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

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#341

Post by chc » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 6:07 AM UTC

xentronium wrote: post #312

JoachimSchipper wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're not offering any real evidence for your side, so it seems pretty arrogant to expect anyone to give you any credence. You claim it "works better than anything else," while citing a country that has brought a fraction of its population out of absolute squalor by abandoning communist ideology — that is very specious.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#342

Post by izendejas » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 7:24 AM UTC

three14 wrote: post #296

benmccann wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're arguing that education, infrastructure, and a non-corrupt court system is responsible for this country's success, which may well be true. However, only a tiny amount of spending is on those things. 85% of spending is on social security, the military, and medicaid. We could cut all of those things dramatically without a corresponding decrease in the country's economic output.

Preventing old people and sick people from dying in the streets is just one of those costs you're going to have to pay for, like it or not. Raise Social Security to 68, maybe. Cut it off, though, and you'll find that the country will still pay, one way or another. (Maybe force kids to support their parents - it could be a completely different solution from Social Security, but that money is going to get spent.)

I'm glad you bring up that idea out at the end (by now, few will read it, but that's okay). It pains me to learn that some people in this great country (for cultural reasons?) don't do this. It's a "crazy" idea, but one that works very well in other countries. Latin Americans, Indians, and others will attest to that. I wouldn't call for forcing families to take care of their elderly, but I'd find ways to motivate that because it's simply sad that we have to take care of others' parents.

And yes, the whole problem with our health care system isn't so much that we're paying (we have to no matter what, either by premium increases or footing the bill for emergency patients). The problem is that it sucks at preventing major health problems that later cost more if undetected and not treated early.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#343

Post by benohear » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 1:31 PM UTC

jacques_chester wrote: post #336

benohear wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a theory: In the good ole days, taxation consisted of the lord owning the land (the means of production) and taxing the peasents. This is pretty much what happens when you're employed - someone else owns the means of production, and you are paid less than the value that you create (hopefully for the company, anyway). For me this is a form of taxation - The main difference is that insead of being paid the gross…

You've reinvented the core thesis of Marxism: that the difference between what the worker earns and the capitalist sells is a theft of value. The problem is that it assumes that labour is the true source of value -- this has turned out to be a troublesome assumption. In practice value is subjective.

That's not quite what I meant. I was referring to the value your employment adds to the company, not the sales value of the final product.

And yes, that's extremely difficult to evaluate, but it seems to me that on average everyone has to be paid less than their contribution, otherwise there would be no profit or funds to pay salaries for people not directly contributing to production.

Nor was I passing judgement, by the way, so I don't go along with the "theft" thing. I do however think it is a form of taxation.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#344

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 2:26 PM UTC

ramanujan wrote: post #219

jarek wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you get a ticket for exceeding the speed limit by 1 mph, there are larger issues at hand than how much this ticket will cost you. Yes, speed limits are to an extent arbitrary, but practical alternative is a total judgment call. Do you always know the entirety of the condition of your car, and if not, should you be limited to 30 mph? Should drivers' licenses include a quantifiable evaluation of your skill and abili…

> practical alternative is a total judgment call Right. So is the Autobahn actually all that accident prone? 55 was initially marketed as something that saved gas. After that was debunked, it was changed to "55 saves lives".

How was it debunked that 55 saves gas? I'm interested in this, as I sometimes like to drive in such a manner as to economize, and according to my instant and average mpg readouts cruising at or below 60mph consumes far less gas than cruising at or above 70mph.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#345

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 2:37 PM UTC

ericd wrote: post #252

alsomike wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which means that there will almost certainly suddenly be a lot more "workers". You mean a low unemployment rate? > Your system relies on taking away a great deal of money from rich people... the more you do it the harder those rich people are going to try to avoid paying Not really, no. Money in excess of $90k isn't confiscated, it's still used to purchase status just as it is today. The only difference is that it'…

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…

Study cognitive neuroscience. Much of the reason that $500 meal at Per Se is such an amazingly memorable experience is because it's so expensive; evolution has taught your brain to feel good about signalling status.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#346

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 2:39 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #281

alsomike wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wonder if you're confusing reality with Rand novels. As far as I'm aware (since I'm not one of them), most wealthy people aren't trying to impress anybody. They're just enjoying their lives, relatively quietly. The incentive provided by wealth is not status, but enjoyment. A BMW is much more enjoyable to drive than a Buick. Go ahead and pry all the logos off my car, it'll still be more fun to drive. What's more, "s…

I love my old M3, but I wonder if it falls in a special category distinct from other luxury items--as Aldous Huxley said, "speed provides the one genuinely modern pleasure."

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#347

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 2:56 PM UTC

izendejas wrote: post #342

three14 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preventing old people and sick people from dying in the streets is just one of those costs you're going to have to pay for, like it or not. Raise Social Security to 68, maybe. Cut it off, though, and you'll find that the country will still pay, one way or another. (Maybe force kids to support their parents - it could be a completely different solution from Social Security, but that money is going to get spent.)

I'm glad you bring up that idea out at the end (by now, few will read it, but that's okay). It pains me to learn that some people in this great country (for cultural reasons?) don't do this. It's a "crazy" idea, but one that works very well in other countries. Latin Americans, Indians, and others will attest to that. I wouldn't call for forcing families to take care of their elderly, but I'd find ways to motivate tha…

The problem with that system is that it incentivizes overpopulation. If your retirement plan is your children, you have a lot of children.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#348

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 2:58 PM UTC

mike_esspe wrote: post #301

Pinckney wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If you get your property by exploiting the contract, then get to leave the contract instead of paying your side of it, it's not worth much as a contract.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#349

Post by khafra » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

martinkallstrom wrote: post #152

The best way of taxing the rich is producing luxury goods. The fact that you can buy food, transport, housing, clothing at a magnitude or two (or more) higher cost is a sort of volontary tax. When you buy a $1000 bottle of champagne instead of drinking water, a large part of that money takes a pretty short path to pay the wages of people that never would buy the same bottle themselves. And would maybe be out of a job…

Yes, luxury goods amount to a tax on the status-conscious who can afford them--but the problem is that they send a price signal that more luxury goods are needed, when what we really need is investment in infrastructure, basic and applied research, etc.

Re: Scott Adams: How to Tax the Rich

#350

Post by agbell » Mon, Jan 31, 2011, 6:06 PM UTC

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #273

uytrtyui wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do actually give away money - although with some strings attached (like your government not using open source!) IKEA itself - not the owner - is a charity, registered in Holland to be in the Eu but actually in the Dutch antilles so they don't pay Dutch tax and they can keep secret any donations

Do you have a reference to back up the OSS prohibition? It sounds like an urban legend and I couldn't find anything searching, but I've seen weirder things before.

http://www.economist.com/node/6919139?story_id=6919139