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Anyone who has done well for themselves will leave. Those businesses that start to go well will leave. By this logic, why doesn't every successful Bay Area sta

Anyone who has done well for themselves will leave. Those businesses that start to go well will leave. By this logic, why doesn't every successful Bay Area startup just up and move to Dubai? If a few rich assholes want to live in Dubai, fine by me, but the successful companies are always going to be where the skilled people are. Skilled people are where the infrastructure (education, health) is best, and you have to pay for infrastructure; that's why taxes exist. Finally you can afford some nice things, then suddenly you're taxed at 95%. Define "nice things". For me, "nice things" are good books, cool technologies, travel, challenging problems to solve, and interesting company. None of these have to involve luxury goods. My point is that we'd be taxing people based on what they buy, not their income. In other words, the tax is based on what you do with the money, not how much of it you make. If someone gets rich but is using his money reasonably, he pays reasonable taxes. If he wants to belch tons of CO2 into the air by flying around in his custom-built jet with a swimming pool in it, like a lot of the uncultured mouth-breathers in that set, he'll be very highly taxed for it. Besides, those among the rich who are ascending Society and flying around in private jets are too busy schmoozing and colluding to be building anything useful, just as authors who get sucked up into that high-society shitfest stop writing readable work. (Hard to write anything valuable if you're constantly coked up.) At this point, they effectively ought to retire. If we discourage them from being here, great! They're already past peak, and now they're just taking up space at the top. Their exodus makes room for people with talent and energy.

showerst 17y ago
This actually happened in Britain in the 70's. At one point the top marginal tax rate topped 98%, and a large number of luminaries either moved out of the country or heavily obfuscated their finances. If even one warren buffet moves (or, more likely, suddenly shifts most of his income to barbados with legal financial engineering), it costs the government massive amounts of money. I won't touch the ad hominem attacks against an entire class of successful people, except to ask if Bill Gates has done anything useful with his money.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  I won't touch the ad hominem attacks against an entire class of successful people Over 90% of people in this class achieved no success on their own, but had it bestowed upon them through family connections and inheritance. Likewise, a lot of genuinely successful (and even very, very rich) people aren't remotely connected to Society and the ruling-class chicanery. The reason the median American is so easily swindled by the Right is because he erroneously believes most of the upper class to be comprised of more successful versions of himself, ignoring the existence a tightly-interconnected ruling class (not quite a conspiracy, but as close as is possible in a society of this size) that hates his values and is actively colluding against people like him.
  - dsplittgerber 17y ago
    Please do show me any statistic or other facts-based argumentation, except for rambling, where it is shown that over 90% of "successful people" achieved no success on their own, but had it bestowed upon them. Have you ever looked at inheritance numbers in any society?
    - pw0ncakes 17y ago
      I never said that 90% of "successful people" had not earned it. I said this of 90% of the ruling class. Most are born into it. By definition, someone who is born into the ruling class and turns out to be an idiot is not "successful". So most of the people I'm decrying are not "successful" people. However, they are powerful. George W. Bush comes to mind.
- gnosis 17y ago
  "If even one warren buffet moves (or, more likely, suddenly shifts most of his income to barbados with legal financial engineering), it costs the government massive amounts of money." Laws could be made against moving money out of the country, or at least taxing it on its way out. In fact, last I looked (some time ago) if you had a net worth of over $100k (or was it an income of over $100k a year.. I forget exactly), and gave up your US citizenship, the US government would simply assume you've given up your US citizenship to avoid taxation, and tax you for the next 10 years anyway, despite you no longer being a US citizen. We need more laws like that.
thirdusername 17y ago
Dear sir, you seem unaware of the commenting guidelines for Hacker News that in short state that our community cares about tone and civilized discussions with supporting arguments as opposed to the reddit-style blatant unsupported statements and profanity: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is most likely why this is the third comment from you in this thread being down voted.

showerst 17y ago

This actually happened in Britain in the 70's. At one point the top marginal tax rate topped 98%, and a large number of luminaries either moved out of the country or heavily obfuscated their finances. If even one warren buffet moves (or, more likely, suddenly shifts most of his income to barbados with legal financial engineering), it costs the government massive amounts of money. I won't touch the ad hominem attacks against an entire class of successful people, except to ask if Bill Gates has done anything useful with his money.

pw0ncakes 17y ago
I won't touch the ad hominem attacks against an entire class of successful people Over 90% of people in this class achieved no success on their own, but had it bestowed upon them through family connections and inheritance. Likewise, a lot of genuinely successful (and even very, very rich) people aren't remotely connected to Society and the ruling-class chicanery. The reason the median American is so easily swindled by the Right is because he erroneously believes most of the upper class to be comprised of more successful versions of himself, ignoring the existence a tightly-interconnected ruling class (not quite a conspiracy, but as close as is possible in a society of this size) that hates his values and is actively colluding against people like him.
- dsplittgerber 17y ago
  Please do show me any statistic or other facts-based argumentation, except for rambling, where it is shown that over 90% of "successful people" achieved no success on their own, but had it bestowed upon them. Have you ever looked at inheritance numbers in any society?
  - pw0ncakes 17y ago
    I never said that 90% of "successful people" had not earned it. I said this of 90% of the ruling class. Most are born into it. By definition, someone who is born into the ruling class and turns out to be an idiot is not "successful". So most of the people I'm decrying are not "successful" people. However, they are powerful. George W. Bush comes to mind.
gnosis 17y ago
"If even one warren buffet moves (or, more likely, suddenly shifts most of his income to barbados with legal financial engineering), it costs the government massive amounts of money." Laws could be made against moving money out of the country, or at least taxing it on its way out. In fact, last I looked (some time ago) if you had a net worth of over $100k (or was it an income of over $100k a year.. I forget exactly), and gave up your US citizenship, the US government would simply assume you've given up your US citizenship to avoid taxation, and tax you for the next 10 years anyway, despite you no longer being a US citizen. We need more laws like that.

thirdusername 17y ago

Dear sir, you seem unaware of the commenting guidelines for Hacker News that in short state that our community cares about tone and civilized discussions with supporting arguments as opposed to the reddit-style blatant unsupported statements and profanity: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html This is most likely why this is the third comment from you in this thread being down voted.