Edit: several commentors have asked why I posted this link. The entire framing of the article and source paper is based on the idea that tax evasion is bad because of its relation to inequality. This book shows that the concept of inequality is misguided and shows a better framework for human flourishing.
How is an argument against wealth distribution an alternative view point to rich people cheating on their taxes? They're somehow only cheating to the extent they're correcting for taxes being progressive?
Isn’t the underlying assumption when talking about (air quotes) “cheating” taxes is that taxes are supposed to be redistributive?
If someone is following the letter of the law, how can they be cheating?
Well, they can be cheating if they are violating the ‘spirit’ of the law or some unwritten but generally accepted notion about the law. In this case, that assumption is that taxes should always always be progressive and redistributive, right?
That’s how it’s an alternate view point.
(Personally, I’m in favor of negative income tax, but I think Yaron Brook is a talented thinker and speaker. I did not know this book of his existed, and am glad it was brought up.)
I am more familiar with American tax law than Norwegian but I have huge doubts it’s illegal to have money offshore. Having money in more than one country is a pretty good hedge. When the Greek banks shut down and imposed atm restrictions, only Greeks with foreign bank accounts were able to access their money for example.
I’m searching but if you find anything on what constitutes ‘hiding’ in Norwegian tax law as it relates to offshore accounts it would be much appreciated.
I have a feeling ‘hiding’ is another one of those spirit of the law / unwritten societal rules sort of thing in this context.
None of these people are earning money in Panama. They're moving their money there and not declaring it. There's nothing US specific about that being illegal.
If you consider an idea, evaluate it in its full context, and conclude that it is true, then you can accept it and live a better life. If you reject the idea, you don't have to think about it anymore.
There is no way for an idea, by itself, to harm you.
> There is no way for an idea, by itself, to harm you.
Totally false. Ask an ex catholic.
> If you consider an idea, evaluate it in its full context,
That's the problem - you can't honestly evaluate an idea in its full context. Ever. You have a limited ability, and there is limited information, and you have biases built in. In my mind, toxic ideas are ones that prey on our frailties - fear, anger, pride, etc. - and cause us to believe socially or personally harmful things. Fascism is a toxic idea. National socialism is a toxic idea. Puritanism is a toxic idea. Etc.
If you can't honestly evaluate ideas, how do you know that you are right about any of your views? How do you know that pride is a frailty? What kind of standard could you even apply to decide "harm" or "benefit" of an idea?
Indeed, you can't know anything for sure. That's logically true, but a totally pointless dead end. Backing away from that so we can have a useful conversation - I guess when I talk about toxic ideas I'm thinking something like Trump's "fake news" declarations.
We can study it and... within' reasonable bounds, know that it's a distortion of reality. Of course not all news is 100% accurate, and all news comes with politics attached - why was this reported not that, etc. but calling the new york times "fake news" is just wrong. If we analyze things in a deep and unbiased way we can be fairly sure they are mostly acting in good faith with the goal of telling the truth.
But it's a toxic idea - if we don't have the time, inclination or critical skills to break it down, it can prey on people's mistrust of intellectualism and stereotypes about the media. If you believe it even a little bit it undermines any and all criticism of Trump no matter how valid. Which allows him to dance around the normal check on democracy that the media is supposed to be.
To conclude: I don't know that pride is a frailty that can be exploited by a toxic idea to cause harm, but that's the way the world looks from here so that's how I conduct myself.
Since you seem to be interested in ideas, in how we know things, and how ideas can impact the degree to which we flourish in life, I will suggest two books to you that made a lot of sense to me.
I don't think this qualifies as "an alternative point of view" to being a tax evader. The alternative to the super-rich not paying their fair share of taxes is to have them pay their fair share of taxes.
It's not complicated. The only people who should get to be super-rich are the industrious risk takers who drive our world forward. That type of person is not deterred by tax rates. Raise em and weed out the leeches.
You stated: “That type of person is not deterred by tax rates.” If they are not deterred by tax rates, why would they be deterred by 100% taxes? I was simply restating your position in explicit language.
As you say, these creators are taking risks. What is their motivation for doing so?
There are two possibilities:
They are motivated by payment in material - money. Taxes take away the earned money, so this becomes less of a motivation.
They are motivated by payment in spirit - thanking them and appreciating their creation. Taxes preclude this type of payment for two reasons. They are taken by force, so it would be like a thug thanking you after taking your wallet. They are morally justified on the basis of altruism, in which case they are merely a corrective action for how the person should have behaved in the first place - we don’t say thank you to the thug who returns your wallet after being caught by the police.
"Yaron Brook is an Israeli-born American entrepreneur, author, and former academic, who currently serves as executive chairman of the Ayn Rand Institute..."
Could you explain what you mean by that? Could you state the case made by Rand in such a way that her proponents would agree with you, and then show the errors that make it incorrect?
There's an independent variable in this: how broad the government's mandate is.
If the mandate is narrow, none of the above steps have much negative effect on the functioning of society. If the mandate of government is broad, or capable of becoming broader, all of them have a negative effect, and the third ensures that the mandate broadens, which grows the negative effect proportionally.
I am never sure what to think of these claims when Social Security and Medicare (both employer and employee parts) taxes aren't counted as income taxes. Seems a bit deceiving not to include those taxes as income taxes as they are based on a percent of your income (and only a part of your income if you make over about $100k for Social Security).
They aren't counted because basically they're forced savings. Typically everything you put into SS you'll get back. Lower income folks end up getting more back than they put in. And the same for Medicare. It's a forced insurance payment of sorts.
Who owns the US Nation Debt [1]. I stand corrected, the vast majority is owed not just to Social Security, but to retirees in general (though SS is the largest debt holder).
To count Social Security and Medicare withholding as part of federal income taxes would be incorrect, as neither are income taxes (they are payroll taxes.)
I think to correctly frame what proportion any income group (or wealth group) pays, you have to look not just as federal income taxes, but at all taxes.
I think you are arguing past me on the first part. They are "payroll taxes", yes. And there is a "US federal income tax" of which they are not, yes. Technically they do also fit the definition of what an income tax is (wikt:"A tax levied on earned and unearned income"; wikipedia "Retirement oriented taxes, such as Social Security or national insurance, also are a type of income tax, though not generally referred to as such").
More to the point, and I think we agree here, the deception is by framing the discussion only about the "us federal income tax" when that is only 60% of the total federal income/payroll taxes collected. If you tell people that the top 1% makes 22% of the money and pays 40% of federal income taxes it makes them sound oppressed. If you tell people that the top 1% makes 22% of the money, has 35% of wealth and pays 25% of federal income and payroll taxes, the oppression disappears.
True, but you also get paid back based on your Social Security payments (should you live so long). To the extent that it's a forced-savings program, it isn't exactly an income tax.
