The Wealthy Do Pay Income Taxes

Of course the attack on unions is just one more facet of the philosophy of driving down wages

 

DIVERT?
Unions have everything to do with it- they fix wages, limit value, kill competition, make prices high for arbitrary gains, extort money from business with the power to literally bankrupt them- and unlike price fixing, monopolies and all the things you decry that are already illegal and readily prosecuted for business, unions do this with legal impunity. Not that they don't violate the laws, they do that everyday and get substantial help from politicians who are afraid to lose political endorsement. Personal knowledge here.

Your scale has only one side- no balance. Being blind to the reality does not change it, only twists your view, and you CHOOSE to be blind- but blame it on others.

Nobody with intelligence denies that many things are wrong, or that there are no unscrupulous people. But ignorant ones choose to believe that all the evil is on the other side- they never acknowledge their own sides being equally flawed, or that they already have a multitude of protections and guarantees, while the other side has none.
Get your foot off the scale.

 

Wealth has nothing to do with our income tax system, there are LOTS of people with high incomes but little net worth as in younger workers and there are LOTS of people with lots of wealth with little income as in retired people. You want to tax those younger workers at lower rates than seniors?

 

My points about the fallacy of taxing wealth versus income still stand, if you want to come back in the door let me know and start by discussing them.

 

Sure but, in this case it was just a diversion (not the topic) because the poster has no material to back up his claims. At first he cried "NO NO NO" when I stated that Oligopolies are engaging in anti competitive practices. When I said "OK lets look at some examples" ... he started to engage in evasion tactics (bringing up unions) and name calling while running to playground to stick head deep in the sandbox of denial.

 

Have you ever worked for a strong Union? I have - and I can tell you first hand about the inefficiencies I experienced. You could not pick up a piece of paper from the floor because "you were taking someone else's job". There were all kinds of absurd power imbalances and waste.

The fact of the matter is I did not make any of the claims you just ascribed to me. You have built a big stawman.

In building this strawman you have avoided supporting or discussion your nonsensical and demonstrably false claim - That Oligopolies and international financiers do not engage in anti competitive practices which bastardizes free and fair markets and are driving the majority of the people in this nation into a form of indentured servitude.

 

I did not disagree with your general points in relation to wealth tax (sans the death tax). Most of the points you made did not apply to a death tax and the few issues that did apply were easily resolved.

A Death tax is a very good and feasible way dealing with gross wealth inequality that currently exists - and you certainly have not suggested anything better.

 

Really. So these people with million dollar incomes haven't managed to accumulate any assets?

Your contention is that rich people are what...drunks and gamblers? They haven't managed to accumulate assets? They're that stupid?

Interesting

 

I spent a great deal of my life either working with or in unions and your characterization is far from the norm. Yes...you don't have plumbers or demo crews doing electrical work but there's a reason for that. They aren't qualified for that work .

I now work in the corporate world and I see as much nonsense there as I did in unions

 

The day they start receiving that million dollars, nope but then how many of the citizens we are speaking of start out with million dollar incomes.

So care to address what I actually said

There are LOTS of people with high incomes but little net worth as in younger workers and there are LOTS of people with lots of wealth with little income as in retired people. You want to tax those younger workers at lower rates than seniors?

That's a strange leap considering what I stated. You apparently do have an affinity for strawman arguments.

 

envy is a most deleterious disease to suffer from. and you are wrong.

 

And as I pointed out you did not limit your discussion to nor was I discussing estate taxes...............sorry you seem to be a total waste of time in your efforts to not have a civil discussion. And why should I suggest something I would not support, you make absolutely no sense.

If you want to discuss how those points I raised with a general tax on wealth have at it. Start with how do we access the net worth of everyone in the country? At what point in time do we access that net worth as it changes on a daily basis? What about appeals to that assessment? And as I mentioned with estate taxes those assessments and final valuations can take years and tie up probate courts for years.

 

I'm not envious. I'm also not stupid

 

We had a major strike at a papermill here back in the the 70's. The company said that when an operator's machine went down the company had the right to tell them sweep the floor and cleanup around the machine. The union said no that was taking work from someone else.

 

You missed the main point of my post. The poster was trying to claim I was some "Union Lover" when I did not even mention the Unions, in an effort to avoid backing up his claim that Oligopolies have not bastardized he free market and do not engage in anti competitive practices and various other nefarious activities.

The main point is that Labor Unions have nothing with the topic that was under discussion. It was like bringing up Earth's moon in a discussion about the severity of storms on Jupiter. A dodge.

 

So you're claim is that income is a one time thing?

That a young person with a million dollar income hasn't accumulated a lot of assets yet?

