4 ms·
It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago. "I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willin
by cromulent 15y ago
It looks like Joe Nocera got his wish from a week ago.
"I keep waiting for one wealthy, well-known figure to stand up and say publicly that he or she is willing to pay more in taxes as part of the shared sacrifice necessary to gain control of the country’s deficit."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-markets-swoon.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/opinion/nocera-while-the-m...
- chc 15y agoBuffet has been making noise about this for a long time now. Maybe now people will listen? I'm kind of skeptical.
- dwolfson20 15y agoBuffett has been saying this for years. I don't expect anyone to start listening now.
- dublinclontarf 15y agoWe'll let them voluntarily pay more taxes then, or donate to charity, or start a charity or whatever. By their very nature taxes are not voluntary, they're taken by force of law. Don't pay them then go to jail. This is a stupid (but very easy) argument to make, one (of the richest)rich person says he'd be happy to pay more tax, therefor all rich people should pay more. If he really wants to make a difference he'd be way better off spending his money on charirty, then it's not going to be entirely eaten up paying for beurocracy. THe government is not efficient AT ANYTHING. When you pay taxes you're funding all that crap you don't agree with. Wars, funding for lobbies, paying politicians fat saleries, all those police raids on pot smokers etc. Why the hell would you want to give more to that?
- dwolfson20 15y agoMaybe take a look at Buffett's charitable record sometime.
- andrewflnr 15y agoGood, he practices what he preaches. The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. You'll get much better bang for your buck donating to a worthy charity. Thought of this way, it's a simple question of utility.
- dwolfson20 15y agoThis is an extremely abstract argument. It's a matter of degree. If everyone gave all their money to charity, we'd have no government at all.
- andrewflnr 15y agoYou're taking my abstract argument farther than I intended; perhaps I should have been more careful. I'm not saying we should give all our money to charity, just that it should be strongly preferred to paying increased taxes, especially with the goal of helping people.
- Andrew_Quentin 15y agoI think the rich can do both. They can pay taxes and give to charity like most ordinary people do. What is so special about them?
- rooshdi 15y agoExactly, as much as some individuals would like to focus solely on the ills of government, there are socially beneficial programs supported by the government which need continual funding: http://know.about.com/Government_Programs http://know.about.com/Government_Programs
- wpietri 15y ago> The point remains, paying higher taxes is not an efficient way to help your fellow man. Maybe true, maybe not, but totally irrelevant. Taxes solve the free rider problem. Individual charity can't.
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- bluedanieru 15y agoThe US government is apparently better at spending money on health care than private industry, if Medicaid and Medicare are anything to go by.
- andrewflnr 15y agoI'm pretty sure this has happened lots of times. Matt Damon said something along those lines recently.
- streptomycin 15y agoMatt Damon is rich, not wealthy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m37JkkGjAY#t=44s
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]