freeman3 wrote:I was looking at DF's assertion that people have differential levels of wealth based on hard work, ability, intelligence , luck and timing. I don't quibble too much with that assertion, though I think we all agree that some people have an initial advantage. Of course, that's always been true but when you get rid of most estate taxes making it easier to transfer wealth across generations, lower capital gains taxes, allow college education to become very expensive those born into wealth have a significant advantage.
Estate taxes are a matter of philosophy. Does a person have a right to determine where his/her wealth goes or is the State entitled to already-taxed money?
For the record, the only people "allowing" college education to become expensive are the government and college administrators. Rich people are not at fault.
In any case, from the 1930s through the the 1970s wasn't wealth also distributed according to hard work, ability, intelligence, luck and timing? If you admit that is true--and I don't know how it can denied-then it has to be admitted that we can change societal rules that can allow for less stratification without going to socialism.
But, you miss the point: society doesn't determine INCOME. It never has, except under a Communist system. Society only determines tax rates and what will be taxed. That will impact NET INCOME, but not income per se.
There is no doubt that people will work much harder for their own benefit. So in Communist societies when they let farmers grow their own crops they did much better . So conservative economists reasoned that if you really lowered taxes then you will get this explosion of growth.
Right, so excessive taxation DISCOURAGES hard work. What's the point if the Federal government is going to seize 90% of what I earn?
But as RJ indicated that simply has not happened . What has happened is a lot more zero-sum than win-win. Except for the few in the top quintile, workers have lost bargaining power vis-a-vis large corporations so their wages are staying stagnant or falling.
Your man has presided over this "recovery" with stagnant wages. I'll leave it to you to sort out the "why." Certainly, his policies have not made work pay (and all the other slogans he's had). If "society" determines the distribution of capital, then Obama has been for the rich and against the poor and working classes.
And with globalization and free flow of capital and goods, access to a large labor supply willing to work for low wages we are seeing the following: (1) since returns on investments are higher because they can go anywhere in search of lower labor costs and higher profits , those who manage money are making far more money than their predecessors; (2) executives at corporations are making more money due to higher profits due to lower labor costs, (3) and entertainers , athletes, and those who can come up with the newest popular app or internet game can be fantastically wealthy. But it is pretty hard to see why such beneficiaries would not continue to do what they are doing even if they were taxed at a higher rate.
Maybe. However, some would. Furthermore, if you slam them with socialist-level taxes, some will move.
Trying to make life "fair" is a farce. It never will be.
Liberals do not want to tax at a high rate doctors , dentists, engineers, architects, accountants, small business owners, and others who worked hard and make a few hundred thousand. After all, the mean household income of the top 5% is $330,000. Bernie Sanders is talking about taxing those who make a million dollars at 52%--that is hardly confiscatory.
But, how much will it raise? Whenever taxes go up, projected income falls short of expectations. Why is that?
How will taxing success create success? How will giving more to those who do not produce (for whatever reason) do anything but encourage more to go on the dole?
Taxing high incomes would help to reduce deficits, result in less income stratification, probably result in less speculation, probably result in workers in the bottom 80% getting a higher share of the economic pie.
According the WSJ, Bernie's proposals on education, Social Security expansion, and Medicaid for all will cost $1.8T a year. I'm gonna bet his income tax increases won't pay for that--meaning deficits would balloon.
How do you propose the bottom 80% will get more of the pie? By the government taxing the rich? The government doesn't share well.
It is hard to understand the argument for allowing people in the top few percent to get huge incomes (in contrast to earlier people doing similar things) at low taxes when they have for the most part have earned such high incomes in contrast to their predecessors for reasons having nothing to do with them--globalization, free flow of money , larger labor pool, etc.
Again, government doesn't "allow" huge incomes. People earn them.
Any attempt to take from the rich and give to the poor will fail. Government is rife with fraud, waste, and abuse. The more it has, the more it wastes and loses to fraud.
16 Jan 2016, 5:07 am 
