We previously discussed the exodus from France of top earners after the imposition of a confiscatory 75% tax rate. Now England is facing the same shift, according to a new report. More than 16,000 people declared an annual income of more than £1 million during 2009-10. That number fell to just 6,000 this year. This appears to be a combination of people leaving Britain and concerted efforts to avoid income.
We continue to disagree on this blog on tax policy. I opposed the moves in France and England as economically unwise. I also oppose aspects of the Obama plan, though I agree with the need to increase revenue. I believe both Obama and Congress have been incredibly reckless with their budgets and continue to spend wildly without any sense of priority in spending.
Cities like New York also report declines in top earner following heavy tax bills.
George Osborne, the Chancellor, announced this year that the 50p top rate will be reduced to 45p from next April.
Source: Telegraph
Tony C.
1, December 8, 2012 at 7:31 pm
@Stephen: Your rejection of the metaphysics
I reject all metaphysics, I do not believe there is anything beyond physics. I am not just an atheist, I am a non-super-naturalist. I am also a professional scientist. I could not destroy science if I tried, although that is certainly what you seem to be trying by promoting your juvenile philosophy.
Metaphysics is the study of existence as a whole or the fundamental facts of existence. Your discussion of thing, existents, etc, is metaphysics. Everyone has a metaphysics, explicit or not. You can attempt to evade it but your rationalization of evasion necessarily contains a metaphysics. Physics, the study of matter and energy, is an application of some metaphysics, eg, an ordered (identity, causality) universe or the universe as randomness. Etc.
Your epistemological appeal to unknowable perfection is a restatement of the supernatural. You and your fellow scientific frauds have gone a long way in reducing science to arbitrary description of observation for arbitrary, short-range purposes, evading concepts and causality, ie, science. Youre a professional pseudo-scientific whore.
@Bron: I would say an attribute of a planet is that it rotates on its axis and revolves around a sun.
Thus my point; of course you can be certain that all planets in remote galaxies rotate around suns, because if they don’t then they aren’t planets, by your very definition!
But a definitional certainty means nothing, Bron. I can define a “Bukklebee” as any object with gold concealed inside of it, and then claim absolute certainty that all Bukklebees have gold concealed inside of them. Now, does that help us in any way to know anything new or predict anything?
No. It is a children’s pastime, and precisely the sort of thing Rand engages in; purposely redefining words so that her conclusions are proven by her redefinitions.
This is also how religious arguments are formulated, by first secretly reasoning backward from one’s desired outcome to a sufficiently vague but necessary starting conditions, then publicly stating these starting conditions as axiomatic, and reasoning forward again to the desired outcome. It is a little magic trick, or more accurately, a con.
Bron, I would happily give up a war or two, and maybe even an aircraft carrier or two if the Republicans will keep their hands off of health care and retirement funds. Defense is one thing. Keeping the military-industrial complex fully funded at the expense of education, infrastructure rebuilding and health care for the people is obscene.
Grossman:
First of all, Bron made the quote which you erroneously attributed to me.
Second, you wrote: “Obama said that was irrelevant because taking their money was fair, ie, destructive.”
*********************************
Please provide a link to where the President EVER said anything remotely like that. Linkee thingee, please?
Man, SG, I hate to say it but you give pot smokers a bad reputation when you go on like that.
@Stephen: Your rejection of the metaphysics
I reject all metaphysics, I do not believe there is anything beyond physics. I am not just an atheist, I am a non-super-naturalist. I am also a professional scientist. I could not destroy science if I tried, although that is certainly what you seem to be trying by promoting your juvenile philosophy.
SG simply assumes too much about people he does not know, he already knows what we are with not much evidence or experience. We are figments of his imagination, nothing more or less.
No one, I repeat, no one on this thread has condemned mans knowledge. wtf gave you that idea? It is absurd.
@Stephen: Your irrationalist hatred of science is clear. An existent is anything which exists,
Your irrationalist hatred of using normal words is clear. Answer the question, why use the word “existent” when “thing” will do and is more clear? What is the point of the jargon? Does it make you feel better? Does it make you feel SMARTER? Or is it just a subterfuge to couch your drivel in jargon so people aren’t sure if there may be a difference between “existent” used as a noun and “thing,” thereby protecting it from attack?
Okay, that was hastily said; a state of mind is real, and a real thing. It is just not an observable real thing; we can only infer it.
@Stephen: Yeah, “dropping the context” is more Aynish. Not interested.
@Bron: You are changing the subject. It was you that said similarity allowed perfect prediction, now you are just repeating what I had to point out to you, that the similarity between Pomeranians and Cheetahs really predicts nothing at all.
That is a general truth for all similarity, it means nothing without its partner, differentiation. The two of them together imply “model,” which is a simplification that captures the important similarities and differences and excludes the noise of details. What is “important” is what makes a difference in outcome, usage, motivations, intent or future action.
For example, shall we punish a man for killing another man? It doesn’t depend on the fact of killing, it depends on the model we apply to his actions. Was he a soldier on the battlefield? Defending himself? Defending somebody else? Or a criminal?
