8 ms·

This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich, illusion that someday they will be rich too. working great for the people with mo

This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich, illusion that someday they will be rich too. working great for the people with money who created this illusion!

charliebossy 7y ago
what an absurd thing to say
- happytoexplain 7y ago
  Why? I've heard this sociological theory plenty of times. I don't know that there's any data for it, but on the other hand, it seems far from the category of garbage one might reasonably dismiss out of hand as "absurd".
  - DanCarvajal 7y ago
    Its classist and completely dismissive of the wide variety of opinions people have over how and to what extent government should be funded.
    - goldcd 7y ago
      I think there's also a wide division as to what people think their government is for. e.g. "Should I pay to arrest/convict/incarcerate the person who stole my phone" vs. "Should my cancer be cured without bankrupting me" #1 seems to get universal traction, as does #2 in pretty much every country who could fund it, apart from the US.
    - rayiner 7y ago
      It is extremely classist. My wife is from rural Iowa. Folks around where she grew up aren't thinking "one day I'll be rich like Donald Trump so I'm going to vote for low taxes."
- munk-a 7y ago
  What an absurd response! The chance that a random person on the street in America is a billionaire is currently 0.00000212036%. It is absurd for anyone to think they'll win that lottery chance (especially since the acquisition of wealth is correlated highly with... already having wealth)
  - Lowkeyloki 7y ago
    It's absurd. But it's what a lot of people believe. Why else would anyone play the lottery? A common misconception is "somebody has to win, why not me?"
  - CryoLogic 7y ago
    The article is about millionaires not billionaires, in which case the odds are actually around 3.5% (12m out of 327m pop) of US population.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      I mean, it's purely rationale to think you'll accumulate a million dollars of assets at some point in your lifetime, but that isn't rich - a large portion of your wealth will be locked into sustaining your living situation. Up here in Vancouver almost everyone (including blue collar peeps) who purchased a home in the 60s or 70s is a multimillionaire, but if they want to continue residing in Vancouver that money is essentially unavailable to them. I'll clarify a bit, being a millionaire in no way implies that you're rich, inflation is a thing and the vast majority of millennials will be poor.
- danhak 7y ago
  Steinbeck believed as much: "I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist." often misquoted as "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
- dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but when commenting here, please try to include information that readers can learn from. Even when the comment you're replying to wasn't substantive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
daenz 7y ago
>This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich, illusion that someday they will be rich too. Source?
- spaceheretostay 7y ago
  There's no source because it's false. First, Americans do vote for more taxes on the rich, by-and-large. And second, those that vote against taxes for the rich are usually basing their votes on incomplete or otherwise factually wrong data. Nearly all the people in the USA would be much more likely to become millionaires if overall taxes were higher for the rich. Less worrying about healthcare, more ability to take business and personal risks, more baseline tools to build ontop of (like roads, etc). Those that want reduced taxes on the rich would be directly harming their own ability to ever become rich in the first place.
  - astrodust 7y ago
    Alabama and Mississippi seem to disagree. Even the most modest of tax increases get shouted down. Some people are so dead-set against new taxes that even a one penny levy per year to do something vital is too much government overreach.
j4kp07 7y ago
"This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich...." Are you even familiar with the term "marginal tax rates"? Cause I'm not rich, yet I don't want my marginal tax rate to increase.
WalterBright 7y ago
Is it? Maybe many people realize that the consequences of heavily taxing the rich will fall on themselves as well. For example, those people will have correspondingly less money to invest, and investment produces jobs.
- svachalek 7y ago
  Governments and low-net-worth individuals spend every penny they have, which keeps the economy moving, which creates jobs. The idea that giving all the money to a few individuals to hold will work out better for everyone is very hard to rationalize, although it's understandable they like to repeat that notion.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    > which creates jobs It doesn't create jobs when the money is taxed away from those who invest in the businesses. High taxes correlate with low economic growth. > giving all the money People create wealth, it is not given to them. > to a few individuals to hold Wealthy people don't hold money. They invest it. Even money sitting in a checking account isn't actually there - the bank loans it out.
    - mars4rp 7y ago
      "Wealthy people don't hold money. They invest it. Even money sitting in a checking account isn't actually there - the bank loans it out." What does government do with the money? The money is only productive in the billionaires bank account? "People create wealth, it is not given to them." People take wealth, if Bezos has $150B, he didn't create it out of thin air, he took the money out of lots of mom and pop shops that don't exist anymore. Did he actually created jobs or destroyed jobs?
      - WalterBright 7y ago
        > What does government do with the money? Mostly dissipate it. Your argument rests on the notion that government invests money more productively than wealthy people do. This is pretty hard to support, since the wealthy are wealthy because they are very good at productively investing the money. Bezos did create his wealth, in large part from the efficiency of getting products to customers, which is why customers preferred to shop at Amazon. They get a better deal. Bezos created jobs - unemployment rates are very low.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
rayiner 7y ago
Americans do vote for more taxes on the rich: https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLE_I7 https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLE_I7. The average top statutory rate (federal + state) is 43.7% for 2018, slightly on the lower end of a cluster ranging from Switzerland (41.7%) to Ireland (48%), including places like Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.--which together have 63% of the EU's population. Taxation of rich people in the U.S. is squarely within the mainstream for developed countries with robust welfare states. Where the U.S. departs is taxes on everyone else. Compare the tax revenue statistics of the U.S. (https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pd...) with those of Spain (https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-spain.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-spain...). Spain and the U.S. have almost exactly the same top marginal rate (43-44%). Spain takes in a much larger share of GDP (33%) as taxes versus the U.S. (27%). What is the difference? - Spain gets slightly less taxes from corporations (7% versus 8%) - Spain gets less taxes from income taxes, which are progressive (21% versus 40%) - Spain gets way more taxes from social security contributions, which are regressive because in both countries they are subject to a cap (34% versus 24%) - Spain gets way more from excise taxes, which are regressive (29% versus 17%) Imagine if the U.S. wholesale adopted Spain's tax system. Total tax revenues would go up by $1.28 trillion per year. But income taxes, paid primarily by the rich, would fall from $2.1 trillion to $1.37 trillion. Excise taxes, paid primarily by the poor and middle class, would go up from $890 billion to $1.89 trillion. Social security taxes, paid primarily by the middle class, would go up from $1.26 trillion to $2.22 trillion.

