Zardnaar
Deity
As an introduction (in order to get where I am coming from), I am a 40 yo male living in New Zealand that considers himself a left of centre socially liberal voter. In American terms I would probably be a blue dog Democrat with some progressive tendencies. I don;t believe in everything the looney left gets up to nor do I believe in much form the conservative side of the equation but some ideas form the right I would be perfectly happy to adopt if I was Lord Grand High Poobah of the world.
If my looney left comment offends you I can't print my opinion of the hard right here but suffice to say it involves the C word. Espicially the USA verison of the hard right. Here we do not really have a hard right party, or Neo Liberal government lost the 2017 election (despite being the most popular party) but they were for the most part socially liberal. They may not advocate for some things like gay rights but they did not revoke socially liberal poliices the previous government passed other focusing on things like tax cuts and employment law.
Over the last 30 odd years starting at a young age I read a lot about WW2, this then went into about how the wartime production economies were ran then expanded out to wartime economy in general then out to economics and WW1 then through to economics in general. I don't have an economic degree although while at university I did do some economics papers along with a lot of reading through the history and economic sections of the library. As I said I don't consider myself to be an economics expert but I do consider myself financially literate. This means I understand the basic concepts of supply and demand, tax, capital gains, compound interest, macro and micro economic theory and can apply them to my real life in terms of paying off my mortage and avoiding things like credit card debt and pay day loans. And I know about things like Adam Smith/ Wealth of Nations, Keynesian economics, Milton Friedman, Karl Marx etc.
Economics is not a science but certain "laws" of it like supply and demand are like gravity IMHO. Much like gravity its gonna hurt when you hit the ground if you mess it up. I don't think the extreme left and right are a good idea. Mostly it boils down to where ytou want to put the tax rate and how much government intervention (or how) you want in the economy. If you go to far right you end up with things like the USA, go to far left you end up with New Zealand in the early 1980's. This assumes that you are still a liberal democratic nation and do not teeter over into something like communism or a right wing military dictatorship.
New Zealand What We Did Right (I think this guy is slightly right of centre but not wing ding levels).
The main problem right now IMHO is the levels of wealth disparity in modern economies, we are roughly where we were in the 1920's and perhaps heading towards another global financial collapse of GFC II. This time around there is a lot less money to go around and the last GFC barely effected us in New Zealand.
I think Trump is a symptom of the pain some Americans are feeling, of course I didn't expect him to fix anything but he promised he would often with populist messages that were contradictory. While his wall gets a lot of attention he promised cheaper and better health care which right there is basically contradictory. If you want better health care pay more money and that money will come from taxes.
If you go to far left what tends to happen is taxes get so high and regulation gets to the point where you start strangling your own economy. Its something the right is kind of right on. The above video explains what happened in NZ, modern Venezuela would be an extreme example in the modern era. Basically the looney left doesn't really understand the basics of how economies work and then try to regulate it to make it work with their silly beliefs. Guess how that works out. Extreme Keynesian economics broadly speaking arguably lead to the stagflation of the 70's which lead to the rise of the right (Reagan, Thatcher etc) along with blow back to the civil rights violence.
On the other hand extreme right wing economics has gotten us to where we are now. From the 1930's to the 1980's there was no severe economic financial market crashes until the wall street thing, and we have been getting minor ones every decade or so along with the GFC in the 2008. This is basically what happens when you deregulate the finance markets- the right is wrong about markets being self correcting when investors are essentially gambling with very dodgy investment schemes which lead to the sub prime mortgage crisis. In the last 10 years there has been a vast transfer from the bottom half to the top 1%. This is driving the populist movements in Europe and Trumps election in the sates where perceived out of touch elites like Hilary Clinton mostly failed to identify the levels of grievance out there.
This also ties into identity politics, not all of Trumps supporters are wing ding racists but when you focus on minorities they are not thinking about the KKK, CSA and goose stepping with the Nazis but what they are hearing is "you don't care about us". And then you insult them by calling them deplorable's they are essentially trolling the left out of desperation and the looney left is dumb enough to buy into it. Some of them are actual Nazis of course but when you can only get 200 odd of them to parade around being stupid in public the media loves sensationalising that. In America its also your constitutional right to be a Nazi idiot but the left also doesn't seem t get that either. The culture wars basically boil down to the left and the right both trying to tell the other how to live. Neither of them are right culture is inherently subjective and will change over time one way or the other. What is acceptable or not will vary by time and location.
Another video to break up wall of text its interesting.
