Summations Only

Hey, look, he told the truth about something! Yeah, well, they'd have difficulty doing that what with 85% of them having jobs.But wait, I thought their problem was that they were all workshy layabouts demanding to suckle at the public teat.I guess that was last week. This week the complaint is that they don't represent the unemployed. I guess they'll have to stop calling themselves "the 10%", then ...... oh, wait.Golly, politics is so confusing, isn't it? Maybe the Wall Street Journal should confine themselves to giving financial advice to investors ... oh, wait ... how did that turn out?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

We may also note that his poll could not possibly have shed any light on this, since he did not do an equivalent poll of "the broad mass of the American people" for the purposes of comparison. I guess their "values" are something else that he feels entitled to make up in his head.

They sound pretty American to me: Like the richest few percentiles who have claimed an unprecedented proportion of the nation's wealth in the past few decades. Like our founders and the Civil Rights Movement. Like every American president and Congress. Ever. Like all Democrats, Repubicans and Independents. Like the original Tea Party in Boston harbor. Like everyone who smiled benignly at Tea Party talk of "2nd Amendment solutions" to a Democratic president: I clearly recall the WSJ's deep concern about that "dangerously out of touch" rhetoric.

Well I agree that those making more money should have to pay the exact same percentages as those making less. So in your example I would advocate that the higher income should have to pay the same 15% for various other taxes as the lower income. I don't think that the higher income should have to pay a higher percentage however. Like I said previously make it the same across the board, with no loopholes or tax shelters and let everyone share an equal percentage in their tax obligations. Well if we could eliminate all the loop holes then an equal percentage may net the same amount as the current system. Though I have not done anything close to the math to justify that statement, merely an idea. While having a tax system that rewards that, does not help. Having a tax system that punishes the same doesn't help either. The later seems to be none conducive to the strengthening of the economy. It seems like it is geared more to placing more wealth in the hands of the government where it can be lost to incompetence. The fact that those who have more have an easier time acquiring more than those that have less is a fact of life. I don't think that those accomplishments should be punished however.

True, the lower income can get more in food and rent than the higher income, however. The higher income also has more opportunities to allow that 1% to work for them and for the benefit of the economy as a hole than if it is just given to the government. Having worked for the government for the past 12 years I am certain that the last people you should be trusting with your money is them.

I worked for the government, too, and I found nearly everyone I encountered in that capacity to be highly conscientious of the public trust placed in them. Compare that to the rapacity and inefficiency of the private industry and I'd much prefer public over private management of most things.One recent study found that privatization of public functions increased their costs by as much as 60% in most cases. Far from it being cheaper for the private sector to do things, it's actually quite a bit more expensive because you have to overpay for comparable talent. The marginal utility of a rich person's one extra dollar to me is even lower than it is to them. Sorry, but no. This trickle-down theory has never worked; the wealthy are not and have never been job creators. When economies grow and add jobs, it's generally not by expansion of existing businesses, it's by the creation of new ones.

I guess we can agree that the government needs to raise some money for some purposes, you're not actually an anarchist. In that case I have provided a reason why there is some element of justice in the government doing so via a progressive system of taxation.If you're now going to change your approach and talk about the practical outcome on the economy of progressive rather than flat-rate taxation, then we're going to have to leave off talking about issues of abstract justice and look at some actual facts and figures. Have you got any?Now it is a fact so well-known that I don't think I even need to cite the evidence that economic growth was higher in decades in the last century when taxes on the rich were also higher than they are now. I admit that correlation is not cause --- but on the other hand correlation in the direction opposite to that suggested by your hypothesis does suggest that perhaps the causal mechanisms that you wish to invoke do not in fact exist.---I should add to that that in fact a moral solution, in the end, is what we're after. Sure, I want economic growth. But the only reason I want that (and, if you think about it, the only reason you want that) is because we think that economic growth will tend to make the citizens happier. We like "the benefit of the economy" only because we think that it benefits the average American. If it doesn't, what's it there for? So the question of people being able to pay for things like rent and food still remains as a consideration. If you could prove that making the 1% happier at the cost of making the 99% more miserable would benefit that unfeeling abstraction, "the economy", it would still be a reasonable objection to point out that it increased the misery of the 99%.

To be fair to rueh, we are discussing the merits of progressive taxation versus flat-rate taxation, not progressive taxation versus a poll tax. So the marginal utility we're discussing is of one percent of income, not of one dollar.

