Tax the rich!!!

[Ramo]

The burden of funding the state ought to be on those who can afford to fund it, so eat the rich.

[Velociryx]

No...people with specific characteristics are bad....

Translation: If they have more than me, they MUST be lazy capitalist b@stards who stole it!

Izzat about right?

The original title of the thread is "Tax the Rich!!!" and I'm all for that.

If we're gonna have taxes....if we have decided to use taxation to fund the government and all its various programs, then everybody needs to pay.

Further, everybody needs to pay according to their means. That means that the wealthy pay more, both in terms of absolute dollars, AND in terms of higher tax percentages. The folks who NEED said government programs are certainly not in a position to fund them on their own, and the money's gotta come from someplace, so it seems fairly logical that it's gonna have to come from those who won't miss it as much.

In this country, if you got money, it's about as hard to make more as it is to fall down after ten rounds with Jose Cuervo. If you don't have two nickles to rub together, it's a bit tougher to get started, much less to pay a hefty tax bill AND get started.

It's pretty clear then, where that leaves us.

-=Vel=-

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Japher
Most of the rich are hard workers because they love what they do and are good at it.

Incorrect. Most of the rich were born that way. Ninty percent of all rich people picked the right family into which to be born.

[Velociryx]

Really now? 90%.

That's interesting, since the US has been cranking out more new millionaires per capita each and every year then anyplace else I can think of.

You would think that the sum total of all those newly wealthy people would amount to more than 10% of the total "rich" in this country.

-=Vel=-

[chequita guevara]

You would think, but apparently you'd be wrong.

[Velociryx]

Mmmm....maybe. Source?

-=Vel=-

[chequita guevara]

Democracy for the Few, Michael Parenti.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Velociryx
Really now? 90%.

That's interesting, since the US has been cranking out more new millionaires per capita each and every year then anyplace else I can think of.

You would think that the sum total of all those newly wealthy people would amount to more than 10% of the total "rich" in this country.

-=Vel=-

You're abolutely off.

Almost all of the richest people in your country were born that way.

Socioeconomic mobility exists in the US more than it did in many other societies, but socioeconomic inertia is still the dominant force.

[Velociryx]

Guess we'd better tell all the thousands of newly rich in this country--this year alone!--to give the money back then, eh?

-=Vel=-
(boy will THEY be surprised!)

[KrazyHorse]

What the heck is a matter with you, Vel?

Do you deliberately disregard what other people write?

If 90% of the richest people were the children of the richest people then "almost all" the richest people were born that way. It doesn't mean that nobody else ever gets rich, just that by far the most common way to be rich is to be born rich.

[KrazyHorse]

Let's look at the numbers you're throwing out there

If 10 000 people join the richest 1% of US society every year then there is a generational turnover of about 300 000

But the richest 1% of US society has...3 million people in it

So 90% of those 3 million were born rich.

* 2

[Geronimo]

This is exactly why the estate tax seems like the most sensible of the tax methods to me. If we start with the assumption that people should get to keep all of the money they earn and that the government is not entitled to any of it, then taxing money that people do not earn appears to be the obvious and least damaging (since It cannot contribute to transgfering money from people who earned it to people who did not) way of funding government spending.

The last thing libertarians should want is a society where hard work and intelligence are less likely to make you rich than transfers of wealth that you did not earn.

[Velociryx]

What the heck is the matter with YOU?

The logic is absurd in the extreme.

First, you (and not you specifically, "you" generically) go off spouting all this jazz 'bout how people who inherit tons of money just live off the fat (which, by definition, means that their wealth is declining....which further means that, if it continues long enough they will no longer be "rich"), and then, without even stopping for a commercial break, you say that the most common way to get rich is to inherit it.

Just how many "rich" people do you think there ARE in the US, anyways?

If thousands of newly rich people are creating themselves in this country each year, and if that's a trend that has held true since the fifties (and it has), then don't you think that, mathematically, the sum total of people who have bootstrapped their way to wealth would surpass those who got it the old fashioned way?

I mean...c'mon...it ain't rocket science, but hey...I'm game...show me some numbers. Source it. I'd love to see the data if I'm wrong.

-=Vel=-

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Velociryx
I mean...c'mon...it ain't rocket science, but hey...I'm game...show me some numbers. Source it. I'd love to see the data if I'm wrong.

-=Vel=-

I guess you missed the post that was two posts above yours where he shows you the math.

[Geronimo]

Originally posted by Velociryx
What the heck is the matter with YOU?

The logic is absurd in the extreme.

First, you (and not you specifically, "you" generically) go off spouting all this jazz 'bout how people who inherit tons of money just live off the fat (which, by definition, means that their wealth is declining....which further means that, if it continues long enough they will no longer be "rich"), and then, without even stopping for a commercial break, you say that the most common way to get rich is to inherit it.

bologna! Your wealth will not decline if you live off of it and do no work. How do you think non profit foundations persist indefinately? Money makes money. If I was given a billion dollars today I could do no work the rest of my life, live like a king and still be far wealthier when I die than I am today. I could do so even if I'm profoundly stupid. I just pay an account to manage the money for me. I really detest the idea of crafting our tax policy to help protect such situations. Let the freeloaders pay the taxes and let the productive people keep their earnings. Taking hard earned money from the people who earned it is tantamount to slavery.