The government has borrowed and spent the entire trust fund. There are no savings, it's funded year to year from taxes.
(the left hand of the government says it has $2.8 trillion and the right hand of the government thinks that is a cool story https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/index.html )
Oh, I'm not trying to sensationalize it, I just think it is fair to peak at the actual cash flows when people start talking about Social Security as a savings program.
As a retirement savings vehicle, it has a pitiful rate of return, and the payouts may decrease, or taxes thereon increase, before you retire, since they're only "invested" in extremely low yielding, not-legally-enforceable bonds.
It’s money that’s taken from me by the government whether I want to or not. The fact that it goes into a separate bucket used for a particular program doesn’t somehow make it not a tax.
Especially since it’s very much not a forced savings program. If it were, we’d pass on the remainder to our heirs if we died early, and we’d run out of money if we lived too long. It’s more like a forced annuity.
Yes they are that petty. Steve Jobs parked in handicapped parking spots because he couldn't be bothered to walk as far as normal people. Zuckerberg rolled up to Hawaii, bought some land, and tried to sue all the locals off of the rights they had enjoyed for generations before he showed up. Bill Gates, for all the good he does now, was a giant dick to everyone he did business with at every chance he got. The super rich are the pettiest people on the planet because unlike regular people, they don't deal with the consequences.
If an average person starts doing everything they technically are allowed to do, they will be shunned socially. When that happens, beyond feeling bad, you lose your support network and can get into serious trouble in life. The rich don't have that problem. They don't need to rely on the good will of others to watch their kids, or to give them time off to go handle bank issues or medical problems.
You are describing anti-social behaviors, not really addressing my question. Do you think that keeping $15,000 out of the Social Security system is an animating reason for them to take the non salaries?
I think it is more like a few hundred thousand dollars not really being a relevant amount of money to someone with hundreds of millions of dollars of stock on the line and the symbolism being useful.
Its the perception that they are doing petty tax avoidance doesn't make their ethics look very good and those on average salaries will see rich people avoiding $15k in a negative light
It's more than a bit deceiving. It's part of a systematic disinformation campaign. It goes hand-in-hand with the outrageous lie that the estate tax harms family farmers.
But cutting taxes on the rich is indefensible on the merits, so deception is the only option if you're rich and you don't want to pay taxes.
The percentage of taxes paid by the highest income earners is lower when you include all taxes, but still pretty significant.[1] These numbers do not include state taxes, only federal.
Income percentile - % individual income tax paid - % all taxes paid
Top 10% - 83.4% - 65%
Top 5% - 69.4% - 53%
Top 0.01% - 26.4% - 19.2%
Note that anyone in the bottom 50% actually has a negative income tax contribution since they get tax credits.
For the top 0.01% of income earners, the average total tax rate is 46.3%. Much higher than I originally thought.
I don't see capital gains on that chart. Is it part of income? I think most rich people grow their wealth with capital gains that are only taxed when realized and even then are taxed at a lower rate than regular income.
" It's part of a systematic disinformation campaign. "
Oh, no, I'm sorry but it's the other way around.
The 'mass lie' is on the employer payroll tax side of the equation.
An employer payroll tax is for all purposes the same thing as an employee tax, but it's 'hidden' (i.e. you don't see it as a deduction) - but it's equally as oppressive.
Politicians love it because they can increase it without any visibility and no uproar.
It's about 30% in Sweden.
Also - up to ~50% income tax.
And then 25% VAT.
Can you imagine if Google had to take 30% of your salary off the top before they paid you?
And then you're effective rate wast 10% higher (like 40%?).
And then everything you bought was 25% taxed?
And the other form of 'hidden tax' - in many places, prices have to be quoted with VAT to hide the 'hit' they take.
Admittedly you get healthcare for that.
It's very reasonable to call this confiscation of wealth.
If you're a professional, you're giving by far and away most of your earnings to the government to have them manage it on your behalf.
> and only a part of your income if you make over about $100k for Social Security
More precisely, 6.2% on a wage base limit of $127,200 for calendar year 2017, which amounts to $7,886.40 per person; 1.45% for Medicare without a cap, and an additional 0.9% withholding in excess of $200,000.
For the unindoctrinated, the IRS publishes these (and other related) details under Notice 1036[1] every year circa December.
Yeah, employer pays the same 6.2% and 1.45%, respectively...except for the additional 0.9% Medicare conditional, which is withheld from the employee only. The self-employed effectively pay double out of pocket.
The important question is what impact do tax rates have on the economy and the society as a whole. The conservative argument is that allowing the rich to keep most or all of their money will allow them to invest and grow the economy and make everyone's living standard rise.
However, that hasn't worked for decades in the US and a great many other countries.
The veiled argument is that government is very inefficient, more than investments and donations. It is often thought that the 1% would redistribute to the rest, but the government takes quite a commission on that money.
Of course the same people make the argument that humans are naturally greedy and selfish and that's a good thing, so I'm not sure how they reconcile these two opposing concepts.
Allowing people to keep their own money does raise the standard of living for all parties involved, but that’s a marginal benefit and not the core ‘argument’ why the wealthy should be allowed to keep what they make.
Why should the government, or the masses, or society be allowed to take people’s money at all in the first place?
Because you didnt earn it in a vacuum. You used the roads, the educated populace, the borders, the civil society that is largely free of crime, etc. to "make" the money you made. Because of that we say you owe some of it back.
If it helps you could think of taxes as society user-fees. Your Society as a Service bill.
I love it when people use examples like education, road, the legal system to justify taxes. Most of the tax burden is entitlement payments. Educations, road, the legal system is a small fraction of the total tax burden.
Adam smith mentions that war should be a direct tax on people's incomes, as opposed to long term bonds. It would thus make people very much against any kind of war, realizing how expensive they are.
I realize that a large portion of every US tax dollar goes it the military - that's why I mentioned the borders - without some military spending it's doubtful the borders of the US would be the same as they are today. I think we should all agree that too much money is spent on the military, but that's not an argument about "should we pay tax" - that's an argument about how we should spend taxes.
"entitlement payments" is what, a euphemism for social security et al? There is no doubt in my mind that the quality of the social safety net plays into everyone's ability to make money and take risks.
But you've already ceded the point that taxes make sense - we're just arguing about how much and how to spend them.
Because that money/income/wealth was generated from the sum total effort and infrastructure of society as a whole.
Consider the utility derived from a roadway for two different people. For the average American, they're a way to get conveniently across from point a to point b. For the wealthy their factories are able to ship goods and services to markets all over the country. Their employees are able to drive to the factory. The factory itself was built because there was road access for construction vehicles to reach the site and transport raw materials there.
