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John Quiggin 
@Jarrah
You Jarrah, quoting me in the following line “Utilitarianism is for disaster management”
and then Jarrah, you comment…
“So you don’t believe in the greatest good for the greatest number?”
Wide freaking call Jarrah, thats all I can say. No link between my original comment and your wide of the mark interpretation.
None whatsoever.
I dont mind logical arguments Jarrah but show me your logic first.
@Jarrah
So jarrah you either support those that control governments or you support givernment as a representative of majority vote…why dont you make yourself clear here? “Exactly, ny dear..Exactly”….isnt an argument as far as I can see. Its more a patronising comment that actually goes nowhere as regards supporting whatever view you DO actually have (which I have yet to determine) – why dont you enlighten us all Jarrah.
What do you think of people or classes, who have the ability to control governments despite being in the minority numerically on a per head count Jarrah? Do you think they should pay no tax at all? Or perhaps pay a very small tax, percentage wise?
State what you think Jarrah and avoid patronising comments. They dont mask stupidity you know.
Where are you Salient?
Should I be zapping Jarrah into the internetnonsense basket with my avatar – where are my leathers and high heels and looted weapons? Jarrah is gone!
MoSH,
Perhaps – but they mean nothing without the quintile / quartile information. Surely you cannot be that clueless about statistics. If, for example, it is the richest 61% that owns 61% of the wealth and the poorest 1% owns 1% of the wealth then we have a perfectly egalitarian society. If, OTOH, the richest individual owns 61% of the wealth and the poorest 99.99% own only 1% then we have a nearly perfectly in-egalitarian society. With the data given we have no means of knowing what, if any, point you were trying to make.
.
Alice,
Perhaps you should read my subsequent comments. Just a thought.
.
Once you have done that – ponder this. What if (purely speculating here) it was the regulations themselves that were making the banks both big and unstable? In that situation would you be in favour of deregulation?
Or are you so wedded to the idea that freedom to trade is a bad idea?
Andrew Reynolds, stop raving on.
@Alice
Alice, you previously said you don’t “subscribe” to utilitarianism, and then appeared to say that utilitarianism was only useful or applicable in rare cases. If I got that wrong, I apologise, though the incoherence of your comment shares some blame. I then asked if that meant you felt the general utilitarian rule was not part of your ethos. I may have been too concise and therefore unclear. I trust that is no longer a problem. What is your response?
“What do you think of people or classes, who have the ability to control governments despite being in the minority numerically on a per head count Jarrah?”
I think reducing the governmental powers that they can subvert is better than trying to stop them getting rich, which appears to be your implied solution. The union of the economically powerful with the politically powerful (called fascism in its most developed form) is something I will always fight against. However, I’m not so foolish as to think we can eliminate economic power, and so instead favour limiting the political/regulatory favours they can influence/buy. We already do this, but not nearly enough. It ties in with the liberal democratic principles that could be grouped under ‘the rule of law’.
“Do you think they should pay no tax at all? Or perhaps pay a very small tax, percentage wise?”
I think EVERYONE should pay as little tax as possible. I favour some progressivism in the tax scales, largely through a generous TFT. I think the more you earn, the more you should pay in absolute amounts. My whole point was to illustrate that your appeal to the myth of the rich getting off scot-free in the taxation stakes was baseless. The rich pay the most tax, as they bloody well should.
@Michael of Summer Hill
So – no knowledge of statistics then. For some odd reason that does not surprise me.
Andrew Reynolds, maybe you should write and inform the PM on how to interpret statistics.
Alice, turns out my calling out of your error and the subsequent discussion is quite topical. I’m quite chuffed to be ahead of the blogsophere meme curve for once.
Jarrah, maybe you should provide some stats for everyone to see.
This is old, but it was linked to by Quiggin himself, so perhaps you’ll find it convincing.
Click to access dp39.pdf
My mention of “a third of all tax receipts come from capital” comes from here:
http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/Paper.aspx?doc=html/publications/papers/report/section_6.htm
A reputable source, wouldn’t you say?
