Trickle down economics

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Socrates92 said:
What’s inherently wrong with disproportionately benefiting the wealthy?
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It is immoral, according to Catholic doctrine, for one. Particulars can be debated, but this point is crystal clear. The Church teaches that we must have a preferential option for the poor.
 
MonteRCMS said:
Thou shalt NOT steal.
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Taxation is not stealing, never was, never will be. The Catholic Church also teaches the universal destination of goods. This too is Catholic doctrine. Particulars can be debated, but calling taxing the rich more to help those poor stealing is not consistent with Church teaching.

I know it is not right to judge people as idolaters for the love of money over obedience to God. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out that this is a real spiritual danger for people. That is why Jesus stressed how hard it is for a rich man to be saved. We have to keep God’s priorities first above our own economic well-being, and even that of a particular entity. I think we can safely trust God that if we rightly order our lives and our nation that he will protect us all.
 
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pnewton said:
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MonteRCMS:
Thou shalt NOT steal.
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Taxation is not stealing, never was, never will be. The Catholic Church also teaches the universal destination of goods. This too is Catholic doctrine. Particulars can be debated, but calling taxing the rich more to help those poor stealing is not consistent with Church teaching.
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I’m calling it. @pnewton for “King of the Forum”.
 
I’m calling it @pnewton @Vonsalza and @Spyridon, the three amigos!

Anyway, to piggyback on pnewtons statement, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend here in CAF: Catholics asserting or implying that taxation is a form of theft.

While such an idea is popular in American far right fiscal/libertarian circles, it is absolutely foreign and in fact contradictory to Catholic teaching.

Anyone teaching that taxes are akin to theft is teaching in direct contradiction to the Infallible Magisterium of the Church, She Who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Any Catholic espousing such things, I urge you to repent of your errant view and conform yourself to the mind of Holy Mother Church.
 
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Vonsalza said:
Socrates92:

What’s inherently wrong with disproportionately benefiting the wealthy?

As they’re wealthy, they don’t need your help
One could argue that it’s anti-democratic and that the goal of all policy should be “the greater good”.\

Then again, these are value judgements, right? 😀
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  1. Granted. Although, I’d argue that giving someone a tax break (aka stealing less from them) doesn’t strictly qualify as “helping” them in the ordinary sense of the term. It’s more of a case of not hindering them.
  2. This one is a value judgement especially. Which is ok, because values are relevant to the topic. That being said, making things as democratic as possible is not a good value as it implies that nothing is absolute. You’re going to have to define “greater good”. I don’t think it is at all obvious that punishing production by redistribution through prohibitive taxes qualifies.
Vonsalza said:
This is coming from a “poor” individual who currently makes ~20K/yr (irrelevant to the argument, but I like pre-emptively destroy ad hominems to save time)

Perhaps the wage slave has developed Stockholm Syndrome? Forgive me; merely a suggestion.
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Forgiven. 😃 Maybe, probably not. Perhaps government dependents have developed something similar? I declare a stalemate on this particular question.
Vonsalza said:
Socrates92:

Personally, I don’t consider having to fork over less of my money than before as being a handout. I’m sure I would feel even more strongly if I paid the excessive amounts of tax that the wealthy paid.

As a percentage of your income, you probably already pay more.
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Perhaps. The tax code is so complicated that it’s hard to generalize. I pay about 20% of income, when Federal, Provincial, CPP and EI are considered. Some people in my income range, give or take a couple dozen grand actually pay negative income tax when handouts are considered. I’m sure the number varies drastically with people in the upper levels as well.
 
Yup, as soon as the yuan replaces the USD as the reserve currency of the world, you guys are screwed. The reserve currency status is the only reason the States have gotten away with things for so long.
 
Cimachol said:
When the government gets it right, everyone makes a living wage. Not seeing it yet.

I disagree with this assumption. When I was 16 I had no experience and was still learning what a work ethic really entailed. The purpose of the job for me was to gain experience, earn some spending money and save some money for college. The work I did making sandwiches all summer didn’t merit a living wage, and I didn’t expect to be paid one. Some jobs don’t require enough from the worker to merit the full cost of living.

As an adult, I made more than a living wage for a number of years, but at a certain point, my wife and I decided it would be better for one of us to work from home, tending to the kids and making a little less money than the other. That someone was me – I didn’t make a full “living wage,” but I made some money and was home to raise the kids. Should I not have been allowed to do that part-time work since it didn’t pay what you feel I should have been making?

Another problem is the idea of the “government getting it right.” The government can’t artificially boost the cost of something without lowering demand. Then low-skill, low-experience workers are priced out of the job market and aren’t able to earn their way to living-wage status. Then, of course, there’s the problem that a living wage is a moving target. And the fact that whatever the low-wage workers are producing becomes more expensive when the workers are paid more to produce it, meaning inflation, meaning a higher cost of living, meaning that a so-called living wage no longer is one.

