Open Left

I Believe tjfxh Mentioned This Somewhere

I don't think anyone doubts the capacity of taxation to alter spending & consumption patterns.  Which is why some folks want to make sure that no one thinks very clearly about the subject.

I remember raising the issue with an economist back in the 70s that it was intuitively obvious that $1 meant a lot less to a millionaire than it did to someone working for poverty wages, and thus it clearly increased net human welfare to redistribute wealth.  He objected that we had no empirical evidence for it.  I pointed out that millionaires gain and lose thousands of dollars, if not more, in the stock market every day without even noticing--something no one working for minimum wage could ignore, and that sure looked like empirical evidence to me.

Nearly 40 years later, I'm still waiting for a come-back reply.

"You know what they say -- those of us who fail history... doomed to repeat it in summer school." -- Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Season 6, Episode 3

---

by: Paul Rosenberg @ Tue Jan 26, 2010 at 15:45:30 PM CST