Quote Of The Day

Published on 9/12/2011 in Economics, Inequality and Taxes. 1 Comment

“Indeed, the share of top incomes coming from capital is much lower now than it has been historically. According to Emmanuel Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley, for the richest Americans — those in the top 0.01 percent of the distribution — the percentage of income derived from capital fell to 25 percent in 2004 from 70 percent in 1929. If your image of the typical rich person is someone who collects interest and dividend checks and spends long afternoons relaxing on his yacht, you are decades out of date. The leisure class has been replaced by the working rich.” — Greg Mankiw,  Harvard Economist in an old NY Times post responding to Buffett’s claims then

1 Response to “Quote Of The Day”

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  • LaurenceB
    9/14/2011 at 12:47 pm

    Shorter Mankiw:

    “When people say that the tax rates are not progressive enough they are lying. I will demonstrate this by conveniently ignoring all local and state taxes and fees so as to make these people appear to lie. Then I will declare that the remaining taxes constitute a “highly progressive system” because the top fifth ends up paying a (whopping!!!!) 25%.”

    “25%! Wow, that’s wildly progressive, isn’t it!”

    “Then, for good measure, I will cherry pick some historical data just to see if some unsuspecting blogger falls for it, and makes it his “Quote of the Day”.

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