IMF: Taxing the richs is good for the economy

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This is imcome equality by taking from the rich, and will do nothing to raise the income of the poor.

Governments support themselves first, then international banking, and the IMF is the Collection Agency.

Who said anything about 'raising' the income of the poor? It's about placing more of the burden to pay national debt on wealthier people. Tax them more I say, why should they have all the money concentrated in their few, select hands?

There is no one left to tax.
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The left's solution to everything is taxation. And when that doesn't fix things, raise taxes again......

We have taken advantage of a new comprehensive data set to look at the relationship between inequality, redistribution, and growth; earlier work on the inequality-growth relationship has generally confounded the effects of redistribution and inequality. Our focus has been on the medium and long term, both growth over five-y ear periods and the duration of growth spells. Several important conclusions emerge. First, inequality continues to be a robust and powerful determinant both of the pace of medium-term growth and of the duration of growth spells, even controlling for the size of redistributive transfers. Thus, the conclusions from Berg and Ostry (2011) would seem to be robust, even strengthened. It would still be a mistake to focus on growth and let inequality take care of itself, not only because inequality may be ethically undesirable but also because the resulting growth may be low and unsustainable.

And second, there is surprisingly little evidence for the growth-destroying effects of fiscal redistribution at a macroeconomic level. We do find some mixed evidence that very large redistributions may have direct negative effects on growth duration, such that the overall effect—including the positive effect on growth through lower inequality—may be roughly growth-neutral. But for non-extreme redistributions
, there is no evidence of any adverse direct effect. The average redistribution, and the associated reduction in inequality, is thus associated with higher and more durable growth. We need to be mindful about over-interpreting these results, especially for policy purposes. It is hard to go from these sorts of correlations to firm statements about causality. We have not accounted for the possible effects that redistribu
tion may have on market inequality. We have emphasized the uncertainty caused by the scarcity of reliable data, particularly about redistribution. Our measure of redistribution captures only direct taxes and subsidies, for example, so we shed no direct light on the redistributive effects of in-kind government provision of health and education which a priori would seem, if anything, to be more growth-friendly than the measures we account for. Finally, we know from history and first principles that after some point redistribution will be destructive to growth, and that beyond some point extreme equality also cannot be conducive to growth. We nonetheless see an important positive conclusion from our look at the big picture. Extreme caution about redistribution—and thus inaction—is unlikely to be appropriate in many cases.

On average, across countries and over time, the things that governments have typically done to redistribute do not seem to have led to bad growth outcomes, unless they were extreme. And the resulting narrowing of inequality helped support faster and more durable growth, apart from ethical, political, or broader social considerations. This leaves a large research and policy agenda. Even given these results about average effects, it remains important to try to make redistribution as efficient as possible. And further insight into the mechanisms at play would help sharpen our understanding and policy recommendations. Our results here high light the urgency of this agenda.

The left's solution to everything is taxation. And when that doesn't fix things, raise taxes again......

Except everyone with a net worth for 50 mill or so who can afford an accountant that isn't completely useless. Laundering money is laughably easy, and completely legal if you do it right.

The left's solution to everything is taxation. And when that doesn't fix things, raise taxes again......

Could you share with the class how you end the federal deficit by restricting revenue as much as humanly possible? Austerity measures aren't enough to compensate for the amount of money that should legally be coming in, but isn't. And your infrastructure crumbles in the meantime.