Jarrah, let us say that during the 2006-07 income year 51.7 per cent of personal income tax was collected from 14.0 per cent of taxpayers who were earning more than $75,000 and compare that with the 63.7 per cent of taxpayers in the $25,001 to $75,000 income bracket who paid 46.2 per cent of the tax burden and less than $25,000 2.1 per cent. Do you think the wealthy should be paying more or less?
I think the whole tax structure needs changing.
And thanks for joining me on the side of the facts. The facts being, the rich pay the most tax. And don’t take that to mean I think the rich are overtaxed – I think almost everyone is.
Jarrah, we can more or less say that the lowest wealth households whose net worth was below $70,500 and own just 1% of all the wealth in Australia are in fact paying nealy half of all personal icome taxes in this coountry. Bloody disgraceful.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – Ill get you some stats Jarrah -later – first I am going swimming. Since the 1950s the wealthy have had almost a whopping 40% cut from their personal income tax rates. No wonder the trains and buses and hospitals and the government are in a mess.
John, today Premier Rees should stand his ground and not be intimidated when he meets the head of the US coal giant Peabody Energy who are lobbyists for the coal industry and make it quite plain that the coal industry must pay for the greenhouse gas pollution produced during the mining process and show him the door.
Alice, this will make you laugh (or cry, depending on your mood)…
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/08/13/even-more-gilded/
“own just 1% of all the wealth in Australia are in fact paying nealy half of all personal icome taxes in this coountry.”
MoSH, you are confusing wealth and income.
“Since the 1950s the wealthy have had almost a whopping 40% cut from their personal income tax rates. No wonder the trains and buses and hospitals and the government are in a mess.”
There are at least two problems with this argument. Firstly, reducing tax rates often increases the absolute AND proportionate amount of tax paid (see Reagan’s cuts for a famous example). Secondly, government taxing and spending in Australia has been on an increasing trend since forever, so it’s not a lack of money to blame for run-down public services, but the people managing them – the government.
But I’m more interested in your rejection of utilitarianism. What’s your response to my earlier queries?
MoSH,
If you do not understand the use of quartiles and quintiles I suggest it is you that needs the education on statistics. Rudd may be a boring as bat excreta bureaucrat, but he would understand the importance of what I said. The apparent fact you do not means that a good read of “Statistics for Dummies” may be appropriate. You keep making clear and obvious interpretive errors.
@Jarrah
My response to your comment on utilitarianism is to ask you to go and read Rawls theory of social justice and after you do, you will realise the inadequacies of utilitarianism except, as I suggested before, managing triage care in emergencies.
@ABOM
ABOM – its not making me laugh or cry – it just makes me hopping mad….(bit of a laugh).
Now we have another zombie banker on the loose…
Jarrah – go and look at ABOMs link for the share of the top 10% of income earners over time (decades) and see exactly what a fantastic return it has been for them to spend their surplus income supporting any two bit hack publisher or stink tank or mogul (or is that Mongolian as in Genghis Khan) media owner from pushing free market ideologies down everyone’s throats until they either choke or starve…or both.
Now for some real stats Jarrah and Andrew.
In Australia in 1950 the top decile of individual taxpayers in Australia paid 79.% of total income tax collected from individuals.
In 1960 the top ten percent of Australian individual income tax earners paid 59.6% of total income tax collected from individual returns.
In 1970 the same top ten percent of individual taxpayers pays 44% of the total collected from individuals.
This is going to uglier Jarrah and Andy and you may refer to ABOMs link and start seeing exactly why they (the richest) push free market ideologies, lower taxes etc
In 1980 the top decile are paying 37% of the tax.
lets see now…1990 it jumps a bit to 39%
By 2000 it jumps again to 42%.
By 2005 – its at 41%.
Are you getting this picture. The rich have gotten away with almost half of the personal income tax they used to pay. Half.
Ill just check 1948 – yep the richest ten percent paid around 62%.
Funny about that – 1948 and 1950 was when we were rich enough to run decent public transport – and we built the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Couldnt do it now. Hopeless and clueless.