So broadly speaking you want to put up taxes on the rich as they have gone to far down the path of right wing ideology and its causing all sorts of social problems. If white people in the US are struggling to pay they bills they are not going to care to much about LGQT rights or much of anything else. They are also not going to care about targeted assistance to whoever. You need more income for the government to redistribute because the private sector is not doing it and the neo liberal experiment is mostly a failure with the promised trickle down not actually happening and trickle up happening. Democratic candidates such as Elizabeth Warrens want a 2 or 3% wealth tax (and presumably cancel Trumps tax cuts) which while Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wants a 70% tax rate on income over 10 million. My point of view is Elizabeths Warren's tax idea is fairly modest ( I would put taxes up more) while Cortez's is looney left levels.
In a previous post I did claim my personal belief is the upper tax rate should be around 40-50% even if you are a billionaire. 50% was where the British put their inheritance tax in the 1920's to break up the old money aristocracy. The idea was to make them spend it instead of pass the land on to their descendent in perpetuity. Spending money is essentially what drives and economy, the fancy word is velocity which means how many times that dollar or wherever goes around. This is why whenever something bad happens like 9/11 the president will try to reassure the American public and tell them to go out and spend. Each time that dollar is spent taxes get paid and you have things like sales tax, GST or VAT as well. You can legally avoid taxes by not spending money. If everyone did that the economy would tank so basically you need poor stupid people to spend money (they have to have it to spend), and the rich to feel confidant to spend their money as well (expand their business, hire more staff, upgrade buildings etc). Note predatory fund managers are not doing this.
Any form of spending is basically good for the economy. This includes military spending even at the levels the USA does it. High military spending is bad if you're importing stuff but good if you are in America (for the most part). Its debatable if its the most efficient but overall its beneficial. In an extreme example if you disbanded the US military and put all that money into social spending the US economy would tank in the short term as millions of soldiers would be out of jobs along with high paying jobs in R&D and the "military industrial complex". Its something a lot of hard core left wingers don't get. I lean more towards military spending myself but don't use it (US foreign policy is abysmal). Here in WW1 they sold government bonds (which basically made the rich richer) in WW2 they put taxes up to fund the war. We also had earthquakes here and military ships with airlift capabilities were used for relief so its also dual purpose.
So does cutting taxes a'la the rights belief increase tax income? Generally no, one can look at Trumps recent one. Can cutting taxes increase the tax rate? In some situation yes in the 80's here tax revenue went up 20% when they cut taxes. This kind of became gospel for the right ring. If taxes are really high (50-70% range) there is less economic activity and,or people just won't pay. If taxes are already reasonably low (around low 30's or lower) cutting them is going to blow out the budget or cut government spending which can reduce the amount of money going around although of course it is good for the 1%. Income tax did not exist as such until the 19th century and the rich paid them as the poor had no money and taxes were levelled on luxuries and imports/exports. The Americans had a Boston tea party over it. Ironically federal taxes ended up higher than colonial taxes so go figure. That is basically why I said 40-50% is probably the upper limit you can taxes an economy without causing more economic problems you are trying to solve.
So basically I disagree totally with the extreme right and left on taxes and spending. Both of the are going to mess it up (and by mess it up I mean F it up). Trump/Maduro they are both bad. Populists in places like Italy and Greece won't do it any better and likely make it worse. At this rate I am turning into a monarchist George III> Washington and he was fairly insane (but had very little actual power). The evidence is clear don't trust political leaders with the 1st name of George!!!. On a more serious note we basically had 40 years of Keynesian economics (FDR through to the 70's) and now we have have 40 years of Friedman type economics (Roger/Reaganomics, Thatcher, New Labour etc). That pendulum has been swinging back and forth in some way or another probably since Roman times, wealth will always flow towards the elite regardless of what economic system you have its how you treat the poor and how you do it that matters. 50 years ago tax rates were higher.
So in conclusion its time for the pendulum to swing the other way. Cherry pick some ideas from the right but its time to put taxes up and reinvest that money into social uses but you will also need government investment in militarise and infrastructures. Some of that might be looked at as corporate welfare but that can also work, you don't generally want the government running businesses but you want the government involved and regulating it definitely. Even without the racism the modern GoP is not your grandfathers GoP, once upon a time they did believe in things like medicare for all. While the looney left makes my teeth itch the hard right like the GoP are a morally bankrupt, plutocratic pack of imbeciles blatantly unqualified to run a country and need to be chucked out of power for a decade or two (like Hoover in the 30's). With the yellow vests in Europe, the Conservatives in freefall in the UK, and the Neo Liberals on the retreat in Australia and NZ it seems the tide is turning anyway in western style liberal democracies. There are other problems in politics especially USA politics (electoral college, corporate money etc).
