111–120 of 161 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If by "the wealthiest" you mean millionares and billionaires, then you must also know that they have ways to move their money around to avoid those taxes. Some programmer with 200k wage, living in an ultra expensive city, doesn't.
I absolutely know that. Imagine spending just a portion of what we spend on the drug war to combat tax evasion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Individual liberty. Individuals choosing to engage in mutually beneficial activities, rather than being told at implied gunpoint to do what a bunch of ignorant strangers, or a tyrannical dictator, decided.
> Billionaires have to at least be competent enough to make their money, and shelter it from the thieving governments and other leeches etc etc etc and > rather than being told at implied gunpoint to do what a bunch of ignorant strangers You are clearly emotionally driven on this issue so it's probably best that I step out of this discussion. You have a good day guy.
Democracy is, literally, a majority deciding what laws all must adhere to. They don't know/care about a minority's circumstances/needs/choices, yet impose their ill-informed will through the police power of the state (to wit, obey or we'll use force increasing up to and including death).
Show me how that's not true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…
No thanks! The "demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources" is mostly a matter of luck, with a small dash of willingness to exploit others. Everyone deserves an equal say in the allocation of resources. It pains me to say that this must include even those who are willing to exploit other people to amass resources.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources. How about we amend that to, 'Everyone deserves a say in the allocation of resources, in proportion to their demonstrated ability to amass and manage resources'. Elon Musk figured out how to make a ton of money; he has more right to determine its use than some bureaucrat in an office. You say that government is our method of collective allocation, but it's real…
That logic justifies Kings and Dictators; if someone, by force, amasses total power over a people, then according to your rule they deserve to control it. Kings and Dictators get overthrown for a reason. All people deserve to have a say in society, even if they don't want it, use it poorly, or use it reluctantly. It's not because human rights should matter to all individuals, it is because the implementation of human…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should the average American pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes? They shouldn't. All should pay $0 taxes. We expect adults be financially independent after a few decades. The gov't, with its ability to literally make money along with other unique powers, should be financially independent after 225 years.
The gov't isn't supposed to be some entity on its own but an orchestrator of society, balancing things, running ahead of feedback loop effects etc. The whole concept of "financially independent govt" sounds like they are spending the tax earnings just on themselves. Of course they have overhead costs, but the main function of the govt is to redistribute. They are supposed to be like the heart that pumps the blood aro…
Absolutely not. That's communism, which never does - and never can - turn out well.
The USA was founded on the main function of gov't is to protect individual rights - that each knows & serves his own interests better than strangers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> More expensive than any public system, with worse outcomes for the general population. That presupposes the US would have a cheaper system if it were public. (Also most European systems aren’t “public systems” but that’s a separate issue.) We spend more per student on our public education system than almost every other OECD country, to get far worse results. Our public transit systems spend several times as much mo…
> I don’t think it is at all clear that costs wouldn’t go up under a public healthcare system in the US. I'm a simple mathematician, so I'll admit that I tend to look at issues where numbers are involved a bit too simply sometimes. Having mentioned that, shouldn't it be self-evident that costs will go up? You'd essentially be playing an actuarial/insurance game and on-boarding an enormous number of new beneficiaries.…
For example, the healthcare industry spends a lot of time and money on medical billing, on the side of providers sending bills and insurers paying them. Clearly some of this would be reflected in new and different bureaucracy, but probably less of it (and certainly not self-evidently more).
Also, preventative care can be much better than reactive care. Sure, a public health care provider would have to spend more money on insulin for diabetics when all of them are covered, but maybe it will spend less on emergency room visits for patients who suffer serious complications of poorly managed diabetes and can't pay the ER bill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why should the average American pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes? Allowing the rich to choose what organizations and causes are worth supporting is certainly not Democratic. For example, you have private schools getting massive amounts of donations from Alumni, while the local elementary is shutting off water fountains because of lead exposure and they can’t afford to update the plumbing. I also don’t…
Why should the average American pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes? They shouldn't. All should pay $0 taxes. We expect adults be financially independent after a few decades. The gov't, with its ability to literally make money along with other unique powers, should be financially independent after 225 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
These individuals accumulated their massive wealth by utilizing the infrastructure and economic substrate of our society. So the people who make up that society have a right to decide democratically how some of those resources are allocated. That’s the deal. Even assuming you are right, there are many more important values than mere efficiency. Governments are the only bodies which can realistically pursue the values…
Everybody had equal access to the infrastructure and economic substrate, billionaires just made better use of it to generate more value, so why should they have to pay more?
They literally can and do pay for laws written in their favor, to entrench their interests, limit their competition, and adjudicate their behavior? See, even they agree they should "pay more."
And because obviously they have more to lose if government services decline. They are the primary driver of demand for government services. Many of them need a functioning military, aviation, infrastructure, law enforcement, patent office, and other services to continue to make their billions.
If all the highways, gas pipelines, airports, Internet backbone and the Pacific Fleet in America crumbled to dust tomorrow, I'd be greatly unhappy but WalMart, Amazon, and Facebook would be ... well let's just say disproportionately affected.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gov't isn't supposed to be some entity on its own but an orchestrator of society, balancing things, running ahead of feedback loop effects etc. The whole concept of "financially independent govt" sounds like they are spending the tax earnings just on themselves. Of course they have overhead costs, but the main function of the govt is to redistribute. They are supposed to be like the heart that pumps the blood aro…
the main function of the govt is to redistribute. Absolutely not. That's communism, which never does - and never can - turn out well. The USA was founded on the main function of gov't is to protect individual rights - that each knows & serves his own interests better than strangers.
It seems like many Americans view the government as some external entity that imposed itself on the people and now the people have to keep them in quarantine. A bit like how we felt in Hungary when the Soviets were sitting on us. They came in and now are taking our stuff away.
But a country's own govt isn't supposed to be "those guys who came in and took our stuff for themselves", but rather a network of institutions that help organize society for things where market forces are not appropriate for several game theoretical reasons.
Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? Job creation, charity, arts funding, lowering costs of necessities, etc - and at levels & locations which gov't would never achieve. The "tax/soak the rich" notion seems almost entirely puni…
> Why the notion that gov't should be the provider & arbiter of all? Because the government is democratically elected. Billionaires are not. > Why do none of the "they don't pay enough taxes" crowd not realize the rich do so much of, and more efficiently, what the gov't purports to with massive overhead? [citation needed] In fact, there's an easy counter-example. Healthcare. More expensive than any public system, wit…
Tyranny of the majority is a bad thing.