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I think enough of the money would go to supporting necessary services that it would still be worthwhile. And the more we can get the population on firmer econo

I think enough of the money would go to supporting necessary services that it would still be worthwhile. And the more we can get the population on firmer economic footing, the more they'll be able to participate in democracy, hold the government accountable, and work towards a more efficient government. But the point of a marginal tax rate that high isn't just to fund the government. It's to fight wealth concentration. And even if every dollar taxed is completely wasted, it still serves to keep inequality down and fights the concentration of wealth (and there for power). That's worthwhile.

beaconstudios 8y ago
why do you want to fight wealth concentration though? As far as I'm aware (and I could totally be wrong, I'm open to changing my opinion on almost everything) the only symptoms of wealth concentration are related to political corruption (where we should be preventing external money/gifts from getting to politicians, not preventing people from having money in the first place) and the Gini coefficient's effect on crime, which seems to me to be a function of envy because a high Gini coefficient is correlated with high crime even in areas with low poverty. My view of "good" government spending is to raise the lowest living standards to a place of dignity and security. I don't think the government should be punishing people for succeeding in the markets if they do so legitimately.
- danaris 8y ago
  Wealth concentration reduces liquidity. When more of the wealth that exists is in the hands of those with less, they spend it, and it's circulating in the economy. Indeed, it's circulating in the parts of the economy that need circulating money the most—the poorest parts. Inequality leads to large amounts of the money in the economy being locked away doing very little. So if we reduce the amount the very richest can siphon out of the active economy and pack away for a rainy day that'll never come (seriously, when is it going to be rainy enough for it to matter to someone making $20 million/yr whether they get to keep $16 million of it or $13 million of it?), we help stimulate the entire economy, almost by definition. Furthermore, the more people who have enough money to take opportunities for education and entrepreneurship, the more likely we are to have good new small businesses and innovative ideas.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    this argument rests on the condition that the rich store their wealth in some Scrooge McDuckian vault, away from the economy. This isn't true - usually, wealth is either spent on luxury items (so the money goes back into the economy) or it is invested (funding economic growth). If that weren't the case, wealth would be eroded via inflation. Now, there's a good argument to be made that many modern investment vehicles don't actually contribute to growth - and if that can be proven to be the case, these vehicles should be delegitimised. > Furthermore, the more people who have enough money to take opportunities for education and entrepreneurship, the more likely we are to have good new small businesses and innovative ideas. This is returning to the argument that we should raise living standards, not penalise wealth. I'm on board with that.
    - IntelMiner 8y ago
      >usually, wealth is either spent on luxury items (so the money goes back into the economy) or it is invested (funding economic growth). These are things that don't scale however. A CEO does not eat a thousand meals a day, or buy a thousand cars a year, or do any of the infinite number of things that circulate money into the economy on the scale of an equal number of poor people
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        you've missed the second half of the sentence. The rest goes into investment.
      - anonuser123456 8y ago