If my looney left comment offends you I can't print my opinion of the hard right here but suffice to say it involves the C word. Espicially the USA verison of the hard right. Here we do not really have a hard right party, or Neo Liberal government lost the 2017 election (despite being the most popular party) but they were for the most part socially liberal. They may not advocate for some things like gay rights but they did not revoke socially liberal poliices the previous government passed other focusing on things like tax cuts and employment law.
Over the last 30 odd years starting at a young age I read a lot about WW2, this then went into about how the wartime production economies were ran then expanded out to wartime economy in general then out to economics and WW1 then through to economics in general. I don't have an economic degree although while at university I did do some economics papers along with a lot of reading through the history and economic sections of the library. As I said I don't consider myself to be an economics expert but I do consider myself financially literate. This means I understand the basic concepts of supply and demand, tax, capital gains, compound interest, macro and micro economic theory and can apply them to my real life in terms of paying off my mortage and avoiding things like credit card debt and pay day loans. And I know about things like Adam Smith/ Wealth of Nations, Keynesian economics, Milton Friedman, Karl Marx etc.
Economics is not a science but certain "laws" of it like supply and demand are like gravity IMHO. Much like gravity its gonna hurt when you hit the ground if you mess it up. I don't think the extreme left and right are a good idea. Mostly it boils down to where ytou want to put the tax rate and how much government intervention (or how) you want in the economy. If you go to far right you end up with things like the USA, go to far left you end up with New Zealand in the early 1980's. This assumes that you are still a liberal democratic nation and do not teeter over into something like communism or a right wing military dictatorship.
New Zealand What We Did Right (I think this guy is slightly right of centre but not wing ding levels).
The main problem right now IMHO is the levels of wealth disparity in modern economies, we are roughly where we were in the 1920's and perhaps heading towards another global financial collapse of GFC II. This time around there is a lot less money to go around and the last GFC barely effected us in New Zealand.
I think Trump is a symptom of the pain some Americans are feeling, of course I didn't expect him to fix anything but he promised he would often with populist messages that were contradictory. While his wall gets a lot of attention he promised cheaper and better health care which right there is basically contradictory. If you want better health care pay more money and that money will come from taxes.
If you go to far left what tends to happen is taxes get so high and regulation gets to the point where you start strangling your own economy. Its something the right is kind of right on. The above video explains what happened in NZ, modern Venezuela would be an extreme example in the modern era. Basically the looney left doesn't really understand the basics of how economies work and then try to regulate it to make it work with their silly beliefs. Guess how that works out. Extreme Keynesian economics broadly speaking arguably lead to the stagflation of the 70's which lead to the rise of the right (Reagan, Thatcher etc) along with blow back to the civil rights violence.
On the other hand extreme right wing economics has gotten us to where we are now. From the 1930's to the 1980's there was no severe economic financial market crashes until the wall street thing, and we have been getting minor ones every decade or so along with the GFC in the 2008. This is basically what happens when you deregulate the finance markets- the right is wrong about markets being self correcting when investors are essentially gambling with very dodgy investment schemes which lead to the sub prime mortgage crisis. In the last 10 years there has been a vast transfer from the bottom half to the top 1%. This is driving the populist movements in Europe and Trumps election in the sates where perceived out of touch elites like Hilary Clinton mostly failed to identify the levels of grievance out there.
This also ties into identity politics, not all of Trumps supporters are wing ding racists but when you focus on minorities they are not thinking about the KKK, CSA and goose stepping with the Nazis but what they are hearing is "you don't care about us". And then you insult them by calling them deplorable's they are essentially trolling the left out of desperation and the looney left is dumb enough to buy into it. Some of them are actual Nazis of course but when you can only get 200 odd of them to parade around being stupid in public the media loves sensationalising that. In America its also your constitutional right to be a Nazi idiot but the left also doesn't seem t get that either. The culture wars basically boil down to the left and the right both trying to tell the other how to live. Neither of them are right culture is inherently subjective and will change over time one way or the other. What is acceptable or not will vary by time and location.
Another video to break up wall of text its interesting.