The SEC is a great example. We all benefit from having a market for securities that is stabilized by regulation and oversight. For someone with no securities their utility derived ends there. For the wealthy, they derive the maximal utility from that same situation since they have wealth to protect from unscrupulous actors.
Is there any case you can make that the wealthy don't derive more utility from society and so should face a greater burden in maintaining it via taxes?
Because otherwise, there would be no society, which means no police to prevent the masses from brutally slaying the rich, which is what used to happen when things got this far out of hand.
Because it's not their money. They can't make money where a functioning society does not exist. This is a very old news.
You'd be grunting and chortling without a society. Even in remote places, they have a language and a bit of knowledge to pass along if you're halfway decent to the group.
Try telling that to someone whose had their assets frozen.
Ill gotten gains are frozen all the time in a civilized society, that includes not paying for upkeep (taxes), lest we descend into savagery.
If you've done something illegal you can be assessed all sorts of penalties. But if you've come by your money legally, it's your money. It's not society's money. And it doesn't belong to your fellow citizens because, well, they want it.
Well it does belong to them, because it's only through them that money has meaning. Society may decide they don't owe you anything, if you don't feel you owe them anything.
That's pretty counter to how America operates. The gov't operates at the behest of the citizens of the US. Any income you make is yours, thus the gov't has an obligations to spend it in a responsible manner. I think that's why so many Americans complain about taxes. If it was spent wisely and people felt they got good value for their tax dollars I'm sure the complaining wouldn't be as loud.
> The gov't operates at the behest of the citizens of the US.
Then why are lobbyist surrounding the capital with wads of cash? If wealthy interests didn't get a return on investment, they wouldn't keep investing. And since they are coming back and they do get a return on investment, then the government isn't serving the citizens but rather the patrons.
For this reason, the citizens won't get a great return on their tax dollars. The problem seems to be getting worse rather than better.
That's how America operates. We can still turn it around though, I hope.
Its the marginal utility of money. I'm about to pick numbers out of a hat for demonstration. If it takes 18k to live at a bare minimum each for everyone, then the guy making minimum wage and pulling home 20k a year and the guy pulling home 100k a year have a completely different calculus. That 2k surplus for the minimum wage worker could easily be killed by a single week of illness just between medical bills and not working. The guy bringing home 100k a year can survives problems that are magnitudes more expensive. This gets more egregious as income inequality scales. Its not like billionaires who are earning millions of times more than a janitor can eat millions of more burgers or need millions of more houses
I understand the marginal utility argument. That argument assumes there is any moral right to steal from one person and give to another in the first place. I disagree there is. This is an analogy NOT a comparison... but its like saying its ok take the heart of an old person to give to a child because they would get more use out of it. Yes, that's true, but its a non starter due to the deprivation of the rights of the old person.
They also hold over 40% of all of the wealth so it's not that out of proportion. The bottom 90% also have close to 75% of debt. It's not a super convincing counterargument when you look at more than that single vector.
I wonder why American commenters on a website hosted by a U.S. tech company incubator would discuss how a thing in another country relates to themselves.
Mods changed the article title from "A new study shows how little tax the super-rich pay".
"The often used counter argument is that top 1% pays almost 50% of total federal income tax."
But ^ is a discussion of "how a thing in another country relates to themselves?" I must be missing all the well-written nuance of how tax evasion is justified due to income inequality.
Funnily enough, this is close to a flat tax with the total amount offset by the poverty line (so that the amount paid is zero or negative when income is low).
Added: Something along the lines of 0.16 * income - 0.16 * 12000 or (income - 12000) * 0.16.
First, the article was discussing the top 0.01% not the top 1%. So your factoidlette is off by a factor of 100 or if you prefer, two magnitudes. Second, even at that level of apples and oranges, the top 1% got 21.2% of the income in 2014.
This is selective accounting, there are many non-income Federal taxes that are ignored as well as who receives the benefits. Fortunately, the government has published data on total Federal taxes, not just income, as well as Federal transfers to households.[1] Among other things, it allows us to understand what percentage of the population pays net taxes to the Federal government, after all taxes paid and transfer income received is accounted for.
The data is somewhat surprising but I'll sum up: the top 20% of households are net tax producers, the next quintile pay their own way, and the bottom 60% are net tax consumers. In other words, the top 20% are subsidizing the bottom 60%, and 80% of the population effectively doesn't contribute to funding the government. Most of the middle class that thinks it pays Federal taxes doesn't, from a balance sheet perspective.
The transfer income numbers on their graph don’t match the ones in the CBO report they cite. Am I missing something?
Edit: the numbers come from a supplemental table, not part of the main link. They did make this clear, I just missed it. Looking at that table, I’m highly suspicious of the conclusion that 80% of the country isn’t paying their own way. That particular table organizes households into quartiles by “before-tax income” which includes transfers and capital gains. That means a retired household receiving $50,000/year from a combination of social security, Medicaid, and capital gains gets lumped in with a working household receiving $50,000/year in wages. The retired household pays little tax and has massive transfers, while the working household pays more and gets much less.
Yes what you're missing is that the CBO is trying to give people relevant and accurate information and the Tax Foundation is a think tank founded by wealthy businessmen whose goal is to generally protest all tax increases and work to make people think that the US needs to greatly reduce taxes on the wealthy and on businesses.
A bit of a click-bait title as the article does not show how much or little the super-rich of Scandinavia pay. Just a study on how much tax they are avoiding. And with the super-rich of Scandinavia only evading 30% of their taxes, I think I would agree with a sentence at the end of the article:
"... maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes."
Wonder what a similar study in of people in the US would say (not that one could really know what people are evading, or the IRS would prosecute more people)
One could say he will be a great at the IRS as he has extensive and hard to acquire knowledge on how people work around the US tax code. He can use that to catch cheaters. Or one could say the revolving door revolved some more.
The point is still that middle-class Scandinavians have a culture of paying taxes where where in the U.S we try to find ways to avoid paying taxes, and at the worst case there is Greece which abhors paying taxes at all costs
>A bit of a click-bait title as the article does not show how much or little the super-rich of Scandinavia pay. Just a study on how much tax they are avoiding.
Not even that. It's just a guess at who has money in offshore accounts. That's not proof of anything.
I don't think that inequality is in and of itself bad (in fact I rather strongly oppose measures that enforce equality for equality's sake), but I do believe that we should use the wealth generated by our society to assure some base standard of living for all.
100+ billion dollar corporations stashing money in Ireland, then paying debt off with other large US companies in Irish bank accounts. All this to just grow massive cash reserves. Nice -- meanwhile - Cesar Chavez Elementary School (san jose 10 miles? away) has a ranking of 4/10 (wtf).
