Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich • Hacker News Board

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#311

Post by vannevar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #284

davorak wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With out the community and the government those opportunities to get rich would not exist. If the perfect world the rational rich person might realize this and protect and improve the system that allow people like himself to be possible.

Without the entrepreneurs and executives organizing companies and the engineers designing products, there'd be nothing for everyone else to work on but subsistence farming. Should providing something for the rest of us to do go unrewarded?

But those contributions don't go unrewarded. They are compensated highly, otherwise we wouldn't be having this discussion. The problem here is that higher tax rates are being mistaken as punishment when they're just a reflection of reality. The rich leverage society's institutions more to acquire their wealth, consequently they pay a greater share of their income for them.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by xentronium » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:47 PM UTC

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #303

xentronium wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's true; however, to claim communism does not work whereas it works better than anything else is a little bit arrogant.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by vannevar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

axod wrote: post #276

izendejas wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of all those that agree with such argument, I'd like to get an answer to these questions: 1) have you traveled to a developing|third-world country? 2) if you haven't, you should. if you have... 2a) what price tag do you put on first-class infrastructure that makes your business run smoothly, not to mention make it safer to deliver? 2b) what price tag do you pay to ensure that you have a well-nourished and healthy wor…

> " 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%?

Where's the line?

That my friend is the central question of domestic politics. Right now 'the line' is at historically low levels, and we're facing massive budget deficits. And fresh from a US election year where everyone agreed the deficit is the most important issue facing us, the first thing the government did was vote to extend those historically low rates.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by vlisivka » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 4:51 PM UTC

bermanoid wrote: post #249

axod wrote: post #76

Taxing the rich (even more than they are already which IMHO is a lot ) is just punishing success and rewarding failure.

A flat tax rate, by charging a higher dollar amount to the rich person than the poor person, is still punishing success and rewarding failure, because the rich person pays a hell of a lot more for the same services than the poor person. I propose that we charge everyone an equal dollar amount, that's surely the only way to be fair - after all, if you go out to dinner with five people and rack up a $200 bill, everyone…

No. It depends on how much someone eat.

Imagine company, which has 10000 shareholders. You own 10% of company. Company needs some financial helps, e.g. $250M. How much you should pay? $100? $250M/10000?

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#315

Post by vannevar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:00 PM UTC

javert wrote: post #272

dhugiaskmak wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So true. Everyone knows that every businessman has completely bootstrapped from scratch all of the roads, utilities, schools, hospitals, scientific research, and a thousand other things that they took advantage of to make their fortunes. No one else made any contributions to their success and that's why it's only fair that we should be required to hand over a significant portion of our incomes to them.

That's right, let's justify stealing from businessmen based on the fact that they grew up in a society that was already stealing from businessmen. None of the things you mentioned need to (or should) be funded by loot. In fact, utilities and hospitals didn't used to be in the U.S., and only partially are now. The US education system is a stagnant cesspool that still uses a model developed in the Middle Ages. And the…

I agree. I think the first thing we need to do to bring about your utopia is to bring back personal liability and eliminate the corporate entity (which after all is a construction of government). Then if a businessman's activities injured someone, we could be sure that a court could strip them of their personal assets in order to compensate the victims of their negligence.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by vannevar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:27 PM UTC

spankythemonk wrote: post #220

maeon3 wrote: post #23

Tax the rich too much and then they stop creating jobs for all you whiners who can't hold on to your money. The whole notion of taxing the rich more than the poor seems unfair, what makes you worthy of benefits and him worthy of a penalty? Just because he was more responsible and hard working than you were? Americans are not broke, it's the government that is broke and instead of take the negative consequences, they…

> Tax the rich too much and then they stop creating jobs for all you whiners who can't hold on to your money. This is true. You're essentially increasing the tax burden on the entrepreneur class. This means less money spent on business formation, job creation and capital investment. The last thing that the US Economy needs right now. Not only that, but many "rich" might just decide to leave the country and go somewhe…

Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#317

Post by rick888 » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 5:59 PM UTC

sambeau wrote: post #140

If I could, I would link tax paying to the National Lottery. The more tax you pay the bigger your chance of winning big. It would make a refreshing change to see people queueing up on a Saturday night, desperate to pay their tax.

"It would make a refreshing change to see people queueing up on a Saturday night, desperate to pay their tax."

The poor would be giving all of their income and the rich would just keep theirs.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by rick888 » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:10 PM UTC

vannevar wrote: post #316

spankythemonk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tax the rich too much and then they stop creating jobs for all you whiners who can't hold on to your money. This is true. You're essentially increasing the tax burden on the entrepreneur class. This means less money spent on business formation, job creation and capital investment. The last thing that the US Economy needs right now. Not only that, but many "rich" might just decide to leave the country and go somewhe…

Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH.

"Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH."

"distribute more of the wealth" sounds so clean and nice. What you are really doing is taking this money away by force, which is anything but.

Here is a scenario: Let's say you are a senior developer for a company and you make $90,000/year. A new guy joins the company with almost no experience and your boss tells you that he needs to "distribute more of your wealth". You will make $60,000 so he can make $30,000 more. He is putting in much less effort than you. This is okay, right?

Everyone that wants wealth redistribution should be put into the same situation. I think we would have much less people out there interested in taxing the rich to death.

"consequently triggering financial disasters"

What about the people that took out loans they obviously couldn't afford? It's the same with credit card debt. People blame the credit card companies for giving them the loans in the first place, yet they keep putting themselves into more and more debt buying things they don't need. We need more personal responsibility.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

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Post by joshuagamen » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:13 PM UTC

He(Pres Obama) said that it doesn't make any sense that people who have accountants and attorneys can get away with not paying taxes, while the rest of the ppl get stuck with the bill. This translates to, “bye bye middle class.” The Pres was put in offc by the richest men in the world, he is not going 2 make them pay more taxes, hell, they benefit from taxes, especially the biggest of all(inflation). The way to level the playing field is not by stopping tax cuts to the top 2% in income, the way to level the playing field would be to extend tax cuts to the bottom 98% in terms of income. Bigger government won't solve anything. If you look at world history, you will notice that any government that tries to do too much, does not do anything well enough..

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#320

Post by vannevar » Sun, Jan 30, 2011, 6:37 PM UTC

rick888 wrote: post #318

vannevar wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH.

"Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH." "distribute more of the wealth" sounds so clean and nice. What you are really doing is taking this money away by force, which is anything but. Here is a scenario: Let's say you are a senior deve…

"distribute more of the wealth" sounds so clean and nice. Indeed. Much like 'cut government spending'. My point is that slogan-based solutions are unhelpful.

You sound like someone who takes Ayn Rand seriously as an economist, as opposed to a philosopher. The truth is that most of the wealthy were born into the upper classes of income, and further that wealth tends to create wealth quite apart from the physical or mental effort of the owner. And in all cases, both chance and social institutions that have been built up over centuries contribute disproportionately to becoming wealthy.

So let me give you a counter example: you work very hard in your company as a senior developer. Once day the boss comes and tells you you're fired because he's hired his son to do your job. Now you're on unemployment for months due to an economic downturn, but because there are no income taxes you get no unemployment benefits. To top it off, you lost your health benefits when you lost your job, and now you find you have cancer (33% of us will get it at some point). The good news is, it's curable. The bad news is the treatment is prohibitively expensive, so like all of the losers in society's Randian economic game, we're going to expect you to simply die gracefully in a cardboard box somewhere out of sight. Thanks for playing, though.