How does deregulation mean more economic freedom for everyone?

Charmar

Well then my percents should be correct, thank you.

russ_watters

I find it difficult to call a 4% drop followed by a 14% rise followed by an 8% drop followed by an 18% rise followed by a 13% drop "stagnation".

The reason it looks like stagnation when you pick the two end points (a 0.3% rise) is that you happened to pick a point near the peak of one cycle followed by one near the bottom of the deepest recession we've had since the depression. There is every reason to believe - from the history of the last several cycles - that incomes for the bottom quintile are going to see a 20% rise over the next 5-10 years.

Mentalist

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/1...n_1005111.html

My suggestion is always to increase taxes and spend a bit less than the money bringing in in these times.

Jim Kata

2006 in 2011 dollars

12,663; 32,101; 53,793; 85,145; 187,594; 331,756

1980 in 2011 dollars

11,201; 27,877; 46,000; 67,770; 120,834; 180,571

Increase in real income

13% ; 15%; 17%; 26%; 55%; 84%

Do you see a trend?

Jim Kata

Real wages haven't raised by 20% for the bottom quintile in the last thirty years why would we think they'd raise by 20% in the next 5-10?

mheslep

*People* can and do move out of statistical quintiles over time, even if the pay defining the bracket is stagnant.

Jim Kata

http://http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/10/16/1020461/reagan-advisor-taxes-job-growth/?mobile=nc

Are they willing to stake their careers on these claims?

mheslep

They being the Tax Foundation people and, e.g. Cochrane? Is that a standard to demand of every economist and politician, or just these?

Jim Kata

Explain to me how this is any different than supply side economics and trickle down economics? As Russ said the Bush tax cuts were for everyone, but seemed to only help one group of people. Both times these type of tax plans were tried they exploded the deficit.



Granted, Romney's tax plan does have loophole closures, but since the capital gains loophole is off the table and he wants a repeal of the estate tax most experts agree the numbers don't add up unless he closes some loopholes for the middle class. The only two loopholes left big enough to make up this revenue is the charitable givings deduction and the mortgage deduction.

The argument that these tax plans are dynamic and are going to create millions of jobs and that this will fix the revenue shortfall problem does not seem to of borne out when Reagan and Bush tried similar plans. This to me seems like supply side and trickle down in different clothing how is it not?

Bacle2

Still, according to this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0905141920.htm

the odds of that happening are not good, i.e., the probability of moving up from

your quintile --which one may take to be the definition of upward mobility--is low.


Many others seem to agree:

http://www.cuil.pt/r.php?cx=00460457...+U.S&sa=Search

Still, it is difficult to understand why mobility is low.

Vlodko

I think it's pretty bad over a 30 year time span... but even worse over a 50 year time span. The data used in this table was normalized up through 2010 dollars.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?p...39568362762774

mheslep

What do you mean it seemed to be for one group? That it makes a good story?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_an...of_2003#Single

mheslep

You mean with the 80's and 2003 tax cuts? Please show where revenue loss occurred that caused large deficits?

Which 'experts'? How are they 'most'? Have you read these experts?

mheslep

There seems to be some debate about the subject. No data in that link. Here's some

http://www.physicsforums.com/showthr...ty#post3590658

Vlodko

I don't think it matter who is in a given Income group at a given point in time, we are just measuring the aggregate Dollar Amounts in those groups. Here is a consise summation of the Important Income Groups and Catagories and how they Shrunk or Grew over time and and over Specific Time Frames...
http://i1288.photobucket.com/albums/...pse0a96e18.jpg

Bacle2

I don't know if you want some data tables, but there is some data in the study itself (tho, as you said, not in the link I gave you):

http://www.psc.isr.umich.edu/pubs/pdf/rr12-766.pdf

I found some in pages 24, 28,30, and at the end of the study.

I agree it is arrogant for the author of a study to claim that the study _shows_ something to be the case. If this were so, we would be in trouble, given that different studies reach different, often contradictory conclusions.

I wonder if we should also consider the fact that around 15% of people who immigrate to the U.S return to their respective original countries*. I believe nowadays most immigrants are economic immigrants **; if this is so, then it would seem reasonable to believe that a good chunk of those returning were not able to move up on the ladder (maybe others could not handle the change in cultures).

*The World Book Encyclopedia, Volume 10, Page 82

** World Almanac and Book of Facts, p.620; more than 95% of foreign-borns come from 3rdworld countries.

Jim Kata

First off mheslep, you never answered my question on how the Romney tax plan was any different than Supply Side economics or Trickle Down economics. The cutting of marginal tax rates and increasing deregulation are the tenets of supply side and trickle down economics and neither of those worked so what makes you think this will?

Let's take a quick look at the history of the Tax Foundation since these are the experts you have cited. The Tax Foundation was founded by the chairman of General Motors, the president of Standard Oil (Exxon) and some other high ranking ceos. Since 1990 the Tax Foundation has operated as a separate unit of Citizen's for a Sound Economy. Citizen's for a Sound Economy was a conservative political group founded by David Koch and Charles Koch. In 2004 Citizens for a Sound Economy split into Freedom Works whose chairman is Dick Army and everyone's favorite political advocacy group Americans for Prosperity. So forgive me if I am a little incredulous of this economic think tanks claims because even if they are non partisan the source of their funding is definitely agenda driven. I trust their opinion's on the economy about as much as I trust Koch brother's think tanks opinions on climate change. To me these are not objective sources but just toadies for Koch industries agendas.

To the question of revenues, the Bush tax cuts claimed that they would be revenue neutral through the idea of the Laffer curve, but let's look at the evidence.



To the sources that say Mitt Romney's tax plan's don't add up most sources agree on this so just pick one.

Use common sense. If you give a 20% tax cut across the board and increase military spending by 2 trillion dollars that puts you something like 7 trillion dollars in the hole. Do you think you can dig out of a 7 trillion dollar hole with increased economic activity and the closing of a few loopholes? If you do, just look at the Bush tax cuts of the last decade and notice that they added 1.7 trillion dollars to the national debt, and the tax cuts Romney are proposing are even more drastic than them. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein.