Oct 2nd 2017, 2:00:23
Well, most adults in the United States like to think of themselves as people, even good people, so they are angry that Donald Trump will benefit from his proposed tax reform. After all, he said all Americans will benefit from this plan, and if he is benefiting, then that means he is benefiting more because he has more money. Thus, most of these so called adults think his tax reform plan is a tax cut on the rich, which is technically true, but it is also a tax cut on the middle-class and poor, which is often forgotten but even if it's not forgotten it doesn't matter because the economy is clearly a zero-sum game. At least in Monopoly. Except this is real life. And in real life the economy is not a zero sum game.
Why are people worried about the rich benefiting from tax cuts then? Well, there is a test done in economics called an "ultimatum" test. The test has two participants, a proposer and a responder. The two are given a sum of money, say $100, and told to divide up the money how they see fit. The proposer then makes a proposal for how they split up the money in any ratio he wants. It can be 50/50, 51/49, and so on, and the responder gets to choose to accept or reject the proposal. If the proposal is rejected, then neither side receives any money, and the game is not played again.
Now, the obvious way for the proposer to split up the money is for him to get 99$ and the responder to get 1$. The responder should accept this offer every single time because, frankly, he is richer than he was before and he will be poorer if he rejects it. However, this offer is never accepted. In fact, almost no offers under a ratio of 70/30 are accepted. Rationally, any value in which you are better off should be acceptable, but the test fails to capture something. No, that's wrong, the test captures something perfectly. Something that you think cannot be measured monetarily but can be estimated to the dime: the value of spite.
People will hurt themselves just to spite other people. These people are not children, not immature or irrational, they are adults. They would rather suffer than see other people benefit. The difference between the ultimate test and real life is the real life economy is not a zero sum game and any benefit they receive can be multiplied exponentially. The money other people save is not money they could have had if they made a deal. In fact, just the opposite, if others save money, then that money is more likely to make its way to you.
The worst part is that a poor economy, one that thrives on spite rather than reason, is more likely to lead to poverty stricken conditions where people suffer and die. Thus, these adults who consider themselves good people can be viewed by other people as bad people. To get the kind of people they really are we let G be good, P be people, and B be bad. We take G*P to decide what percentage of good a person has in them and B*P to decide what percentage of bad a person has in them, and take the quotient of (G*P)/(B*P) to get their good and bad ratio. Since P cancels out the final equation is G/B, no people involved.
If you give a man some fire, he'll be warm for awhile. If you set a man on fire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
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