This is a common claim, but it is a misleading simplification of US politics and European politics. (In simple terms, many of the economic positions taken by the Democratic Party would be considered centrist in Europe,…
>...had Russia not also invaded from the North with 1.5 million troops, there's a chance they would not have surrendered The Japanese had already moved all of their experienced troops from Manchuria before the Soviet…
Marginal utility tends to diminish as you consume more of a good, but you can't compare utility between individuals. Utility is ordinal, has no common scale and is subjective. It doesn't make sense to try and claim that…
The 1% limit is a limit on the level of the property tax. If property tax values somehow fell by 50%, in theory, the property tax rate would double to ensure city operations remain funded. However, Seattle is almost at…
One big limitation is RCW 84.52.050 (Limitation of levies) which I think implements the 1% constitutional max allowed levy. I read somewhere that Seattle is at a levy of about 9.4, so that would be a hard limit right…
>...If total citywide property value drops by 50%, the property tax rate doubles that year. This claim is simply not true. Even in a budget based system like Seattle, there are hard statutory limits on how much the tax…
Other papers have found both employment losses and more significant price increases. A discussion of the topic was in the Ask Economics subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...
>You're going to have a hard time convincing me the wealthy aren't gaming the tax system after all the reporting and leaks over the last ~40 years. Obviously every person tries to avoid taxes - you don’t have to be rich…
The buy, borrow, die idea came from McCaffery in the 90s which was before various IRS sections like 1259 and 7701(o) were codified. Go get a calculator - if you took out a loan and had the interest set a the minimum of…
>...Additionally, wealthy people can use securities as collateral for near zero interest lifetime loans which also bypass having to pay income tax. This is just Internet mythology. The IRS would go after such…
This is sometimes referred to as Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: >Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": >First, there will be those who…
Well many government pension funds are horribly underfunded, so likely it would just add to the underfunding till eventually the government would bail it out. It is an expensive, inefficient way to try and solve the…
If sending military advisors to a country is starting a war, the list of wars started by each President will get MUCH larger. (For some reason most people associate the Vietnam war with the President who deliberately…
Depends on what you call a “war” since the last time the US declared war was in WW II.. In terms of military operations, a partial list would probably include: Democrat Presidents: Bosnia, Haiti, Iran, Kosovo, Libya,…
>... If retirement age was say 80 instead of 60, there would be 25% fewer jobs to go around. (using imprecise simple math). Economists refer to this idea as the lump of labour fallacy.…
>...I don’t know why people downvoted this because it is obviously correct. In a democracy you have to buy the votes of the largest constituency with other people’s money, In the last few decades both political parties…
>...my parents were Silent Gen (WWII vets) If your parents were WW II vets, wouldn't they be part of Greatest Generation (often considered to be those born 1901–1927)? Silent Generation are often considered to be those…
>A lot more utility solar has been installed since then. Yes, utility solar is very safe. Unfortunately rooftop solar is much more dangerous and also much, much more costly. So one has to wonder why anyone supports the…
You won't convince many people if you think ad hominem attacks and insults are acceptable. Yes, subsidies are done to help drive adoption. The key is that the subsidies should go where they can do the most good. Money…
The consumer rooftop solar cost is usually one of the most expensive ways you can generate electricity - often several times the cost of utility solar installations. The high rooftop solar price is usually hidden (at…
>...The reason why Buffet complains about them is that A) it makes harder to discern from financial statements how much staff is costing the shareholders, not that its a competitive advangage or disadvantage, and B) if…
>...it has always been about allowing those who are socially superior to avoid the embarrassment of having to compete in an environment where they might be defeated by their social inferiors. Is your argument actually…
Qualified immunity doesn't apply to criminal cases. It is used to defend against civil suits. It is unfortunately very easy to find many cases where it leads to injustice. For example: >...Abby Tiscareno, a licensed…
It is amazing how that bit of corporate PR is still being quoted over 100 years later. In reality, Ford had huge turnover problems with his workers - one estimate is over 370% annual turnover. One way to help prevent…
>It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents. For that matter, it has killed many, many more than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan!
