4 ms·

Good, more room for the next generation.

by vorotato 11y ago

rglullis 11y ago
I don't know what is worse: the ageism you are showing or the mentality of an 18th century economist.
pluckytree 11y ago
To learn from whom?
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I can tell you that teachers don't make six figures and above.
ctdonath 11y ago
Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return?
- Spooky23 11y ago
  27% of X, where X>0, is more than 100% of 0.
- delazeur 11y ago
  That's not how tax brackets work. You would "only" keep 27% of your income over $10MM, but you would keep a much higher percentage of that first $10MM. > would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return? Even if I was paying 27% on the first $10MM, putting in $1MM worth of effort would get me a return of 170% per year.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Because they want the things money can buy. > Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? Maybe, maybe not, but, anyway, that's not how marginal rates in a progressive tax system work. Even if the marginal rate that kicks in at $10 million is 73%, that means you only keep 27% of the amount after $10 million, and some greater amount of the part below $10 million. Obviously, an increase in the top marginal tax rate decreases the incentive to work to increase income once you've reached the annual income level at which the higher tax rate applies, but doesn't it really hurt anyone that people already making at least $10 million/year prioritize making additional income less over other priorities?
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    Ronald Regan, as a movie star, regularly didn't make movies precisely because the progressive tax system would head into confiscatory levels making the effort worthless to him. Such rates denied both the public at large from products they wanted, and the government tax revenue. I don't want my world to actively discourage the talented from producing. I want to encourage people to make insane amounts of money, because that is largely the result of far-and-above productivity which everyone else benefits from. Jobs are created, desirable products/services are generated at affordable costs, money is invested (even banked "cash" gets loaned, and extravagant luxuries create markets), and the general standard of living is raised. The cost of discouraging effort is never included in these "soak the rich, redistribute the wealth" equations.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Ronald Regan, as a movie star, regularly didn't make movies precisely because the progressive tax system would head into confiscatory levels making the effort worthless to him. Really, if the greatest cost to society you can point to of increasing the top marginal income tax rates is "fewer Ronald Reagan movies", I don't think you are making a very strong case. > Such rates denied both the public at large from products they wanted, and the government tax revenue. The case that it denied government net tax revenue requires more than Reagan not making movies, it requires a whole-economy comparison of what activity occurred instead and the actual taxes applied against that activity. > I want to encourage people to make insane amounts of money, because that is largely the result of far-and-above productivity which everyone else benefits from. This "trickle down" concept is a widely held article of faith in some parts of the population, but not a position well supported by evidence. > The cost of discouraging effort is never included in these "soak the rich, redistribute the wealth" equations. The "cost of discouraging effort" is very hard to empirically establish without ambiguity, and there are sharply different opinions on what it actually is. What proponents think that cost is usually accounted for in where the various parameters are set; people who have different views of what the cost is, obviously, disagree that these settings are correct.
- msbarnett 11y ago
  > Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Are you seriously asking why anyone would consider a career in which they are "only" able to keep 27% of any money above $10 million they make in a single year? You're incredibly out of touch if you don't think most people would kill for that opportunity. > Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? Yes I would absolutely do that for the privilege of keeping only 27% of anything more than $10 million a year I make. This is an incredibly good problem to have. > would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return? This is not how marginal tax rates work. Consider putting down Atlas Shrugged and consulting a remedial math textbook.
  - ctdonath 11y ago
    Would you put in $100M effort & risk where you'd need a 4x return on investment just to break even? As I work to make my owns end meet, I'm quite aware of the consequences of having a ~50% tax rate, putting out $X00,000 effort just to net half that. And yes, I'm quite aware of the technical errors in my presented math. This is a casual forum, not a peer-reviewed paper. What baffles me is how others here won't do the remedial math showing that a 100% tax rate on everything over $1M wouldn't come close to paying for what Bernie et al promise and those here expect as obvious (never mind the always-neglected effect high taxes have on high productivity).