Not only that – we have let lots of teh richest income earners get away with paying no tax while they hide in the global financial market black holes and tax havens…This is only what we actually see, let alone what else the richest manage to hide or shuffle.
And I expect Jarrah will shortly be giving an entirely spurious response like “if we tax the rich less…we actually collect more due to incentives to pay being more positive” Heard it all before from the “income tax denilialists” and the “regressive income tax denilaists” and the “any income tax denialists”…. Strike up the violins and lets all weep about the terrible tax burdens on the rich shall we?
excuse spelling
Maybe the figures that Alice qoutes are directly due to bracket creep – the interacion of progressive taxation with inflation. Why oh why can’t we have indexation of the tax brackets; what is wrong with our political system?
Jarrah, I gather from your answer you are making things up like Andrew Reynolds. But if you add the GST ontop of the direct taxation the bottom 1% are being screwed. I expect the Henry report to correct the anomaly and the upper crust will be taxed heavily.
Alice,
Nice stats. At least you give the sort of contextual information that MoSH does not. Maybe you could give him some lessons.
Now for some analysis. Even on your numbers the rich, even if we take your simplistic picture of what “rich” is – the top decile (note, MoSH, how the deciles are used, pay attention please) – are paying close to half of all income taxes. So those 10% are paying four times the average.
Now – add in the effect of other taxes. If we assume (as I think is just) that the “rich” also actually buy anything in Australia with all that money (hey – they have to buy LCD TVs like the rest of us) then they are also paying more GST. They may also buy cars over the luxury car tax threshold – more tax paid. It just goes on and on and on…
@Alice
“..go and read…”
Can’t explain it in your own words? Fine. I don’t deny utilitarianism has inadequacies, but why would you reject it utterly? Deontological ethics have their own inadequacies, after all.
“an entirely spurious response”
LOL. Plain facts aren’t ‘spurious’.
All your stats show is that the rich are paying proportionally less income tax now (and you ignore the rise of the middle class). They definitely don’t support your original point. Are you trying to move the goalposts, or are you genuinely confused?
And notice that for 25 years the proportion has barely changed, despite it being the quintessential ‘neoliberal’ era of ‘tax cuts for the rich’. What does that say about your thesis, hmm?
“Strike up the violins and lets all weep about the terrible tax burdens on the rich shall we?”
Why do you persist in ascribing views to your opponents that they don’t actually hold? It’s very poor form, and it doesn’t win any arguments. Speaking of poor form, it’s considered polite to give your sources, as I did.
@Tim Peterson
Tim – maybe some of it is due to bracket creep Tim but I would suggest the majority is some pretty hefty tax cuts granted the rich over time.
@Jarrah
I know who is confused Jarrah. But worse than that you are hell bent on trying to confuse others.
Jarrah my sources were the annual reports of the Commissioner of Taxation to the Federal Treasurer every year (recorded by the Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics in public finance records).
No Andrew Reynolds, you are raving on for you fail to mention tax avoidance arrangements which the upper crust utilise in minimising taxation through ie bottom of the harbour schemes, superannuation scheme, decreased capital gains tax and don’t forget capital gain losses, overseas family trust, etc. Still think the wealthy are treated harshly?
“Still think the wealthy are treated harshly?”
Again you are trying to ascribe positions that no-one here holds. All we are doing is correcting your fallacious belief that “the rest of humanity carries their tax burden”. As you yourself have pointed out, that’s a baseless claim. Glad to have sorted that out.
Now can we talk about your rejection of utilitarianism as a basis for decision-making? I’ve truly never met anyone who held such a strident view about it. Can you enlighten us as to why?
Alice, you have to check this out. I can’t believe what Andrew just said.
http://ozrisk.net/2009/07/15/congratulations-goldman/#comment-27499
@Jarrah
re your question Jarrah
“Why do you persist in ascribing views to your opponents that they don’t actually hold? It’s very poor form”
I will again refer you to my stats and ABOMs post link. You are in short WRONG that people are paying too much tax and as far as the rich paying the most tax. Their proportion has declined substantially. I have posted the stats. ABOM has posted a link showing the growing unequal share of income being earned by the top decile. The same think is happeninjg here in these statistics. Our society is more unequal in the distribution of individual tax incomes now over every decade except 1950 which was an abberration due the wool boom giving great prices to the already wealthy graziers and wool exporters.