So broadly speaking you want to put up taxes on the rich as they have gone to far down the path of right wing ideology and its causing all sorts of social problems. If white people in the US are struggling to pay they bills they are not going to care to much about LGQT rights or much of anything else. They are also not going to care about targeted assistance to whoever. You need more income for the government to redistribute because the private sector is not doing it and the neo liberal experiment is mostly a failure with the promised trickle down not actually happening and trickle up happening. Democratic candidates such as Elizabeth Warrens want a 2 or 3% wealth tax (and presumably cancel Trumps tax cuts) which while Alexandria Ocasio Cortez wants a 70% tax rate on income over 10 million. My point of view is Elizabeths Warren's tax idea is fairly modest ( I would put taxes up more) while Cortez's is looney left levels.
In a previous post I did claim my personal belief is the upper tax rate should be around 40-50% even if you are a billionaire. 50% was where the British put their inheritance tax in the 1920's to break up the old money aristocracy. The idea was to make them spend it instead of pass the land on to their descendent in perpetuity. Spending money is essentially what drives and economy, the fancy word is velocity which means how many times that dollar or wherever goes around. This is why whenever something bad happens like 9/11 the president will try to reassure the American public and tell them to go out and spend. Each time that dollar is spent taxes get paid and you have things like sales tax, GST or VAT as well. You can legally avoid taxes by not spending money. If everyone did that the economy would tank so basically you need poor stupid people to spend money (they have to have it to spend), and the rich to feel confidant to spend their money as well (expand their business, hire more staff, upgrade buildings etc). Note predatory fund managers are not doing this.
Any form of spending is basically good for the economy. This includes military spending even at the levels the USA does it. High military spending is bad if you're importing stuff but good if you are in America (for the most part). Its debatable if its the most efficient but overall its beneficial. In an extreme example if you disbanded the US military and put all that money into social spending the US economy would tank in the short term as millions of soldiers would be out of jobs along with high paying jobs in R&D and the "military industrial complex". Its something a lot of hard core left wingers don't get. I lean more towards military spending myself but don't use it (US foreign policy is abysmal). Here in WW1 they sold government bonds (which basically made the rich richer) in WW2 they put taxes up to fund the war. We also had earthquakes here and military ships with airlift capabilities were used for relief so its also dual purpose.
So does cutting taxes a'la the rights belief increase tax income? Generally no, one can look at Trumps recent one. Can cutting taxes increase the tax rate? In some situation yes in the 80's here tax revenue went up 20% when they cut taxes. This kind of became gospel for the right ring. If taxes are really high (50-70% range) there is less economic activity and,or people just won't pay. If taxes are already reasonably low (around low 30's or lower) cutting them is going to blow out the budget or cut government spending which can reduce the amount of money going around although of course it is good for the 1%. Income tax did not exist as such until the 19th century and the rich paid them as the poor had no money and taxes were levelled on luxuries and imports/exports. The Americans had a Boston tea party over it. Ironically federal taxes ended up higher than colonial taxes so go figure. That is basically why I said 40-50% is probably the upper limit you can taxes an economy without causing more economic problems you are trying to solve.
So basically I disagree totally with the extreme right and left on taxes and spending. Both of the are going to mess it up (and by mess it up I mean F it up). Trump/Maduro they are both bad. Populists in places like Italy and Greece won't do it any better and likely make it worse. At this rate I am turning into a monarchist George III> Washington and he was fairly insane (but had very little actual power). The evidence is clear don't trust political leaders with the 1st name of George!!!. On a more serious note we basically had 40 years of Keynesian economics (FDR through to the 70's) and now we have have 40 years of Friedman type economics (Roger/Reaganomics, Thatcher, New Labour etc). That pendulum has been swinging back and forth in some way or another probably since Roman times, wealth will always flow towards the elite regardless of what economic system you have its how you treat the poor and how you do it that matters. 50 years ago tax rates were higher.
So in conclusion its time for the pendulum to swing the other way. Cherry pick some ideas from the right but its time to put taxes up and reinvest that money into social uses but you will also need government investment in militarise and infrastructures. Some of that might be looked at as corporate welfare but that can also work, you don't generally want the government running businesses but you want the government involved and regulating it definitely. Even without the racism the modern GoP is not your grandfathers GoP, once upon a time they did believe in things like medicare for all. While the looney left makes my teeth itch the hard right like the GoP are a morally bankrupt, plutocratic pack of imbeciles blatantly unqualified to run a country and need to be chucked out of power for a decade or two (like Hoover in the 30's). With the yellow vests in Europe, the Conservatives in freefall in the UK, and the Neo Liberals on the retreat in Australia and NZ it seems the tide is turning anyway in western style liberal democracies. There are other problems in politics especially USA politics (electoral college, corporate money etc).
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