That model does not depend on reality or objects, it depends on his state of mind, and really, what HIS model of the situation was; whether he believed he was serving his nation, preventing a rape, or trying to rob a tourist for some drug money.
>[Neuronman]On the roulette wheel, I can give you the rule that the odds of the ball landing on black are equal to the odds of landing on red.
Youre dropping the context of your perfect knowledge that spinning roulette wheels will move a ball dropped on them, that the dropped ball will bounce around, and that math can perfectly, within some context, predict probability.
Lacking such knowledge, you could not predict. You know causes, on that base, identify probability and then deny your knowledge of causes. You dont expect the roulette wheel to sing opera because you know the roulette wheel as cause.
>an empty tautology saying “objects that rotate around suns rotate around suns.”
Your rejection of the metaphysics of identity destroys science. Everything is an identity and its actions are the actions of that identity. Prior to Aristotle’s discovery of the principle of Non-contradiction, people did not know that a thing is what it is. They thought contradictions possible. A tautology is a statement of identity.
>only a general nature and general attributes that may or may not be present, but if enough are missing we no longer call it a planet.
Isnt it fortunate then, for those who value scientific objectivity, that Aristotle, based on Socrates’ use of observed similarities and differences for definition, discovered the rules of definition? Your comment merely rationalizes out-of-focus learning.
>That is just drivel. Why call something an “existent” if what you mean is “thing?” That is a serious question; what is the difference in your mind between an “existent” and a “thing,” or “real thing?”
Your irrationalist hatred of science is clear. An existent is anything which exists, physical or mental. Rocks and my memory of yesterday exist. The words used to symbolize concepts are arbitrary and convention and, objectively, consistent. Call it thing or existent. If you want to limit the word, thing, to physical things, thats a rational option but be explicit.
>Not all things even have specific properties associated with them, some things are quite amorphous. Is romantic love real? Is rage real? Is physical pain real? Is imagination real? Is a “problem” real?
_Associated_ with them?! The properties of a tree are the tree. A thing literally is its properties except within mysticism and subjectivism. Existence is identity. A thing is itself. Things are definitely, absolutely, what they are, regardless of the difficulty in knowing the limits some things. Eg, clouds.
In such cases, specify a range of properties. Then you move from denying or being confused by existents to wondering which existents are real. But those are two issues. Whether love is real is different from its existence. Love exists, with its properties and actions, whatever they may be. Philosophy provides the observation-based conceptual framework of existence, identity, consciousness and causality. Science then studies particular and particular classes of existents, etc. Prior to Aristolte, man had only rationally unorganized patterns of existents. Aristotle discovered the basics of systematic reasoning. The modern rejection of Aristotle is returning man to the primitive cognition of arbitrary groups and coincidences, w/no knowledge of what to do with his knowledge. Modern man stares, unfocused, at the universe. His psychology responds w/the cognitive warning signs, w/chronic anxiety and chronic depression. Those warn, not of a physical danger, but of a psycho-epistemological danger, a misused mind. Primitive man was honestly ignorant before Aristotle. Modern man knows about Aristotle ,if only implicitly via our scientific-industrial civilization, and rejects him. Modern man is guilty and there are many claims now, among subjectivists, of Original Sin. But, as Rand said, its originated sin, the evasion of reason.
I will point out there is another reason for the Aynish language redefinitions, and that is to act as a badge that let the Aynish to recognize their philosophical brethren, so their brethren will support them or cut them some slack. It is like the not-so-secret handshake in the club; and the reason for Stephen’s impenetrable language: He doesn’t care if anybody understands him, he just wants to shout “Rand Is Great!” to see if any fellow Aynish are about. That is in addition to the fact that they cannot argue in plain language lest they seem stupid. For most of them, I doubt they even understand Rand in plain language, I suspect instead rote recitation of her magic phrasing, which saves them from having to think for themselves.
Stephen Grossman:
can you speak to thought? What exactly is thought?
As Tony C asks “is rage real”? If you are on the receiving end it sure looks real.
Are thoughts real? I would say yes. And they certainly exist as this post proves.
Neuromancer
>Are they perfectly accurate? No. Neither were Galileo’s computations for gravitational acceleration, or Newton’s gravity.
Youre sneaking in God again, this time as “perfectly accurate,” perfect being beyond man’s allegedly imperfect knowledge. Epistemological perfection is contextual (not subjective), the product of man’s mind logically focused onto reality. In the context of their knowledge, Galileo and Newton were perfectly accurate. Its a religious, pseudo-scientific absurdity to condemn man for lacking divine omniscience. Sailboats are not as reliable and fast as motorboats yet, for millenia, they transported people and cargo. They were a perfect application of man’s knowledge before motorboats. Your condemnation of man’s knowledge is a condemnation of man’s mind, ie, religion, because it fails to live up to your religious ideal of effortless knowledge, ie, mysticism.
tony c:
I would say an attribute of a planet is that it rotates on its axis and revolves around a sun. Among others.
A Pomeranian as a living being has a heart, lungs, eyes, ears, a brain, kidneys, etc. As a living being a Cheetah has the same things as all higher animals and especially mammals must have. A Cheetahs speed is a property/attribute which separates it from a Pomeranian. 4 legs identify both animals as quadrupeds but does not provide information about how fast either runs.
The digestive tracts of all the higher animals are similar and work in similar ways. Peristalsis, microbial decomposition of food, etc.
Otteray Scribe
1, December 8, 2012 at 7:31 pm
provide a link to where the President EVER said anything remotely like
that. Linkee thingee, please?
The Fascist-In-Chief said it was fair. I identified his meaning, destructive. Hes a nihilist, committed to destruction but handing out lollipops to distract compromisers.
Sorry about the bolding; I mistyped a tag.
@Bron: How can something provide predictive guidance but still be an imperfect predictor? If we are talking about physical properties and natural laws, such as gravity, how is that possible? If I drop a ball in Virginia, that predicts perfectly how a ball dropped in Germany will perform.
Okay. Take the phrases, “what goes up, must come down,” and the phrase, “the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” With regard to gravity on Earth, those are predictive statements, but not perfectly accurate. Nearly everything in common experience that temporarily defies gravity does in fact succumb to it; and although massive things fall at the same rate as less massive things, the impact is greater for massive things.
Are they perfectly accurate? No. Neither were Galileo’s computations for gravitational acceleration, or Newton’s gravity.
On the roulette wheel, I can give you the rule that the odds of the ball landing on black are equal to the odds of landing on red. Will that be precisely true over 1000 runs? Almost definitely not, but approximately so. It is a predictive rule, it will approximate reality even if reality never matches it.
Take your own statement: therefore I [am] pretty confident that another planet in a far away galaxy revolves around its sun.
Your own statement demotes “perfectly predicts” to “pretty confident.”
Correctly so, not all planets rotate around suns, unless you make that a prerequisite of being a planet, in which case it is an empty tautology saying “objects that rotate around suns rotate around suns.” However, if that is not part of the definition, then in our own solar system Titan is larger than Mercury (by 370 kilometers or so) but rotates around Saturn. If rotating around the sun is not a prerequisite to being a planet, I would like to know why Mercury counts as a planet but Titan is not.
Taking another direction, what specific attributes does a planet have that includes Mercury but excludes Titan? I suggest the alternative, that “planet” is something real but so amorphously defined that it has no specific nature or attributes; only a general nature and general attributes that may or may not be present, but if enough are missing we no longer call it a planet. The same is true for “people.” They obviously exist, but have no guaranteed attributes or nature. Is a person in a vegetative coma “people?” Is a person without limbs “people?”
By your own statement, the model you have of planets is probabilistic. So are all mental models, like our mental models of “people.” This is why we get troubled by ambiguity; Is a candle without a wick still a candle? Is a wick alone a candle?
The fact of probabilistic models puts the lie to the next statement:
All existents have specific properties/attributes associated with them and they behave in reality in accordance with their nature.
That is just drivel. Why call something an “existent” if what you mean is “thing?” That is a serious question; what is the difference in your mind between an “existent” and a “thing,” or “real thing?”
Not all things even have specific properties associated with them, some things are quite amorphous. Is romantic love real? Is rage real? Is physical pain real? Is imagination real? Is a “problem” real?
What is the specific property associated with “pain” that is not just a relabeling of pain?
Those properties can be used to perfectly determine the behavior of other similar existents.
See, that is just illogical. Similar is not synonymous with identical, thus similarity necessarily implies differences, which makes it illogical to believe that properties perfectly determine behavior. It assumes the differences do not matter, but that is obviously untrue For example, Pomeranians have four legs and run, so do cheetahs. The cheetah runs at 60 miles per hour; should I predict a pomeranian could run at 60 miles per hour?
To exist is to be something, as distinguished from the nothing of nonexistence, it is to be an entity of a specific nature made of specific attributes.
Neither your old dictionaries or Rand tell us how to distinguish something that exists from something that doesn’t, so both are just synonyms, that assume you already know what “being” is. The more recent New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic dictionary on my shelf also relies on that but is better; “the state of being in actuality; to be real.”
It doesn’t say anything about specific nature or specific> attributes or properties. Do motives exist? Yes they do. What is their specific nature, pray tell? And don’t get circular, do not just give me synonyms for “motive.” What are the specific attributes of romantic love? Is that even something we can get 100% agreement upon by a million people?
This introduction of specificity is one way Rand tries to limit her discussion to those things she can comprehend as a sociopath. What she cannot comprehend and did not feel was love, empathy, or sympathy. This is why her fiction dismisses those as weak-minded, brainwashing, etc; as the author with godly powers within her imagined world, she wanted to believe her own mind was “strong” and “superior.” So she interpreted her mental disability as an immunity, and portrays with disdain the feelings she never felt as some kind of disease she never contracted, due to her “strength.”
Otteray Scribe:
and maybe government just spends too much money on things we dont need.
And if we took all the rich people’s money it would not run the government for 1 year.
Otteray Scribe:And if we took all the rich people’s money it would not run the government for 1 year.
Obama said that was irrelevant because taking their money was fair, ie, destructive.