Got any links that show a correlation between the ranking of Cesar Chavez Elementary School and growing overseas cash reserves? Is CCE underfunded compared to other peer schools in CA? There's been little research that shows a correlation between student performance and school funding. The US generally spends in the top 10 per student world wide.
Three issues with the article: the study looked only at Scandinavian countries; the methodology wasn't even discussed, let alone critically analyzed; the article contains inappropriate and unprofessional unsourced editorializing in an article not marked as such:
"Globalisation has disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour. But globalisation has also made it easier for the well-heeled to hide their wealth. In that sense, maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes."
No, but they might only apply to Scandinavia (or high tax countries). For example: if taxes are high, the incentive to avoid more (but also evade) is clearly there.
Most wealthy people don't have an issue paying taxes, say 15-20% of their income (income / dividends / capital gains) -- even if that income runs in the millions. Most have an issue paying excessive taxes, e.g. 30%+, for what they get back from society.
Simple math: the higher the tax rate, the more sense it makes to avoid. And once you've set up the structures to avoid and are taking the risk, you might as well try and bring it as close to zero as possible.
For example, I recently had a friend tell me: I could buy this expensive car every three months, with the amount of tax I pay on my (passive) dividends. Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco (or some other country that doesn't tax their income excessively) and keep that money?
It might be an unpopular opinion, but in my view, he's right. As selfish as it sounds, the fact of just being allowed to live in a certain jurisdiction might not be sufficient for any wealthy person to stick around.
> Most wealthy people don't have an issue paying taxes
What an unsourced and biased viewpoint :) a lot of wealthy people are routinely found evading taxes even in low-tax countries. Even the likes of Luxembourg and Monaco have to go after illegal tax avoidance. Nobody likes paying tax, even at 1% people would try to skim. Egoism is a natural element of human psychology.
> Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco
Indeed, why? It might have something to do with Monaco being a minuscule country and their citizens being subject to more restrictions when working or investing in larger markets. This is a friction that globalization has eroded (e.g. there are no such restrictions now for Luxembourg citizens accessing the EU market, or Delaware citizens accessing the US market), which is part of the problem. If you make money from a large and well-run market, you should pay your fair share towards maintaining that market, no matter where you haul from.
Yes, the main premise. Globalization has primarily benefited the poor, and to think otherwise shows a grave misunderstanding of history. International trade has toppled Monarchies, dramatically improved the living conditions in Africa and led to the most prosperous eras in history. The fact that in the past few decades, relative inequality has increased in Western nations is certainly unfortunate, but if you think globalization is a recent development in economics, then you shouldn't be writing for a magazine called the Economist.
I'm unable to spend much time commenting atm, but what I will say is that unlike the Economist, you are the one editorializing. Factually, capitalism/globalization has benefited lower classes materially, but has stripped them of agency. While you are right globalization is not entirely new (e.g. mercantilism, the East India Company), what is new is private, multinational actors being able to choose which set of rules they can play by.
That is genuinely new, at least at scale. Private actors making states compete against each other to lower their taxes and sue nations for enforcing health codes a la investor rights trade agreements.
While trade is good, extractive trade is damaging. The American industrial midwest is a good example. Capitalists first moved jobs overseas, and then automated what was left. We still have strong manufacturing, but few people doing it.
This level of inequality, lack of agency, and lack of hope is incredibly corrosive to democratic values. You can see it for yourself in the election of our leader, the grievance of the pepés, and the general ascension of the right. The fact that this kind of thing is taking place globally across the trilateral powers means there's something systemic at work, it's not a quirk of American circumstance.
Of course I am, this is the comments to an article submitted to HackerNews.
> Factually, capitalism/globalization has benefited lower classes materially
So we're in agreement.
> but has stripped them of agency
Social mobility has gone up since 1700s and continued to go up, with little more than a few hiccups along the way. Regardless, whether or not globalization is good or bad is an opinion and one that does not belong in an article about a single specific study on tax avoidance / possible tax evasion.
I'm not going to reply to the rest of what you said because of that same basic point. It's a complicated issue that tackles a lot of different areas of economics, history, and politics that doesn't have any real agreement with the experts that study those things. I certainly have no hope of doing the subject justice as a comment to an article.
And that's precisely why that shouldn't be shoehorned into an article about taxes to begin with. You have no hope of defending general condemnation of globalization and piling on nonspecific blame on the "ultra rich." If a journalist has an opinion and they want to argue why they're right backed up by objective facts and research, I'd love to read that sort of thing. But precisely because I don't want to live in an echo chamber, I don't want to hear your opinion stated as fact without anything to back up.
whether or not globalization is good or bad is an opinion
You'll note that judging whether globalisation has helped capital more vs labour more is not an assertion of goodness or badness of globalisation, either way. Just like someone can say that cars make road accidents more likely (fact), without it being a judgement on whether cars are good or bad (opinion).
I think you've been triggered and are reacting to something that wasn't written; you've over-read into the piece.
You are living in a pre-11/9 mentality my friend. A few years ago, it was easy to think that material possessions were enough. The yawing chasms in the fabric of society are now baldly apparent.
The old system is crashing. We need to acknowledge reality now and work as fast as possible to fix it after we figure out how.
Are you really excusing The Economist, the bastion of neoliberalism that it is, of not being sufficiently in favor of globalization?
Sure, globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, but it is also pretty uncontroversial to state that it also has disproportionately increased the wealth of the billionaire and millionaire class.
But you aren't. It is simultaneously possible for globalization to have strongly benefited the poor and for "Globalisation [to have] disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour."
They quite regularly make the point that trade has broad benefits, and on net they're fans of globalization. But unlike you, they are willing to hold that opinion while simultaneously noting that not everything about it is perfect.
You confuse inserting an opinion with having a viewpoint.
The Economist's official editorials (which they call leaders) are separate. There they are quite free with their opinions. Elsewhere, though, they mainly mainly stick to having a viewpoint. Since their founding 1843 they've been firmly in favor of what we'd now call economic liberalism: their perspective is pro-human, pro-freedom, and numerically oriented.
What they don't do much of, though, is conforming to journalistic orthodoxies that came into fashion after they got going. In particular, you seem to want them to ape what journalism professor calls "the view from nowhere": http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...
Having read them for decades, I'm glad they don't. I often disagree with them, but I appreciate their transparency. That's in sharp contrast to "view from nowhere" media where you either have to puzzle out their actual viewpoint or the articles are so watered down that they are nearly useless for understanding anything.
They definitely inserted an opinion. The bit I quoted gave the reader nothing new. It conveyed no information other than the personal and uninteresting views of the author. Had that section been removed, the reader would know precisely the same amount of information they had before they got to that point. It was not a viewpoint, it was an opinion (and a childish one at that), which was inserted into an article which seems to present itself as describing a study.
