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Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

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Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#61

Post by Klinky »

jakubmal wrote: post #20

I can't believe my eyes actually. As I was opening this comments page, I thought that majority will represent vastly different opinion here. But since that's not the case, I decided to speak up. Nick Hanauer cannot be more wrong. Taxing rich people means punishing someone for his success. There is no argument that could justify such Robin Hood's behaviour. In fact that's what was (or is) happening in the communism. S…

>To wrap it up, if God (or some other kind of Force) decided to help poor species, we, humans, would never exist. Why don't you just support the idea, that put you into existence?

So do you not have a problem with someone using brute strength to take the property and wealth of someone else?

Are you against people receiving treatments for curable diseases?

Social cooperation & concepts of fairness have also played a huge part in the success of the human species.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#62

Post by gnaritas »

donzimmer wrote: post #41
webXL wrote: post #9

Another rich guy trying to persuade average folk that all our problems would be solved if people like him were taxed more. Never mind that the Buffet-rule (minimum 35%) would net $31 Billion over the next 11 years versus $7 Trillion in estimated deficits. ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74232.html ) Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power…

"Never mind that the Buffet-rule (minimum 35%) would net $31 Billion over the next 11 years versus $7 Trillion in estimated deficits." Yes. Tony Robbins did a great deconstruction of this in a video, "Is taxing the rich enough? Will that solve our problems?": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jboTeS9Okak (Regardless of what you think of Tony Robbins personally, this is an excellent video. I love how he breaks down exact…

Taxing the rich isn't about solving the budget problems, it's about solving the fairness problem. It doesn't matter that it isn't enough to make a fiscal difference, people want to feel the laws are fair and the rich are paying at least as much of a percentage of their income as the middle class. That's what the Buffet rule tries to address, equality.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#63

Post by viggity »

georgieporgie wrote: post #60
muhfuhkuh wrote: post #31

So, when does one prove causation? Because by any economic metric, the times when we've been fiscally strong is when the top marginal tax rate was higher than 36% currently. When they lowered it in 2001 from 40% while going to war , it created net zero jobs during the entirety of the Bush administration (and starting leaking jobs en masse during the crisis in 2008). One could argue that Reagan's administration saw so…

I've heard a number of people (Grover Norquist included) make the claim that although the top marginal tax rates were higher, there were a far greater number of tax exemptions available. I have no idea how true this is, and I'm not aware of anyone who's studied the actual income, wealth, and taxes of America's rich over the decades.

Agreed, looking at top marginal rate seems weird, why not look at effective tax rates for the Top 1, 5 and 10% instead?

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#64

Post by nooneelse »

brudgers wrote: post #4

Niall Ferguson talking about how the wealth disparity of the "West" relative to the rest of the world is justified with his typical economic moralism. http://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of... Wonderfully, it is part of the "Rethinking Poverty" Theme: http://www.ted.com/themes/rethinking_poverty.html

It seems to me that many of Ferguson's heavy-lifting abstractions/generalizations go just as under-quantified and un-backed-up as Hanauer's. And several times, when Ferguson does show numbers, the "why did he pare down the dataset?" or choose that particular measure questions go unremarked. For instance, he mentions the difference between land-ownership in North and South America, but leaves out the wealthy European countries which were explicitly part of his explanandum.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#65

Post by waterlesscloud »

georgieporgie wrote: post #56
aeturnum wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though I support the idea that wealthy people should pay high taxes, perhaps even higher taxes than they do now, I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10%[1]. As long as we're keeping capitalism, I don't buy the argument that simply being rich is wrong. I'm also fairly skeptical of set limits on income, as setting those limits is very hard. What goes into it? How mu…

I think it's also worth noting that the US already gets 70% of all its taxes from the top 10% Why is that worth noting? That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. Furthermore, wealth is far more important to take into account than income in any discussion of taxation or inequality. Also, I have yet to hear anyone make an argument that sounds anything like "simply being rich is wrong."

"That only further demonstrates the income inequality in the United States. "

So is this the basic issue, then? That there's income inequality?

