re: Surely you are not lumping every conceivable expense into this grab-bag?
"not at all but you are forgetting that 911 affected more than just airline companies. Semis (pride of US) experienced huge delays due to delivery issues and minor things like that. 1.5T is a very very conservative estimate"
>>> Systemic problems are generally more problematic than periodic ones....
re: could net a positive gain of $300 - $500 Billion just by lowering compliance costs.
"that sounds like money created, remember that it is a zero sum gain - effectiveness and stimulus can be improved which is a huge thing but money would not be created"
>>> NO! Not 'money created' (except for increased Velocity, which is real), but 'money diverted from totally unproductive activity', i.e., shuffling papers for tax compliance.. and re-purposed into more productive uses.
>>> The --- even more important resultant --- would be that decisions would be made because of the free market economic environment .... instead of being made simply to capture tax advantage, but which decisions would otherwise have no free market rationale.
re: >>> The gains from eliminating tax-based, un-economic incentives are immeasurable...
IMHO, things are not that simple. Each change positive or negative creates may create some uncertainty (instability) which in turn may negatively affect the market in way that it might wipe out all the benefits of the changes
>>> You are going to have to make a better argument than 'disturbing equilibrium is always bad'... because I am focused on the long term benefit of making the American system more productive, not the short-term disruption of established behaviors. anyway, the short term equilibrium is ALWAYS getting 'disturbed'... as it has been with every tax bill that has ever been passed, to name just ONE disturbance.
"There is some thing to be said for upsetting equilibrium. Russia may be a good example."
>>> Aye, the 13% flat rate.
"While all of the changes toward free market economy are good not all of the effects are positive."
>>> You belabor the obvious. I freely concede that 'a 100% pure free market economy' (could such a thing exist) would fall short of 'ideal' by most people's measure. That is why we have what's called a 'modern mixed economy'... with roles for government in such things as collective defense and health measures, promoting an equitable legal system -- without which, worse than a 'wild west' would ensue -- disrupting the exercise of monopoly power, etc.
>>> Never-the-less, money being extracted from both individuals and corporations, solely in excessive tax compliance costs... and the much larger problem of decisions being made not to capture an economic advantage, but to exploit loopholes... capital being diverted from productive enterprises, solely because of of the tilted playing field --- all this costs us much more than we know, by lowering productivity, and the efficiency of capital allocations. |