Why? It offered an interesting, alternative interpretation of the same data. That seems valuable.
In a normal journalism article this same opinion would probably be offered in the form of a quote by some competing economist, instead of directly, but the effect is the same.
It wasn't based on the data. Nothing in the study suggested that opinion. It's simply the statement of a narrative. That's part of why I specifically mentioned "unsourced." The claim doesn't follow from anything the article meant to cover.
The article contextualized the study in a broader base of knowledge. That's part of why they're so valuable to readers: they just don't rewrite the study's abstract; they write about the study from the viewpoint of somebody who knows the topic and can connect this one item to a broader understanding.
It conveyed no information other than the personal and uninteresting views of the author.
Do you think globalisation has not rewarded capital more than labour?
Do you think globalisation has not made it easier for wealthy people to hide their assets from governments?
Because I think both statements are factually accurate, not opinion. The only bit that was "opinion" was the suggestion that the reader should perhaps be surprised. It doesn't seem a stretch.
I'm using growing income inequality as a proxy for rewarding capital vs rewarding labour. It's well-known to everyone that middle-classes in Western countries have had the rawest deal from globalisation, and that large populations in poorer countries have seen large relative increases. But that isn't the same thing as saying that globalisation benefits labour more than capital; it doesn't. It also isn't a judgement as to whether globalisation is good or bad; overall, I think it's a good thing, we're better off with fewer poor people globally.
That's definitely not true. The first two sentences are clearly statements of fact. The third is pointing out something interesting.
In the "view from nowhere" style, a journalist would get quotes from experts to make those points. But The Economist writes as an expert. They work from a clearly established and frankly declared viewpoint. That's why people read them
If you believe their facts are wrong, you should demonstrate that. Indeed, they regularly print letters from people claiming that. But as far as I can tell, you just don't like their viewpoint.
The Economist explicitly brands and declares itself a journal of both reporting and opinion. As for "unsourced", it choses to adopt an anonymous style and tone of writing (such that any statements of opinion, which in any case are hardly disguised and pretty obvious to spot as such, take be taken to be the opinions of the entire editorial board, more or less).
As such, it's one of the few organs (though I frequently find myself in disagreement with it) I almost always enjoy reading.
Great, another study showing what we already know. There has been a constant stream of these studies and articles for years now - at least back to the occupy wall street movement.
Governments actually compete to get rich people to invest money into their country, because they would rather get 10% of a big pie than 0 - wealthy people usually have many options on where to invest. Right now, there are cities across the US COMPETING to have Amazon build an office there. Economic incentives will be a big part of whats on the negotiating table of course. When you have that level of money/power, you are effectively negotiating with the government so of course they negotiate better deals for themselves.
I don't think it's healthy for this site to become an echo chamber where the only articles that anyone is allowed to see are all from the same viewpoint.
You'll be happy to know that we don't do that. We especially don't do it with articles we don't see, but we don't do it with articles we do see either.
If you have concerns that something hinky is going on, please contact the mods via the Contact link in the footer. They've repeatedly said that they appreciate this kind of feedback.
As for the rest, do you have an HN link for the other post you're referring to? When you say "deleted", do you mean flagged? Dead? or completely gone? I suspect this last as you haven't provided a link and likely would have if you had one. If it's gone, one possibility is that the submitter deleted it.
I suggest you contact the mods. They do sometimes come across comments like this and answer, but they don't see everything on the site. In my experience they've been very responsive.
Also in my experience the mods are very hands-off when it comes to completely removing content. Before assuming bad faith on their part, I'd ask them first.
That submission was deleted by its submitter. Moderators never touched it or even saw it.
We never delete posts outright except when an author asks us to. Moderated posts always remain visible to anyone with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile.
Leaping to the conclusion that we're sinister suppressers is fun in a fuck-the-man way, but if you care about this community, consider the systemic effects it has. They're not good.
Given that tax was invented to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich, I don't think it is surprising that taxation is ineffective at transferring wealth from the rich to the poor.
I expected more, 30% evasion is not that much. Scandinavia has progressive taxation, and the super rich should pay super taxes. Tax evasion essentially put them at the the same level as the middle class.
Also don't be mislead by rates. In absolute terms, the super rich pay a lot of taxes, it is only unimpressive in relative terms.
Now there is some ambiguity about the term "tax evasion". Does it only include illegal, punishable practices or are dubious but technically legal "optimization" techniques included? The conclusion could be very different.
The Scandinavian countries have a progressive tax rate. Even with the "evading 30% of their taxes" they can actually pay more, percentage wise, than the low earners, not to mention the amount paid in absolute value.
These kind of articles look like cheap communist propaganda, throwing dirt to the high producers of a community because they don't contribute "enough" to the welfare of the non-producers. These low-earners are painted as being somehow entitled to what others who are working harder, or smarter, or are willing to take risks are producing.
The USA has a progressive tax rate, at least the "sticker" rates. Once you get into advanced tax management strategies[1] it becomes a regressive tax whereby Warren Buffett[2] pays a lower rate than his secretary.
[1] Hire a team of accountants, lawyers, and bankers to do your taxes. If you're really brave let the government sue you if there is a disagreement. The way budgets and incentives are set up at the IRS and Justice, the government lawyers will get a status bump for settling your case for ten cents on the dollar so they won't risk losing at trial. You might have $10m to spend on a protracted legal fight but Congress purposely underfunds the prosecution. Note that this only applies to billionaires. Garden variety millionaires can also make the system look regressive due to things like the income caps on Social Security taxes, the huge discounts in state tax equity secondary markets, a cornucopia of deductions, shifting income from W-2 to long term capital gains, and playing "will I get audited (by someone competent)" roulette.
[2] Name used for illustrative purposes only. Based on the way his holdings are reportedly structured, Buffett probably doesn't engage in tax fraud. The guy just has too much money to care, it's mostly tied up in one well-structured investment, and he's donating it all to charity so why bother?
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 282 ms ] threadhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/125008444X/
Edit: several commentors have asked why I posted this link. The entire framing of the article and source paper is based on the idea that tax evasion is bad because of its relation to inequality. This book shows that the concept of inequality is misguided and shows a better framework for human flourishing.
If someone is following the letter of the law, how can they be cheating?
Well, they can be cheating if they are violating the ‘spirit’ of the law or some unwritten but generally accepted notion about the law. In this case, that assumption is that taxes should always always be progressive and redistributive, right?
That’s how it’s an alternate view point.
(Personally, I’m in favor of negative income tax, but I think Yaron Brook is a talented thinker and speaker. I did not know this book of his existed, and am glad it was brought up.)
I’m searching but if you find anything on what constitutes ‘hiding’ in Norwegian tax law as it relates to offshore accounts it would be much appreciated.
