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>> ... you don't get rich by your neighbor becoming poorer. > It's not about getting rich, it's about getting non-poor. So far so good. Unfortunately, you imme

>> ... you don't get rich by your neighbor becoming poorer. > It's not about getting rich, it's about getting non-poor. So far so good. Unfortunately, you immediately contradict yourself: > Taxing a third of the money from the rich could greatly improve the lives of the entire bottom 80%. Taxing the rich doesn't do anything for the poor. It's like in that joke with step 2 ??? - you jumped from taxing the rich to "helps the poor". You're assuming that step 2 is: distributing the results of that taxation to the poor people. Hint: that never happens. What actually happens is 1) the rich find loopholes, 2) the rich move away, 3) the taxes are spent on the politicians' friends, 4) other things.

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
>Taxing the rich doesn't do anything for the poor. Apart from provide them with affordable healthcare, education, and access to opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise. You realise this taxing the rich at a punitive rate - it used to be 90% - and investing it wisely was exactly what made the tech and education explosion of the 1940s and 1950s possible? It's a practical issue. If you don't tax wealth the money stagnates in increasingly improbable and unrealistic paper "investments" which are only - temporarily - profitable while they're allowed to cannibalise the real economy. If you tax and invest you grow the real economy, with real people doing genuinely useful things, and not the paper "financial" economy, which is based on smoke, mirrors, faith, hope, wishful thinking, and outright lies.
- hsitz 11y ago
  I agree, but I would be more careful in throwing out that the highest marginal rate has historically been 90% or more. You're likely to scare people, unless you clarify that the income brackets were also much different. Today the highest rate kicks in at $225k for individuals, roughly double for couples. But the fact is that, although highest rate used to be much higher, historically the brackets were also created so that the highest rates affected only a small number of people (i.e., the very, very rich). E.g., after adjusting for inflation the highest income bracket back in the 1930's was income above $75,000,000/year. For most of the last century the highest bracket started only for those making above $2M (in adjusted dollars), or roughly ten times above where highest bracket starts now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...
Dylan16807 11y ago
I said could. I was talking about the problems of inequality, not the problems of government. If the money moved somehow, it would improve things.
quonn 11y ago
> distributing the results of that taxation to the poor people. Hint: that never happens. Take a look at [0]. Clearly there are huge differences between countries - even between countries that are equally well developed. I could name at least five that fare better (on this particular scale) due to redistributing enourmous amounts of taxes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...
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TheOtherHobbes 11y ago

>Taxing the rich doesn't do anything for the poor. Apart from provide them with affordable healthcare, education, and access to opportunities they wouldn't have had otherwise. You realise this taxing the rich at a punitive rate - it used to be 90% - and investing it wisely was exactly what made the tech and education explosion of the 1940s and 1950s possible? It's a practical issue. If you don't tax wealth the money stagnates in increasingly improbable and unrealistic paper "investments" which are only - temporarily - profitable while they're allowed to cannibalise the real economy. If you tax and invest you grow the real economy, with real people doing genuinely useful things, and not the paper "financial" economy, which is based on smoke, mirrors, faith, hope, wishful thinking, and outright lies.

hsitz 11y ago
I agree, but I would be more careful in throwing out that the highest marginal rate has historically been 90% or more. You're likely to scare people, unless you clarify that the income brackets were also much different. Today the highest rate kicks in at $225k for individuals, roughly double for couples. But the fact is that, although highest rate used to be much higher, historically the brackets were also created so that the highest rates affected only a small number of people (i.e., the very, very rich). E.g., after adjusting for inflation the highest income bracket back in the 1930's was income above $75,000,000/year. For most of the last century the highest bracket started only for those making above $2M (in adjusted dollars), or roughly ten times above where highest bracket starts now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...

Dylan16807 11y ago

I said could. I was talking about the problems of inequality, not the problems of government. If the money moved somehow, it would improve things.

quonn 11y ago

> distributing the results of that taxation to the poor people. Hint: that never happens. Take a look at [0]. Clearly there are huge differences between countries - even between countries that are equally well developed. I could name at least five that fare better (on this particular scale) due to redistributing enourmous amounts of taxes. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_eq...

deleted 11y ago

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