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Pseudo-demand, Pseudo-supply

Started by Xerographica, August 01, 2013, 12:21:06 PM

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Poison Tree

The easiest way to move towards society #2 is that the richest people are much better off spending their huge proportion of the money on themselves, not society. Why should they allocate money to a general hospital serving the community when they could higher a privet doctor and get more return on their money? Why pay for cops to protect the city when you can higher private guards for your own property? As the riches people withdraw into their little forts the bulk of society has a decreasing share of money to attempt to use to cover all of their needs, and they are also likely to be better off by spending the money strictly on themselves rather than spreading it around. Soon you end up with Detroit--anyone with the money to pay for services uses it to move somewhere better.
"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches" Voltaire�s Candide

Mister Agenda

Quote from: "Xerographica"
Quote from: "Mister Agenda"Give the job to someone who can write the memo with brevity and without arrogance and condecension. You're the worst salesman for tax choice I've ever encountered.
How many tax choice salesmen have you encountered?

11. I actually thought it might have advantages until you explained it.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

josephpalazzo

Quote from: "Poison Tree"The easiest way to move towards society #2 is that the richest people are much better off spending their huge proportion of the money on themselves, not society. Why should they allocate money to a general hospital serving the community when they could higher a privet doctor and get more return on their money? Why pay for cops to protect the city when you can higher private guards for your own property? As the riches people withdraw into their little forts the bulk of society has a decreasing share of money to attempt to use to cover all of their needs, and they are also likely to be better off by spending the money strictly on themselves rather than spreading it around.

We already did that. It's called the Feudal Age.

Colanth

Quote from: "Xerographica"
Quote from: "Colanth"//http://libertariananarchy.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/hello-world/ may interest you.  It's an economic breakdown (and total destruction of the feasibility of the idea of) pragmatarianism.  Unlike pragmatarianists, the author actually looks at consequences.
Heh, those two anarcho-capitalists couldn't quite explain how, exactly, we would end up at a 100% tax rate.
Nice way of saying that you don't have a clue about how financial analysis is actually done.  Thanks.  Now I know I can totally ignore your opinions on finance.  (They COMPLETELY explained why they chose a 100% tax rate for the analysis.  They were PAINFULLY obvious.)
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Colanth

Quote from: "Xerographica"This reminds me of a terrible critique of pragmatarianism written by two anarcho-capitalists...Pragmatarianism Disproved.  It made me laugh because they attempted to demonstrate how a pragmatarian system with a 100% tax rate wouldn't work.  But when I asked them to explain how we would end up at a 100% tax rate...they were unable to do so.
Unable?  No, since they explained it on the site.

Unwilling to waste time on someone who obviously doesn't understand anything about finance or analysis?  Probably.  If you can't understand the explanation on the site, what makes you think you'd be able to understand one they send to you personally?  It would be about the same words they posted on their site.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Sal1981

Quote from: "Xerographica"Just like it would be detrimental to lie about how much you value something...it would also be detrimental to have your true values ignored.
Ever heard about game theory? Or, ever heard about bartering?

Here's a simple scenario: Say you want to buy a car, but you don't want to pay more than 10k for it, do you start by offering 10k for it? Yeah, if you're never bartered before. You start low, like 6k, then the one selling might say 14k or something, and you work your way to your ideal price, be it 10k or maybe if you're good less than what you aimed for. This is just one example, but you're basically rambling in OP.

demand/supply is overrated and simplistic anyways.

Xerographica

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "Xerographica"
Quote from: "Colanth"//http://libertariananarchy.wordpress.com/2012/03/08/hello-world/ may interest you.  It's an economic breakdown (and total destruction of the feasibility of the idea of) pragmatarianism.  Unlike pragmatarianists, the author actually looks at consequences.
Heh, those two anarcho-capitalists couldn't quite explain how, exactly, we would end up at a 100% tax rate.
Nice way of saying that you don't have a clue about how financial analysis is actually done.  Thanks.  Now I know I can totally ignore your opinions on finance.  (They COMPLETELY explained why they chose a 100% tax rate for the analysis.  They were PAINFULLY obvious.)
Yeah, they did explain why they choose a 100% tax rate for their analysis...but when I asked them afterwards to explain exactly how we would arrive at a 100% tax rate...they completely failed to do so.

