And Lusty Lad and WTF are arguing over whether GDP growth of 3% per annum is high

You still do not get it...taxpayers would start making the hard choices of where to cut spending before rates hit 85%

You still do not get it...taxpayers would start making the hard choices of where to cut spending before rates hit 85% Originally Posted by WTF

No, this is how it would work. There are a lot of politicians out there who have figured out it's popular to soak the better off among us. Fucking over the top 1% is a great idea if you're in the 99%. And there are a lot more votes among the 99%.

So you increase tax rates on the top 1%, who are already paying 39% of the income tax, to, say, the 84% rate that CM mentioned. But that's still not enough to feed the beast. And based on the Laffer curve you might end up with less revenues than with a lower rate? (Asking as you know more Laffernomics than I do.) So you just go deeper and deeper into debt.

No, this is how it would work. There are a lot of politicians out there who have figured out it's popular to soak the better off among us. Fucking over the top 1% is a great idea if you're in the 99%. And there are a lot more votes among the 99%.

So you increase tax rates on the top 1%, who are already paying 39% of the income tax, to, say, the 84% rate that CM mentioned. But that's still not enough to feed the beast. And based on the Laffer curve you might end up with less revenues than with a lower rate? (Asking as you know more Laffernomics than I do.) So you just go deeper and deeper into debt. Originally Posted by Tiny

I'm gonna borrow from Shawshank....How can you be so obtuse?

I have said no more borrowing...sell war bonds!

So the wealthy who profit off war....now are being taxed mightily during defense build up.

If you don't think politicians take their marching orders from wealthy donors...well I know you know better than that

I'm gonna borrow from Shawshank....How can you be so obtuse?

I have said no more borrowing...sell war bonds!

So the wealthy who profit off war....now are being taxed mightily during defense build up.

If you don't think politicians take their marching orders from wealthy donors...well I know you know better than that Originally Posted by WTF

If you sell war bonds you increase the debt.

The wealthy are the second biggest losers from war. Remember the top 1% pay 39% of the income tax. The biggest losers are the poor souls who get killed and wounded.

Be nice WTF. And please disregard the title and stay on topic with the text. This is the Cathie Wood bashing thread. Originally Posted by Tiny

Looks like the thread got a bit derailed and drifted from the subject of "Cathie Wood bashing." (What a surprise in this forum!)

I suspect that if ARKK tanks more than broad index averages in the event that the bear growls more belligerently than expected by most market observers, there will be a whole lot more bashing of Cathie Wood (and other promoters of her ilk).

Consider the Twitterverse comment by a far smarter individual:

Cathie Wood, CEO of Ark Invest and biggest proponent of investing in overvalued tech stocks, got some flack yesterday from renowned fund manager, researcher and Libertarian Cliff Asness, on Twitter, for her prediction that artificial intelligence may push GDP growth to 30% to 50% per year. Here's a link,

https://twitter.com/CliffordAsness/s...C-ja6GzbgqAAAA


Cathie Wood:

.@ARKInvest must share more of our research about #artificialgeneralintelligence (AGI) and how it is likely to transform the way the world works. Within 6-12 years, breakthroughs in AGI could a accelerate growth in GDP from 3-5% per year to 30-50% per year. New DNA will win!


Clifford Asness response:

My God I never realized that the 3-5% we got from the industrial revolution through the internet was such crap!

Btw, multi-factor quant with a value tilt is going to return one hundred million bazillion percent over the next few years! She’s on to something as this is fun!

Asness follow up:

Compliance would like me to note that it’s actually somewhat unlikely we return one hundred million bazillion percent over the next few years. But, as those great philosopher kings once said, so you’re saying there’s a chance… Originally Posted by Tiny

The practitioners of "magical thinking" need to read a little about something called "total factor productivity."

"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing!"

-- Vince Lombardi, 1959

(Actually, sports historians have written that the quote can more properly be attributed to a UCLA coach who said something analogous years earlier.)

Likewise, productivity comes close to being the only thing that's critical to economic growth.

In order to increase productivity, innovation has to provide clear labor-saving, life-enhancing, or wealth producing benefits. The growth rate of productivity is all about the rate of change of the human condition, not the absolute level to which it is lifted.

One small example of many:

We went from virtually nothing to the Sperry Rand ENIAC to 1960s-era IBM mainframes within just a couple of decades, a fabulously transformative era. So, during the period beginning with the last shots of World War II and ending with the Apollo 11 moon landing (24 years), we went from a time when millions of people worked in back offices with pencils, paper, and primitive adding machines to an era during which rapidly improving computers allowed large swaths of the workforce to transition into more productive activities.

Still, we never had sustained GDP growth above 5% for any extended period of time.

But artificial intelligence and machine learning innovations, as beneficial as they may be, are somehow going to advance the rate of productivity growth more than any of the dramatic innovations from the immediate post-Civil War era through the go-go 1960s? Seriously?

.

Asness follow up:

Compliance would like me to note that it’s actually somewhat unlikely we return one hundred million bazillion percent over the next few years. But, as those great philosopher kings once said, so you’re saying there’s a chance…

If you sell war bonds you increase the debt.

The wealthy are the second biggest losers from war. Remember the top 1% pay 39% of the income tax. The biggest losers are the poor souls who get killed and wounded. Originally Posted by Tiny

How are the wealthy losers?


Why would the wealthy care about paying more in taxes if tax rate is capped and they make billions more during war?

As you've said....it isn't their kids dying.

Recapping...because of Reagan, we care more about tax cut than deficits. The wealthy are enriched without the pain of death in their households.

By golly, you might soon see how different taxing and shifting priorities can make 30 trillion of debt seem like a good thing!