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Actually, no. What are they getting in return for that? Actually, yes, I think it is reasonable. The top 1% earners typically are CEOs of large corporations,

Actually, no. What are they getting in return for that? Actually, yes, I think it is reasonable. The top 1% earners typically are CEOs of large corporations, celebrities, or professional athletes. In any event, their brands put more strain on the overall infrastructure than a little janitor who is in the bottom one percent of income earners. The CEO of Wal-Mart has, at any given time, thousands of delivery trucks on the roads, trucks that contribute to traffic congestion, increase the risk of accidents, cause potholes, and spit out harmful emissions into the atmosphere. The negative externalities born by society can be assigned a cost, and (even though it's by far from a perfect system), it does make sense for those who use/abuse the system for personal profit to be taxed more.

hga 17y ago
I'm sorry, but your concrete argument doesn't work unless you're suggesting that the CEO of Wal-Mart gains the entire benefit of its actions, with none benefiting its shareholders, customers, or low rank employees. To take your even more specific example of delivery trucks, someone has got to deliver the food that everyone eats. You can't arbitrarily assign the total resultant negative externalities to whichever companies own and operate them.
- indiejade 17y ago
  3. Michael T. Duke, President, CEO, and Director, Wal-Mart $12,238,209 total compensation 6. Eduardo Castro-Wright, Vice Chairman; President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores U.S. Division $9,987,493 total compensation 8. Thomas M. Schoewe, EVP and CFO, Wal-Mart $9,477,584 total compensation 16. C. Douglas McMillon, EVP; President and CEO, Wal-Mart International Division $8,191,857 total compensation Four out of the 20 "Highest Paid Retail Executives" are Wal-Mart executives. Source: http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=2E3DABA5396D4649BABC55BEADF2F8FD&tier=4&id=19710C99B6A541E09B4B506CDD05844C http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=...
  - hga 17y ago
    And your point is?
    - indiejade 17y ago
      To take your even more specific example of delivery trucks, someone has got to deliver the food that everyone eats. You can't arbitrarily assign the total resultant negative externalities to whichever companies own and operate them. Why not? There's a big difference between retail and food, especially in the US. Food can be grown and delivered locally, and agriculture can be optimized for certain climates. Retail products, however, almost always require far more distance had between the producer and the consumer. Roads are a great example, because even after that cargo hold of plastic GI Joes "Made in China" lands on the coast, Wal-Mart trucks still have to drive hundreds or thousands of miles get the product delivered to its target consumers in rural "agriculture" lands on the interior of the US. Wal-Mart is the extreme example, but if I remember from my MBA classes, it's fairly simple to point out where the company has exploited almost everything it could legally exploit. It undercuts competitors in almost every one of its new locations; predatory pricing puts mom-and-pop shops out of business. How is this a good thing?
      - sokoloff 17y ago
        Lower prices to the consumer is the most obvious answer to your last question. Either you take as a given that people will buy that GIJoe from China or they won't. If they will, some company is going to provide it; in your case it just happens to be Walmart. If the consumer won't buy it, no retailer will provide it. If your argument is that we should attempt to assign economic penalties (taxes, if you will) on the externalities such that the true cost of those is reflected in the fuel that Walmart (and everyone else) buys, I'm all for it. If you're suggesting that the most appropriate way to correct for those externalities is to raise the income taxes on the Walmart execs who appear on the "top 20 retailer execs" list, I don't see even a tenuous connection with which I can agree.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
viraptor 17y ago
I don't see your point tbh. Emission is dealt with by using congestion taxes. Accidents risk by insurance and we can expect it to be ~ to the number of cars. Not sure how the car owner -> pothole connection is solved in US, but some other countries add the "road tax" to fuel prices. Those are all (cause -> problem -> money for solution) dependencies. I don't see why you want to get money from a company owner to solve any of them....
- indiejade 17y ago
  Those are all (cause -> problem -> money for solution) dependencies. I don't see why you want to get money from a company owner to solve any of them.... Not exactly. They're (Problem -> Root Cause -> Solution) "dependencies". The very nature of negative externalities is that they're problems that societies have to deal with when one entity decides to profit at the detriment of his neighbors. Here's an example of "negative externalities" that is actually true, and took place near a town where I used to live. Assume: You're a property owner, and you don't want Pig Farm, INC to buy the parcel next to you and put up a pig farm because of the smell, potential health problems due to the (literally) toxic waste, etc. Yeah, there are regulations, but Pig Farm, INC has figured out that if it has a facility with 99 instead of 100 pigs that it can skirt the laws. Problem: Pig waste is toxic, and causes health problems that you're beginning to notice is affecting your children. Root Cause: There's a pig farm next door to your house. Solution: Move. Or get the pig farm move. Problem: You were there first. Why should you move? Besides, you can't afford to move because you're behind on doctor bills resultant from the toxic pig farm emissions. Root Cause: Doctor bills coupled with the fact that nobody will buy your house because it's next to a pig farm. Solution: Take the loss on your house and move anyway; health benefits outweigh the desire to hold on to your property in a place that is making you and your family sick. Problem: Pig Farm, INC bulldozes the house you used to live on and builds another facility, which conveniently holds 99 pigs. What used to be just your problem is now your former neighbor's problem. In summary, it's not about "money for the solution" it's about an "equitable solution". If one farm in town is causing 95 percent of the town's health problems, and causing loss of equity to 98 percent of its residents, that's a good thing only for the CEO of Pig Farm, INC who's raking in the money with the increased salary due to demand for bacon and pork and sausage.
w00pla 17y ago
> The CEO of Wal-Mart has, at any given time, thousands of delivery trucks on the roads, trucks that contribute to traffic congestion, increase the risk of accidents, cause potholes, and spit out harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Doesn't the USA have corporate tax? Shouldn't corporate tax (and things such as fuel levies and business levies) pay for the cost of roads?
- NeilCJames 17y ago
  For the purposes of the CBO report, corporate taxes are counted towards the total tax burden on households, proportionate to their capital holdings, based on interest, dividend, capital gains and rent income.
  - hga 17y ago
    Interesting, but rather silly, since a lot of it flows right through to the prices of their products.
    - sokoloff 17y ago
      Corporate taxes (which are levied on profits) are most naturally passed through to the owners of that corporation. (Basically, they are taxing undeclared dividends.) Taxes that a corporation pays in the course of doing business (fuel, payroll, etc) are presumably NOT allocated in this fashion.
gyardley 17y ago
The top 1% of all earners and the top 1% of people putting a strain on the national infrastructure aren't the same thing. (Nor is 1% of the American population, which is more than 3MM people, all 'CEOs of large corporations, celebrities, or professional athletes'.) If you're arguing for taxing people at differential rates based on something besides income, fine. But don't confuse 'income' with 'strain on the national infrastructure' or anything else.