        A CEO might host a 2K dinner per day. Give 1K people 2$ and they will be able to buy a McBurger. In case A) you have a chef,sous chef, sommolier etc. all making reasonable money. In case B) you have capital investor making 1.95$/ unit and some kid making 7.95/hr. In aggregate, who spends what does not have a clearly predictable path through the economy.
  - anonuser123456 8y ago
    Do you live in Russia? One can sympathize with the notion rich oligarchs siphon off of the economy there. But in other parts of the world economy, that narrative doesn't hold water. https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/#3139c5547316 https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/#3139c5547316 I challenge you to find a profile there where someone isn't growing the economic pie and instead siphoning resources off. These are (almost) entirely people who started businesses that grew, providing new services. Further, this notion that wealth concentration reduces liquidity is 100% contrary to economic fact. What do you think the wealthy do with their money? Park it in a huge mattress or swim in pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck? The money goes into capital investments, which map 100% to spending. Either direct R&D, capital equipment or venture, which are all spending, or in the stock market. For every dollar going into the stock market, one dollar comes out and has to go somewhere. Hint; it doesn't go into a swimming pool. You may not like wealth inequality for personal moral reasons, but don't try to justify them with ill founded economic reasoning.
- pintxo 8y ago
  Under the premise that wealth == power, a democracy cannot accept that wealth is too unevenly distributed. If wealth is (more or less) equally distributed, everyone has the same leverage on influencing the necessary democratic vote. If the distribution favors one group of people, they will in turn have greater leverage on the vote. Note: I am not implying here that wealth must be distributed evenly, to the contrary. I am not even sure that the concentration of wealth onto a small number of people is the core problem. We might be able to live with it, _if_ the legal framework is robust enough and this concentration would be time limited, meaning there is basically no way to create family "empires" existing for decades or even centuries.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    > Under the premise that wealth == power, a democracy cannot accept that wealth is too unevenly distributed. That's the fundamental issue though - I think we should structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power. That way, wealth is just economic - you can hire people, or buy things, but you can't pay off voters or buy political ads or lobby in your interests or bribe politicians.
    - ardy42 8y ago
      > That's the fundamental issue though - I think we should structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power. That way, wealth is just economic - you can hire people, or buy things, but you can't pay off voters or buy political ads or lobby in your interests or bribe politicians. Money can always buy power. If you can hire people and buy things, you can hire people to canvass for your candidate and you can buy publications to gain greater control of the ideological zeitgeist. That's political power. But even if you could somehow "structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power," you still have the problem of what to do now about currently existing problems like inequality. In some ways you seem to be holding out impossible goals and conditions in a way that merely justifies inaction against real problems. Letting the perfect become the enemy of the good, and all that. That kind of thing probably makes the people who benefit from those problems rest easy.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> fight wealth concentration By concentrating in the hands of an ever-more-intrusive federal government instead?
- dbingham 8y ago
  The federal government can literally print money if it wants. I don't think we need to worry about concentrating wealth in its hands through taxation.
  - beaconstudios 8y ago
    wealth isn't the same as money. And people would equally criticise the government for printing money to increase its % share.

