> government budgets should increase monotonically

It should and not even just linearily. If economy grows by roughly even percentage each year same should be true about government budgets. Otherwise you just leave money on the table for billionaires to scoop up and sit on. Of course it should be funded with taxes not debt and that's where the worst part of government spending is. That it's done by indebting itself to billionaires and letting them suck more and more government money each year through debt servicing.

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roenxi 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

That seems like a difficult position to make coherent. The comment seems to start by arguing that government spending should increase as much as is reasonably possible because it draws resources away from billionaires.

Then the second half seems to be a complaint that increasing government spending has created a resource for billionaires to draw from to enrich themselves.

It seems that if you believe the first, the second is hard to complain about. There is a social contract that the billionaires must fund [yea much] government. They are. If they then pay a little extra tax and it goes in a circular loop back to them, which is weird but I'm not sure how you are arguing it to be a problem - clearly under this frame they are going to be worse off than when they started, so they have been taxed some amount. The question is whether that amount is reasonable or not, I suppose. But that has nothing to do with whether they have a custom of a ceremonial handing of some billionaire money to the government to be handed back to the billionaire on top of their taxes.

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scotty79 4 days ago | parent [-]

> There is a social contract that the billionaires must fund [yea much] government.

I don't think that's the contract. Government must be funded by citizens which all are consumers. What billionaires extract from consumers can't go towards funding the government. Unless it's borrowed directly from billionaires which is what got most governments in financial problems they are currently in.

> The question is whether that amount is reasonable or not

To asses that you only need to compare rate of growth of billionaires wealth to the rate of growth of the entire economy. Then you can see how much they suck out of non-billionaires.

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roenxi 3 days ago | parent [-]

> I don't think that's the contract. Government must be funded by citizens which all are consumers. What billionaires extract from consumers can't go towards funding the government.

I don't think you're articulating your point clearly here - what billionaires extract from consumers has to go towards funding the government in part, that is what they use to pay their taxes. Otherwise where does the wealth used to pay the taxes come from? Capital only generates a return in a context where there is someone to consume what it produces.

Just to put my view - I'm with you 100% that billionaires are sucking money out of the government. Look at any billionaire and a good chunk of their wealth seems to come from some combination of regulatory capture and government contracts. I'm just not seeing how you square that with "and therefore the government should grow at the same rate of the economy". It seems like a counter-intuitive position to take if you've identified that billionaire wealth is a key justification and the billionaires are very good at extracting money from the government. It seems likely to me that billionaire wealth would scale with the size of government.

The wealth of government is ultimately funded by the middle class. There aren't enough billionaires to carry the load. Eg, Elon Musk's net worth is estimated at $500 billion which isn't enough to cover 1 year of spending of the US military, for example. So he taps out after 1 year and then someone has to find funding for the 2nd year somewhere else. And you'd consume a few more billionaires (none of whom have Musk-level wealth) to cover the parts of the US government that aren't war-related. It wouldn't last long if billionaires have to fund it.

	▲	scotty79 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Otherwise where does the wealth used to pay the taxes come from? Consumers. > Capital only generates a return in a context where there is someone to consume what it produces. Exactly. If you don't tax the return sufficiently it amplifies the capital (lands in th pockets of billionaires in other words). > It seems like a counter-intuitive position to take if you've identified that billionaire wealth is a key justification and the billionaires are very good at extracting money from the government. It seems likely to me that billionaire wealth would scale with the size of government. What billionaires extract from the government in terms of subsidies and such is nothing compared to what they get as a result of tax cuts and being undertaxed in general. Basically we should tax billionaires more. Government getting richer because of that is just a side effect. Government growing with the size of the economy is not a goal. It's a gauge showing us that billionaires are adequately taxed. I'm using term "billionaires" loosely. 10 hecto-millionaires are fine too as a replacement for one billionaire. Again the goal is not to fund the government. It's to remove power from unelected oligarchs.

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parineum 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Increase in GDP is created by inflation and increases in productivity.

Government budgets should increase with inflation but there is zero reason for them to partake in the increase in productivity. Increases in productivity should, generally, also be applicable to government programs and, as such, they should get relatively cheaper over time, not more expensive.

