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Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#301

Post by mike_esspe »

Pinckney wrote: post #214
pistoriusp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, this kind of thinking freaks me out. They want to take property from people who have earned it precisely for having earned it! It's theft, it's looting, and it's slavery! You cannot take one man's property and give it to another based on need.

By living and working in a country such is America, you are accepting a social contract: if you do well, you will be taxed, if you do poorly, you will at least receive some services to support you. This strikes me as an entirely reasonable contract, though there are others that are different. In Abu Dubai, you can do well, and keep all your money, or do poorly and wind up in debtor's prison. To complain that you're t…

As long as you can't leave this contract (with your property), it's not a voluntary contract. With the same logic you can justify slavery.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#302

Post by kree10 »

Deliberately proposing bad solutions sounds fun, but wow could that backfire. Applied to software projects, the "bad" version will get the go-ahead, and we'll be stuck maintaining it forever.

You could argue that this is already happening, but the difference is I think the people proposing bad solutions are usually not aware their ideas are bad. I'm sure I've been guilty of proposing and implementing bad ideas in software myself.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#303

Post by JoachimSchipper »

xentronium wrote: post #295
othermaciej wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see that you are trying to get in the spirit of coming up with the "bad version". Communism has been tried before, and it didn't work very well.

Like, say, China?

China is not really a communist country as originally envisioned. Certainly, there are large disparities in income between the party elite/entrepreneurs and some random farmer.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#304

Post by yummyfajitas »

alsomike wrote: post #270
ericd wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Status markers are much more complicated than you imagine, and they tend to be extremely expensive to produce. If you think that the govt. could make a status marker that rich people actually care about, you're dreaming. The finer things in life really are finer, and it becomes nonlinearly more expensive to produce them the finer they are. A $500 meal at Per Se in NYC isn't just for signalling, if it is at all. It's…

Actually, I think status markers created by the government would be far, far more appealing to the wealthy. It's like Hegel's master-slave dialectic - a master doesn't feel like a real master because he knows all the struggles and difficulties of maintaining his position. If he really is a master, not just an ordinary man who finds himself with power, why does he have to work so hard to maintain it? The only time he…

That's why in all Ayn Rand novels, the protagonist's problem isn't just the fact that the masses interfere with his projects and thwart his greatness - the problem is that they do this because they don't recognize him as superior.

I have no idea why so many people feel the need to comment on Ayn Rand without reading it.

If you read the Fountainhead to the end, you'd realize that Roark was completely happy toiling in anonymity, as long as his building was built properly.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#305

Post by axod »

izendejas wrote: post #292
axod wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " I'm arguing that if you want to be wealthy one day or are already, it's in your best interest to contribute more." The rich already contribute more. Where's the line? 90% tax rate? 99.9999%?

I should be clear: more than people who are in the middle/lower classes in terms of the effective tax rate (not just marginal), and given our current situation, it may have to be even more than it is today (along with cuts) or the alternative is that the system could collapse.

Maybe the 'system' collapsing is a good thing. It's a modern invention.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#306

Post by jasamer »

wyclif wrote: post #278
jarek wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no state or province in North America with the kind of driving culture that exists in Germany.

What driving culture are you referring to? The wealthy everywhere have a preference for sports cars. That alone doesn't constitute "driving culture", but a lot of what you're talking about is just compression. The US has much more wide open space than Germany does.

I guess he's referring to the fact that there are no actual speed limits on "Autobahnen" in Germany, there's a recommendation of ~80mph (130km/h), but itn't a rarity to see people going over 120mph... To sum up: people drive faster here. And from what I've heard, it's way harder to get a driving license in Germany (and Europe in general) than in the US.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#307

Post by axod »

Pinckney wrote: post #214
pistoriusp wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, this kind of thinking freaks me out. They want to take property from people who have earned it precisely for having earned it! It's theft, it's looting, and it's slavery! You cannot take one man's property and give it to another based on need.

By living and working in a country such is America, you are accepting a social contract: if you do well, you will be taxed, if you do poorly, you will at least receive some services to support you. This strikes me as an entirely reasonable contract, though there are others that are different. In Abu Dubai, you can do well, and keep all your money, or do poorly and wind up in debtor's prison. To complain that you're t…

The problem for me arises when you start taxing 'the rich' more heavily than others.

And having a tax rate above 50% for anyone is morally indefensible IMHO.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#308

Post by sambeau »

pzxc wrote: post #153
TomOfTTB wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to criticize but I think you missed his point. The way I read it the point of the article is this... We can't force the rich to pay more because they always find a way out of it. We know this because there were days when upper tax rates were 90% but tax revenue was roughly the same because the rich can lobby for loop holes and pay people to exploit those loop holes. The rich will find a way to keep from paying to…

Who is John Galt?

I very nearly fell for that.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#310

Post by vlisivka »

jimmyjim wrote: post #75
wigginus wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many European countries adjust the fines to ones wealth: For example Switzerland: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-10960230

And I want to point out that it makes very much sense to have fines adjusted to one's wealth. When speeding, you're endangering people's lives. There has to be some measure that will make you think twice about speeding the next time around -- if you know that the ticket fine will be a paltry amount to you (relative to your total wealth), that is no deterrent.

Increase every next fine by two. Drop older fines after year.

If we will start from 1, then nobody will be able to get more than 32 fines per year, even Bill Gates. ;-)

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