Flint
Posts: 478 Joined: Jan. 2006
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BWE:
Quote | I am not talking about economics as a field of study. I am talking about economic policy and activity as a series of decisions. |
Then we have no disagreement. I'm talking explicitly about economics as a field of study. I've already agreed that people use their values to make ALL the judgments in their lives.
Quote | Either we allow pcb emmitters to dump thim into the waterways or we don't or we find some kind of a middle ground. I don't need to know much about rational self-interest to know that my personal morality dictates that I do not lend my vote to allow pollution to continue. |
And exactly HERE is why ignorance of economics is hurting you. Presumably, these polluters are producing some product. They are selling it successfully, or they wouldn't be in business. Pollution reduces their costs. This reduction in costs means more money for something else. Let's say they use their savings to lower their prices. You purchase (in all ignorance) the least expensive, highest quality products you can. Theirs is one of them, BECAUSE they pollute. By purchasing their product, you are "lending your vote" in favor of their practices. Equally important, by NOT buying the more expensive product from the non-polluter, you are punishing him for absorbing the cost of being clean.
Quote | Walmart is shifting their costs to me through taxes by hiring people for less than a living wage and setting up systems to help those employees take advantage of food stamps, rent assistance and publicly funded health care. Those are things that my taxes pay for. My sense of rational self-interest says that I should lend my ballot to the policies which force walmart to assume those costs. But I don't need to know about rational self-interest to know that I feel that way. |
Economics can't tell you what to feel. But you might just for grins consider the tradeoffs from a different perspective. Let's look at the set of WalMart employees. They aren't being paid enough to live on by WalMart, and so you are effectively subsidizing WalMart by providing these people (through your taxes) with food stamps and the like. Yes? Now, lets shuffle the cost structure around a little bit. Let's reduce your taxes by the amount of the food stamps and other subsidies. You now have more money to spend. Let's raise WalMart's prices enough so that WalMart is now paying their employees enough so they don't NEED food stamps. Are you happy now? Yes, morally you are overjoyed.
And what has happened? Effectively, nothing at all. YOUR money is still being spent (but now through high prices rather than taxes) making WalMart's employees better off. You can spend it through taxes, or you can spend it through higher prices, or you can spend it through a higher risk of theft (burglary) by desperately poor people, etc. But now matter how you cut it, the same economic value as ever is coming out of your pocket. The ONLY thing you have gained is smug moral gratitude. You smote the wicked, you did!
Quote | Being as economic choices are largely moral, I get to define whether I think Bush's tax policies are fair and I don't think they are so regardless of whether my fair and your fair are similar |
Of course, I didn't tell you MY definition of fair, I asked you to specify yours. I notice you haven't done so. You have CALLED your preferences "fair" but carefully not said what that means.
Quote | I chose cigarette and lottery very carefully because my point is that my individual sense of morality dictates that taking advantage of peoples' ignorance is morally wrong. |
There isn't, to my knowledge, much if any correlation between smoking and "ignorance". I'm surrounded by brilliant engineers all day long. Most of them smoke. ALL of them know the consequences of smoking. So what are you talking about?
Quote | But I don't think you need to know much economics to make these kinds of decisions. | Yes, I agree. These are the kinds of statements that result from a fairly normal human need to assign values to everything. Neutrality is an acquired taste. The human brain is a dichotomizing machine - everything must be pigeonhold as good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral.
Quote | Cutting taxes on the super wealthy takes that tax money out of the public coffers. Period. |
And if you put it in capital letters, do you think it would be even more true? In fact, it's only partially true. You need to ask, if this money were not taken from the super wealthy in income tax, where would it go? Into the stock market? But then it would suffer capital gains tax. Into consumption? But then it would suffer sales and excise taxes. Into building a factory? But then the employees would be paying the taxes. So the money WILL end up in the public coffers one way or another. Please follow this link. Your eyes will be opened.
Sure, since I'm not rich, I'd just LOVE to see the rich reduced to my meager level, while at the same time I'd be paying absolutely nothing in taxes. If such a policy had no economic consequences other than to shower me with money, I'd be overjoyed. Unfortunately such an economic policy will have countless drastic consequences, both direct and indirect, both immediate and downstream. Maybe if I pretended that doing so would be MORAL, those consequences would go away? Well, we can dream...
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