Hey Mr. Coyote,I watched the Republican debate last night. It SEEMS, except for one candidate Ron Paul (who REALLY seemed to be out of step for Republicans on this issue), they all want to keep funding the military with no meaningful reductions.I am curious. Since you gave my recent reduce-the-military-funding post a "jeer", can you please describe what specifically you didn't like about it? Or can you describe which candidate you are mostly aligned with for this topic?Thanks.

That's a fun statement, unfortunately for you it's utter bullshit.We currently have an "unfair" tax system in your opinion where rich people pay a higher percentage in taxes, yet over the last decade more and more of the money has ended up in their hands.How's the economy doing?The economy is in the shitter right now BECAUSE all the money was in the hands of the rich.Their gaming of the economy lost 20% of the world's wealth overnight.AND, they are blaming it on the fact that the working class is making basically the same salary they earned 30 years ago while the median price of homes has gone up 10X.Big surprise that working people found themselves in over their head on mortgages.The rich are rich because they either had money handed to them or because they love to earn money. If Bill Gates had to pay 10% more in taxes than he is paying right now, it would change absolutely nothing about his output.If Warren Buffet had to pay 10% more, it would change NOTHING about what he does.If Paris Hilton had to pay 10% more, it would change NOTHING about what she doesn't do for her money.This idea that it's a disinsentive for billionaires to give up a little bit more money is just plain silly. You don't strive to become a billionaire because the tax rate fits some narrow margin of value. You strive to become a bilionaire because you are mentally unstable and have some serious issues you are projecting on your bank account.

Oh, I think that's unfair. Why shouldn't people strive to succeed in business the same way as they strive to succeed in other fields? If people like Warren Buffet or Bill Gates (both of whom, by the way, have called in public for higher taxes for the rich) are good at what they do, is it "mentally unstable" for them to go on doing it instead of quitting after the first few million? What should they do with the rest of their lives --- something that doesn't make money and that they're not very good at?

Well Bill Gates is a bad example, but he's the go-to name for rich people.If I said something like "Walter Stein" and no one knew who he was, it wouldn't really mean anything.Bill actually did quit. He's giving away most of his money.My point is a more generalized one. It takes a special kind of asshole to have 100million dollars in the bank and strive to get another 100million.Remember, we're not talking about who can run the fastest, or who plays guitar really well.Every dollar that Trump hordes is a dollar that someone else doesn't have.If it's cool for him to horde 100 million, is it cool for him to horde 200 million? 500? 60 billion? 5 trillion?At a certain point the entire rest of the economy shuts down because a few assholes have piled all the money in a big heap.Economies work because money moves. We wouldn't be in any trouble right now if people were spending money.However, since the lower 90% of the population is struggling to get their bills paid, they've cut down on all excess spending. And since the top 10% has half the money in America locked away, we're in year 3 of a recession.And the recommendation from Republican? Give that 10% the other half of the money too.

I think that psychologically we may well be talking about something like that. I don't think we have to do some special psychoanalysis in the case of making money to figure out why someone who can do something well would go on doing it.It is likely that some of them are in fact jerks, but then this is true of many people.

Hello crashfrog Well on that I guess we will just have to disagree. I have seen examples where management was conscientious of the public trust. I have unfortunately seen far more examples of fraud, waste and abuse. Though in full disclosure my work with the government has been with the DOD. So examples of mismanagement may be far more prominent in that department versus elsewhere. This I completely agree with. Many companies submit the lowest bid possible and then build in clauses to their contracts that allow for far more cost in the future. Though I believe the fault of this falls mostly on the contracting section of the government that allows for the agreement of such sloppy contracts. How many people’s paychecks are signed by those who are not wealthy themselves? I don't see many people on welfare creating new businesses.

Hello Nuggin,
First off if you are going to quote me I would appreciate it if you do not change what I write in your quotes. Thank you. So if we are currently taxing the rich a higher percentage and this money is being uneffectively managed by our government. Then what good is it going to do to tax the rich even more so that the government can mismanage those funds as well? How do you know? Do you think that the rich are just gonna pay more taxes and there is no down side to it? I think that those who are rich are more likely to pass on the cost of these taxes to the consumers and ultimalty the cost of goods and services will increase while the lower and middle incomes will stay the same.