If you dont want to see growing inequality dont look at my pictures, and as for the suggestion I am ascribing views to you that you dont have ….then you are also in the game of changing your opinions rapidly…
These are you own words Jarrah..
“And thanks for joining me on the side of the facts. The facts being, the rich pay the most tax. And don’t take that to mean I think the rich are overtaxed – I think almost everyone is.”
Im looking forward to your next attempt to change tack Jarrah, but your vessel is taking water and you are sinking rapidly.
“spurious”
http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/Paper.aspx?doc=html/publications/papers/report/section_4-01.htm
Note the two graphs – tax rates have been decreasing, but tax take has been increasing!
The next page could go some way to explaining why your golden age of the 1950s could afford the Snowy Mountains Scheme – social security spending is out of control, sucking up all that money:
http://taxreview.treasury.gov.au/content/Paper.aspx?doc=html/publications/papers/report/section_4-02.htm
“You are in short WRONG that people are paying too much tax and as far as the rich paying the most tax. Their proportion has declined substantially. I have posted the stats.”
The overall amount of tax people should pay can’t be ‘wrong’ or ‘right’, it’s a matter of opinion. It’s certainly NOT wrong that the rich pay the most tax – you have posted stats that show EXACTLY that! The proportion has declined, but the rich still pay the most tax. As they should.
“Our society is more unequal in the distribution of individual tax incomes now”
A different topic. In other words, you’re moving the goalposts of the discussion, or “changing tack”. That’s either intellectual cowardice, or confusion about simple English words.
Way to torpedo your own boat, Alice.
@Jarrah
Jarrah – you cant even read a graph and put two and two together. I am getting impatient with you. Government spending as a percentage of GDP in the 1950s was dominated by capital works spending not welfare expenditure. Unemployment benefits were virtually non existent. Unemployment averaged 2% for almost three decades. Government investment as a percentage of GDP was the same percentage of an injection as private sector expenditure. It created jobs (lots of jobs) and as a result unemployment was exceptionally low. The rich paid a much higher percentage of income tax.
If you really want to question why welfare spending is much higher now in your graph which you have failed to consider any causative factors behind that (none at all)…you may want to start with the unemployment rate which started ratcheting up in the mid 1970s when all this free market ideology started (and then got horrifically steadily worse with underemployment and casualisation) BECAUSE, Jarrah, people like you (just like you) kept pushing the low taxes, de-regulation, minimal government, privatisation, let the hungry eat the poor because they are just lazy, lines…lines and lies – all of it
and the great liberal policy experiment has all been an abject failure in this country and has caste people out of real jobs …and now you want to whinge about welfare? These very attitudes helped create the larger number needy in this country. Then, to add insult to injury… some tried to suggest “oh well…its just that NAIRU has risen and we will have to all tolerate it (rubbish)… as long as we are fighting inflation and keeping that low we can afford to ignore the growing pool of unemployment and underemployment and do nothing about it.
Phooey Jarrah.
No Jarrah, you are talking nonsense.
@Jarrah
Jarrah,
Discussing deciles of individual income tax earners and the percentage they pay of total income tax of individuals in this country over a 50 year span IS discussing equality / inequality Jarrah. It is not a change of topic. Or perhaps you didnt recognise the topic might be more the case.
Your boat has sunk, Jarrah, totally..splintered on the shores of ideologically driven liberal market drivel.
“IS discussing equality / inequality Jarrah. It is not a change of topic. ”
But we WEREN’T discussing inequality trends, Alice. We were talking about who most bears the burden of tax. Which, as I said, and you’ve since proved, is the rich. What don’t you get about this straightforward fact?
“we can afford to ignore the growing pool of unemployment and underemployment and do nothing about it.”