If we want to _add_ programs, government budgets should increase in kind but the efficiency of government should rise over time as the things required to run government become cheaper. This rarely happens though because government programs don't have the same incentives that lead to increases in efficiency.

It's funny you're so against billionaires scooping up that money but want the government to scoop it up instead. Government is just big business with guns.

	▲	scotty79 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> It's funny you're so against billionaires scooping up that money but want the government to scoop it up instead. The reason is that government is ruled democratically which makes it less likely to successfully execute terrible decisions persistently. There's also some influence of the public on those decisions. In case of billionaires there's nothing to stop them to pursue idiotic, societally and economically harmful goals on a whim. There's also difference of transparency and availability of warning signs. Not to mention that I can change which government rules me by boarding a plane but Zuckerberg is influencing my life in every place on Earth. Leaving the money with the populace is not an option. Citizens are weak, money will get scooped. The question is by whom. I'll pick democratic government over billionaires every day of the week.

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throw10920 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

And here we have a double demonstration of both stupid and malicious.

> If economy grows by roughly even percentage each year same should be true about government budgets

Stupid. For the purposes of this discussion, the government exists to provide services. The cost of those services, in general, decreases with economic productivity.

> Otherwise you just leave money on the table for billionaires to scoop up and sit on.

Both stupid and malicious. Mind-bogglingly stupid, because that profit isn't just captured by the wealthy, but by all economic classes. Malicious, because you'd rather sabotage the economy than let some people take excess profits based on their wealth alone.

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scotty79 3 days ago | parent [-]

Government doesn't provide services. Government owns the land and the population simply by the fact of having army that can exert control. It provides monetary system you measure worth of everything in. You provide the service of producing economic value.

You can't with straight face claim that profit is not captured by billionaires but by everybody if economy grows 3% but billionaires wealth doubles in the same period. They not only capture the entire new profit of economy growth but also extract wealth from all other parties including government.

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throw10920 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Government doesn't provide services.

Yet again, factually incorrect. The government provides many services - social security, food stamps, military protection, utilities, research funding, pharmaceutical oversight, and many, many, many other things. You're just wrong.

> You provide the service of producing economic value.

Also wrong. That is not a "service" provided to the government - it's just something that people do, and they have the right to keep those rewards.

> You can't with straight face claim that profit is not captured by billionaires but by everybody if economy grows 3% but billionaires wealth doubles in the same period

Those things are unrelated.

Yet again - a mixture between stupidity and malice, driven by base greed, envy, and resentment of what others have that you don't.

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scotty79 3 days ago | parent [-]

> Yet again, factually incorrect. The government provides many services - social security, food stamps, military protection, utilities, research funding, pharmaceutical oversight, and many, many, many other things. You're just wrong.

Sorry for using a short-hand. Government doesn't provide services for your benefit. The only goal of providing those benefits is to best enable you to produce economic value that government and the rich can capture.

> That is not a "service" provided to the government - it's just something that people do, and they have the right to keep those rewards.

The only right of the physical world is might.

Why do you think anyone just lets people do what people "just" do? They let people do it because powerful benefit.

It's the same reasoning why a warlord lets peasants grow crops and raise animals and chases away neighboring warlord. Because then there's something he can take for himself. Political systems change but the basic mechanic never did. Democracy and capitalism are just a way better tool for exploitation than feudalism could ever be. Efficient. Stable. Didn't you ever notice that with development of new, more enlightened systems of power tax burden doesn't shrink but grows instead?

> Those things are unrelated.

We have one monetary system. It's all related.

> Yet again - a mixture between stupidity and malice, driven by base greed, envy, and resentment of what others have that you don't.

I have plenty, way more than I ever deserved. I'm at risk of being directly negatively financially affected by policies I advocate for. Drop the armchair moral psychoanalysis because you miss every time, on all counts.

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throw10920 3 days ago | parent [-]

> The only right of the physical world is might.

Ok, you're just evil. No need to justify anything to an evil person.

	▲	scotty79 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Wrong again. Being a realist doesn't make someone evil, but hell is paved with good intentions.