william the wie
Gold Member
- Nov 18, 2009
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Banker Andrew Mellon, secretary of the Treasury 1921-32 implemented a series of tax cuts to increase investment and tax revenues and 1921-27 it worked. In the book I'm writing I am arguing that increasing investment has several bad effects:
Overinvestment.
malinvestment and fraud.
misinvestment
and investment can and usually does outstrip the learning curve for new skills.
In the 1920s speeding up the adaptation of electricity, cars, planes, radio and movies led to a crash of epic proportions.
In 1983-present the product life cycle has sped up the product life cycle to the point where products go obsolete before reaching maturity and bubbles:
we have had three real estate bubbles 1983-9, 1993-2006 and late 2009-?
Four stock market bubbles: 1982-7, 1993-2000, 2003-7 and 2009-?
I am arguing that US tax policy should be to have average slightly plus marginal tax rates compared to other trillion plus economies.
Being the fourth largest country physically, third largest in population and largest economically our only true comparables are China, Brazil, Russia and India which doesn't do us a whole lot of good, being too small a sample and a lot poorer. (Japan nearly makes the cut.)
What that small sample does tell us is that the US is an extreme outlier and therefore more politically fragile than we would like to think.
Staying in the pack on tax policy among wealthy nations is what I think should be our tax policy goal. rebuttals?
Overinvestment.
malinvestment and fraud.
misinvestment
and investment can and usually does outstrip the learning curve for new skills.
In the 1920s speeding up the adaptation of electricity, cars, planes, radio and movies led to a crash of epic proportions.
In 1983-present the product life cycle has sped up the product life cycle to the point where products go obsolete before reaching maturity and bubbles:
we have had three real estate bubbles 1983-9, 1993-2006 and late 2009-?
Four stock market bubbles: 1982-7, 1993-2000, 2003-7 and 2009-?
I am arguing that US tax policy should be to have average slightly plus marginal tax rates compared to other trillion plus economies.
Being the fourth largest country physically, third largest in population and largest economically our only true comparables are China, Brazil, Russia and India which doesn't do us a whole lot of good, being too small a sample and a lot poorer. (Japan nearly makes the cut.)
What that small sample does tell us is that the US is an extreme outlier and therefore more politically fragile than we would like to think.
Staying in the pack on tax policy among wealthy nations is what I think should be our tax policy goal. rebuttals?