What difference does it make how rich the rich are?

[Matt Black]

And what about those who work 80 hour weeks and who end up only moderately or badly off?

It is currently taxed at a higher rate. So, your argument is a lame argument. The fact is, if you are a business leader you are paying a higher percentage of taxes. There are people in the 1% who pay 50% of their income in taxes. Do you think that is fair? What percent would you advocate that they give to government?

Secondly, I would recommend you reading the old classic, "The Millionaire Next Door." The statistics are hard to refute and this study has been replicated with almost no one disputing their findings.

Finally, would you advocate the communist philosophy of not allowing any inheritance? I do not see there to be any injustice to giving wealth to your children. In fact, the Bible allows you to give an inheritance. Abraham, for instance, was a part of the 1% and he gave it to his son Isaac. David gave his to Solomon. Is this evil?

What about the Year of Jubilee, then (since you want to go OT on us) - is that 'communist' or 'evil'?

 

[Ruiz]

And what about those who work 80 hour weeks and who end up only moderately or badly off? What about the Year of Jubilee, then (since you want to go OT on us) - is that 'communist' or 'evil'?

Two different issues. The issue of Jubilee was not about someone becoming rich and giving it back. Rather, because of jubilee, the price for the property would be less and the person would know what he was getting into. Thus, if I offered to buy a property from you knowing next year was the year of Jubilee, I would offer you very little money than I would a year after jubilee.

However, inheritance was not taken away. Rather, it was given.

I don't think Jubilee was wrong, but I also don't think inhertance is wrong. Rather, if you got money, you should be able to give it to your children.

 

[Matt Black]

Hmmm... they weren't supposed to pay less if the Jubilee was coming up. And you haven't addressed my first point...

 

[Ruiz]

Hmmm... they weren't supposed to pay less if the Jubilee was coming up. And you haven't addressed my first point...

That is a part of life. No one is guaranteed to be rich even if you work very hard. There are people who work very hard but they are not rich, but why is that unjust? There are people who worked all day at a job who got paid the same who worked a few hours. Is this unjust? No!

Where does it say that you can't pay less for a property before Jubilee? Yet, even so, what business owner would buy a property the year before Jubilee?

 

[mandym]

When they hear of people receiving bonuses of multiple millions of dollars, especially as severance packages for failure at their work it rubs them wrong. It is rather like defending a bank robber, or an embezzler, or a scam artist, or a fraud artist, saying he/she should not be punished simply because they took other peoples money.

Of course Fannie and Freddie execs are ignored on this. They received bailouts and bonuses and not one word from the left about this. Why is that?

 

[Matt Black]

That is a part of life. No one is guaranteed to be rich even if you work very hard. There are people who work very hard but they are not rich, but why is that unjust? There are people who worked all day at a job who got paid the same who worked a few hours. Is this unjust? No!

If by this you are alluding to the parable of the workers in the vineyard, that is in the context of grace. The whole point of the parable is that it is unjust for the johnny-come-latelys to receive the same as the early birds in the vineyard, but that grace triumphs over justice. It's still unjust though; if it wasn;t, there would be no place for grace in the story.

Where does it say that you can't pay less for a property before Jubilee? Yet, even so, what business owner would buy a property the year before Jubilee?

My bad, it doesn't; I was pincking up on the Levetical injunction to not take advantage of the Jubilee concept.

 

[Ruiz]

If by this you are alluding to the parable of the workers in the vineyard, that is in the context of grace. The whole point of the parable is that it is unjust for the johnny-come-latelys to receive the same as the early birds in the vineyard, but that grace triumphs over justice. It's still unjust though; if it wasn;t, there would be no place for grace in the story.

My bad, it doesn't; I was pincking up on the Levetical injunction to not take advantage of the Jubilee concept.

The point with the vineyard workers, it is about grace and there is a spiritual concept. However, the point that people make different amounts per hour is not an evil/good issue.

My opinion, the people who steal the most money is the Government. I would rather the millionaire down the street get my money than the politician in Washington.