I have a feeling ‘hiding’ is another one of those spirit of the law / unwritten societal rules sort of thing in this context.
The US is also very unique in which it’s the only country that expects you to pay taxes on money earned overseas as well.
And how can an idea be toxic?
If you consider an idea, evaluate it in its full context, and conclude that it is true, then you can accept it and live a better life. If you reject the idea, you don't have to think about it anymore.
There is no way for an idea, by itself, to harm you.
Totally false. Ask an ex catholic.
> If you consider an idea, evaluate it in its full context,
That's the problem - you can't honestly evaluate an idea in its full context. Ever. You have a limited ability, and there is limited information, and you have biases built in. In my mind, toxic ideas are ones that prey on our frailties - fear, anger, pride, etc. - and cause us to believe socially or personally harmful things. Fascism is a toxic idea. National socialism is a toxic idea. Puritanism is a toxic idea. Etc.
We can study it and... within' reasonable bounds, know that it's a distortion of reality. Of course not all news is 100% accurate, and all news comes with politics attached - why was this reported not that, etc. but calling the new york times "fake news" is just wrong. If we analyze things in a deep and unbiased way we can be fairly sure they are mostly acting in good faith with the goal of telling the truth.
But it's a toxic idea - if we don't have the time, inclination or critical skills to break it down, it can prey on people's mistrust of intellectualism and stereotypes about the media. If you believe it even a little bit it undermines any and all criticism of Trump no matter how valid. Which allows him to dance around the normal check on democracy that the media is supposed to be.
To conclude: I don't know that pride is a frailty that can be exploited by a toxic idea to cause harm, but that's the way the world looks from here so that's how I conduct myself.
https://www.amazon.com/Objectivism-Philosophy-Ayn-Rand-Libra...
https://www.amazon.com/How-Know-Epistemology-Objectivist-Fou...
As you say, these creators are taking risks. What is their motivation for doing so?
There are two possibilities:
They are motivated by payment in material - money. Taxes take away the earned money, so this becomes less of a motivation.
They are motivated by payment in spirit - thanking them and appreciating their creation. Taxes preclude this type of payment for two reasons. They are taken by force, so it would be like a thug thanking you after taking your wallet. They are morally justified on the basis of altruism, in which case they are merely a corrective action for how the person should have behaved in the first place - we don’t say thank you to the thug who returns your wallet after being caught by the police.
That's as far as I got.
1. More money makes it easier to earn more money.
2. More money buys more ways to avoid taxes, both legally and illegally.
3. More money buys more political power (i.e. corruption of democracy).
4. More political power ensures 1, 2 and even 3.
If the mandate is narrow, none of the above steps have much negative effect on the functioning of society. If the mandate of government is broad, or capable of becoming broader, all of them have a negative effect, and the third ensures that the mandate broadens, which grows the negative effect proportionally.
https://www.cnbc.com/2015/04/13/top-1-pay-nearly-half-of-fed...
The vast majority of the US debt is owed to SS recipients.
And given that the total trust fund appears to be $2.8T, I'm not sure how it could hold the majority of the debt: https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_oldage_and_survivors_insur...
[1] https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-33...
I think to correctly frame what proportion any income group (or wealth group) pays, you have to look not just as federal income taxes, but at all taxes.
More to the point, and I think we agree here, the deception is by framing the discussion only about the "us federal income tax" when that is only 60% of the total federal income/payroll taxes collected. If you tell people that the top 1% makes 22% of the money and pays 40% of federal income taxes it makes them sound oppressed. If you tell people that the top 1% makes 22% of the money, has 35% of wealth and pays 25% of federal income and payroll taxes, the oppression disappears.
(the left hand of the government says it has $2.8 trillion and the right hand of the government thinks that is a cool story https://www.ssa.gov/oact/TRSUM/index.html )
Especially since it’s very much not a forced savings program. If it were, we’d pass on the remainder to our heirs if we died early, and we’d run out of money if we lived too long. It’s more like a forced annuity.
(It's ~$10,000-$15,000 for valley salaries... https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html )
If an average person starts doing everything they technically are allowed to do, they will be shunned socially. When that happens, beyond feeling bad, you lose your support network and can get into serious trouble in life. The rich don't have that problem. They don't need to rely on the good will of others to watch their kids, or to give them time off to go handle bank issues or medical problems.
I think it is more like a few hundred thousand dollars not really being a relevant amount of money to someone with hundreds of millions of dollars of stock on the line and the symbolism being useful.
It's more than a bit deceiving. It's part of a systematic disinformation campaign. It goes hand-in-hand with the outrageous lie that the estate tax harms family farmers.
But cutting taxes on the rich is indefensible on the merits, so deception is the only option if you're rich and you don't want to pay taxes.
Income percentile - % individual income tax paid - % all taxes paid
Top 10% - 83.4% - 65%
Top 5% - 69.4% - 53%
Top 0.01% - 26.4% - 19.2%
Note that anyone in the bottom 50% actually has a negative income tax contribution since they get tax credits.
For the top 0.01% of income earners, the average total tax rate is 46.3%. Much higher than I originally thought.
[1]https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-anal...
Oh, no, I'm sorry but it's the other way around.
The 'mass lie' is on the employer payroll tax side of the equation.
An employer payroll tax is for all purposes the same thing as an employee tax, but it's 'hidden' (i.e. you don't see it as a deduction) - but it's equally as oppressive.
Politicians love it because they can increase it without any visibility and no uproar.
It's about 30% in Sweden.
Also - up to ~50% income tax.
And then 25% VAT.
Can you imagine if Google had to take 30% of your salary off the top before they paid you?
And then you're effective rate wast 10% higher (like 40%?).
And then everything you bought was 25% taxed?
And the other form of 'hidden tax' - in many places, prices have to be quoted with VAT to hide the 'hit' they take.
Admittedly you get healthcare for that.
It's very reasonable to call this confiscation of wealth.
If you're a professional, you're giving by far and away most of your earnings to the government to have them manage it on your behalf.
More precisely, 6.2% on a wage base limit of $127,200 for calendar year 2017, which amounts to $7,886.40 per person; 1.45% for Medicare without a cap, and an additional 0.9% withholding in excess of $200,000.
For the unindoctrinated, the IRS publishes these (and other related) details under Notice 1036[1] every year circa December.
[1] https://www.irs.gov/forms-pubs/about-notice-1036
https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/tax-anal...
However, that hasn't worked for decades in the US and a great many other countries.
Why should the government, or the masses, or society be allowed to take people’s money at all in the first place?
If it helps you could think of taxes as society user-fees. Your Society as a Service bill.
Adam smith mentions that war should be a direct tax on people's incomes, as opposed to long term bonds. It would thus make people very much against any kind of war, realizing how expensive they are.