Let me try and explain this in more detail.

If we implemented a pragmatarian system tomorrow...the tax rate would be exactly the same.  That's because pragmatarianism is all about ceteris paribus (all other things being equal).  

So if we start off at a 40% tax rate then how do we end up at a 100% tax rate?  Well...who controls the tax rate?  Congress.  Would congress randomly bump the tax rate from 40% to 100%?  It's entirely possible...given that they are in charge of the tax rate...but it's just not very probable.  Could they gradually increase the tax rate over time?  Sure, that's a lot more probable.  

But unlike with the current system, in a pragmatarian system, congress, just like every other organization, would depend on positive feedback from consumers.  

So the question becomes...what tax rate would taxpayers prefer?  A higher tax rate would mean that taxpayers could spend more of their money in the public sector and less of their money in the private sector.  A lower tax rate would mean they could spend less of their money in the public sector and more of their money in the private sector.  Basically, it's a question of how much value each sector provides.

If congress starts going the right direction with the tax rate...then they would gain revenue (positive feedback).  If they start going the wrong direction with the tax rate...then they would lose revenue.  Basically the change in their revenue would indicate whether they were going the right or wrong direction with the tax rate.  So in order to maximize their revenue...they would have to pick the optimal tax rate.  

So if we ended up, over time, with a 100% tax rate, then it's not just because congress arbitrarily decided to up the tax rate...it would be because taxpayers were deriving all their value from the public sector and absolutely no value from the private sector.  

It's hilarious because we have two anarcho-capitalists...people who want to eliminate the public sector...people who argue that the private sector is far superior...envisioning and critiquing a scenario where all taxpayers, completely of their own free will, choose the public sector entirely over the private sector.  Not just partially, but entirely.  

Why would taxpayers want MORE public sector if it wasn't providing them with MORE value?  They wouldn't.  Therefore, if taxpayers wanted ALL public sector it would be because that's where ALL their value was coming from.  

The public sector, I guess, must have really changed for the best.  Public agencies would compete for revenue...they would try and offer taxpayers the most bang for their tax dollar.  But there wouldn't be any profit...or price tags!  So the motivation... incentive... would be to increase your influence over how society's limited resources were used.  Wasting society's limited resources would decrease your influence.  That's because nobody would want to give their tax dollars to the most wasteful government agencies.  So if you didn't work hard/smart, then your agency would lose revenue and your own influence would decrease.  Rather than give your favorite band $100 tax dollars...you would only be able to give them $5 tax dollars.  Same thing with your favorite author and restaurant.  This means that you'll end up with marginally less of the things that match your preference.

It's really difficult, but nicely challenging, to try and imagine how a 100% tax rate would work in a pragmatarian system.  But to argue that it wouldn't work...but we still somehow managed to end up there...is ludicrous.  This is because at every step of the way taxpayers would be deciding for themselves whether they wanted more or less public sector.  If something isn't working...if you're not getting any value from it...then why would you want more of it?  You wouldn't.

You continue to try and engage me in discussion...therefore you must be deriving value from our discussion.  When you stop demanding more of me...then you must be deriving more value elsewhere.  It's a pretty straightforward concept...and it's equally applicable to the tax rate in a pragmatarian system.

Mister Agenda

You never seem to respond when it's pointed out that the top 5% of income-earners who pay over half of all income taxes would determine how the bulk of government money is spent. We voted with our wallets that their stuff was worth buying, we didn't vote them into defacto office. They have enough influence over the government already, IMHO.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Poison Tree

Quote from: "Mister Agenda"You never seem to respond when it's pointed out that the top 5% of income-earners who pay over half of all income taxes would determine how the bulk of government money is spent. We voted with our wallets that their stuff was worth buying, we didn't vote them into defacto office. They have enough influence over the government already, IMHO.
But don't you realize that, unlike congress--who we have a method of replacing when they stop acting as society wants--, the top 5%--with no practical method of replacement--really are omniscient.
"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches" Voltaire�s Candide

Colanth

Quote from: "Xerographica"Yeah, they did explain why they choose a 100% tax rate for their analysis...but when I asked them afterwards to explain exactly how we would arrive at a 100% tax rate...they completely failed to do so.
Because the question shows that you completely failed to understand what they said on the site, so they probably figured that you wouldn't understand the same thing (which was kindergarten-simple) in an email.

