Fixing Inequality through Taxes

The money manipulations many financials are now doing do not provide a service; they are parasitic by nature and need to be taxed at high levels to bring that essentially stolen money back into the system.

 

Okay, so you've abandoned nothing. So you still hold that wealth is being redistributed from the middle class to the rich.

So please explain 1) who is doing this redistribution. Please explain 2) how this person/agency gains access to the money in the bank accounts of the middle class, and then please explain 3) how this person/agency doles out shares of this money to the rich and gets the money into their bank accounts.

 

Their wealth was redistributed to them? I don't buy that. Please back up your assertion by telling us 1) who is doing the redistribution, 2) how the acquire the money from the middle class, and 3) how they dole out shares to "the rich".

 

There is nothing wrong with unions advocating for better pay and benefits, until it spills over to my tax money. Your beloved unions destroyed GM and Chrysler. They should both be bankrupt.

 

All of that makes sense to me. there are times though I have to wonder about government intervention. If government could control the economy or at least influence it to a great extent, I think we would have all good times and no bad times. But I may be making it too simple, but I do believe in the KISS principle.

 

one of the reasons why this country is so screwed up-from runaway government to the cost of tax compliance is that the tax code has been hijacked into a form of extra constitutional power for congress. If you th ink someone ought to pay 90% of the next dollar they make to a parasitic and wasteful government-do it yourself and stop demanding others be taxed at confiscatory rates.

ideally everyone should pay the same amount since everyone gets one vote. as an alternative, everyone should pay the same rate. Progressive tax rates encourage the politicians to promise goodies to the majority of voters to win elections and demand only a small minority pay for such pandering

no wonder we have an out of control malignant federal government

 

Actually the top tax rate was 91-92% depending on which year IKE was president. But and there is always a but, no one paid it.

Here were the effective individual income tax rates of the 3 very high income AGI groups.

$200,000-$500,000 group: Tax as Share of Amended AGI (%)

1953 = 45.9

1954 = 39.3

1955 = 36.8

1956 = 37.4

1957 = 38.6

1958 = 36.9

1959 = 33.8

1960 = 33.1

1961 = 31.5

$500,000-$1,000,000 group: Tax as Share of Amended AGI (%)

1953 = 46.3

1954 = 38.7

1955 = 35.6

1956 = 36.7

1957 = 36.6

1958 = 36.0

1959 = 32.1

1960 = 30.8

1961 = 29.1

Over $1,000,000 group: Tax as Share of Amended AGI (%)

1953 = 49.3

1954 = 38.8

1955 = 35.8

1956 = 36.1

1957 = 40.0

1958 = 33.1

1959 = 30.6

1960 = 31.3

1961 = 27.2

http://occupywallst.org/forum/taxes-on-the-rich-under-president-eisenhower/

Looking at tax rates doesn't tell the whole story. Like I said, there are way too many loopholes and ways to avoid paying what ever your tax rate is. I would imagine almost everyone in the new 39.6% tax bracket is probably only paying around 15% in actual taxes. We need tax reform big time. Unless that is done, I don't care what the top tax rate is, no one will pay anything close to it. It is nothing but a feel good thing for people who like to stick it to other people.

 

It wasn't the tax system or rate that made the 1950's successful. It was the era we were in. We were still basically a rural country, in other words more people lived on farms and in small towns than in the cities. That changed around 1960 when more people lived in cities than rural areas. It was also a time of an industrial economy, where we made things and sold them worldwide instead of buying from the world. A lot of our competition from around the world were finally recovering from the devastation of WWII. The middle class was ever expanding then, but it was due to a unique set of circumstances.

Also our government pretty much left businesses alone with what some today say with way too little regulations. For me being a farm kid, it was an ideal time to grow up. We were basically at peace except for the cold war and IKE kept our defense strong, but only as strong as it needed to be to deter the USSR.



I suppose there was a happy medium going on in those days.

 

What is fair probably varies immensely from one person to the next. What is fair in my view may not be in yours or vice versa. Perhaps the answer lies in how one views how much individual responsibility the government wants to take from the individual and make it governments responsibility.

 

Yes, I know that. You explaining what I already know doesn't answer the question I asked, which is what YOUR definition of fair is.

 

First, let me say that there is NO chance that our tax system is what it is in order to equalize wealth, like the thread title implies. Taxes would need to be radically different than they are to make any dent in the growing wealth gap.

And, sorry for the length here.

But, there is an equality issue going on in the US and that has to do with opportunity.

When we moved from being an agrarian nation to being a manufacturing nation we knew that required more education. Our response was to move the requirement for education from 8th grade to HS and to make it free up to that point.

