Dividend Tax cut
I was wondering what you all's opinions are on the elimination of the dividend tax President Bush is endorsing. In my opinion the recent recession has been caused by too much freely available capital. Tech and growing companies have always argued that because of double taxation it made more sense for a company to re-invest its profits instead of giving them to share holders. If there was no dividend tax durining the 90's we probably would not have had as much growth but we also would not have had such a sever recession either. Is this reasonable? --- 'LinkHype' Links to the good stuff.- http://www.linkhype.com 'Intelliforge' Economics and Web Mining - http://www.intelliforge.com
Re: Dividend Tax cut
I don't see how too much capital could cause a recession, or indeed how it's possible to have too much capital. Do you mean too much credit, too much borrowed capital? The notion of too much borrowed capital fits with both Austrian and monetarist theories of recession. Since I first studied taxs as an undergraduate accounting major, I've opposed the double-taxation of dividends that the federal government imposes under the federal income tax. I've never heard a good reason advanced for taxing someone's income twice, or, for that matter, even much of a bad reason. If you read the debates in Congress over passage of the first federal income tax law under the 16th Amendment (which incidentally wasn't the first constitutional federal income tax, contrary to popular view) you'll see that they planned to tax income closest to the source, which is why they imposed an income tax at the corporate level. That also taxed the income regardless of whether the corporation actually paid it to the shareholders or not. They didn't plan to tax dividends, and indeed under the first law they passed didn't they did not impose the normal income tax on dividends. They did impose the high-income surtax on dividends, which might be regarded as double-taxation, but that's not how they saw it. Rather, they placed the normal tax directly on the corporate income, and the surtax only on aggregate individual dividends above a very large exemption, which they saw essentially as simply a higher bracket on corporate income, but only for wealthier individuals (if I'm explaning it at all lucidly). During World War I, however, Congress basically taxed everything in sight--and a good deal hidden from sight as well. :) Congress applied the normal tax to dividends during its taxing binge and, well, just never let go. Since then dividends have suffered double-taxation in America. Of course the majority of Americans didn't pay any income taxes until World War II, but a substantial fraction did pay throughout the 1920s. David Levenstam In a message dated 1/11/03 8:12:18 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: I was wondering what you all's opinions are on the elimination of the dividend tax President Bush is endorsing. In my opinion the recent recession has been caused by too much freely available capital. Tech and growing companies have always argued that because of double taxation it made more sense for a company to re-invest its profits instead of giving them to share holders. If there was no dividend tax durining the 90's we probably would not have had as much growth but we also would not have had such a sever recession either. Is this reasonable?
Re: Babynomics
Question: At what can humans engage in economic behavior? Are there studies showing when children learn to trade ? Fabio Humans start to engage in economic behavior as soon as they are born. Trade is not a necessary characteristic of economic behavior. The issue is rather whether infants are consciously choosing their actions. It seems to me that the genetic basis for behavior is the same in an infant as in an adult. Fred Foldvary I think this is a vacuous answer. By that logic, animals are economic actors - animals seem to choose their actions. Perhaps, then, my original question was vague. The question I have is: when do humans start to engage in *sophisticated* economic behaviors not found in animals? For example, at what age are children able to understand the concept of interest? At what age do children understand that exchange can make you better off? Fabio
Re: Lester's extreme compatibility thesis
John, there has been plenty written in the academic journals over the past decade debating your questions. For theoretical arguements look up Tyler Cowen The Economics of Anarchy in Economics and philosophy and David Friedman's response. Dan Sutter's paper Asymetric Power relations in Anarchy in the Southern Economic Journal (1995). Caplan and Stringham have responses to the above in a forthcoming Article in the Review of Austrian Economics (Bryan is this available on your website?). All of these articles address the problems you mention much more seriously than the naive Hobbesian vision. Perhaps more interesting than just the theoretical literature are the historical accounts of interaction without the state. Fred Foldvary has mentioned David Friedman's research on Iceland, also there is the classic by Terry Anderson and PJ Hill America's Experiment with Anarcho Capitalism: The NOT so Wild Wild West in the Journal of Libertarian studies, availible online at www.mises.org . Also not to be missed is much of Bruce Benson's work including his book The Enterprise of Law, Justice without the State. Hope you find these references helpful in answering your questions. Ben Powell --- john hull [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: What prevents a particular private law enforcement agency from engaging in mob-style protection? For example, in Friedman's Anarchy and