Signs of the Times - and a question

[finnbow]

Originally Posted by whell

Taxing capital does nothing but devalue it, reducing its value versus labor.

We don't tax capital. We tax gains made upon capital. As an aside, why is it OK to tax interest income (or bond yields) as ordinary income, but not the income derived from capital? Aren't interest and bond payments also derived from capital? Worse yet is the tax treatment of "carried interest," the means by which fund managers have their incomes treated as capital gains rather than income (and a reason for Romney's 13% tax rate, BTW).

Economics is not a science. It has as little to do with science than social contracts have to do with contracts. It's called the dismal science for a reason. Just because supply/demand relationship is well understood, it does not follow that the other aspects of economics are equally well understood. There's good reason it is called the dismal science.