beaconstudios 8y ago

why do you want to fight wealth concentration though? As far as I'm aware (and I could totally be wrong, I'm open to changing my opinion on almost everything) the only symptoms of wealth concentration are related to political corruption (where we should be preventing external money/gifts from getting to politicians, not preventing people from having money in the first place) and the Gini coefficient's effect on crime, which seems to me to be a function of envy because a high Gini coefficient is correlated with high crime even in areas with low poverty. My view of "good" government spending is to raise the lowest living standards to a place of dignity and security. I don't think the government should be punishing people for succeeding in the markets if they do so legitimately.

danaris 8y ago
Wealth concentration reduces liquidity. When more of the wealth that exists is in the hands of those with less, they spend it, and it's circulating in the economy. Indeed, it's circulating in the parts of the economy that need circulating money the most—the poorest parts. Inequality leads to large amounts of the money in the economy being locked away doing very little. So if we reduce the amount the very richest can siphon out of the active economy and pack away for a rainy day that'll never come (seriously, when is it going to be rainy enough for it to matter to someone making $20 million/yr whether they get to keep $16 million of it or $13 million of it?), we help stimulate the entire economy, almost by definition. Furthermore, the more people who have enough money to take opportunities for education and entrepreneurship, the more likely we are to have good new small businesses and innovative ideas.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  this argument rests on the condition that the rich store their wealth in some Scrooge McDuckian vault, away from the economy. This isn't true - usually, wealth is either spent on luxury items (so the money goes back into the economy) or it is invested (funding economic growth). If that weren't the case, wealth would be eroded via inflation. Now, there's a good argument to be made that many modern investment vehicles don't actually contribute to growth - and if that can be proven to be the case, these vehicles should be delegitimised. > Furthermore, the more people who have enough money to take opportunities for education and entrepreneurship, the more likely we are to have good new small businesses and innovative ideas. This is returning to the argument that we should raise living standards, not penalise wealth. I'm on board with that.
  - IntelMiner 8y ago
    >usually, wealth is either spent on luxury items (so the money goes back into the economy) or it is invested (funding economic growth). These are things that don't scale however. A CEO does not eat a thousand meals a day, or buy a thousand cars a year, or do any of the infinite number of things that circulate money into the economy on the scale of an equal number of poor people
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      you've missed the second half of the sentence. The rest goes into investment.
    - anonuser123456 8y ago
      A CEO might host a 2K dinner per day. Give 1K people 2$ and they will be able to buy a McBurger. In case A) you have a chef,sous chef, sommolier etc. all making reasonable money. In case B) you have capital investor making 1.95$/ unit and some kid making 7.95/hr. In aggregate, who spends what does not have a clearly predictable path through the economy.
- anonuser123456 8y ago
  Do you live in Russia? One can sympathize with the notion rich oligarchs siphon off of the economy there. But in other parts of the world economy, that narrative doesn't hold water. https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/#3139c5547316 https://www.forbes.com/richest-in-tech/#3139c5547316 I challenge you to find a profile there where someone isn't growing the economic pie and instead siphoning resources off. These are (almost) entirely people who started businesses that grew, providing new services. Further, this notion that wealth concentration reduces liquidity is 100% contrary to economic fact. What do you think the wealthy do with their money? Park it in a huge mattress or swim in pools of gold like Scrooge McDuck? The money goes into capital investments, which map 100% to spending. Either direct R&D, capital equipment or venture, which are all spending, or in the stock market. For every dollar going into the stock market, one dollar comes out and has to go somewhere. Hint; it doesn't go into a swimming pool. You may not like wealth inequality for personal moral reasons, but don't try to justify them with ill founded economic reasoning.
pintxo 8y ago
Under the premise that wealth == power, a democracy cannot accept that wealth is too unevenly distributed. If wealth is (more or less) equally distributed, everyone has the same leverage on influencing the necessary democratic vote. If the distribution favors one group of people, they will in turn have greater leverage on the vote. Note: I am not implying here that wealth must be distributed evenly, to the contrary. I am not even sure that the concentration of wealth onto a small number of people is the core problem. We might be able to live with it, _if_ the legal framework is robust enough and this concentration would be time limited, meaning there is basically no way to create family "empires" existing for decades or even centuries.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  > Under the premise that wealth == power, a democracy cannot accept that wealth is too unevenly distributed. That's the fundamental issue though - I think we should structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power. That way, wealth is just economic - you can hire people, or buy things, but you can't pay off voters or buy political ads or lobby in your interests or bribe politicians.
  - ardy42 8y ago
    > That's the fundamental issue though - I think we should structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power. That way, wealth is just economic - you can hire people, or buy things, but you can't pay off voters or buy political ads or lobby in your interests or bribe politicians. Money can always buy power. If you can hire people and buy things, you can hire people to canvass for your candidate and you can buy publications to gain greater control of the ideological zeitgeist. That's political power. But even if you could somehow "structure society in such a way that money cannot buy political power," you still have the problem of what to do now about currently existing problems like inequality. In some ways you seem to be holding out impossible goals and conditions in a way that merely justifies inaction against real problems. Letting the perfect become the enemy of the good, and all that. That kind of thing probably makes the people who benefit from those problems rest easy.

commandlinefan 8y ago

> fight wealth concentration By concentrating in the hands of an ever-more-intrusive federal government instead?

dbingham 8y ago
The federal government can literally print money if it wants. I don't think we need to worry about concentrating wealth in its hands through taxation.
- beaconstudios 8y ago
  wealth isn't the same as money. And people would equally criticise the government for printing money to increase its % share.