"I'll believe my cousin who is family and has credentials before I believe some stranger off the internet who could be anyone pretending to be anyone."

Or maybe you should believe the facts regardless of who tells them to you. Rofl @ the appeal to authority fallacy.


"he comes from Saguenay Lac St-Jean and I don't see him very often"

Again, more appeal to authority fallacy.


"Go into more details. This answer is very short and vague."

Ok, you said:

"The rich likely won't invest more anyways since if they don't have the capita to invest in what they want, they'll just borrow it"

So according to you / your interpretation of what your 'cousin' said, the rich would invest the same if they had more money because if they didn't have the money they would just borrow it anyway. This is nonsense because from a macroeconomic perspective saving must equal investment. If the rich 'borrow' money then where do you think they get it from? If they borrowed money from the someone then that same money couldn't be borrowed by someone else, you only have so much money to borrow and that depends on the equalibrium with the supply and demand for loans in the market for loans (the price of the market being the interest rate of loans). Also, generally the rich don't 'borrow' money. They save their money and places like banks generally do the investing. Anyway, the rich have a lower propensity to consume (therefore a higher propensity to save) thus my original statement that tax cuts on the rich would result in a larger increase in the capital stock is correct.


"You are not giving a whole lot of justification."

What, do you want me to start from the beginning? How much exactly do you know? Maybe I can work with that.


"Its hard to argue economic policies with someone if you don't share these core values."

That is nonsense. Physicists that don't share core values can debate each other, Biologists that don't share core values can debate each other, so why not Economists?


"the government, who is looking out for the interests of his country, should definitely try to counter this."

So the government should try to prevent a higher GNP?


"Short and vague."

You were confusing long term and short term economics. You said that we shouldn't increase taxes on consumption because it would reduce aggregate demand by preventing people from buying as much (well that is essentially what you said). In the long run you consume what you produce and the consumption taxes make saving more favourable which increases the capital stock and long term output. You are confusing short term fluctuations in aggregate demand with the effect on the long term physical capital stock.


"don't count on the fact that your credentials (if any), can be trusted."

Even more of the logical fallacy known as appeal to authority.


"He argued that this is not so, since you will buy less and the economy will shrink as a result."

So according to him, consumption taxes are on the right side of the laffer curve? Is that what he said? In pretty much any developed nation (especially north american ones), we aren't even close to the right side of the laffer curve. So if you or 'your cousin' has evidence that consumption taxes are on the right side of the laffer curve please present that evidence.


"workers won't save more (they'll just spend twice as much for the same goods)."

The change in behaviour depends entirely on their utility curves. But generally with each additional dollar a person has, they will consume portion of it and save another portion. Also, i'm not really sure how this response was related to my earlier comment about the effect of a tax shift on the capital stock thus output. What do workers 'saving' have anything to do with it? Are you somehow stupid enough to assume that a worker's physical capital depends entirely on how much they save and not what others save?


"According to my cousin"

Again, an appeal to authority.


"there will be less workers when the economy shrinks, meaning more people who need wealfare support, less taxable source and less money for the companies who make the goods to reinvest in the economy."

Yes, that generally happens. What is your point?