Clinton’s 65% Killer Death Tax......

This is what I'm saying, we pass laws, and try to enforce them, right? Just adding on, and on, and on, to the tax code... We waste millions doing this... We keep voting for these people, who just want to inflate it even more. Why does it have to be so *******n complicated? So its effects on the economy are hidden? So you need a masters degree in business law to understand them? We are living in a time where the priests are telling us how great this is, but not giving us the power to understand what they are seeing. It's like the middle ages, but its not god they're telling is running you're life. It's the economy. And you are advocating that this tax hike is good? you call it stealing? like they are taking something from us? What are they taking from us? You really can't answer... None of us know... Obama added $10T to the national debt. What did we get from it? I gave them about $40,000$ in the last 8 years just in federal income tax. How was that money spent? What did they do for the American people with all that scratch? Setup a website? Drop some bombs? Check out email? Lie to us? All, I'm saying is why aren't we voting for people that can clean this up?

 

The tax code gets complicated for a number of reasons, some good, some bad. I have no problem cleaning up the tax code. But that isn't going to happen when you have one party determined to protect the richest, and the other party trying to increase taxes on the richest.

As far as your tax money, it went to paying for our military, the FBI, the federal court system, social security so old folks aren't living under freeways, Medicare so they can get health care, and income assistance for poor folks so their kids can eat decent food and get an education. Plus many other things.

You may not agree with exactly how the Govt spends the money or how much it spends. I do too. But none of us get to dictate exactly what the Govt does with tax money.

 

No, I call the police to report the property stolen so that my insurance company will make me whole. Whether I am outraged morally or not is irrelevant. A crime has been committed and the person who perpetrated the crime has done something harmful. Assuaging your envy through the police powers of the state is more akin to pushing your religious beliefs through the same. You're mad, so peaceful people ought to be punished as criminals for their sins.

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Who distributes the income and wealth?

 

OK, so you're cool with the use of violence when its *your* morals that have been violated. Just checking, because you mistakenly claimed you were against that.

 

I didn't say anyone did. But generally the market, as modified the politicians and courts who pass/interpret and enforce laws.

 

Crime fighting, right, mostly.

States and Charities, local municipalities probably do most of the rest of what you mentioned. senior citizen care etc. is a small portion. The opportunities are out there for people. Government programs for everything. State federal county and local levels. So its crazy to me that that's what this is about. It can't be. We can't do more for people then we aren't already doing. School, housing, food, nearly everything is subsidized for the poor in this county. Entire business just so people can give money to help and have it directed where they want it. The rest of the government just pushes papers around.

Like Michael Crichton telling us how to make a dinosaur.

Filthy rich people don't even need any income. They just need property. The feds can't tax property.

We do not get to dictate it at all once we give them the power to tax the way they are doing it, and the way they want to. Why are you so concerned about the rich? What more does America need to do? Healthcare? They need to get the influx of money they caused, out of the healthcare industry to get the costs down. Adding more tax dollars into an over inflated system won't make it better.

 

I'm not concernced about the rich.

I'm concerned about policies and laws that have enabled them to get more and more of the nation's income and wealth, and the middle classes less and less.

I'm concerned about that for several reasons, but the primary one is the negative effect it has on consumer and thus the economy

 

Mother Jones is more persuasive when it posts against its obvious bias. Reagan's policy changes were mainstream. He cut taxes - before he raised them. He did manage to stay out of a major war. The USG, as always, thrived under Reagan.

 

I've published numerous sources for this data. There's tons of data and research showing this inequality gap. Let me know if you need more.

Heres a few more for you:

 

Nearly every market is inflated. Real Estate, Heathcare, Energy, Cars. Are any of these things really worth what we pay for them? Credit is easy to get. It pumps so much debt into the economy.. It's us doing it. We are the reason these people are so Rich. We borrow money from them and they take the interest. They stretch it out 7 or 8 years. We don't even realize that 10% we are paying on the car cost us almost 50% of the sticker price. It doesn't matter to us the hospital charges 25$ for an aspirin. We aren't paying the bill. We 99% are giving our money right back to these people. Then we want to send our law enforcement in to take it back from them.

What effect does that have on the consumer?

 

Banks were lending and we were borrowing before 1981.

Something else changed that year.

 

The DP is like the CP, but for slow learners.

 

Prime rate spiked? Its been going down since right? need a chart that plots 1% wealth and the prime rate. Bet when it was high they had the least amount of wealth.

 

You can do some research and get back to us, but I don't think you're going to find any correlation between the prime rate and inequality skyrocketing in 1981 that would explain it.

It's always fascinating to me the degree to which conservatives will contort themselves to try to explain inequality skyrocketing starting in 1981, rather than confront the facts of what happened that year.

 

What are we saying happened later that year? The crash?

 

Given that equality is both impossible and undesirable why should we focus on it? The focus should be on improving things not achieving the impossible. A government that really wanted to close the gap would redirect the private capital flowing into the structures of government and to special interests right at the productive working class.

 

"The market' is a conceptual label. It doesn't do anything. Politicians don't have anything to distribute that they don't first take from someone else. So who are they taking it from and how are they giving it away in such distributions?

Perhaps you mean the word "distribution" in the sense of statistics. But then your chart uses the word "share" which is not a word in statistics. So, what does your rhetoric imply? Is there some great body of wealth that people then possess shares of because it it is distributed to them by politicians and conceptual labels?

Liberals often claim to be pro-science, but when it comes to economics they rely on pure sophistry to obfuscate and muddle.

 

Equality is not and has never been the goal of reducing Inequality.

 

Then reducing inequality is of marginal utility. But taking capital flowing into the structure of government and to special interests would certainly reduce inequality. More important - it would reduce the power and reach of government.

 

I think I'm in the ball park.



https://research.stlouisfed.org/pub...stock-income-inequality-and-the-stock-market/

 

Great. So how much (objectively speaking) inequality is immoral such that the means of using the violence and police powers of the state to harm peaceful people is legitimate?

 

Why shouldn't people get the income they are given? If someone gives you something, why should you not get it?

 

You will have no problem convincing me to propose progressive tax hikes that hit the superwealthy HARD. You will have no problem convincing me to strengthen the inheritance tax, or to raise corporate taxes. I am a believer in the progressive tax policy and in increased revenue needs. I am a devout liberal.

You will NOT convince me either that there are enough wealthy to make the kind of impact we need, or that the middle class deserve to walk away unscathed. There were more middle class voters than superrich voters that returned Bush back in that White House to continue these wars. Pollsters talked to more middle class supporters of these wars than wealthy ones. A war should not be a burden on the soldiers, their families and the wealthy. We all deserve to sacrifice for our collective decision. Even the poor should take one for the team in some cuts in programs with revenues going to pay off this debt. Of course their 'hit' should reflect a relatively small percentage of sacrifice.

My point is that it is a nation's war and a nations decision and a nation's bill and we should all feel at least some pain in the wallet. Well all of us that were old enough to vote.

 

Morality has everything to do with it. Why else would you be arguing for these things?

It's not I that's confused. Apparently, you have no idea why you argue for certain things, and you have no idea how government goes about commanding people to do or not do things, including stripping families of their assets after someone dies.

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There you go again with that ridiculous rhetoric. There is no "nation's income." People earn income. The "nation" does not earn income. People own wealth. The "nation" does not own wealth.