Who cares. Tax policy concerns YEARS and DECADES.

And your straw man dance over a wealth tax (as opposed to an estate tax) is just that. Similar to this stupid argument

 

true enough but you fell into their meme of attacking unions. When we accept their false premise we lose

 

I guess we will agree to disagree

 

I already stated that I have no issue with your claims in relation general tax on wealth (sans the death tax). So there is nothing to discuss.

Good that you agree with the death tax.

 

the death tax is a surcharge income tax on the people who pay too much of the income tax to begin with. Its those who don't pay enough during their lifetime who ought to be subject to a death tax, not the people who are paying far more than their fair share of the income tax

 

The Estate Tax was how Jefferson wanted to fund our government.

 

Again...while unions have issues at times...I see as much or more nonsense in the corporate world

 

well the estate tax was proposed before there was an income tax. the death tax should be abolished since we have an income tax. its nothing more than pandering to envy and has no valid purpose

 

And you are building a manure pile- you need to go the the other end of the horse and find out what happens beforehand.

You claim that "Oligopolies" are some kind of unjust conspiracy to control competition. This label just describes a field where there aren't many competitors- and then some liberal professor or author decides that if there were more competition the product would be cheaper and therefore it must be a huge plot against the poor working man. Or not working, as is often the case. Such people fail to consider, let alone understand the nature of the issues they complain about. But, they have opinions.

There are enforced laws against monopolies, and many large mergers require authorization by government to proceed- so the law DOES look at the possible consequences of huge mergers and often limits the creation of such groups in order to limit domination of an industry. Collusion between companies is also illegal; it they make an agreement to limit competition, federal laws have been violated, and federal prosecutors will pursue it.

If we were to look for the kind of actions you say are horrible but are virtually unregulated and run wild, the prime example IS unions. Having been in businesses where I've had confrontations with unions offering to break my legs, jobs blocked by pickets even in right-to-work states and seen the kind of behavior otherwise found only in organized crime- I point out that unions do their best to control all companies, and not only to increase the cost of production labor but to decrease the productivity rate and quality of work despite getting higher wages, in many cases. I have seen that first hand too; I'm not speculating. The last thing unions are interested in is what is good for the nation- and the only limit to their choices of actions is the risk of being caught. Not the risk of doing things illegal or immoral- just of being caught. I have seen these people shut out good competitors from choice jobs over and over, so their pet dog company gets the work and does not have to compete on price and performance. That is conspiracy of exactly the nature you claim these "Oligopoly" companies have, but of course- that is conduct from the labor side, which you choose to favor or ignore because the enemy is the business side in your equation.

When few companies dominate a market but do not constitute a monopoly- it's not illegal. In most cases, neither is it what you claim, controlling competition. Any time any company starts making too much, others will see the profit margins as attractive and enter into competition with them. YOU have the right (although probably not the ability) to do just that. Go out and build a group of investors to back your play and get in the game, level the competitive field. I assure you there are investors around the world searching for such opportunities every hour of every day, with the resources to back them.

There are many times where competition on a broad scale is not practical, and the only efficient way to make the service effective is with large, comprehensive companies. If every cell-phone service provider had to build his own network of towers, for example- we would not only have a forest of them, but we would have duplicated infrastructure at great cost- raising the price of everyone's cell service. However, that is not economically possible. So why don't the few who can build these networks simply refuse to lease out time, and thereby destroy all the small competitors and get all the business, because you have no options? That would be what your concept would dictate.... but that is not what exists. The companies who can raise the capital and manage the risk to build networks, chose to offset the cost by leasing bandwidth to competition instead of crushing them and eliminating them. By doing that, they aren't killing off competition- they are encouraging it.

Sometimes it's not practical to have a large field of competitors- usually when the size of the investment in infrastructure is huge. Often the aspects of scale dictate that ten competitors couldn't survive, where 2-3 can, or sometimes only one. Anytime opportunity exists, there are people willing to take advantage of it and increase competition. But most of all- if you don't like what some company does, don't buy from them. That is your fair share of market voice, your means of depriving those evil bastards you despise of the profits from your pocket. If enough people agree with you, the company will be destroyed.

This is not a logical argument- it's a liberal argument against common sense. If you can't see the light yet, try pulling your head out of the place you have it. Mine's never been in the sand- I understand what you claim and say you are wrong.... but you don't see the other side, or don't choose to acknowledge it. We're done, no purpose to this conversation.

 

An estate tax has two purposes.
A. Prevent the accumulation of wealth by a small group of super rich (to the detriment of everyone else)
B. Provide funding for the government

You seem to misunderstand