 

[Spear]

It is currently taxed at a higher rate. So, your argument is a lame argument. The fact is, if you are a business leader you are paying a higher percentage of taxes. There are people in the 1% who pay 50% of their income in taxes. Do you think that is fair? What percent would you advocate that they give to government?

I quote myself :
" Money coming from money should be taxed more than money coming from REAL work (no matter how much you earn). "

Do you understand the difference between let's say your wages from work, and the money you have in bank, which, by many mecanisms here in France, is less taxed. Our politics keep crying on tv " the income one gets from work is more taxed than the same income if it'd come from an investment fund. " and i agree that it is not normal (here) and that we should change that, and tax it even more than the income you get from work.

Some do pay 50 % of their income, that's true. Let's say i earn 500k € a month and pay 50 % .... I have 250 k € left. Do i still earn a huge amount of money ? Yes, for sure. Do i still have enough money for anything i need, and any leisure i want ? Yes, for sure.

 

[Ruiz]

I quote myself :
" Money coming from money should be taxed more than money coming from REAL work (no matter how much you earn). "

Do you understand the difference between let's say your wages from work, and the money you have in bank, which, by many mecanisms here in France, is less taxed. Our politics keep crying on tv " the income one gets from work is more taxed than the same income if it'd come from an investment fund. " and i agree that it is not normal (here) and that we should change that, and tax it even more than the income you get from work.

Some do pay 50 % of their income, that's true. Let's say i earn 500k € a month and pay 50 % .... I have 250 k € left. Do i still earn a huge amount of money ? Yes, for sure. Do i still have enough money for anything i need, and any leisure i want ? Yes, for sure.

Would you work for only fifty cents on the dollar? Let's say I am working for 65 cents for every dollar I earn, but in November I discover that if my business earns a few more thousands of dollars, I will only earn 1/2 for every dollar. I could do two things. First, I could lay off all my workers, take a vacation and start over next year, or I could propel myself into the next tax bracket, cut into more of my profits, and never reduce overhead. My overhead would dramatically decrease by laying off my workers and I would probably end the year better off. Some companies have chosen to lay off employees rather than face the increased tax burden. Personally, I don't blame them. They rehire those people the first of the year.

You said you want to tax "non-productive" savings at a higher rate. This money is the most productive money in our economy. Money that comes from savings, like what you want to tax at a higher rate, is what drives the economy. If you lose savings you will lose any stimulus or incentive for economic growth. We become a zero-sum-game and debt actually becomes the standard personal and business models. If you haven't heard, that is what got us into our problems.

Solid and true markets work when savings precede investment. When these savings are invested they drive the economic engines without creating bubbles. These engines continue with savings first and investment second.

Your desire to tax savings will halt the engine of economic growth. In fact, it will eventually cause a recession/depression because it will create bubbles in the economy that cannot be maintained. People will be discouraged from saving. To drive economic growth the government will input funds into the private sector. Those funds create bubbles that eventually bust. If you discourage savings, then you encourage recessions.

This is what we saw under Bush and why it was easy to predict the economic collapse. The "experts" who said that the collapse would not occur are the ones who wanted to discourage savings. Economists who share my economic theory pressed the Bush and Obama Administrations to enact policies to encourage savings. If our policies were enacted early in the Bush presidency or even when Obama first took office, studies have shown we would be far better off today.

Your economic policies are proven to fail. I want to encourage all savings and when we encourage savings we encourage economic growth.

 

[billwald]

Money coming from money is taxed at 15% max. Money coming from wages is taxed over 30% marginal rate.

>What about the Year of Jubilee,

There is no evidence that this scheme ever worked as intended by God/Moses. It killed all business as the year approached. The priests invented work around rules to the defeat the Jubilee, the sort of rules Christians criticize the Jews about.