This is starting to become a different playing field, you’ve moved the goalposts so far, if not a different sport!
“and the great liberal policy experiment has all been an abject failure in this country ”
A giant, absolutely enormous claim to make, Alice. A pity you can’t possibly back it up. But if you’re scared to debate tax burdens, or utilitarianism (a fear I still don’t understand), go ahead and change tack again. At least your inconsistency is consistent 😉
@Michael of Summer Hill
Gosh, what a devastating comeback, Michael. How can I retort against such penetrating insight? I prostrate myself before your impeccable logic.
@Jarrah
No need to be rude Jarrah.
And you have twisted and stumbled under my arguments and now you twist more. I dont have the patience for this Jarrah. Of course we were talking about equality when you discuss the percentageof total tax that a decile pays. What else are we talking about??
Are you mad or just in denial?
Alice, maybe you should tell everyone how the British taxpayers have been screwed as a result of multibillion-pounds tax avoidance due to secretive tax arrangements and in the USA how taxpayers have also been screwed out of $100 billion in tax as a result of offshore corporate tax havens.
That was my last “hit”:
http://ozrisk.net/2009/07/15/congratulations-goldman/#comment-27505
He’s got to shut up now. That response is supposed to floor him.
Didn’t work. This is unbelievable. I’ve hit him with my best shots. At least you know the quality of the hits Alice.
ABOM,
Perhaps you should use something more like reasoned argument. If your best shots are piles of links to sites that feature blood sucking vampires then the argument is likely to be of very high quality. Not.
Andrew..you know damn well ABOM is right…and your brain is dead Andy…dead! (meaning you only hear what you want to hear and if it doesnt fit with the pretty deregulation free market financial model…you wont even listen..)
ABOM’s brain isnt dead Andy. Its alive and kicking.
@Michael of Summer Hill
Moshie – I know you mean well – just dont engage with the denialist zombie financial sector liberal free market zombies…what else can I say to you Moshie?
I cant actually talk about what you suggested because I havent looked into UK long term data. I am disturbed enough about long term Australian data and that is taking up all my time…(but I am sure when it comes to unemployment they are probably doing just as badly, if not worse than us).
Governments across the globe have got caught up in this liberal free market BS. You look after your own economy first IMHO. Thats the greatest contribution you can make to the global economy – Keynes said it, not me but I agree.
@Jarrah
Jarrah, said “But if you’re scared to debate tax burdens” (after I already gave him the stats and debated it – what is going on in Jarrah’s mind except an attempt to totally deny and confuse others..???) Im not wearing it Jarrah (you can fool some etc old proverb),
In response….
Im putting my stats up again (and they err on the side of conservatism because they DONT take into account tax minimisations schemes that the rich can afford).
Because you didnt damn well undertstand my willingness to discuss tax burdens the first time…its your uneillingness to understand or acknowledge what is in question here…not my unwillingness to discuss
(JEEEEZZZ Jarrah do you the want the world to think you have a cognitive impairment because Im beginning to think you do…I have to put this up again??/ This IS a discussion of tax burdens!!!!!)
You obviously need to read these again Jarrah.
In Australia in 1950 the top decile of individual taxpayers in Australia paid 79.% of total income tax collected from individuals.
In 1960 the top ten percent of Australian individual income tax earners paid 59.6% of total income tax collected from individual returns.
In 1970 the same top ten percent of individual taxpayers pays 44% of the total collected from individuals.
This is going to uglier Jarrah and Andy and you may refer to ABOMs link and start seeing exactly why they (the richest) push free market ideologies, lower taxes etc
In 1980 the top decile are paying 37% of the tax.
lets see now…1990 it jumps a bit to 39%
By 2000 it jumps again to 42%.
By 2005 – its at 41%.
Are you getting this picture. The rich have gotten away with almost half of the personal income tax they used to pay. Half.
Ill just check 1948 – yep the richest ten percent paid around 62%.
Funny about that – 1948 and 1950 was when we were rich enough to run decent public transport – and we built the Snowy Mountains Scheme.
Couldnt do it now. Hopeless and clueless.