Wealth Distribution

No, your still clueless. You said you are going to decide for me and everyone else who gets what. I can guarantee that won't happen. Olive loaf tastes like (*)(*)(*)(*). Try to force some on me and I'll show you how that problem is dealt with.

 

Whether the topic du jour is minimum wage, living wage, inequality, poverty, or in this case wealth, seems that 100% of it is driven from politics.

We can spend forever talking about people living in so-called poverty who earn $15,000 but spend no time talking about those living the high life who earn $15,001 and more? Almost never is the question asked 'what is keeping this group of people from earning more than $15,000? If the key to solving so-called poverty is to earn more than $15,000, why isn't the constant political diatribe talking about education and job skills and business development?

Wealth is in the same political BS category! What is keeping any person who feels they don't have enough wealth from obtaining more wealth? Is this an instant gratification thing in which people want more wealth overnight? What happened to the long forgotten concept of obtaining more education and skills, working hard to achieve more job responsibility and compensation, and spending/saving wisely?

People on this forum, and certainly ALL politicians, vehemently refuse to define the root issues. It's pretty stupid to believe there is a root issue with wealth? If wealth is such a great thing, and if it is perceived to solve all problems, then why aren't people competing like mad dogs to rise out of the muck?

For those few who simply do not possess the physical and mental capabilities to achieve more, as a nation we should just accept this and do what we can to help them. For all the others, I guess we need to look at the litany of excuses, and one-by-one, figure out what society can do better in order for these people to achieve more.

IMO, I'd like to see the government do more public works projects, in every area of the USA, and let these seemingly hopeless people be productive...

 

Alrighty, I'll save the olives for my martinis. You can have the bologna.

 

That's better.

 

All the money that is saved and is the basis for the capital gain has already been taxed as income. Ongoing interest paid on the money is taxed as personal income. Cap gains of less than one year hold are taxed as personal income. I am well familiar with the fact that only the gains are taxed in long term cap gains tax events, not the whole amount over again. Doesn't change that the money has already paid tax and that, unlike income earned from labor, it may generate capital gains several times. Also doesn't change my points about inheritance tax and possible double taxation on sales of assets in a corporate form that you of course neglect. You are as usual for the left peddling half-true agitprop to people who don't know better in furtherance of divisive resentment politics.

 

So we are agreed that money earned as long term capital gains is not taxed twice as you originally claimed. That is progress. Now move on to explain why it should be taxed at lower rates then money earned from labor.

As for your claim about possible double taxation of assets in Corporate form whatever that means this argument has surfaced several times and has no basis in reality. Made up examples are just that. Find a real life example and get back to us. The fact is that any competent estate planner can tell you how to,pass a business on to your heirs with minimal taxes if any. Requires some planning of course.

You obviously spend too much time on the Fox channel if you are using meaningless phrases like "divisive resentment politics".

Here is a real example for you. I bought a farm about sixteen years ago for roughly three hundred thousand dollars. It has been tenant farmed since that time and I pay tax on my earnings. If I die tomorrow it will be inherited by my heirs at a stepped up cost basis of about one million on which they will pay no taxes unless they sell. When they sell they will pay long term capital gains on the difference between the selling price ane the one million stepped up tax basis. No taxes will ever be paid on the original three hundred thousand or the seven hundred thousand.

 

Those billionaires made and earned it and have the right to keep what they made.

simple as that

 

Agree. We are a nation of laws. If these billionaires BROKE THE LAW to come by their wealth, they need to face the consequence and pay restitution. If they did NOT break the law, then animosity focused at them is misguided, and would be better focused on changing the laws, and/or sending corrupt politicians-for-sale packing. If wealth disparity is a real problem (and I'm not convinced it is), then simply having the government forcibly take wealth from the wealthy is the wrong way to fix it. IMO, the whole wealth disparity "problem" is just a made-up divisive pretext for doing just that; raising taxes.

 

sure the work of these 85 was worth just as much as the work of more than half the worlds population

any attempt to justify this discrepancy from a moral point of view will fail

 

No, I stand by what I previously posted as unrefuted. As far as Fox News and resentment politics, I'm not the one who posted a silly leftblog number of "all the poor in the world" as basis for an OP complaining about cap gains. I also explained why those worldly poor are as such. Appeals to poverty in the whole world as a basis for US tax policy is asinine on its face.

The problem here is that you don't understand how corporate taxation works, and that corporate income and sales, unless an S election is made, is taxed at both the corporate level when earned, and then individual levels when distributed to shareholders. No need for any examples, double taxation is one of the foundational characteristics of the corporate entity.