hga 17y ago

I'm sorry, but your concrete argument doesn't work unless you're suggesting that the CEO of Wal-Mart gains the entire benefit of its actions, with none benefiting its shareholders, customers, or low rank employees. To take your even more specific example of delivery trucks, someone has got to deliver the food that everyone eats. You can't arbitrarily assign the total resultant negative externalities to whichever companies own and operate them.

indiejade 17y ago
3. Michael T. Duke, President, CEO, and Director, Wal-Mart $12,238,209 total compensation 6. Eduardo Castro-Wright, Vice Chairman; President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores U.S. Division $9,987,493 total compensation 8. Thomas M. Schoewe, EVP and CFO, Wal-Mart $9,477,584 total compensation 16. C. Douglas McMillon, EVP; President and CEO, Wal-Mart International Division $8,191,857 total compensation Four out of the 20 "Highest Paid Retail Executives" are Wal-Mart executives. Source: http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=2E3DABA5396D4649BABC55BEADF2F8FD&tier=4&id=19710C99B6A541E09B4B506CDD05844C http://www.risnews.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=...
- hga 17y ago
  And your point is?
  - indiejade 17y ago
    To take your even more specific example of delivery trucks, someone has got to deliver the food that everyone eats. You can't arbitrarily assign the total resultant negative externalities to whichever companies own and operate them. Why not? There's a big difference between retail and food, especially in the US. Food can be grown and delivered locally, and agriculture can be optimized for certain climates. Retail products, however, almost always require far more distance had between the producer and the consumer. Roads are a great example, because even after that cargo hold of plastic GI Joes "Made in China" lands on the coast, Wal-Mart trucks still have to drive hundreds or thousands of miles get the product delivered to its target consumers in rural "agriculture" lands on the interior of the US. Wal-Mart is the extreme example, but if I remember from my MBA classes, it's fairly simple to point out where the company has exploited almost everything it could legally exploit. It undercuts competitors in almost every one of its new locations; predatory pricing puts mom-and-pop shops out of business. How is this a good thing?
    - sokoloff 17y ago
      Lower prices to the consumer is the most obvious answer to your last question. Either you take as a given that people will buy that GIJoe from China or they won't. If they will, some company is going to provide it; in your case it just happens to be Walmart. If the consumer won't buy it, no retailer will provide it. If your argument is that we should attempt to assign economic penalties (taxes, if you will) on the externalities such that the true cost of those is reflected in the fuel that Walmart (and everyone else) buys, I'm all for it. If you're suggesting that the most appropriate way to correct for those externalities is to raise the income taxes on the Walmart execs who appear on the "top 20 retailer execs" list, I don't see even a tenuous connection with which I can agree.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

