4 ms·

The same way we morally justify taxing people to pave highways: it helps. Also, you misspoke, it's not 70% of someone's income, it's 70% of income over $10 mil

by CBLT 8y ago

The same way we morally justify taxing people to pave highways: it helps. Also, you misspoke, it's not 70% of someone's income, it's 70% of income over $10 million. The first $10 million isn't being seized, you'll find it's quite comfortable to live on.

geomark 8y ago
From the article: "...70 percent marginal tax rate and it kicks in, not at $10 million like AOC proposes, but at around $98,000"
- CBLT 8y ago
  I could argue that I am talking about US taxes. The overall discussion (beyond this news article) is entirely about US taxes, I live in the US, and most bait posts like the one I responded to are also American in origin. I'd rather be frank: I was not commenting in good faith. There was obviously no good discussion to come of the subtree, and I was bored and felt like getting my quill wet. I hope you found my comment as I intended it: polite but smug, responding but unanswering, and steering the discussion but noncommittal. Yes, it's not a good comment, it's a polarizing comment. Comment voting systems like these are quite interesting I think. Immediately after posting I was upvoted and you were downvoted by some other reader. They surely cast their votes on how they feel: I was disagreeing with the grandparent (bait post) and they too disagreed. Upvote. As I hinted above, my post isn't strong enough to stand on it's own merits, it was upvoted merely by context. Since you seemed to disagree (or at least not agree), you're an enemy, part of the opposing faction. Downvote. Again, your post wasn't irrelevant or otherwise misinformed, it was downvoted by context. I'm sorry that happened to you, I didn't do it but I'll say you need tough skin in flamebait trees.
  - xupybd 8y ago
    The "Bait Post" is from a New Zealander. I live under socialized health care and generally in a very socialist society similar to most European countries. I wasn't trying to start a flame war but a discussion on the morality of taking such a high percentage. I knew very well that this a marginal rate but still after some level of earnings they're suggesting taking 70% of someone's income. I just think that's far too high to justify. topher515 has provided an interesting link to a well thought out and articulated article. That while I don't agree with it entirely I do think that sort of thing is a sign of a fruitful discussion. The position "tax is theft" is hard to justify but I'd say the other extreme where a 70% marginal tax rate is suggested is also hard to justify.
    - CBLT 8y ago
      Well, hello from Saturday! I'm glad you're reasonable and not a troll like I feared. I think the post you made was inflammatory for 2 reasons: 1) It was short and didn't explain your position well. I'm sure it made perfect sense to you when you were writing it, but to me it was just a low-effort concern-trolling. You should explain yourself more. Notice what clarifications you had to give out in your other comments. 2) Indelicately including higher-impact, emotionally-charged topics. The appeal to morality is a tired and obnoxious trope when the subject of discussion is not a moral hazard. Additionally, the inclusion of violence was unnecessary; in this context it's not important how the government gets your money, go ahead and assume the government gets it. With that out of the way, I took the time to write a real response to what you said. In another comment you mentioned "pay their share of the roads, defense and police", and I think that this concept is interesting and not at all obvious. I mean, we need these things and they cost money, but what does it mean to pay one's share? Dollars have a distortive effect on the conversation I think. When you measure people's success in dollars, you see something interesting: a log-normal curve. Log-normal is the distribution of independent variables that multiply together to get the output. The implication of this is, that factors in your success (luck, hard work, skill as a Java programmer instead of a coffee barrista) multiply together to put together your money. People making much more money than you aren't the same as you but more hardworking, but rather are being vastly amplified by other factors. People making much less money aren't just lazy, again it's other factors that put a ceiling on their income, even if they pull all-nighters at their McJob. So this compound accumulation of other factors, many of which are out of your control, by and large affect your standard of living and how much you pay in taxes. It's quite hard to say what someone's share of the social burden is. I will say that, in general, progressive taxes do a better job at making that share aligned with the exponential reward from properly cultivated effort. However, I do recognize the shortcomings of such a tax. An underpaid engineer that a company wants to do underpaid overtime so they can hit their deadline would be making poor financial use of their efforts, and hit unfairly hard by progressive taxes. Every dollar that engineer earns from the hardest work they do is taxed even harder! But there's no easy solution to that. My personal view is that progressive taxes should stay, and we should continue investing in financial literacy and supporting people in making strong financial choices (in the this example, probably switch jobs). What am I not considering?