It seems to me that a better solution, if government is to be involved, would be to have the government increase the availability of training programs for various in-demand professions. This could help the workers actually earn a living wage instead of just being paid one, or not being paid anything when they become too expensive to hire.
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Fairly well put, although I think you have to be careful about your last point. This may sound like nitpicking, what in what way would the government increase the available of given programs? As long as you are talking about the government simply getting out of the way - this could include things like not granting monopolistic rights to unions, not artificially increasing the cost of tuiton and decreasing its value by arbitrary funding, and not penalizing success in those in-demand and high-paying industries by excessive regulation and progressive tax rates - then I agree with you.

If, however, you are talking about the government actively picking specific industries to invest in training, then I have to disagree with you. This is too centralistic. This is not the role of government, and they are not competent at doing it.
 
Socrates92 said:
Yup, as soon as the yuan replaces the USD as the reserve currency of the world, you guys are screwed. The reserve currency status is the only reason the States have gotten away with things for so long.
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In what way are we screwed?
 
I was using a little hyperbole. That real smart kid born to a poor family has plenty of opportunity to go to an in state college.
 
I struggle with that. I get the churches stance, I understand why the church holds that stance, I have a hard time reconciling it.

I think my struggle with it stems from dislike of democracy in general. I get why I would owe taxes to a king, he’s sovereign. I live off his land. He owes me as many duties in return.

In democracies, it’s just the mob voting on how much of someone’s wealth to take for whatever they vote on. I have a hard time finding justice in such an order.

I don’t trust the mob the to make smart decisions. Granted, we have safeguards and balances of power in place in this country, but they’ve been eroded.

Popular election of senators, severe politicization of almost EVERY issue to the point where you can’t even really know if information you’re reading is impartial or biased.

A media that doesn’t seek to inform with facts but spew opinions.
 
DarkLight said:
stinkcat_14:

Why shouldn’t goods be produced by the cheapest producer?

The concern is that the “cheapest producer” is often achieved by abusing the worker. For example, ignoring worker safety because the country you’re producing in won’t make you do anything if a worker is injured or killed. At extremes you even get cases where you’re essentially buying the product of slave labor, because it’s not illegal in that country (especially when you consider systems that aren’t legally slavery but are effectively such).
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I think you have to avoid blurring the lines between actual slavery, and what you call effective slavery. I’m guessing by the second you refer to work for wages which you consider to lower than what they should be, or cases of child labour. But unless the worker is actually held at the job by force because he would have better prospects elsewhere, he is not a slave, but is actually better off than he would be otherwise. Paying someone $8/day when he would otherwise be making only $6/day is not slave labour, nor is it even “effective” slave labour, really.
 
Arkansan said:
The whole idea of price competition. there’s a reason why price controls have been used extensively throughout history. Businesses should compete on quality, not who can offer the lowest price.
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Why? Is it illegitimate for me, as low-wager to want to buy a beater car for a couple grand? Is it illegitimate for someone to provide it to me? Should we be forced to only buy high-price quality goods? Price controls are egregious assault on freedom.
 
Spyridon said:
The Catholic Church teaches extremes are never good.
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I don’t know… Some of its doctrines are pretty extreme. For example, teachings on chastity, Hell, total abandonment to Gods will in order to reach perfection, etc… I’m pretty sure there is no Catholic teaching that extreme views are wrong simply by nature of them being extreme.
 
Just discovered this book on Amazon. I’ll be reading it.

I think the real question here is what’s the best way to help the poor, not so much should we help the poor. I’ve not seen anyone here say they should be forgotten or swept under the rug. The question is how much help to give vs how much they should do for themselves and how best to raise them up out of being poor and making them self-sufficient

https://www.amazon.com/Church-Market-Catholic-Defense-Economics/dp/0739110365
 
Socrates92 said:
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Vonsalza:
This is coming from a “poor” individual who currently makes ~20K/yr (irrelevant to the argument, but I like pre-emptively destroy ad hominems to save time)

Perhaps the wage slave has developed Stockholm Syndrome? Forgive me; merely a suggestion.
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Forgiven. 😃 Maybe, probably not. Perhaps government dependents have developed something similar? I declare a stalemate on this particular question.
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Hahaha. Declaration accepted and agreed upon! 👍
 
One example of how the government steals via taxation and bureaucracy:

google youtube WOTUS
 
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Vonsalza said:
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MonteRCMS:
One example of how the government steals via taxation…
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That horse was beaten to death long ago, Monte.
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But, YouTube! He has a video!

I clicked it just to see what it was. It was quite funny, some newsy looking video, because so many people judge reliability on such important points as appearance. I too find entertainment in such things, but no one with an ounce of sense is going to listen to such entertainment to learn, any more than one would look to Breitbart or Huffington for reliability.
 
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