And evidently you don't understand it.

QuoteLet me try and explain this in more detail.

If we implemented a pragmatarian system tomorrow...the tax rate would be exactly the same.
But it wouldn't work under a 100% tax rate - and THAT'S how you analyze whether it would work or not.

If you can't understand that (and it's evident that you can't), I have to assume that you don't actually understand pragmatarianism (which is more complex than analysis), you're just parroting what someone else said.  Kind of like Christians just repeating what the priest or minister told them.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Colanth

Quote from: "Poison Tree"But don't you realize that, unlike congress--who we have a method of replacing when they stop acting as society wants--
A method that doesn't actually work, because most of the electorate can't hold a whole thought, let alone two or more thoughts, in their heads at the same time.  Tell a rabid Christian crowd that you're anti-under-any-circumstances-abortion and you're assured of their vote.  Even if you're opposed to them earning enough money to keep from starving.

Many of the North Carolina unemployed will be voting for the legislators who voted against accepting the federal unemployment extension.  But they're Christians and they're "pro-life".  So tell me again how the system "works"?
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Poison Tree

Quote from: "Colanth"
Quote from: "Poison Tree"But don't you realize that, unlike congress--who we have a method of replacing when they stop acting as society wants--
A method that doesn't actually work, because most of the electorate can't hold a whole thought, let alone two or more thoughts, in their heads at the same time.  Tell a rabid Christian crowd that you're anti-under-any-circumstances-abortion and you're assured of their vote.  Even if you're opposed to them earning enough money to keep from starving.

Many of the North Carolina unemployed will be voting for the legislators who voted against accepting the federal unemployment extension.  But they're Christians and they're "pro-life".  So tell me again how the system "works"?
I said that we had a method of replacing them, not that the system was perfect or that voters only vote with a rational mind or that one sacred cow will not trump other issues  for them or anything of that kind. It seems bizarre to us that choosing a "good, honest christian" is the most important thing to some voters, but they still have that choice and their choice has an impact on the candidate, regardless of the voters lack of economic power or focus on his own self-interest. However, voters do have a method of voicing dissatisfaction, a more tangible method then exists against the top 5% or other unelected powers.
"Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches" Voltaire�s Candide

Colanth

Quote from: "Poison Tree"However, voters do have a method of voicing dissatisfaction, a more tangible method then exists against the top 5% or other unelected powers.
An ineffective method and no method are like a god that chooses to do nothing and a non-existent god.  A distinction without a difference.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Xerographica

Quote from: "Mister Agenda"You never seem to respond when it's pointed out that the top 5% of income-earners who pay over half of all income taxes would determine how the bulk of government money is spent. We voted with our wallets that their stuff was worth buying, we didn't vote them into defacto office. They have enough influence over the government already, IMHO.
We voted for taxpayers with our actions...but we voted for politicians with our words.  Actions speak louder than words...

QuoteFurthermore, social scientists know that there is often a big gulf between consumers' answers to surveys questions and what they actually do when confronted with real choices involving real prices and the immediate circumstances of consumption. - Richard B. McKenzie, Bound to Be Free
QuoteThere are, however, several other considerations that are sometimes mentioned in the context of revealed preference that do suggest a systematic and predictable bias in the divergence between actions and words (and by extrapolation between market and electoral preference), and these considerations are of more interest in the current setting. - Geoffrey Brennan, Loren Lomasky, Democracy and Decision

Xerographica

Quote from: "Poison Tree"
Quote from: "Mister Agenda"You never seem to respond when it's pointed out that the top 5% of income-earners who pay over half of all income taxes would determine how the bulk of government money is spent. We voted with our wallets that their stuff was worth buying, we didn't vote them into defacto office. They have enough influence over the government already, IMHO.
But don't you realize that, unlike congress--who we have a method of replacing when they stop acting as society wants--, the top 5%--with no practical method of replacement--really are omniscient.
I don't think you quite grasp the concept of "consumer sovereignty"...

QuoteWal-Mart can't charge more; if it does, its customers will go elsewhere. The same is true of Target and Costco. In a sense, Wal-Mart is the elected representative of tens of millions of hard-bargaining shoppers, and, like any representative, it serves only at their pleasure. - James Surowiecki, The Customer is King