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Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#41

Post by rst »

andreyf wrote: post #17

I think the "power" category is best, but obviously a sensitive topic. What we need is a layered democracy, where the smart people who understand a field and have power to influence laws there (with the advice of experts in whatever fields those laws have side-effects on), but not in a selfish way. The way congress works now, it's the people with money who influence law, and some of them are doing it either out of se…

But Congressmen and the executive honestly think that they're listening to "the smart people" right now, for the most part. When they consider copyright issues, they listen to the smart people who run record companies and movie studios. When they consider energy policy, they listen to the smart people who run oil companies. (Big oil was in charge of the Gulf oil spill cleanup because the government genuinely didn't have the expertise.) When they consider finance, they listen to the smart people who run the banks. And so forth. Or so they say --- and you can call it rationalization for cashing their lobbyists' large checks, but I think they honestly believe it regardless. After all, these folks do have a record of achievement in their fields, and how else is a Congressman to judge?

What we need is a better answer to that question, which has measures for expertise other than "they made a lot of money at it." Unfortunately, it's hard to see anything like Adams's proposal, of explicit preferential treatment for the rich, as being a step in that direction.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#42

Post by teamonkey »

burgerbrain wrote: post #26
chrismealy wrote: post #5

Why have the rich suddenly became a bunch of babies? What's with all the whining? Having money isn't enough, now they want to be worshipped like feudal lords.

Do you similarly decry the people who spend extra money at amusement parks to skip lines? Seems like exactly the same thing as this. You pay more: you get more.

By skipping the lines at amusement parks, those who don't pay extra have to wait even longer for their turn than they would if that system wasn't in place. So in effect, those who pay more benefit and simultaneously penalise those who do not.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#45

Post by sunsu »

"The hole is too big to plug with cost cutting or economic growth alone."

Say's who? Take a look at the 2011 budget: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/02/01/us/budget.html

The biggest pieces of the pie are things we are UNWILLING to cut (not incapable of cutting)! Its time for us to make some difficult decisions about what cuts we should make instead of relying on other peoples' money to solve other peoples' problems.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#46

Post by viraptor »

forensic wrote: post #30

Scott Adams is just talking about moving towards a visible aristocracy. These are the first baby steps. Soon the rich will have special privileges just like the old days.

First steps - maybe, but does it really have to be full aristocracy? What if the ideas were just a really simple separate ideas not affecting others in more than 2% of some arbitrary measure for each of them?

If we could offer packages that would be available to everyone but easy to buy at the same time, wouldn't it be good for everyone? For example you can pay $X for the "lexus lane", $X for another privilege, etc. - this way if someone actually wanted the privilege, but wasn't "really rich", they could still get it - not a total aristocracy and noone is forced to do anything.

Private companies have been doing this for a really long time as small benefits. Think about airport/travel if you pay extra: you can get express checkin on the airport, no security queue, better comfort of travel (business class), better quality food, pick-up service on arrival, luggage transport taken care of, complete booking / planning from a third-party. I have never heard of people complaining about "visible aristocracy" when travelling though. Could the taxes work as a payment gateway for small luxury services?

Meanwhile - it doesn't prevent anyone of us from getting the same. Want a better place on the plane? You can still get it without going for the whole "rich person package".

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#47

Post by MichaelSalib »

bluedevil2k wrote: post #13

There's a potentially dangerous line that the US is approaching where, factoring in all the exemptions, credits, and deductions, a majority of the population will not be paying income taxes at all. Thus, a majority of the population will be deciding (via their votes) how much and on what the taxes of the minority will be spent. The only saving grace, if you can call it that, is that the people who actually place the…

You realize that many of the exemptions, credits and deductions disproportionately benefit well off people, right? I mean, something like the home mortgage interested deduction is off no use to many homeowners because they don't earn enough to itemize deductions. Plus the deduction saves you more money the bigger and more expensive your house is....

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#48

Post by aj700 »

Communism sucks, so there's no alternative to the 0.1% (winner) takes all (80%) system that we've got.

Of course we have a "vampire squid on our face" (GS) but it seems to be necessary to allow technological progress and the industrialisation of the rest of the world

We have scarcity now, but it won't last. Money will be abolished. The question is how do we spend money now to bring about the end of scarcity sooner. Well conspicuous consumption and luxuries are probably no help.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#49

Post by mgkimsal »

His idea about a 10% cut across the board is so common-sense - I've heard it before - yet we never ever hear this from anyone in Washington (not that I've heard, anyway). Why not?

10% may seem extreme - fair enough - but why not 2%? Could we try one year where every federal department has 2% less to spend than they did the year before? 2% isn't a lot, and would go a long way toward each dept rooting out their own 'waste/fraud/abuse', instead of making govt larger by adding oversight processes and staff.

And I do not mean "2% less than what we'd projected to increase our budget by next year". I mean if your department had a budget of $1,000,000, you only get a budget of $980,000 this year. Shaving 2% off a 3.5 trillion budget would be - what? - 70 billion? While that doesn't quite get us out of the mess we're in, it's a good start.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#50

Post by jeffreyrusso »

The ultra wealthy have done a great job of engineering the system to control how much they pay in - so why do we think incentivizing them would work? It may take time, but every perk that could potentially be offered at a premium would be just one more race to the bottom.
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