by CBLT 8y ago

geomark 8y ago

From the article: "...70 percent marginal tax rate and it kicks in, not at $10 million like AOC proposes, but at around $98,000"

CBLT 8y ago
I could argue that I am talking about US taxes. The overall discussion (beyond this news article) is entirely about US taxes, I live in the US, and most bait posts like the one I responded to are also American in origin. I'd rather be frank: I was not commenting in good faith. There was obviously no good discussion to come of the subtree, and I was bored and felt like getting my quill wet. I hope you found my comment as I intended it: polite but smug, responding but unanswering, and steering the discussion but noncommittal. Yes, it's not a good comment, it's a polarizing comment. Comment voting systems like these are quite interesting I think. Immediately after posting I was upvoted and you were downvoted by some other reader. They surely cast their votes on how they feel: I was disagreeing with the grandparent (bait post) and they too disagreed. Upvote. As I hinted above, my post isn't strong enough to stand on it's own merits, it was upvoted merely by context. Since you seemed to disagree (or at least not agree), you're an enemy, part of the opposing faction. Downvote. Again, your post wasn't irrelevant or otherwise misinformed, it was downvoted by context. I'm sorry that happened to you, I didn't do it but I'll say you need tough skin in flamebait trees.
- xupybd 8y ago
  The "Bait Post" is from a New Zealander. I live under socialized health care and generally in a very socialist society similar to most European countries. I wasn't trying to start a flame war but a discussion on the morality of taking such a high percentage. I knew very well that this a marginal rate but still after some level of earnings they're suggesting taking 70% of someone's income. I just think that's far too high to justify. topher515 has provided an interesting link to a well thought out and articulated article. That while I don't agree with it entirely I do think that sort of thing is a sign of a fruitful discussion. The position "tax is theft" is hard to justify but I'd say the other extreme where a 70% marginal tax rate is suggested is also hard to justify.
  - CBLT 8y ago
    Well, hello from Saturday! I'm glad you're reasonable and not a troll like I feared. I think the post you made was inflammatory for 2 reasons: 1) It was short and didn't explain your position well. I'm sure it made perfect sense to you when you were writing it, but to me it was just a low-effort concern-trolling. You should explain yourself more. Notice what clarifications you had to give out in your other comments. 2) Indelicately including higher-impact, emotionally-charged topics. The appeal to morality is a tired and obnoxious trope when the subject of discussion is not a moral hazard. Additionally, the inclusion of violence was unnecessary; in this context it's not important how the government gets your money, go ahead and assume the government gets it. With that out of the way, I took the time to write a real response to what you said. In another comment you mentioned "pay their share of the roads, defense and police", and I think that this concept is interesting and not at all obvious. I mean, we need these things and they cost money, but what does it mean to pay one's share? Dollars have a distortive effect on the conversation I think. When you measure people's success in dollars, you see something interesting: a log-normal curve. Log-normal is the distribution of independent variables that multiply together to get the output. The implication of this is, that factors in your success (luck, hard work, skill as a Java programmer instead of a coffee barrista) multiply together to put together your money. People making much more money than you aren't the same as you but more hardworking, but rather are being vastly amplified by other factors. People making much less money aren't just lazy, again it's other factors that put a ceiling on their income, even if they pull all-nighters at their McJob. So this compound accumulation of other factors, many of which are out of your control, by and large affect your standard of living and how much you pay in taxes. It's quite hard to say what someone's share of the social burden is. I will say that, in general, progressive taxes do a better job at making that share aligned with the exponential reward from properly cultivated effort. However, I do recognize the shortcomings of such a tax. An underpaid engineer that a company wants to do underpaid overtime so they can hit their deadline would be making poor financial use of their efforts, and hit unfairly hard by progressive taxes. Every dollar that engineer earns from the hardest work they do is taxed even harder! But there's no easy solution to that. My personal view is that progressive taxes should stay, and we should continue investing in financial literacy and supporting people in making strong financial choices (in the this example, probably switch jobs). What am I not considering?