This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich, illusion that someday they will be rich too. working great for the people with money who created this illusion!

charliebossy 7y ago

what an absurd thing to say

happytoexplain 7y ago
Why? I've heard this sociological theory plenty of times. I don't know that there's any data for it, but on the other hand, it seems far from the category of garbage one might reasonably dismiss out of hand as "absurd".
- DanCarvajal 7y ago
  Its classist and completely dismissive of the wide variety of opinions people have over how and to what extent government should be funded.
  - goldcd 7y ago
    I think there's also a wide division as to what people think their government is for. e.g. "Should I pay to arrest/convict/incarcerate the person who stole my phone" vs. "Should my cancer be cured without bankrupting me" #1 seems to get universal traction, as does #2 in pretty much every country who could fund it, apart from the US.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    It is extremely classist. My wife is from rural Iowa. Folks around where she grew up aren't thinking "one day I'll be rich like Donald Trump so I'm going to vote for low taxes."
munk-a 7y ago
What an absurd response! The chance that a random person on the street in America is a billionaire is currently 0.00000212036%. It is absurd for anyone to think they'll win that lottery chance (especially since the acquisition of wealth is correlated highly with... already having wealth)
- Lowkeyloki 7y ago
  It's absurd. But it's what a lot of people believe. Why else would anyone play the lottery? A common misconception is "somebody has to win, why not me?"
- CryoLogic 7y ago
  The article is about millionaires not billionaires, in which case the odds are actually around 3.5% (12m out of 327m pop) of US population.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I mean, it's purely rationale to think you'll accumulate a million dollars of assets at some point in your lifetime, but that isn't rich - a large portion of your wealth will be locked into sustaining your living situation. Up here in Vancouver almost everyone (including blue collar peeps) who purchased a home in the 60s or 70s is a multimillionaire, but if they want to continue residing in Vancouver that money is essentially unavailable to them. I'll clarify a bit, being a millionaire in no way implies that you're rich, inflation is a thing and the vast majority of millennials will be poor.
danhak 7y ago
Steinbeck believed as much: "I guess the trouble was that we didn't have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist." often misquoted as "Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
dang 7y ago
Maybe so, but when commenting here, please try to include information that readers can learn from. Even when the comment you're replying to wasn't substantive. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

daenz 7y ago

>This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich, illusion that someday they will be rich too. Source?