viraptor 17y ago

I don't see your point tbh. Emission is dealt with by using congestion taxes. Accidents risk by insurance and we can expect it to be ~ to the number of cars. Not sure how the car owner -> pothole connection is solved in US, but some other countries add the "road tax" to fuel prices. Those are all (cause -> problem -> money for solution) dependencies. I don't see why you want to get money from a company owner to solve any of them....

indiejade 17y ago
Those are all (cause -> problem -> money for solution) dependencies. I don't see why you want to get money from a company owner to solve any of them.... Not exactly. They're (Problem -> Root Cause -> Solution) "dependencies". The very nature of negative externalities is that they're problems that societies have to deal with when one entity decides to profit at the detriment of his neighbors. Here's an example of "negative externalities" that is actually true, and took place near a town where I used to live. Assume: You're a property owner, and you don't want Pig Farm, INC to buy the parcel next to you and put up a pig farm because of the smell, potential health problems due to the (literally) toxic waste, etc. Yeah, there are regulations, but Pig Farm, INC has figured out that if it has a facility with 99 instead of 100 pigs that it can skirt the laws. Problem: Pig waste is toxic, and causes health problems that you're beginning to notice is affecting your children. Root Cause: There's a pig farm next door to your house. Solution: Move. Or get the pig farm move. Problem: You were there first. Why should you move? Besides, you can't afford to move because you're behind on doctor bills resultant from the toxic pig farm emissions. Root Cause: Doctor bills coupled with the fact that nobody will buy your house because it's next to a pig farm. Solution: Take the loss on your house and move anyway; health benefits outweigh the desire to hold on to your property in a place that is making you and your family sick. Problem: Pig Farm, INC bulldozes the house you used to live on and builds another facility, which conveniently holds 99 pigs. What used to be just your problem is now your former neighbor's problem. In summary, it's not about "money for the solution" it's about an "equitable solution". If one farm in town is causing 95 percent of the town's health problems, and causing loss of equity to 98 percent of its residents, that's a good thing only for the CEO of Pig Farm, INC who's raking in the money with the increased salary due to demand for bacon and pork and sausage.

w00pla 17y ago

> The CEO of Wal-Mart has, at any given time, thousands of delivery trucks on the roads, trucks that contribute to traffic congestion, increase the risk of accidents, cause potholes, and spit out harmful emissions into the atmosphere. Doesn't the USA have corporate tax? Shouldn't corporate tax (and things such as fuel levies and business levies) pay for the cost of roads?

NeilCJames 17y ago
For the purposes of the CBO report, corporate taxes are counted towards the total tax burden on households, proportionate to their capital holdings, based on interest, dividend, capital gains and rent income.
- hga 17y ago
  Interesting, but rather silly, since a lot of it flows right through to the prices of their products.
  - sokoloff 17y ago
    Corporate taxes (which are levied on profits) are most naturally passed through to the owners of that corporation. (Basically, they are taxing undeclared dividends.) Taxes that a corporation pays in the course of doing business (fuel, payroll, etc) are presumably NOT allocated in this fashion.

gyardley 17y ago

The top 1% of all earners and the top 1% of people putting a strain on the national infrastructure aren't the same thing. (Nor is 1% of the American population, which is more than 3MM people, all 'CEOs of large corporations, celebrities, or professional athletes'.) If you're arguing for taxing people at differential rates based on something besides income, fine. But don't confuse 'income' with 'strain on the national infrastructure' or anything else.