someone willing to do what Schiff does for substantially less than Schiff, it's likely they'd already be competing with him under the favorable tax rates.


Thirdly, on jobs, like dft said, employers hire exactly as many people as they need to produce the amount of goods (or services) they're able to sell, and not a single person more. They're not going to hire more people to produce more goods if they can't sell all of what they're currently producing, that would just be pure loss to them.

This isn't always true. Businesses often use recessions to "buy labor low" to prepare a competitive advantage for the next cycle. Propping up the labor market arguably never lets the labor market reach a valuation in which this market based counter-cyclic mechanism can take place. It's further arguable that if you allowed that mechanism to take place, the resulting employment allocation may be more efficient/sustainable than, e.g. taking a census. I'm a bleeding heart, so you don't have to tell me about breadlines and old people in the streets, but part of me feels as though the youth has become soft. They don't want to learn. They don't create with what they have. They play video games and argue on Videosift.


Putting more money into the hands of the suppliers isn't going to boost employment for exactly that reason. Employers will only hire new people if they need to produce more goods, and they're only going to produce more goods if their sales increase. You really need to put more money into the hands of people who want to consume, not those who want to produce. You need to find a large group of people who want to buy more things, but can't because they don't have the money. In other words, you need to put money into the hands of poor people, not rich factory owners.

See Schiff would say DON'T give money to the employers. Stop giving money to ANYBODY. Leave the money right where the market put it. Doing anything else just allows some asshole to hoodwink the whole damn country rather than just their clients. Personally I feel there needs to be some initial breaking up of the oligarchy if you really want to pursue that line of reasoning (i.e. sorry Schiff, we're taking your gold with our pitchforks), but that's just me.


Schiff doesn't seem to know all this stuff, which is why everyone should laugh in his face when he says he knows anything about economics.

Come on, we're classier than that.

Soviet Union?

A living nightmare of secret police, gulags, work camps, hours standing in breadlines for nonexistent bread, massive natural resources squandered. At no time was the fetid existence of that evil empire cause for celebration.