 

[billwald]

Ruiz - do you understand the concept of "marginal tax rate?" See http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MarginalTaxRates.html

The last machinist strike at Boeing/Everett was called because of overtime policies in the old contract. The company was forcing people to work overtime when they preferred to have the time off. In other words, the alternative use of their time was more valuable to them than additional income when considering their marginal tax rate. This answers your question, "Would you work for only fifty cents on the dollar?".

I ask YOU, why would a person with a billion in invested assets from which he could safely cash in $500 million every year at a marginal tax rate of 15% work to obtain more money?????? (If he gave $250 million a year to a tax exempt out of his $500 million gross he would have an effective tax rate of 7.5%)


>This money is the most productive money in our economy. Money that comes from savings, like what you want to tax at a higher rate, is what drives the economy.

If right wingers "believed" their own propaganda they would understand that fiat money has no intrinsic value, it is simply a book keeping entry, an IOU for goods and services. Therefore, anyone who "saves" money is losing ground every month because the money he saves buys less every month - interest in savings being less than the inflation rate.

The proper use of money is to spend it, use it to bribe politicians, or invest it.
The maximum tax on long term capital gains - money making money - is 15% and Republicans want to reduce it to zero. Your tax on your savings interest is your marginal tax rate.

 

[Ruiz]

Ruiz - do you understand the concept of "marginal tax rate?" See http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/MarginalTaxRates.html

The last machinist strike at Boeing/Everett was called because of overtime policies in the old contract. The company was forcing people to work overtime when they preferred to have the time off. In other words, the alternative use of their time was more valuable to them than additional income when considering their marginal tax rate. This answers your question, "Would you work for only fifty cents on the dollar?".

I ask YOU, why would a person with a billion in invested assets from which he could safely cash in $500 million every year at a marginal tax rate of 15% work to obtain more money?????? (If he gave $250 million a year to a tax exempt out of his $500 million gross he would have an effective tax rate of 7.5%)


>This money is the most productive money in our economy. Money that comes from savings, like what you want to tax at a higher rate, is what drives the economy.

If right wingers "believed" their own propaganda they would understand that fiat money has no intrinsic value, it is simply a book keeping entry, an IOU for goods and services. Therefore, anyone who "saves" money is losing ground every month because the money he saves buys less every month - interest in savings being less than the inflation rate.

The proper use of money is to spend it, use it to bribe politicians, or invest it.
The maximum tax on long term capital gains - money making money - is 15% and Republicans want to reduce it to zero. Your tax on your savings interest is your marginal tax rate.

Bill,

Yes, I have heard of the marginal tax rate. If you haven't noticed, I am a business professor. A relative of mine recently slowed down production because they are purposefully preventing being placed in a higher tax bracket. They are going to sell their material, but they are purposefully putting it off to next year. They keep more profits and cut expenses today.

You mentioned the problem of inflation; I agree. Of course, I am an Austrian Economist. We have said that inflation is a form of theft. The people supporting the inflation practices are people like Obama and Bush. These are policies of our government that discourages savings and encourages debt: These policies of our government encourages bubbles and discourages real economic growth.

You believe spending drives the economy, however history shows that spending ends up grasping for limited resources. Since there are limited resources, the cheap credit wrecks the economy as the resources dry up. In our economy, the bull market is kept alive through inflation and printing more money because they lack the resources/savings to keep economic growth continuing.

Yes, spending is needed, but savings must come first. We cannot merely try to boost aggregate demand. When we boost aggregate demand without real savings, a bust is likely to follow.

The prime example is the housing bubble that is continuing to bust. The Austrians Economists were the only ones who warned of the bust, everyone else mocked us. Their thought, we can spur the economy if we only can boost aggregate demand. They boosted aggregate demand but without true savings, everything came crumbling.

 

[AresMan]

The question is: how much do the "rich" need to be taxed before the class warfare people will be happy? You mean they will never be happen as long as someone in the world is richer than they? Say it isn't so!

 

[poncho]

Poncho - Your friends here are so busy looking for the antichrist to start his one world government that they can't see they are working for him.


