Comments on: the arms-race nature of consumption http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/ the central clearinghouse for all things eric haller Sat, 21 Jan 2012 07:03:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: eric http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-28782 eric Wed, 28 Nov 2007 04:59:57 +0000 http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/#comment-28782 what i was thinking was more along the lines of abolishing the income tax, replacing it with only a sales tax, and having some kind of system to give credits for that tax to people in lower income brackets. i like the idea of a luxury tax, and of an inheritance tax as well. what i was thinking was more along the lines of abolishing the income tax, replacing it with only a sales tax, and having some kind of system to give credits for that tax to people in lower income brackets.

i like the idea of a luxury tax, and of an inheritance tax as well.

]]> By: Jackson West http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-28781 Jackson West Wed, 28 Nov 2007 02:52:36 +0000 http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/#comment-28781 The problem is that the current consumption tax model, the sales tax, regressively penalizes people with lower incomes who spend more of their earnings on taxed goods, leaving them with both less money and less to invest. Somebody like me who makes, when he's lucky, $40,000 in a year spends much higher ration of that income on sales tax than someone who makes $100,000 a year, and they spend more than someone who makes $400,000 -- because those people invest higher proportions of their income as opposed to spending them on salable goods. Now, if there could be a sort of "luxury tax" that taxed items in the upper register of a price bracket relative to similar items, that could serve to both tax only upper-income spenders and reduce the Veblen effect on luxury items, depressing the urge to overprice items to make them more apparently exclusive (and feed profits into products that are more heavily advertised and therefore tempt people to spend beyond their means). The problem is that the current consumption tax model, the sales tax, regressively penalizes people with lower incomes who spend more of their earnings on taxed goods, leaving them with both less money and less to invest. Somebody like me who makes, when he’s lucky, $40,000 in a year spends much higher ration of that income on sales tax than someone who makes $100,000 a year, and they spend more than someone who makes $400,000 — because those people invest higher proportions of their income as opposed to spending them on salable goods.

Now, if there could be a sort of “luxury tax” that taxed items in the upper register of a price bracket relative to similar items, that could serve to both tax only upper-income spenders and reduce the Veblen effect on luxury items, depressing the urge to overprice items to make them more apparently exclusive (and feed profits into products that are more heavily advertised and therefore tempt people to spend beyond their means).

]]> By: citizenx http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/comment-page-1/#comment-28773 citizenx Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:45:25 +0000 http://www.erichaller.com/2007/11/23/the-arms-race-nature-of-consumption/#comment-28773 http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/11/warren_buffett_tax_the_hides_o.html http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/politics/blog/2007/11/warren_buffett_tax_the_hides_o.html

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