I already provided a real example of inheritance taxes. 1. The money that bought the farm paid income taxes at some time in the past. You'd like folks to forget that, but it happened. 2. You are confusing stepped up basis for cap gains purpose with inheritance tax. There is no stepped up basis for inheritance tax purposes and many small businesses end up appraised by the IRS on death at high values over 5 millions that necessitate partial or total liquidation. Already explained as such.

 

It is not a discrepency and you are quite wrong it will not fail.

What will fail is the argument you are making that everyone's work is equal or measurable in way except subjectively.

 

didn't make that argument at all, not all work is equal obviously...but go ahead and try to justify THIS discrepancy, not A discrepancy, but this one...

 

It is not a discrepency.

Some work for money others do not.

Some can work for money others cannot.

It does not matter if it is ten cents or ten billion dollars a person has the right to keep the product of their lifes work.

 

You want to become wealth? Research how wealthy people became wealthy, watch what wealthy people do, and emulate those actions. That's what this poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks did and it paid off handsomely for me.

 

Here's an interesting fact for you. The world's 85 wealthiest billionaires have most of their wealth tied up in productive assets that make them billionaires. That is, they don't have billion-dollar bank accounts. They have much of their wealth tied up in Facebook stock or in Microsoft and charity organizations.

- - - Updated - - -

The problem is that many on this forum have found that complaining about their entitlements is easier. I agree with you 100%. Having grown up poor and doing quite well for myself now, I refuse to believe the horse (*)(*)(*)(*) some of these people throw around.

 

Can you provide any actual data to support this statement? Such as the number per year. Or the actual percentage. Primary sources only please.

 

This is silly logic...according to your philosophy workers should be compensated based on how hard they work so someone digging a ditch all day should earn more than someone managing financial investments?

All of this is such petty BS! Why is it anyone's business how much wealth another person has as long as they abide by all applicable laws? Is it simple jealousy? Is it a feeling of personal failure? It is a 100% waste of time and energy to worry about what others are doing...

 

The ironic thing is that the policies that are suggested by those who want a more even distribution (increased regulation, more heavily progressive taxation) are the policies that give rise to such obscene levels of wealth concentration.

 

What have -you- provided in this thread other than an asinine propaganda premise in the OP? Sorry, concerned social scientist, you aren't in a position to sit back and demand proof of anything when you yourself haven't even taken a defined, specific policy position and evidenced it.

 

In other words you can't.

 

I'm not sure this addresses the specific statements made in this forum but it does address the reasons estate taxes are a bad idea.
http://www.jec.senate.gov/republicans/public/?a=Files.Serve&File_id=bc9424c1-8897-4dbd-b14c-a17c9c5380a3

Enjoy.

 

Post was crystal clear, as are my other posts to this silly thread premised on a patent agitprop statistic.

 

It's not the mere existence of rich people that's the problem, it's the rich crooks, and believe me, they are stealing a lot and it IS making it harder for other people to make opportunities for themselves.

For example, people are now being priced out of higher education. Average debt on completion is like around 25k..

The government also makes preferential treatment for certain large corporations, to give them an unfair advantage against the competition. For example, bailing out the "too big to fail" banks, instead of letting them fail as they would in a free-market model where competition drives the best deal for the consumers, others could have picked up the slack, but were denied that opportunity. Credit Unions will be driven out soon I think.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs have a MUCH harder time starting up, since the government helps to build trusts. Competition is meant to drive down prices. T. Roosevelt busted trusts for a reason. Now we build them, and we must understand why we shouldn't.

You can't have nearly an easy time making money on the stock market easier, because now supercomputers do the trading at however many billions of calculations per second. Price information arrives to some before others (it's meant to be simultaneously, a fraction of a second allows a computer to steal the deal from a human).

It's not to say you can't get rich, but it's getting harder and harder, unless you've got that silver spoon.

I have nothing against rich people, but I don't like thieves and scam artists who did crimes like the LIBOR rigging conspiracy, pension heists, wrongful mortgage repossessions, rigging of pretty much every market there is etc.

It's the corporation/government scam that's ruining it for the rest. There are many crooked rich people involved. Of course not all rich people are crooked.

 

Glad you agree that we should significantly reduce the size and power of the central government, thereby reducing this kind of graft.

 

I would LOVE that! A free market with proper competition is what we're meant to have, not a bloated government meddling in and manipulating in every possible market in the most crooked of ways. In fact, there shouldn't have ever even been a Federal Reserve.