Because that's always going to be the case. Even in the most socialist nations, or even communist nations.

There is always a strong disparity of income and power. Always. And there always will be.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#66

Post by Karunamon »

mccon104 wrote: post #35
horsehead wrote: post #8

I hate the term "the 1%" it's just a bunch of malarkey. Whether you got your money through savvy investing or hard work, it doesn't matter. What you earn, you should KEEP. I detest handouts, especially when someone tries to give them to me. Each person should get according to their work (or their ability to work. The disabled are the only ones remotely eligible for handouts, IMO). Now I'll just watch as my karma plum…

I call bullshit on your malarkey. I get not liking "the 1%" but you do the exact same thing by using the word "handouts". You swapped one co-opted term for another. One can only assume you really mean "welfare" when you say "handouts", and that to me means you have no idea what welfare is or what it does for the families and people that need it.

I call shenanigans on your bullshit.

You swapped one co-opted term for another.

With this logic, there won't be any words left to describe anything that haven't been "co-opted". A handout is a handout.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#67

Post by nikcub »

viggity wrote: post #63
georgieporgie wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard a number of people (Grover Norquist included) make the claim that although the top marginal tax rates were higher, there were a far greater number of tax exemptions available. I have no idea how true this is, and I'm not aware of anyone who's studied the actual income, wealth, and taxes of America's rich over the decades.

Agreed, looking at top marginal rate seems weird, why not look at effective tax rates for the Top 1, 5 and 10% instead?

because it doesn't give you the answer you want

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#68

Post by splinterofchaos »

webXL wrote: post #9

Another rich guy trying to persuade average folk that all our problems would be solved if people like him were taxed more. Never mind that the Buffet-rule (minimum 35%) would net $31 Billion over the next 11 years versus $7 Trillion in estimated deficits. ( http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74232.html ) Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power…

Actually, the facts back him up. Look at this article analysing the deficit (specifically, the graph near the top): http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3490

This shows tax cuts as the largest cause in our deficit. I won't argue that getting rid of tax cuts will get rid of the deficit, but every tax season, the money lost from these cuts doesn't go towards reducing dept. Worse, the amount lost from cuts grows each season.

"Are they really investments or are they just political favors that over-cost and under-deliver? (See the Department of Education, TARP, Medicare, war, etc.)"

The graph shows that TARP doesn't impact the budget much.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#69

Post by freshhawk »

So if either political party chooses to start throwing bullshit back and forth on some ideological hot button issue then TED decides that this subject is now off limits?

Don't we want the people at TED to be able to share good arguments concerning precisely the things that are most important and most misunderstood (which hot button political issues are, since people now choose an opinion based on tribalism rather than reason)

So that reasoning is bullshit. I don't want democrats or republicans choosing which topics are now off limits for debate because they are now political. For fucks sake, political topics are the ones that need debate. What else does "political topic" mean other than "this is important to our society and there is disagreement".

So TED talks are "Riveting talks by remarkable people on subjects that have not been deemed off limits by one of the two big political parties in the US".

Nevermind the fact that this clearly has nothing to do with political controversy as described, everyone knows there are talks about evolution, climate change and cosmology. The only difference is that there are likely people at TED who might disagree with this one.

Re: Too Hot for TED: Income Inequality

#70

Post by mtjl79 »

I'm sorry but, higher taxes aren't going to solve anything. At the end of the day, our spending will just not stop. We are just adding fuel to the fire.

We need to:

• Invest in the future: We need to invent, produce, and export new renewable energy sources. We need to invest in robotic manufacturing because cheap people labor is not sustainable in any country - robotic is where it will go.

• We need to heavily tax imports like many other countries in the world do. And have American made things become competitive - we have sold our souls to Asia.

• Drastically cut bullshit spending. There are billions spent every year on...bullshit.

• Invest further in Entrepreneurship, and start bringing smart people from other countries here.

Those are big 4.

The big problem is our countries expenses vs. income is too high. At the end of the day, a country is a business. And right now, we are a company that is not running well. We need to clean out the board of directors (Congress) and start fresh.

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