Comments on: Book Review: The Conscience of a Liberal by Paul Krugman

By: bferrant

bferrant — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:10:22 +0000

Good point about the grandparents. . . I guess at either extreme it’s pretty obvious; a starving orphaned child is more deserving (entirely deserving?) of help, a grown man fully capable of helping himself but too lazy to do so is not so deserving. It’s the vast middle ground where things get a little muddled. Although I do think that everyone benefits from increasing the overall education and health level of a population. It might be in the long term interest of the very rich to cough up another few percent in order to ensure their own future ability to enjoy the fruits of their labor. What’s the use of leaving your grandkids a bunch of money if they have to stay in a walled compound?

Is tying school funding so directly to property tax a way of keeping the little people down? Does public school choice help?

It is problematic that the majority of the population that pays little or no taxes gets to determine (theoretically at least) how the few richest folks are taxed. I would argue, however, that money seems to buy some amount of political influence, which is also not ideal, but I can’t help but think that when Bill Gates contacts his congressperson he gets slightly better service than you or I.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:39:07 +0000

Maybe there is a way to allow the “rich” to be able to vote for themselves whether or not they agree to being taxed at a much higher rate. That way you don’t have the majority, who are not rich, voting to take money out of the rich people’s pockets.

I know there are plenty of rich people who are totally fine with a heavy tax on them. Warren Buffet is one of them.

By: Jeff

Jeff — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:36:12 +0000

I agree to some extent. Although from the perspective of a wealthy grand parent, shouldn’t they be free to give their money to whomever they choose? Or should we put a huge tax on their estate so that that majority of it goes back to the state?

The part about starting out poor though I agree more with. The question is what is the most equitable way to deal with it. It seems that with the super poor, you have to either help them by charitable giving or by government programs of some kind. We already have this in some respect though. If you are poor you can get free education, free medical care, free food even. How much free stuff should a poor person get though? Should they get 30k per year? 60k?

The difficult balance is how do you help people out and give them a hand up in life without giving them a handout that will encourage them to not work and just keep taking the free stuff?

By: bferrant

bferrant — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:25:49 +0000

I enjoyed your initial review of Krugman’s book and look forward to reading more of your opinions.

Without knowing much about economics myself, I can’t but agree that hard work should be rewarded for the reasons you mention, but not all wealthy people are hard workers. Nor are all poor people lazy. Should I be rewarded for the hard work of my great-grandparents, or punished for the laziness of my parents? If there were some way to ensure that people started out on a more level playing field, I would find the argument that hard work should be rewarded much more logical. I think this is where the moral aspect comes in. If a regressive tax code has contributed to someone’s poverty (malnutrition, poor education, unsafe neighborhood), that person will never have a chance to achieve his or her potential. Or something like that. . .