Efficient Law, he states that, The most obvious and least likely is direct violence-a mini-war between my agency, attempting to arrest the burglar, and his agency attempting to defend him from arrest. A somewhat more plausible scenario is negotiation. Since warfare is expensive, agencies might include in the contracts they offer their customers a provision under which they are not obliged to defend customers against legitimate punishment for their actual crimes. (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law.html) First, if war were so expensive relative to peace why does it exist? Maybe peace is more expensive, in terms of risk for example, than open warfare. Second, I might say that going to war isn't expensive, going to war against ME is expensive, because I'm going to recruit the demons who walk the earth. I won't put Charles Manson in jail, I'll put him on the payroll. This is an honest question, one that has been vexing me. __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Babynomics
Animals are economic actors. as to: For example, at what age are children able to understand the concept of interest?- any baby knows that something is better now then tommorrow. At what age do children understand that exchange can make you better off?- if you read the popular media, it seems they never do. Jason -Included Message-- Date: Sat, 11 Jan 2003 09:45:59 -0600 (CST) From: fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Babynomics Question: At what can humans engage in economic behavior? Are there studies showing when children learn to trade ? Fabio Humans start to engage in economic behavior as soon as they are born. Trade is not a necessary characteristic of economic behavior. The issue is rather whether infants are consciously choosing their actions. It seems to me that the genetic basis for behavior is the same in an infant as in an adult. Fred Foldvary I think this is a vacuous answer. By that logic, animals are economic actors - animals seem to choose their actions. Perhaps, then, my original question was vague. The question I have is: when do humans start to engage in *sophisticated* economic behaviors not found in animals? For example, at what age are children able to understand the concept of interest? At what age do children understand that exchange can make you better off? Fabio -End of Included Message--
Re: Babynomics
Oh, come on!! Animals are economic actors only in the most general sense. Animals are economic actors. as to: For example, at what age are children able to understand the concept of interest?- any baby knows that something is better now then tommorrow. That's not the same as interest. Interest is the price one pays for having it now rather than later. When are people able to udnerstand that concept? At what age do children understand that exchange can make you better off?- if you read the popular media, it seems they never do. Jason Well, I was hoping for some better answers. Many somebody knew of psychological research showing when children are able to make tradeoffs and make other economic decisions. Fabio
Re: Babynomics
--- fabio guillermo rojas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: By that logic, animals are economic actors - animals seem to choose their actions. To some degree, to the degree that choice is involved, some animals are economic actors. However, most animals seem to be controlled by genetic programming (instince), so choice is not involved, but the genetic behavior does indeed adhere to economizing, otherwise the species would not survive. The fittest are also the economizing. when do humans start to engage in *sophisticated* economic behaviors not found in animals? For example, at what age are children able to understand the concept of interest? In terms of discounting the future, or what? At what age do children understand that exchange can make you better off? When they understand that theft will not. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Babynomics
Fabio- You may profit from visiting the page of an old prof. of mine at Oregon, http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu/index.htm , specifically, his Nanoeconomics? Pedianomics? The Economic Behavior of Children Homepage, http://nanoeconomics.org/ . I'm not sure what help it will be, but it's the best I can do. Best regards, jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
Re: Dividend Tax cut
--- Tommie M. Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I was wondering what you all's opinions are on the elimination of the dividend tax President Bush is endorsing. Given that the rest of the income tax code stays the same, it would be better to have a tax credit for dividends, proportional to the income taxes paid by the corporation. The Bush proposal also eliminates some capital gains that are due to retained earnings, to avoid skewing policy towards paying dividends to reduce the tax. To do it really right, both realized and unrealized gains from shares of stock should be taxed, with a credit for taxes paid at the corporate level. The capital gains tax could then be eliminated. Fred Foldvary = [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Babynomics
This is a great page! It's exactly what I was lookign for. Fabio On Sat, 11 Jan 2003, john hull wrote: Fabio- You may profit from visiting the page of an old prof. of mine at Oregon, http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu/index.htm , specifically, his Nanoeconomics? Pedianomics? The Economic Behavior of Children Homepage, http://nanoeconomics.org/ . I'm not sure what help it will be, but it's the best I can do. Best regards, jsh __ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com