This is a common claim, but it is a misleading simplification of US politics and European politics. (In simple terms, many of the economic positions taken by the Democratic Party would be considered centrist in Europe,…
>...had Russia not also invaded from the North with 1.5 million troops, there's a chance they would not have surrendered The Japanese had already moved all of their experienced troops from Manchuria before the Soviet…
Marginal utility tends to diminish as you consume more of a good, but you can't compare utility between individuals. Utility is ordinal, has no common scale and is subjective. It doesn't make sense to try and claim that…
The 1% limit is a limit on the level of the property tax. If property tax values somehow fell by 50%, in theory, the property tax rate would double to ensure city operations remain funded. However, Seattle is almost at…
One big limitation is RCW 84.52.050 (Limitation of levies) which I think implements the 1% constitutional max allowed levy. I read somewhere that Seattle is at a levy of about 9.4, so that would be a hard limit right…
>...If total citywide property value drops by 50%, the property tax rate doubles that year. This claim is simply not true. Even in a budget based system like Seattle, there are hard statutory limits on how much the tax…
Other papers have found both employment losses and more significant price increases. A discussion of the topic was in the Ask Economics subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/1smjx29/was_c...
>You're going to have a hard time convincing me the wealthy aren't gaming the tax system after all the reporting and leaks over the last ~40 years. Obviously every person tries to avoid taxes - you don’t have to be rich…
The buy, borrow, die idea came from McCaffery in the 90s which was before various IRS sections like 1259 and 7701(o) were codified. Go get a calculator - if you took out a loan and had the interest set a the minimum of…
>...Additionally, wealthy people can use securities as collateral for near zero interest lifetime loans which also bypass having to pay income tax. This is just Internet mythology. The IRS would go after such…
This is sometimes referred to as Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy: >Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people": >First, there will be those who…
Well many government pension funds are horribly underfunded, so likely it would just add to the underfunding till eventually the government would bail it out. It is an expensive, inefficient way to try and solve the…
If sending military advisors to a country is starting a war, the list of wars started by each President will get MUCH larger. (For some reason most people associate the Vietnam war with the President who deliberately…
Depends on what you call a “war” since the last time the US declared war was in WW II.. In terms of military operations, a partial list would probably include: Democrat Presidents: Bosnia, Haiti, Iran, Kosovo, Libya,…
>... If retirement age was say 80 instead of 60, there would be 25% fewer jobs to go around. (using imprecise simple math). Economists refer to this idea as the lump of labour fallacy.…
>...I don’t know why people downvoted this because it is obviously correct. In a democracy you have to buy the votes of the largest constituency with other people’s money, In the last few decades both political parties…
>...my parents were Silent Gen (WWII vets) If your parents were WW II vets, wouldn't they be part of Greatest Generation (often considered to be those born 1901–1927)? Silent Generation are often considered to be those…
>A lot more utility solar has been installed since then. Yes, utility solar is very safe. Unfortunately rooftop solar is much more dangerous and also much, much more costly. So one has to wonder why anyone supports the…
You won't convince many people if you think ad hominem attacks and insults are acceptable. Yes, subsidies are done to help drive adoption. The key is that the subsidies should go where they can do the most good. Money…
The consumer rooftop solar cost is usually one of the most expensive ways you can generate electricity - often several times the cost of utility solar installations. The high rooftop solar price is usually hidden (at…
>...The reason why Buffet complains about them is that A) it makes harder to discern from financial statements how much staff is costing the shareholders, not that its a competitive advangage or disadvantage, and B) if…
>...it has always been about allowing those who are socially superior to avoid the embarrassment of having to compete in an environment where they might be defeated by their social inferiors. Is your argument actually…
Qualified immunity doesn't apply to criminal cases. It is used to defend against civil suits. It is unfortunately very easy to find many cases where it leads to injustice. For example: >...Abby Tiscareno, a licensed…
It is amazing how that bit of corporate PR is still being quoted over 100 years later. In reality, Ford had huge turnover problems with his workers - one estimate is over 370% annual turnover. One way to help prevent…
>It has killed many, many more than the world’s nuclear accidents. For that matter, it has killed many, many more than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan!