A wall-streeter says tax the wealthy archived

Tom_Reingold said:

You've asked many times what level of taxation is right. I don't have an answer for that, and neither do you. It's the wrong question.

I can think of two pertinent questions:

What do we as a society want?

How can we pay for it?

Exactly. But unfortunately not everyone will even consider the question, "what do we want?" It's all about "who are you to part me from my money."

My money, my money, my money. There is no higher value than my money.

Tom_Reingold said:

pennboy2 said:

How is whom I can marry a human rights topic, but what happens to what I earn from my labor is not?

You know, socialist societies used to tell people what occupation they could enter into. Do you find that an infringement on human rights?

Do you find a marginal tax rate above 40% an infringement on human rights? 50%? 90%?

Or none of it matters so long as people vote for it?

How about we put up taking everything from billionaires over $1 billion? If people vote for that, is that OK in your book, Tom?

You've asked many times what level of taxation is right. I don't have an answer for that, and neither do you. It's the wrong question.

I can think of two pertinent questions:

What do we as a society want?

How can we pay for it?

I've asked a simple question. You don't think that human rights should be put up to a vote. Fine.

You also seem to think that the state can appropriate whatever it can from an individual, using its monopoly on violence, simply based on a vote.

So, reconcile that for me, if you care to.

Does not the product of my labor, what I have been trained for, worked for, spend the most hours of my week on, does not that represent a human right to me?

If not, then surely you can take that to its natural end point. I'd like to see how you justify that.

pennboy2 said:

Does not the product of my labor, what I have been trained for, worked for, spend the most hours of my week on, does not that represent a human right to me?

) ) )

My money.

Yes, and? Or do you think I would work as hard as I do to support your family, strangers to me, as I do to support my family?

What profound ignorance.

Typical of the left in this country. Seeming so selfless and sincere, so holy.

And yet they have no idea how wealth is created, how societies progress, how humanity has prospered over these last 300 years.

They are really clueless.

Sounds like you got a cause right there. FYI, the government's over on this coast. My advice, if you're going to rent a van, use a pseudonym like G Fawkes or something.

pennboy2 said:

Yes, and? Or do you think I would work as hard as I do to support your family, strangers to me, as I do to support my family?

What profound ignorance.

Yes, it's all about you and your money. Always.

Now go to bed.

I just hope the people calling for this class warfare in our country have the intellectual integrity to call themselves the socialists that they are.

I respect the ones who do, as dumb as they are.

The ones who recoil from the adjective are the worst: clueless and dishonest.

TheRefuter said:

Pennboy:
"Everyone seemed to miss my point: Do I have no "human right" to the product of my labor? If what some of the Democrats are asking for gets adopted, many people in California will have marginal tax rates over 50%. Do they not have a right to keeping more of what is theirs than the government? What of those human rights?

The top 5% of wage earners pay 59% of the income tax in this country. When is it enough for some people?

Where do you look to history to say that your socialist ideas are good public policy?"



Everything that's wrong with this argument can be gleaned from the sentence:
'The top 5% of wage earners pay 59% of the income tax in this country.'

The top 5% are not the top wage earners . They are the people with the most wealth . And wealth, as everybody knows, is not created by relying on the fruits of your own labor. It is created by extracting profits from other people's labor . This is why rich people do not get rich by tending their vegetable garden. They get rich by employing other people, and extracting profit from their labor.

Pennboy is struggling intellectually with the difference between a simple society of self-subsistent vegetable growers,and a massive, complex, interdependent, industrial society, in which all labor is social labor, not individual provision for subsistence. When I say it's 'social' labor, I mean there are all kinds of social conditions that pre-exist and pre-determine the appearance of the worker at the workshop. These include things like health care, education, enculturation, etc. All of these things are social. And they form part of the costs of labor, costs which are not paid in wages, but rather in taxation so that society can generate the next generation of laborers.
When labor is always and of necessity social labor, the comment about a 'human right' to the product of your labor does not make sense, because if you employ other people, the 'product' of your labor will include the hidden social costs of labor, as well as (the largest part) the product of the labor of other people that is extracted as profit.

good post

ridski said:

I know this is kind of a moot point now, but something's been nagging at me and I figured here's as good a place as any to get a decent answer...

I have a question. Correct me if I'm wrong, which is highly possible, but the ticket you supported in the election, JLD, went out on the stump with a series of proposals which cut taxes and increased spending in some places and decreased some in others and which Paul Ryan claimed to be "revenue neutral". Doesn't "revenue neutral" mean that we would spending as much as we are taking in and vice versa?

If so, with that revenue neutral Romney/Ryan plan, how were we supposed to pay off this thing that was hanging up in full view of the Republican National Convention?

oh, you silly libs.

You always forget about the magical pony fairy dust that comes showering down on the economy to increase tax revenues when you cut taxes.

(don't ask me to explain the revenue neutral part though - that doesn't make any effing sense at all.)

pennboy2 said:

I just hope the people calling for this class warfare in our country have the intellectual integrity to call themselves the socialists that they are.

I respect the ones who do, as dumb as they are.

The ones who recoil from the adjective are the worst: clueless and dishonest.

when I read a pennboy post, it always makes me think of the guy who appears in this video at the 0:33 mark:

.

pennboy2 said:

Typical of the left in this country. Seeming so selfless and sincere, so holy.

And yet they have no idea how wealth is created, how societies progress, how humanity has prospered over these last 300 years.

They are really clueless.

You paint a large portion of the population with a broad brush, as if we all feel the same about everything. Then you insult us. You claim to know what we all know (as if we all have the same knowledge) when you do not know what I know or any other individuals know.

Do you wonder why people treat you as they do? Because I can explain it to you if you want. This sort of talk of yours is generally considered to be inconsiderate and unkind. I'm not saying it's right for people to retaliate, but it is something you can expect.

If I've embarrassed you by saying this publicly rather than privately, I'm sorry. If you'd prefer that the above comments were private, just let me know, and we can have it that way.

pennboy2 said:

I've asked a simple question. You don't think that human rights should be put up to a vote. Fine.

You also seem to think that the state can appropriate whatever it can from an individual, using its monopoly on violence, simply based on a vote.

So, reconcile that for me, if you care to.

Does not the product of my labor, what I have been trained for, worked for, spend the most hours of my week on, does not that represent a human right to me?

If not, then surely you can take that to its natural end point. I'd like to see how you justify that.

You act surprised that society works by making all members interdependent. If you think this isn't true, I don't know what you believe, but I can say most assuredly that people are indeed interdependent. We have formed institutions, collectively, one being government. While the boundaries of government are defined by violence (conquests from wars) or by threats of violence, inside the boundaries, we behave within a framework of willingness and consensus. Most laws are enacted without unanimous consent. Moral laws don't get passed without near unanimity. Or if they do, they are either not enforced or not heeded. Most other laws are passed by a simple majority of legislators. Legislators are elected by simple majorities of voters.

If you don't like a law, you can work to change it. Until then, you have to comply.

For the most part, this is how society wants things. If we didn't want things this way, we could change it, but we don't want to change it, so we haven't changed it.

I'm not sure what you believe, but if you think this description is inaccurate, you're mistaken.

And if you think it should be otherwise, good luck, but I don't think you (and those who agree with you) will succeed in building anything different. I'd be curious, though, to know what kind of society you'd prefer to see and be a member of.

If you can name a society that works (or worked) better than ours, I'd love to hear about it, whether it exists now or existed in the past.

So I pour my heart out, and that kills the thread?

Tom_Reingold said:

So I pour my heart out, and that kills the thread?

I've experienced that many times. Make a lucid and thoughtful response to the ravings and they ignore it.

Tom_Reingold said:

So I pour my heart out, and that kills the thread?

I appreciated you measured response. Mine wouldn't have been as calm, so I decided not to feed the troll.

pennboy2 said:

It is so tiresome, this "soak the rich" mentality from people who are not producers.

Liberals know nothing about history.

Hey, why do you think this country is so rich, because we've followed your socialist ideals? It's funny.

You do know that the top federal income tax rate never went below 50% between 1936 and 1986, and was above 70% from 1938-1970? It's amazing that the US was able to become the wealthiest and most powerful nation the world has ever known during this dark period of godless socialism.

http://www.data360.org/dsg.aspx?Data_Set_Group_Id=475

"It is so tiresome ..."

YES! (But we aren't talking about the same "IT".)

urbanprof, thank you for bringing that line back. I'll address it, too.

pennboy2 said:

It is so tiresome, this "soak the rich" mentality from people who are not producers.

You use a mistaken premise in that sentence, pennboy. Do you know who is a producer and who isn't? I find it insulting. I infer that you mean those who want to soak the rich must be non-producers.

I don't think there is a single person on MOL who is not a producer.

There are plenty of wealthy people who believe that higher taxes for the wealthy would be appropriate. So that shows one weakness of your premise.

We are all producers. I don't know why you think class warfare is a bad thing since you also create a separation that I don't see. If you earn money from your labor you are a producer. If you earn money from your investments, you are not a producer, but you are a contributor. And there is also production in the form of unpaid work, such as working as a stay-at-home parent. Can you name a single non-producer or non-contributor who advocates for higher taxes for the wealthy? I can't.

Let me see if I can come up with a list of non-contributors to society. This is not a complete list.

• Children - we don't expect them to contribute. We expect them to build skills and knowledge so they can contribute later.
  