Good, more room for the next generation.

rglullis 11y ago

I don't know what is worse: the ageism you are showing or the mentality of an 18th century economist.

pluckytree 11y ago

To learn from whom?

toomuchtodo 11y ago
I can tell you that teachers don't make six figures and above.

ctdonath 11y ago

Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return?

Spooky23 11y ago
27% of X, where X>0, is more than 100% of 0.
delazeur 11y ago
That's not how tax brackets work. You would "only" keep 27% of your income over $10MM, but you would keep a much higher percentage of that first $10MM. > would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return? Even if I was paying 27% on the first $10MM, putting in $1MM worth of effort would get me a return of 170% per year.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Because they want the things money can buy. > Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? Maybe, maybe not, but, anyway, that's not how marginal rates in a progressive tax system work. Even if the marginal rate that kicks in at $10 million is 73%, that means you only keep 27% of the amount after $10 million, and some greater amount of the part below $10 million. Obviously, an increase in the top marginal tax rate decreases the incentive to work to increase income once you've reached the annual income level at which the higher tax rate applies, but doesn't it really hurt anyone that people already making at least $10 million/year prioritize making additional income less over other priorities?
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Ronald Regan, as a movie star, regularly didn't make movies precisely because the progressive tax system would head into confiscatory levels making the effort worthless to him. Such rates denied both the public at large from products they wanted, and the government tax revenue. I don't want my world to actively discourage the talented from producing. I want to encourage people to make insane amounts of money, because that is largely the result of far-and-above productivity which everyone else benefits from. Jobs are created, desirable products/services are generated at affordable costs, money is invested (even banked "cash" gets loaned, and extravagant luxuries create markets), and the general standard of living is raised. The cost of discouraging effort is never included in these "soak the rich, redistribute the wealth" equations.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > Ronald Regan, as a movie star, regularly didn't make movies precisely because the progressive tax system would head into confiscatory levels making the effort worthless to him. Really, if the greatest cost to society you can point to of increasing the top marginal income tax rates is "fewer Ronald Reagan movies", I don't think you are making a very strong case. > Such rates denied both the public at large from products they wanted, and the government tax revenue. The case that it denied government net tax revenue requires more than Reagan not making movies, it requires a whole-economy comparison of what activity occurred instead and the actual taxes applied against that activity. > I want to encourage people to make insane amounts of money, because that is largely the result of far-and-above productivity which everyone else benefits from. This "trickle down" concept is a widely held article of faith in some parts of the population, but not a position well supported by evidence. > The cost of discouraging effort is never included in these "soak the rich, redistribute the wealth" equations. The "cost of discouraging effort" is very hard to empirically establish without ambiguity, and there are sharply different opinions on what it actually is. What proponents think that cost is usually accounted for in where the various parameters are set; people who have different views of what the cost is, obviously, disagree that these settings are correct.
msbarnett 11y ago
> Why would the next generation want to take up that room? Are you seriously asking why anyone would consider a career in which they are "only" able to keep 27% of any money above $10 million they make in a single year? You're incredibly out of touch if you don't think most people would kill for that opportunity. > Would you take up a career where despite long & expensive education, long hours, hard work, and lives-in-your-hands responsibility, you kept just 27% of your income? Yes I would absolutely do that for the privilege of keeping only 27% of anything more than $10 million a year I make. This is an incredibly good problem to have. > would you put in a million dollars of effort to net a quarter of that in return? This is not how marginal tax rates work. Consider putting down Atlas Shrugged and consulting a remedial math textbook.
- ctdonath 11y ago
  Would you put in $100M effort & risk where you'd need a 4x return on investment just to break even? As I work to make my owns end meet, I'm quite aware of the consequences of having a ~50% tax rate, putting out $X00,000 effort just to net half that. And yes, I'm quite aware of the technical errors in my presented math. This is a casual forum, not a peer-reviewed paper. What baffles me is how others here won't do the remedial math showing that a 100% tax rate on everything over $1M wouldn't come close to paying for what Bernie et al promise and those here expect as obvious (never mind the always-neglected effect high taxes have on high productivity).