But you've already ceded the point that taxes make sense - we're just arguing about how much and how to spend them.
Consider the utility derived from a roadway for two different people. For the average American, they're a way to get conveniently across from point a to point b. For the wealthy their factories are able to ship goods and services to markets all over the country. Their employees are able to drive to the factory. The factory itself was built because there was road access for construction vehicles to reach the site and transport raw materials there.
The SEC is a great example. We all benefit from having a market for securities that is stabilized by regulation and oversight. For someone with no securities their utility derived ends there. For the wealthy, they derive the maximal utility from that same situation since they have wealth to protect from unscrupulous actors.
Is there any case you can make that the wealthy don't derive more utility from society and so should face a greater burden in maintaining it via taxes?
You'd be grunting and chortling without a society. Even in remote places, they have a language and a bit of knowledge to pass along if you're halfway decent to the group.
That's pretty counter to how America operates. The gov't operates at the behest of the citizens of the US. Any income you make is yours, thus the gov't has an obligations to spend it in a responsible manner. I think that's why so many Americans complain about taxes. If it was spent wisely and people felt they got good value for their tax dollars I'm sure the complaining wouldn't be as loud.
Then why are lobbyist surrounding the capital with wads of cash? If wealthy interests didn't get a return on investment, they wouldn't keep investing. And since they are coming back and they do get a return on investment, then the government isn't serving the citizens but rather the patrons.
For this reason, the citizens won't get a great return on their tax dollars. The problem seems to be getting worse rather than better.
That's how America operates. We can still turn it around though, I hope.
Very little to do with US tax policy. It helps to click before commenting.
"The often used counter argument is that top 1% pays almost 50% of total federal income tax."
But ^ is a discussion of "how a thing in another country relates to themselves?" I must be missing all the well-written nuance of how tax evasion is justified due to income inequality.
Added: Something along the lines of 0.16 * income - 0.16 * 12000 or (income - 12000) * 0.16.
http://equitablegrowth.org/research-analysis/u-s-income-ineq...
The data is somewhat surprising but I'll sum up: the top 20% of households are net tax producers, the next quintile pay their own way, and the bottom 60% are net tax consumers. In other words, the top 20% are subsidizing the bottom 60%, and 80% of the population effectively doesn't contribute to funding the government. Most of the middle class that thinks it pays Federal taxes doesn't, from a balance sheet perspective.
[1] https://taxfoundation.org/60-percent-households-now-receive-...
Edit: the numbers come from a supplemental table, not part of the main link. They did make this clear, I just missed it. Looking at that table, I’m highly suspicious of the conclusion that 80% of the country isn’t paying their own way. That particular table organizes households into quartiles by “before-tax income” which includes transfers and capital gains. That means a retired household receiving $50,000/year from a combination of social security, Medicaid, and capital gains gets lumped in with a working household receiving $50,000/year in wages. The retired household pays little tax and has massive transfers, while the working household pays more and gets much less.
"... maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes."
Wonder what a similar study in of people in the US would say (not that one could really know what people are evading, or the IRS would prosecute more people)
Funny you might say that!
https://theintercept.com/2017/10/27/david-kautter-trumps-irs...
Not even that. It's just a guess at who has money in offshore accounts. That's not proof of anything.
"Let them eat cake"
Is that adjusted for COL/purchasing power differences?
"Globalisation has disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour. But globalisation has also made it easier for the well-heeled to hide their wealth. In that sense, maybe the data should cause even more surprise: despite the best efforts of a lucrative global tax-evasion industry, Scandinavia’s ultra-rich are paying 70% of their taxes."
Most wealthy people don't have an issue paying taxes, say 15-20% of their income (income / dividends / capital gains) -- even if that income runs in the millions. Most have an issue paying excessive taxes, e.g. 30%+, for what they get back from society.
Simple math: the higher the tax rate, the more sense it makes to avoid. And once you've set up the structures to avoid and are taking the risk, you might as well try and bring it as close to zero as possible.
For example, I recently had a friend tell me: I could buy this expensive car every three months, with the amount of tax I pay on my (passive) dividends. Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco (or some other country that doesn't tax their income excessively) and keep that money?
It might be an unpopular opinion, but in my view, he's right. As selfish as it sounds, the fact of just being allowed to live in a certain jurisdiction might not be sufficient for any wealthy person to stick around.
They're welcome to. But they don't (or they haven't yet) because they see some benefit to staying versus the cost of leaving.
What an unsourced and biased viewpoint :) a lot of wealthy people are routinely found evading taxes even in low-tax countries. Even the likes of Luxembourg and Monaco have to go after illegal tax avoidance. Nobody likes paying tax, even at 1% people would try to skim. Egoism is a natural element of human psychology.
> Why wouldn't I just move to Monaco
Indeed, why? It might have something to do with Monaco being a minuscule country and their citizens being subject to more restrictions when working or investing in larger markets. This is a friction that globalization has eroded (e.g. there are no such restrictions now for Luxembourg citizens accessing the EU market, or Delaware citizens accessing the US market), which is part of the problem. If you make money from a large and well-run market, you should pay your fair share towards maintaining that market, no matter where you haul from.
Monaco and Luxembourg are not 'low tax' countries.
They are 'tax shelters' for foreigners, not for locals.
And other things.
But you still pay high Euro taxes, VAT and all sort of things like hidden taxes.
Source: myself, ex-Monaco resident + worked and stayed in Lux.
That is genuinely new, at least at scale. Private actors making states compete against each other to lower their taxes and sue nations for enforcing health codes a la investor rights trade agreements.
While trade is good, extractive trade is damaging. The American industrial midwest is a good example. Capitalists first moved jobs overseas, and then automated what was left. We still have strong manufacturing, but few people doing it.
This level of inequality, lack of agency, and lack of hope is incredibly corrosive to democratic values. You can see it for yourself in the election of our leader, the grievance of the pepés, and the general ascension of the right. The fact that this kind of thing is taking place globally across the trilateral powers means there's something systemic at work, it's not a quirk of American circumstance.
Of course I am, this is the comments to an article submitted to HackerNews.
> Factually, capitalism/globalization has benefited lower classes materially
So we're in agreement.
> but has stripped them of agency
Social mobility has gone up since 1700s and continued to go up, with little more than a few hiccups along the way. Regardless, whether or not globalization is good or bad is an opinion and one that does not belong in an article about a single specific study on tax avoidance / possible tax evasion.
I'm not going to reply to the rest of what you said because of that same basic point. It's a complicated issue that tackles a lot of different areas of economics, history, and politics that doesn't have any real agreement with the experts that study those things. I certainly have no hope of doing the subject justice as a comment to an article.