• Infirm - They can't contribute
  
• Prisoners - If they do forced labor, that's a small contribution, but that's all, I guess
  
• Elderly - They've earned the right to rest from their lifelong contributions. Yet many of them do anyway.
  

Who else is on this list?

So I put these challenges to you:

• Please name a non-producer or non-contributor on MOL.
  
• If you see a division between the class of producers and non-producers, please reconcile with your dislike of class warfare.
  
• Not as important, but if you have classes of people or individuals to add to my list of non-contributors above, I'd like to see them.
  
  
  
  Thanks.

I guess some people find it impossible to wrap their minds around the notion that there are people who advocate for higher taxes on a group that includes themselves.

I have trouble wrapping my mind around people who base their political ideology around "what happens to MY money".

Tom_Reingold said:

You act surprised that society works by making all members interdependent. If you think this isn't true, I don't know what you believe, but I can say most assuredly that people are indeed interdependent. We have formed institutions, collectively, one being government. While the boundaries of government are defined by violence (conquests from wars) or by threats of violence, inside the boundaries, we behave within a framework of willingness and consensus. Most laws are enacted without unanimous consent. Moral laws don't get passed without near unanimity. Or if they do, they are either not enforced or not heeded. Most other laws are passed by a simple majority of legislators. Legislators are elected by simple majorities of voters.

If you don't like a law, you can work to change it. Until then, you have to comply.

For the most part, this is how society wants things. If we didn't want things this way, we could change it, but we don't want to change it, so we haven't changed it.

I'm not sure what you believe, but if you think this description is inaccurate, you're mistaken.

And if you think it should be otherwise, good luck, but I don't think you (and those who agree with you) will succeed in building anything different. I'd be curious, though, to know what kind of society you'd prefer to see and be a member of.

If you can name a society that works (or worked) better than ours, I'd love to hear about it, whether it exists now or existed in the past.

First of all, you didn't address my question about human rights in the slightest. You think that gay rights or abortion rights should not be put to a vote for some reason, and yet you think that the government confiscating the result of my labor can fully be put to a vote, no question. How do you reconcile that?

Let's put this to a vote: "All wealth over $50 million will become the property of the Federal government, and any income over $2 million will be taxed at 100%. Do you agree?"

And in your view if 51% of people agree with this it is fine. What about people's human rights to their wealth and income? Why are you so happy to put this up to a vote, the ability of me to control what is produced from my labor, and yet you don't think gay rights should be put to a vote?

Your fondness to confiscate the wealth of successful people is at odds with your conception of rights, and your embrace of socialist policies is at odds with the history of our nation.

The power to tax has been previously established. Changing tax rates does not involve a threat to human rights unless it is done in a manner deemed discriminatory. Of course, the wealthy may feel that they are being discriminated against and, if so, they can appeal to the courts. I haven't seen any evidence of wealthy people (or anyone else) calling for a referendum vote on taxation. But, if they did, it probably wouldn't go in the direction they'd prefer.

Returning to Clinton-era tax rates is "socialist policies at odds with the history of our nation?"

gibberellin said:

I have trouble wrapping my mind around people who base their political ideology around "what happens to MY money".

Honestly, I love this. This is liberal thinking at its best. How does this person think our society functions? How does this person think wealth is created? By me working really hard to create value for his family, and he does the same for mine?

I mean, it's perfect. They simultaneously manifest a deep ignorance of the last 300 years of economic history while simultaneously considering themselves so holy and selfless. I love it.

So the top 5% of income tax payers pay 59% of the income tax. Do you know where their income cuts off at? $154,000. Does anyone consider someone making a hundred and fifty grand "wealthy"?

The top 10% of income earners pay 70% of the tax burden.

How much is enough for people? Would you like them to pay 80%? 90%? All of it?

Do you think 10% of families paying income taxes, while 90% of people pay none is a good idea? I mean, we're almost there.

pennboy2 said:

So the top 5% of income tax payers pay 59% of the income tax. Do you know where their income cuts off at? $154,000. Does anyone consider someone making a hundred and fifty grand "wealthy"?

The top 10% of income earners pay 70% of the tax burden.

How much is enough for people? Would you like them to pay 80%? 90%? All of it?

Do you think 10% of families paying income taxes, while 90% of people pay none is a good idea? I mean, we're almost there.

Sounds you should've worked harder to get Romney elected. Too bad. Now cough it up, sucker...

The proportion of our nation's wealth that has shifted to a smaller percentage of the wealthiest has increased very significantly in the last couple of decades while the situation for middle class Americans has been stagnant at best. How is perpetuating or increasing that trend a good thing?

Methinks that some of our resident wealthy folks protest too much.

Annual income does not determine wealth. You of all people should know that.

I think I figured out before I'm in that 10%. If I was in the 5%, and made $154k, I'd have paid off my mortgage by now. That would leave me with more cash to invest and make me wealthier.