RE: Ronald Reagan Was the Worst President: Why Tax Cuts For the Wealthy Destroy Economies
I don't think Reagan was the best or the worst president or very close to either one. I think he has probably been the best in my lifetime but that isn't saying much. As far as the McCarthyism thing, that was long before he was president and he later regretted his role in that, for what it's worth.
Taxation is theft. 70% certainly is a confiscatory rate. No matter how much you make, the government should not be entitled to 70% of it. Economically speaking, all taxation is bad for the economy because the government is not an efficient allocator of resources from a market perspective. There are many things that have negative effects on the economy (such as the artificially low interest rates you mention - these should be set by the market just like other prices) but lower taxation is not one of them. You seem to be linking higher taxes with higher wages but you don't say how you think they are linked.
There will always be economic ups and downs, it's just that government interference usually makes it worse, not better.
Well, we simply disagree on this. I started as an Austro-libertarian, but evidence piled up against that position.
Imagine the highest tax bracket is 70%. Your corporation currently pays executives and shareholders well, but profits are going way up. You know that a pay increase for the folks at the top will result in them being bumped into the highest tax bracket. It would, therefore, be a better use of your money to increase the pay of folks at the bottom. So, rather than increase wages at the top, you decide to raise the wages of your lowest paid employees. When a handful of large companies raise wages for the lowest paid employees, it induces other companies to have to raise wages too to compete. Their competitors' employees will either seek employment elsewhere with higher pay or they will unionize, go on strike, and demand higher pay. This is why high tax rates on top earners leads to rising wages overall as profits and productivity increase. As I showed in the above post, the statistical data does show that higher taxes at the top does result in rising wages. Generally speaking, everyone is better off under more social democratic policies.
But companies will only pay higher wages when it benefits them. If there are currently plenty of qualified workers willing to work for you at current rates then you are not going to increase wages. There are better and more efficient uses of that extra money that will benefit the economy more in the long run. It doesn't really matter what end of the scale you are talking about. Prices are a result of supply and demand. Wages are just another price. Also, even if you bump someone up to this 70% tax bracket it is only the money they are making above whatever arbitrary value is set that gets taxed at that rate. Not the whole salary. They still get more money if they get a raise.
You just correlated two data points. Correlation does not equal causation and if you pick your time ranges differently or choose something else to correlate, you will see different results.
Generally speaking, the freer the markets the more efficient they are and the better off everyone is.
Typically, the government interferes with the economy, ends up causing problems that leads them to more interference ad nauseum. How could evidence pile up against austro-libertarianism when we haven't had austro-libertarianism or anything close to it?
Even I were to agree that a 70% tax rate is better for the economy (which I do not), why does that give someone the right to forcibly take the fruit of someone else's labor?
"why does that give someone the right to forcibly take the fruit of someone else's labor?"
Generally speaking, the wealthy don't actually acquire their wealth through labor. They acquire wealth through monopolizing natural resources (e.g. land in the case of landlords), earning interest through capitalistic fictions (e.g. speculation on stocks, lending at interest), or through special privileges granted by the State (e.g. copyrights, patents, monopolies)... There's no such thing as a person who became wealthy entirely through their own labor.
For the record, I hold that labor should not be taxed. Only unearned income should be taxed.
The problem with that logic is that there are many who start with very little in life, work very hard with little or no return early on only to earn their money later when their business, invention, whatever is successful. The income is still earned primarily by the fruit of their labor even though it was long delayed. Regardless, if wealth is acquired in a moral way (through voluntary transactions), regardless whether you personally consider it to be through labor, then no one else has a right to it. Monopolies can only exist if granted by the government, whether directly or indirectly, and I am all for ending those. That doesn't require taxation.
Why is lending money at interest or speculating on stocks a "fiction"? Being successful at lending money for interest or speculating in stocks actually requires labor. It isn't random. A share of stock is nothing more or less than a share of ownership in the company it represents. I agree that special privileges granted by the state are a problem (and a big one) but the solution isn't more regulations (or taxes) by the state, it's less. Growing the state is not the solution as it will only be corrupted. The bigger it is and the more money they collect, the worse it will be.
Property is theft. Capitalism is unethical. So-called "voluntary" transactions are predicated on violence and the threat thereof. Wealth accumulation to people at the top is always predicated on legal privilege of some sort. https://steemit.com/anarchism/@ekklesiagora/property-as-theft-the-libertarian-socialist-critique-of-property-summary-anthology
If it is predicated on the threat of violence then it isn't voluntary. Now taxation, THAT is predicated on violence and the threat thereof. Try not paying your taxes and see.
No shit, but property rights are equally predicated on violence. Land is free to all by nature. People build fences and enclosures and use violence and the threat of violence to drive other people off "their" land and enforce their exclusive right—actually, States enforce those rights. My point is, don't complain about taxation being theft unless you are equally opposed to private property...because both are predicated on the threat of violence. Both are ways of extracting wealth from other people through violence or the threat of violence. By monopolizing land and natural resources (means of production), owners of those resources exclude others. Consequently, the dispossessed end up having to work for the owners of land and resources in exchange for wages in order to survive. Wage-slavery is predicated on theft, enforced by private property privileges enforced by the State. If taxation, then, is used to steal from the original thieves (those with private property allowing them to accumulate unearned income) and redistribute some of their wealth into the hands of the dispossessed, then taxation is no longer theft but rather justice.
Personally, I think private property makes society better off, so it is a necessary evil, and consequently I think we ought to embrace the institution of private property but also use fiscal policy to mitigate the negative effects of it. (Cf. Thomas Paine's "Agrarian Justice")
"Free to all by nature". How so? I took some of my wages (from being a "wage slave" I guess though I never really thought of learning a skill I enjoy and making money employing it as "slavery") and I purchased a house. No violence was used. It is impractical for someone else to use my home as their home (they same applies to a business). To attempt to do so would be initiating force, not the other way around. There are millions of landowners, I don't think land ownership is monopolized.
I know what you mean about necessary evils though. I think government and taxes are necessary evils which is why I think they should be minimized. If you really want free land you can still homestead though these days you have to go to Alaska to do it.