Our competitors in Germany recognize this. Just about every German kid who has reasonable grades gets a 4 year degree paid for if they want to do the studying. Germany is preparing for industry that needs significant brainpower - a market place we seem to think is just going to be handed to us by default. My experience in hi tech is that we scour the campuses for brainpower capable of moving our industry forward, and we don't find enough. And, my daughter talks to smart graduating high school students at the high needs school where she teaches and tries to get parents to fill out loan forms so the kids and their parents can sign up for $60,000 of debt plus room and board (for each kid) so the kids can get a ticket in the door of a job market they don't understand.

The "happy medium" you talked about can come back, but it is going to require an equality of opportunity, not just a few $$ shaved off or added to someone's tax bill.
We are being constrained by lack of educated manpower on the one hand, and on the other hand we have those who simply do not have a ticket to get in the door. To me, that is the larger problem related to economic disparity.

And, amen on your comments about gigantic defense spending.

 

We need to shift more tax dollars into the schools. Part of the reason tuition is so high is after adjusting for inflation state schools are only being subsidized by 30% cost vs 60% in the past. Alternatively the government could entirely fund the state run schools, which would help control inflation of tuition even at the private level because they'd have to be competitive enough to get students. Another idea would be government subsidized job training programs, like HVAC, welding, car repair etc. This all requires taxes. Things like expanding EITC help, and food stamps and healthcare reform etc, and they do actually geerate economic growth despite the rights opposition to them, but well educated people is critical to our countries success. It may take 30k of taxpayers dollars to fund a degree, but over a persons lifetime with a typical 50k salary that person will spend over 1.5 million dollars into the economy. We also need to seriously reform public schooling. It's ridiculous that we have people graduating who are complete idiots or schools that feel they must cheat to look good for no child left behind. Somebody is seriously sucking at their job as educators.

 

Since I believe the federal government job is to take care of the nation and the states to take care of their people which goes back to the government taking responsibility of individuals taking care of themselves away from them and the states. I believe no one should have to pay more than 10% in federal income tax and like Thomas Jefferson, I believe man should not be taxed on the sweat of his brow.

There are plenty of other taxes that can be raised and implemented. If this nation survived its first 150 years without an income tax, it could have survived the next 100 nicely.

 

Nicely said and sometimes it takes more than a sentence or two to get a very valid point across. Length is not a problem. I agree with what you said. Being as old as I am I am still trying to adjust to this service economy. Well not adjust, to understand it. How did a nation of family farms become one of corporate farms. How a country with the best industry in the world lose it to become a service economy. How a country with a huge trade surplus now has trade deficits.

So much has changed.

 

Does anyone on the right really believe we would have our wars on crime, drugs, poverty, and terror if the wealthiest were Burdened with wartime Tax rates on their no longer exempt Income.

 

You're speaking of CDS and derivatives, I assume?

Why is your first thought to allow it, but tax it? Why not simply make such speculative leveraged (and dangerous) financial manipulations illegal?

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Does anyone think we'd see a post like that if there were no drugs?



itsatip: increasing taxes on the wealthy would make Government bigger and more powerful.

And that would have eliminated a war on crime, drugs, poverty and terror...how?



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+1

You, sir, are certainly not part of the problem.

 

No; but we do see it due to the abomination of hypocrisy of the right.

Why do you believe what you. I believe we should merely enjoin the wealthiest into insisting their public servants simply purchase the finest solutions money can buy with an official Mint at their disposal.

 

No question about that. Unsustainably different, in fact.

Don't worry about that. These concepts can't be boiled down to bumper stickers.

I agree, but I wouldn't frame it as 'opportunity'. Everyone has opportunity. The equality issue is about societally infected dysfunction, caused largely by liberal policies.

I think the "War on Poverty" has been the single-most destructive force in the black community, and by extension in all others. We have created a nation of entitled leeches who do not believe that they can make it on their own, and don't even try. Instead, they are addicted to everything that is useless and nothing that is useful.

I put the blame on Government and liberal culture, starting in the 1960's.

True, but when we moved from a farming society to a manufacturing society, we already possessed the work ethic, strong nuclear families and rugged individualism necessary to seamless transition. Each family instinctive knew that they had to learn new skills.

Those are the factors that are missing now, and they're missing because of Big Government Nannyism, and the leftist "free love" culture that promulgated it.

That's all well and good, but because someone got something free doesn't make much difference. In fact, any child which got great grades already possessed the variables I mentioned earlier, and would have managed to continue their education regardless.

This isn't about yet another idea to give away stuff.

