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8 months ago
in The Wealth Will Be Spread, Joe on Will Wilkinson
Pablo, your reply is a puzzling. My point was that much of the stuff that the federal government spends money on is a waste--it is neutral or detrimental to welfare. This was a consequentialist point about: (1) the government wasting taxpayer's money and (2) how we can expect more waste when only a small percentage of the electorate pays for the government's spending. Nowhere did I invoke any sort of first-principle musings about the nature of property rights. I don't really know how else to respond to your question.
1 reply
Pablo
GU, your talk about "taking money from people" made me assume that you, like most libertarians, believed that people have moral rights over themselves and (bits of) the world, and that wealth redistribution is objectionable because it deprives people of goods to which they are morally entitled. But regardless of whether I was right in making this assumption, the objection I raised retains its force: why do you assign any moral significance to pre-tax as opposed to post-tax income? What makes this particular accounting figure so special?
8 months ago
in The Wealth Will Be Spread, Joe on Will Wilkinson3% tax increase on the most wealthy, which is really just a roll-back of the bush tax cuts, is no socialism. Why do some middle-class oppose this?
Hmmm, why would anyone be against needlessly taking money from people so that government can waste it on spending that usually reduces liberty or redistributes it from the general citizenry to the politically-connected or both? As fewer and fewer people pay for all of this federal excess, more and more people will mindlessly support it, because it is not hitting their wallet.
Making federal taxes more broad-based might have the effect of making people realize that taking money from A and giving it to B, for no good reason, really does suck.
1 reply
Pablo
GU, why do you rely on pre-tax income to decide what belongs to whom? As far as I can see, there is no reason to suppose that this accounting figure will correspond, any more than post-tax entitlements, to the property rights which people had in the state of nature.
8 months ago
in Joe the Plumber 2008 on Will Wilkinson
Any sane privitization of SS will allow people to choose a wide variety of investments: stocks, bonds, REITs, T-Bills, etc. There would also be a rule that allows you to purchase an annuity with the money in your account.
The idea that everyone is going to have 100% of their assets in a mutual fund at age 64 is absurd. Anyone who does that deserves to take a huge hit if the market happens to tank at retirement time--they would have reaped huge gains during the boom times, remember. But if we're really worried about rubes losing their shirt in the market, have the government recommend some default asset allocations for certain age groups (the older you get, the less stocks you should hold and vice versa). Make it clear that this is only a recommendation, not a guarantee. Maybe we even hire some finance experts/professors to print up a brochure that explains risk/reward and other investing concepts to novices. Anyway, when you are playing with your own money, you have a lot of incentive to learn some elementary finance. Finally, there is always the option to purchase an annuity if risk is that scary for you.
Given the return on most people's money that SS currently gives (essentially zero), almost any private investment plan, held for some 30 or 40 years, would leave people better off, even if their investments tanked right when they retired (which again, would be unlikely if one invested rationally and had most of their assets in low-risk investments at retirement time).
The idea that everyone is going to have 100% of their assets in a mutual fund at age 64 is absurd. Anyone who does that deserves to take a huge hit if the market happens to tank at retirement time--they would have reaped huge gains during the boom times, remember. But if we're really worried about rubes losing their shirt in the market, have the government recommend some default asset allocations for certain age groups (the older you get, the less stocks you should hold and vice versa). Make it clear that this is only a recommendation, not a guarantee. Maybe we even hire some finance experts/professors to print up a brochure that explains risk/reward and other investing concepts to novices. Anyway, when you are playing with your own money, you have a lot of incentive to learn some elementary finance. Finally, there is always the option to purchase an annuity if risk is that scary for you.
Given the return on most people's money that SS currently gives (essentially zero), almost any private investment plan, held for some 30 or 40 years, would leave people better off, even if their investments tanked right when they retired (which again, would be unlikely if one invested rationally and had most of their assets in low-risk investments at retirement time).
1 reply
stuart
'Any sane privitization of SS will allow people to choose a wide variety of investments: stocks, bonds, REITs, T-Bills'
Yep and this is the case in Australia. Those people who invested in fixed interest government bonds havent lost anything, but of course this doesnt get on the news.
Yep and this is the case in Australia. Those people who invested in fixed interest government bonds havent lost anything, but of course this doesnt get on the news.
8 months ago
in Joe the Plumber 2008 on Will Wilkinson
To clarify, I meant "what people commenting on this post don't seem to realize..."
1 reply
K. Larson
I agree in principle that volatility doesn't debunk the idea of investing for retirement, but I think that you're assuming away one of the primary purposes of Social Security.
Social Security exists to assist those who are too feckless to plan their own retirement effectively. We don't really care about the retirement of people who can manage money, they'll be fine. We have Social Security to keep our lottery-ticket-buying, slightly-senile, Ponzi-scheme-credulous gampers from having to eat cat food as a result of their poor, age-addled decision-making.
Now, if we can find a better way to do that, sign me up, but I don't see how assuring Granny that everything will be fine as long as she remembers basic portfolio theory is going to work.
Social Security exists to assist those who are too feckless to plan their own retirement effectively. We don't really care about the retirement of people who can manage money, they'll be fine. We have Social Security to keep our lottery-ticket-buying, slightly-senile, Ponzi-scheme-credulous gampers from having to eat cat food as a result of their poor, age-addled decision-making.
Now, if we can find a better way to do that, sign me up, but I don't see how assuring Granny that everything will be fine as long as she remembers basic portfolio theory is going to work.
8 months ago
in Dworkin on Taxes and Legitimacy on Will Wilkinson
Social Security + Medicare + Welfare/Unemployment + Medicaid = ~53% of U.S. Federal spending in 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fy2008spendi...
We could certainly administer our wealth redistribution in a more efficient manner. Something like Friedman's Negative Income Tax, or Murray/Van Parijs's guaranteed minimum income would probably increase benefits paid out at a lower cost, while giving the poor better incentives to be productive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Fy2008spendi...
We could certainly administer our wealth redistribution in a more efficient manner. Something like Friedman's Negative Income Tax, or Murray/Van Parijs's guaranteed minimum income would probably increase benefits paid out at a lower cost, while giving the poor better incentives to be productive.
1 reply
Will Wilkinson
Right! So it's also ridiculous to claim we're not spending enough. SS and medicare need not eat up an increasing portion of the budget. Forced savings into personal retirement and medical accounts can play most of Dworkin's social insurance function perfectly well while, over time, taking most of those costs off the budget. Meanwhile, there's all that money we're spending on helicopters.
9 months ago
in Qualifications and Sarah Palin’s Crazy Politics on Will Wilkinson
When people say Palin is not qualified, I think there is some credentialist elitism going on in many cases. "She only has a B.A. from a non-prestigious school? How stupid must she be?"
1 reply
pfjobrien
You won't hear that from me... I think she's unqualified simply because she hasn't been in office long enough to determine her political ideology nor has she declared it explicitly. I don't care if even has a degree if her ideas are sound... degrees themselves have no intrinsic worth.
