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From: gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg J Kuperberg)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: The WSJ on Reaganomics
Message-ID: <144@talcott.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 29-Nov-84 16:27:51 EST
Article-I.D.: talcott.144
Posted: Thu Nov 29 16:27:51 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 2-Dec-84 03:44:15 EST
References: <652@loral.UUCP> <1208@dciem.UUCP> <123@talcott.UUCP> <369@whuxl.UUCP>
Organization: Harvard
Lines: 35

Tim Sevener <369@whuxl.UUCP> writes:
> Rebuttal 1)other Western nations pay a greater percentage of their
>            income in taxes.  How come they do well?
>            Also: a just income tax taxes income from capital as much as
>            income from labor.  While it is unfortunately true that our
>            own tax system favors the wealthy, they do pay some income
>            taxes on their capital gains and interest income.

I get confused when I start think about economics in terms of "just" and
"unjust."  What if the "just" thing to do wrecks the economy?

Putting that aside, most of the other Western nations are in about the same
economic state as the U.S.  If you're thinking of unemployment, West
Germany's, for example, is pretty high.  The two major exceptions in terms
of unemployment are Japan and Sweden.  Japan's government is
proportionately smaller than ours, while in Sweden, the government has put
in laws to keep employment up (I think).

> Rebuttal 2)This great diversion of labor would be a surprise to the
>            7.5% of the American population unemployed.  If government
>            is employing everyone in sight, why do we have any unemployment?

There are three factors that increase the cost of labor:

1)  The "labor tax" which we call income tax.
2)  Unions
3)  Government employment

The first two increase the unemployment rate, while the third decreases it.
I think that the first two factors outweigh the third.
---
			Greg Kuperberg
		     harvard!talcott!gjk

"Eureka!" -Archimedes