Taxarea din bere (update)

Update: iată ilustrația perfectă pentru acest text:


(Sursa)

Cu riscul de a vă amăgi din titlu, nu voi vorbi despre propunerea de „suprataxare” a berii, ci despre frauda macroeconomiei.

Cristian Ghinea observă în Dilema veche un lucru știut de mult printre adepții Școlii austriece: cei care separă microeconomia de macroeconomie și susțin că cea din urmă este guvernată de cu totul alte principii și legi decât cea dintâi sunt șarlatani. Diferența este, de fapt, doar una de focalizare. Cristian Ghinea:

Economiștii – și economiștii de stînga mai ales – au talentul să vorbească cu metafore alambicate. Vă propun, stimați cititori care nu sînteți economiști, să lăsați orice complex deoparte și, cînd auziți un economist vorbind despre macroeconomie, să comparați mereu ce zice despre situația unei țări cu situația unui buget de familie. E același lucru, doar pe mai mulți oameni. Vă spun un mare secret: faptul că economiștii fac să pară totul complicat e pentru că nici ei nu înțeleg mare lucru, dar vor să pară că știu mai mult decît restul lumii, deci inventează limbaj specializat. Așadar, țineți minte – aplicați macroeconomia la bugetul familiei dumneavoastră și veți putea deosebi impostura metaforică de economia cu sens.

În același spirit, vă recomand un articol care într-un exemplu simplu și cât se poate de concis prinde esența sistemului democratic de taxare: The Tax System Explained in Beer, de David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh would pay $7 The eighth would pay $12 The ninth would pay $18 The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59

So, that’s what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men ? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a h higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving). The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving). The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving). The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving). The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving). The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!” “That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”

“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Pentru a mai rotunji colecția adevărurilor importante spuse simplu, adaug populara intrare de blog a întreprinzătorului maghiar Andor Jakab:

This is why I don’t give you a job

Și închei în același spirit cu bestsellerul internațional Aventurile lui Jonathan Gullible (carte tradusă în peste 40 de limbi).

Nu cred că trebuie mult mai multă economie decât cea cuprinsă în textele de mai sus pentru a asigura bunul mers economic și social al oricărei țări (pentru a o scoate din mlaștina socialismului, însă, cred că e nevoie de ceva mai mult).

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