Inthelight thinks,
"So long as one holds to the idea of ownership of private property as guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution it should not make much difference to anyone."

He will be happy when the 1% owns 99% of everything worth owning including his house. The bank will be pleased to rent it back to him.

Word!

It's not the 1% we need to be looking at. It's the .1%.

Yeah as it stands now the government is InTheDark's landlord. There is no such thing in these United States as "property rights" anymore. Used to be one's labor was considered his property. Then along came InTheDark's private bankster heros in 1913 and all that changed. So now the .1% ers get their share of a man's property before he does. Without the force of law. Instead they use the "color of law".

Remember the supreme court has said at least twice that the 16th amendment did not give congress any new power of taxation.

 

[billwald]

>Of course, I am an Austrian Economist.

Austrian Economists live in the 19th century. Why? Because the entire world dumped the metallic based money system for an electronic transfer fiat money system. Money is no longer a store of value but a government countersigned IOU for goods and services.

>We have said that inflation is a form of theft.

A theft from one person is an asset increase for another. Compare "Inflation is theft" with "Drunk drivers (burglars, forest fires, broken windshields . . . ) cost the public (some sum of money). A balance sheet has two sides and the US has two parallel economies, one for people who make money from using (investing) their money (interest, dividends) and those who make money from using (investing) their time aka wages.

The people with excess money rent their extra money to people who want more money and charge interest on the loaned money. A guy borrows $100K to buy a house. The projected inflation rate over the next 20 years is 3%/year. What does the bank charge? Their cost of their borrowing plus the cost of inflation plus their expenses plus something to cover the bank's bad debt accounts. The buyer can take it or leave it.

Every year the buyer pays back the loan with cheaper money but the bank has already written this cost into the loan's interest rate. Overall, it is a wash. The books always balance.

 

[billwald]

>It's not the 1% we need to be looking at. It's the .1%.

AGREE!!!!! It is the .1% who has created "class" warfare within the working class, the people who work for wages (and commissions and who are paid piece work).

 

[Salty]

AGREE!!!!! It is the .1% who has created "class" warfare within the working class, the people who work for wages (and commissions and who are paid piece work).

Disagree - class warfare is created by those who insist on getting there own way without regard for the other party.

The bottom 10% could cause problems for the top 20%. For example a group of people may complain because the business grossed 1 million dollars for the year. But they don't take into account all the expenses the owner has, and possibly the deficit he had the year before.
Another wards the "working class" needs to realize the difference between gross profit and net profit.

Now, I am not saying that some businessmen take advantage of the workers - and some do, but it also works the other way to.

 

[Matt Black]

The question is: how much do the "rich" need to be taxed before the class warfare people will be happy? You mean they will never be happen as long as someone in the world is richer than they? Say it isn't so!

Well, it would be nice if the rich actually paid the taxes for which they are liable, as a starting point, rather than striking dodgy deals with the taxman, or employing clever accountancy tricks to avoid paying tax. It is surely manifestly unjust that a chief exec pays less tax as a percentage of his income than does his cleaner, no?

 

[targus]

It is surely manifestly unjust that a chief exec pays less tax as a percentage of his income than does his cleaner, no?

Yes, we keep hearing this claim. However I have as yet not seen any proof of it's validity.

Warren Buffet has no credibility with me as he is a known tax cheat and hypocrit in demanding higher tax rates while refusing to pay his own tax bill.

 

[billwald]

>The question is: how much do the "rich" need to be taxed before the class warfare people will be happy? You mean they will never be happen as long as someone in the world is richer than they? Say it isn't so!

NOT EXACTLY! People want to be ruled and taxed by their own kind of people. Ireland, for example. There is big difference between the north and the south but Irish Catholic serfs could not tolerate being ruled by Protestant masters living in the big house on the hill. Serfs don't mind being ruled by their own kind of people who are only reasonably richer than they are. It is a problem of "scale."

For example, the traditional American Indian People were almost pure communists but were happy because the chiefs didn't live much better than the people.