If you're lauding the idea of more subsidy to provide a higher education for skulls full of mush that already don't possess those key characteristics I mention earlier, you're wasting your time and our money. Germany is firstly far more homogenized, and doesn't suffer the challenges found in our society to anywhere near the same degree. We've fought a culture war for going on 60 years now, and we've been defeated.

Many of us - if not most - still don't even know what the enemy is.

Spending on defense is not the issue, regardless if too much has been spent or not. Military spending does not harm our society; the most it can do is inflate our deficit, as we print our own money regardless.

Spending on societally destructive programs, on the other hand, is the issue. How much have we spent on the 'War on Poverty'? Where has it gotten us? I think it is a key reason we're FUBAR - not military excesses.

 

You claim an abomination, and then don't elucidate it. I think you're flailing at talking points without understanding the topic. Please, cite more to demonstrate that.

...do?

Why do I believe what I do? Why does anyone? We've been following what you believe for going on 60 years, with precious few interruptions. If our society is a reflection of my views versus yours, I can deamned well guarantee that what we are stuck with right now if far more reflective of YOUR ideology than mine.

...and here's proof. We are 7 Trillion in debt doing just that, but we're worse off.

When will you liberals realize that spending money through Government control isn't curing these problems; it's CAUSING them?

 

The rate has a LOT to do with the realizations which result from the economic activity. Again showing your willful ignorance of the economy.

 

You claimed the use of drugs but failed to identify any fallacy. That is a fallacy and an abomination of hypocrisy to philosophy if not Religion.

I believe in the Most Excellent job our Founding Fathers did at the convention with our federal Constitution and supreme law of the land. The federal doctrine is over two hundred years old, not sixty; but, I am glad you confirm my opinion.

You may have missed the point about my version of class warfare. In any case, why are there no Good capitalists on the right who can make more money under our form of Capitalism, even with an official Mint at their disposal.

 

A person's money isn't his money?? That right there sums up in a nutshell the leftist mentality.

So start a business and pay your workers what you think they ought to be paid.

 

I want to keep what I earn. Only the sloth views that as selfish, because the sloth wants to keep what I earn also.

No, you don't. Workers are paid what the market bears; CEOs likewise. You'll refuse to do this exercise, because it will reveal the foolishness of the argument, but let's force you to read it anyway.

Take the ENTIRE salary of any CEO you want that you think is emblematic of your complaint. The whole thing.

Now divide it by the number of workers in that company.

How much did each worker's pay increase?

I'll ask you again.

HOW MUCH DID EACH WORKER'S PAY INCREASE?

The gains have been from technological enhancement, which has made the worker's job (a] easier, and (b] less necessary.

You're blaming the wrong thing. By definition, if technology comes along - automation - which lessens the importance of manual labor, and thus creates an artificially large pool of workers, the pay rate is going to go down.

The CEO, however, spent thousands - and years - at Wharton, and made themselves far more valuable to the market than the worker.

And far more rare. And - like professional athletes - the pinnacle of ability reaps the pinnacle of compensation.

Because regardless of the ignorance which motivates the whine of the left, the market isn't partisan. It's Nature, and you'd better learn quickly not to try to fight Mother Nature.

I'm going to try very hard to remain polite and retain my composure, but be aware that I believe I'm discussing this topic with someone who is utterly ignorant of the realities, but with doubtless more than enough self-esteem to be able to loudly deny it.

You have offered nothing other than a very general claim of some supposed worker who has increased his worth to a company, but somehow not been compensated. You haven't mentioned any specifics, so I guess I'll just write the next chapter of your master work of fiction.

In the next chapter, the worker goes into management and says "I'm the most valuable guy you've got. I do 'X' for this company. I am going to work for another company at increased pay, but I'd prefer not to; I'd like to remain here, but I need an increase in salary".

Did your master work consider that the worker has the right to cease the terms of their employment, and take their business (themselves) elsewhere for better compensation?

I can't ignore a fact if it's not a fact. Boards vote for increased compensation for a leader to retain the leader. They also do so at behest of the investors. If they compensate too much - if they stupidly choose a bad leader - how long do you think they can remain on the board?

Did you attend the Thomas Friedman school of Economics?

 

You didn't answer a single point. Your rant is so scattered and psychotic that I don't know what to do with it.

I didn't use the word 'drugs' in my post, yet you blather about it. I referenced the liberal ideology which has been in full force for going on 60 years, and you mention the Constitution, which is what the liberal ideology has been combatting.

You're all over the place. I believe I understand your reputation on this forum now.

 

The wisdom of a 9 year old child