And that's precisely why that shouldn't be shoehorned into an article about taxes to begin with. You have no hope of defending general condemnation of globalization and piling on nonspecific blame on the "ultra rich." If a journalist has an opinion and they want to argue why they're right backed up by objective facts and research, I'd love to read that sort of thing. But precisely because I don't want to live in an echo chamber, I don't want to hear your opinion stated as fact without anything to back up.
You'll note that judging whether globalisation has helped capital more vs labour more is not an assertion of goodness or badness of globalisation, either way. Just like someone can say that cars make road accidents more likely (fact), without it being a judgement on whether cars are good or bad (opinion).
I think you've been triggered and are reacting to something that wasn't written; you've over-read into the piece.
The old system is crashing. We need to acknowledge reality now and work as fast as possible to fix it after we figure out how.
Sure, globalization has lifted millions out of poverty, but it is also pretty uncontroversial to state that it also has disproportionately increased the wealth of the billionaire and millionaire class.
> Globalization has primarily benefited the poor
But you aren't. It is simultaneously possible for globalization to have strongly benefited the poor and for "Globalisation [to have] disproportionately benefited the rich in part by rewarding capital more handsomely than labour."
They quite regularly make the point that trade has broad benefits, and on net they're fans of globalization. But unlike you, they are willing to hold that opinion while simultaneously noting that not everything about it is perfect.
The Economist's official editorials (which they call leaders) are separate. There they are quite free with their opinions. Elsewhere, though, they mainly mainly stick to having a viewpoint. Since their founding 1843 they've been firmly in favor of what we'd now call economic liberalism: their perspective is pro-human, pro-freedom, and numerically oriented.
What they don't do much of, though, is conforming to journalistic orthodoxies that came into fashion after they got going. In particular, you seem to want them to ape what journalism professor calls "the view from nowhere": http://pressthink.org/2010/11/the-view-from-nowhere-question...
Having read them for decades, I'm glad they don't. I often disagree with them, but I appreciate their transparency. That's in sharp contrast to "view from nowhere" media where you either have to puzzle out their actual viewpoint or the articles are so watered down that they are nearly useless for understanding anything.
In a normal journalism article this same opinion would probably be offered in the form of a quote by some competing economist, instead of directly, but the effect is the same.
Do you think globalisation has not rewarded capital more than labour?
Do you think globalisation has not made it easier for wealthy people to hide their assets from governments?
Because I think both statements are factually accurate, not opinion. The only bit that was "opinion" was the suggestion that the reader should perhaps be surprised. It doesn't seem a stretch.
My references:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/3-charts-that-explain...
https://understandingsociety.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/tyler-co...
I'm using growing income inequality as a proxy for rewarding capital vs rewarding labour. It's well-known to everyone that middle-classes in Western countries have had the rawest deal from globalisation, and that large populations in poorer countries have seen large relative increases. But that isn't the same thing as saying that globalisation benefits labour more than capital; it doesn't. It also isn't a judgement as to whether globalisation is good or bad; overall, I think it's a good thing, we're better off with fewer poor people globally.
In the "view from nowhere" style, a journalist would get quotes from experts to make those points. But The Economist writes as an expert. They work from a clearly established and frankly declared viewpoint. That's why people read them
If you believe their facts are wrong, you should demonstrate that. Indeed, they regularly print letters from people claiming that. But as far as I can tell, you just don't like their viewpoint.
I think what you're talking about would be more "pro-humankind".
The Economist explicitly brands and declares itself a journal of both reporting and opinion. As for "unsourced", it choses to adopt an anonymous style and tone of writing (such that any statements of opinion, which in any case are hardly disguised and pretty obvious to spot as such, take be taken to be the opinions of the entire editorial board, more or less).
As such, it's one of the few organs (though I frequently find myself in disagreement with it) I almost always enjoy reading.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2015/11/02/how-ikea-...
Governments actually compete to get rich people to invest money into their country, because they would rather get 10% of a big pie than 0 - wealthy people usually have many options on where to invest. Right now, there are cities across the US COMPETING to have Amazon build an office there. Economic incentives will be a big part of whats on the negotiating table of course. When you have that level of money/power, you are effectively negotiating with the government so of course they negotiate better deals for themselves.
This article got promoted while this other link, which was posted almost at the same time (and not by me) was simply deleted:
"World's Poorest People Are Getting Richer Faster than Anyone Else" https://fee.org/articles/the-worlds-poorest-people-are-getti...
I don't think it's healthy for this site to become an echo chamber where the only articles that anyone is allowed to see are all from the same viewpoint.
I don’t see it in hn.algolia.com.
As for the rest, do you have an HN link for the other post you're referring to? When you say "deleted", do you mean flagged? Dead? or completely gone? I suspect this last as you haven't provided a link and likely would have if you had one. If it's gone, one possibility is that the submitter deleted it.
I suggest you contact the mods. They do sometimes come across comments like this and answer, but they don't see everything on the site. In my experience they've been very responsive.
Also in my experience the mods are very hands-off when it comes to completely removing content. Before assuming bad faith on their part, I'd ask them first.
We never delete posts outright except when an author asks us to. Moderated posts always remain visible to anyone with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile.
Leaping to the conclusion that we're sinister suppressers is fun in a fuck-the-man way, but if you care about this community, consider the systemic effects it has. They're not good.
[1] http://erikrood.com/Posts/tax_rates.html
Also don't be mislead by rates. In absolute terms, the super rich pay a lot of taxes, it is only unimpressive in relative terms.
Now there is some ambiguity about the term "tax evasion". Does it only include illegal, punishable practices or are dubious but technically legal "optimization" techniques included? The conclusion could be very different.
These kind of articles look like cheap communist propaganda, throwing dirt to the high producers of a community because they don't contribute "enough" to the welfare of the non-producers. These low-earners are painted as being somehow entitled to what others who are working harder, or smarter, or are willing to take risks are producing.
[1] Hire a team of accountants, lawyers, and bankers to do your taxes. If you're really brave let the government sue you if there is a disagreement. The way budgets and incentives are set up at the IRS and Justice, the government lawyers will get a status bump for settling your case for ten cents on the dollar so they won't risk losing at trial. You might have $10m to spend on a protracted legal fight but Congress purposely underfunds the prosecution. Note that this only applies to billionaires. Garden variety millionaires can also make the system look regressive due to things like the income caps on Social Security taxes, the huge discounts in state tax equity secondary markets, a cornucopia of deductions, shifting income from W-2 to long term capital gains, and playing "will I get audited (by someone competent)" roulette.
[2] Name used for illustrative purposes only. Based on the way his holdings are reportedly structured, Buffett probably doesn't engage in tax fraud. The guy just has too much money to care, it's mostly tied up in one well-structured investment, and he's donating it all to charity so why bother?