spaceheretostay 7y ago
There's no source because it's false. First, Americans do vote for more taxes on the rich, by-and-large. And second, those that vote against taxes for the rich are usually basing their votes on incomplete or otherwise factually wrong data. Nearly all the people in the USA would be much more likely to become millionaires if overall taxes were higher for the rich. Less worrying about healthcare, more ability to take business and personal risks, more baseline tools to build ontop of (like roads, etc). Those that want reduced taxes on the rich would be directly harming their own ability to ever become rich in the first place.
- astrodust 7y ago
  Alabama and Mississippi seem to disagree. Even the most modest of tax increases get shouted down. Some people are so dead-set against new taxes that even a one penny levy per year to do something vital is too much government overreach.

j4kp07 7y ago

"This is the reason why american people don't vote for more taxes on the rich...." Are you even familiar with the term "marginal tax rates"? Cause I'm not rich, yet I don't want my marginal tax rate to increase.

WalterBright 7y ago

Is it? Maybe many people realize that the consequences of heavily taxing the rich will fall on themselves as well. For example, those people will have correspondingly less money to invest, and investment produces jobs.

svachalek 7y ago
Governments and low-net-worth individuals spend every penny they have, which keeps the economy moving, which creates jobs. The idea that giving all the money to a few individuals to hold will work out better for everyone is very hard to rationalize, although it's understandable they like to repeat that notion.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  > which creates jobs It doesn't create jobs when the money is taxed away from those who invest in the businesses. High taxes correlate with low economic growth. > giving all the money People create wealth, it is not given to them. > to a few individuals to hold Wealthy people don't hold money. They invest it. Even money sitting in a checking account isn't actually there - the bank loans it out.
  - mars4rp 7y ago
    "Wealthy people don't hold money. They invest it. Even money sitting in a checking account isn't actually there - the bank loans it out." What does government do with the money? The money is only productive in the billionaires bank account? "People create wealth, it is not given to them." People take wealth, if Bezos has $150B, he didn't create it out of thin air, he took the money out of lots of mom and pop shops that don't exist anymore. Did he actually created jobs or destroyed jobs?
    - WalterBright 7y ago
      > What does government do with the money? Mostly dissipate it. Your argument rests on the notion that government invests money more productively than wealthy people do. This is pretty hard to support, since the wealthy are wealthy because they are very good at productively investing the money. Bezos did create his wealth, in large part from the efficiency of getting products to customers, which is why customers preferred to shop at Amazon. They get a better deal. Bezos created jobs - unemployment rates are very low.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

rayiner 7y ago

Americans do vote for more taxes on the rich: https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLE_I7 https://stats.oecd.org/index.aspx?DataSetCode=TABLE_I7. The average top statutory rate (federal + state) is 43.7% for 2018, slightly on the lower end of a cluster ranging from Switzerland (41.7%) to Ireland (48%), including places like Germany, Italy, Spain, and the U.K.--which together have 63% of the EU's population. Taxation of rich people in the U.S. is squarely within the mainstream for developed countries with robust welfare states. Where the U.S. departs is taxes on everyone else. Compare the tax revenue statistics of the U.S. (https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/revenue-statistics-united-states.pd...) with those of Spain (https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-spain.pdf https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-spain...). Spain and the U.S. have almost exactly the same top marginal rate (43-44%). Spain takes in a much larger share of GDP (33%) as taxes versus the U.S. (27%). What is the difference? - Spain gets slightly less taxes from corporations (7% versus 8%) - Spain gets less taxes from income taxes, which are progressive (21% versus 40%) - Spain gets way more taxes from social security contributions, which are regressive because in both countries they are subject to a cap (34% versus 24%) - Spain gets way more from excise taxes, which are regressive (29% versus 17%) Imagine if the U.S. wholesale adopted Spain's tax system. Total tax revenues would go up by $1.28 trillion per year. But income taxes, paid primarily by the rich, would fall from $2.1 trillion to $1.37 trillion. Excise taxes, paid primarily by the poor and middle class, would go up from $890 billion to $1.89 trillion. Social security taxes, paid primarily by the middle class, would go up from $1.26 trillion to $2.22 trillion.