Joe Steel
DP Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2007
- Messages
- 3,054
- Reaction score
- 560
- Location
- St. Louis, Missouri, USA
- Gender
- Undisclosed
- Political Leaning
- Very Liberal
... I do not agree that a U.S. court should address land title claims made "legal" by a long dead king of England. England may have "stolen" the land but the U.S. then took that land from England. Would you advocate refunding the taxes paid on that land and awarding the current land holder compensation for any improvements made to that land over the last 300+ years?
The current owner of the land may have a clear title to it and hold it lawfully. That's not the issue. This is a question of morality. Is their possession of the land just. Someone took the land from its rightful owner, native Americans, and profited from it. Presumably the benefit of that seizure has been passed along to all subsequent holders. Taking the land or a portion of its value is no more unjust than making the possessor of stolen personal property return it to its rightful owner.
The current owner of the land may have a clear title to it and hold it lawfully. That's not the issue. This is a question of morality. Is their possession of the land just. Someone took the land from its rightful owner, native Americans, and profited from it. Presumably the benefit of that seizure has been passed along to all subsequent holders. Taking the land or a portion of its value is no more unjust than making the possessor of stolen personal property return it to its rightful owner.
It certainly isn't ALL luck, but in completely denying the existence of luck, you are falling straight into the Fundamental Attribution Error.
Humans are not perfect and theoretical models based on that assumption are flawed. Nobody is omniscient about market conditions and many agents intentionally muddle and obfuscate knowledge to maximize their own gains. Also, expecting everyone (or even a strong minority of people) to expend every last cognitive resource maximizing their economic output is unrealistic.
Designing an economic system around those that live to work runs roughshod over those that only work to live. The former should certainly be remunerated for their dedication, but they are driven more by their need to be productive than the possibility of endless accumulation. Establishing diminishing returns on their accumulation will not thwart their impetus, but it will prevent their accumulation from causing the economy to sputter and stall out.
I definitely agree that the latter should be discouraged from burdening society with their lack of productivity. But my view is that wealth pooling at the top and stagnating the velocity of money is a much larger problem than the freeloaders.
(I have AdBlock filtering out all Youtube videos, so sorry for not even mentioning its content)
False, Please revise your premise and all subsequent conclusions.The top 1% of this country pay next to no taxes
Either I corrected Northern lights error with the appropriate facts, or I did not. Which are you claiming? You appear to be making some ad hom, and then proceeding to detail some entirely irrelevant claims of your own. I may address them, but I need to be clear if you first accepted my correct of his misinformation, with the clearly understandable CBO documentation on the fact that the top 1% pays the highest federal tax rate, and the highest share of the overall federal tax burden.You're smarter than that...That or you're insulting our intelligence.
False, Please revise your premise and all subsequent conclusions.
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/43373-AverageTaxRates_screen.pdf
Top 1% pays, progressively, the very highest share of the overall tax burden compared to all other percentiles.
Top 1% pays, progressively, the very highest average federal tax rate.
Either I corrected Northern lights error with the appropriate facts, or I did not. Which are you claiming? You appear to be making some ad hom, and then proceeding to detail some entirely irrelevant claims of your own. I may address them, but I need to be clear if you first accepted my correct of his misinformation, with the clearly understandable CBO documentation on the fact that the top 1% pays the highest federal tax rate, and the highest share of the overall federal tax burden.
After accumulating a certain level of wealth accumulating more is just keeping score. The accumulator is doing it more because of his competitive instinct that to serve the needs of the community. Taking some of his wealth won't diminish his efforts because it's just part of the game.
It certainly diminishes the efforts of those given "help" in the form of income redistribution. If you require $X, in order to live comfortably, does it then really matter what portion of $X is earned by your own efforts verses simply handed to you because you are deemed to "need" or "deserve" it?
Exactly. Once someone has "enough" (whatever that might be for a particular person), then all the additional wealth that they accumulate is essentially just "points" in the financial game of life. If we reduced the number of points, or the rate that they could accumulate points, then we aren't really doing anyone harm, as long as everyone's ability to obtain those points is retarded equally (and yes, I fully expect someone to make a crack about me using the word "retarded").
Thats true, but redistribution doesn't have to happen by directly "giving" anyone anything. It could be done by just having a more progressive income tax rate, or a higher minimum wage.
Those "points" create jobs. Why would I ever open an additional business if you were just going to take all my profits away and leave me paying for all my losses?
Thats why we shouldn't have a 100% income tax. I'm not advocating for that, it would result in the ruination of our economy. Thats why I said "if we reduce...the rate that they could accumulate points". I never said that we should have an absolute maximum wage or wealth level.
We need just enough redistributive mechanisms that all income classes increase in income/wealth at about the same rate. A rising tide lifts all boats at the same rate.
Otherwise, eventually, all wealth would accumulate in the hands of the few, and our economy would end.
If we could find that amount of redistribution, I believe it would result in the best possible economy, with the vast majority of people, rich or poor, living the best standard of living that our technology would allow.
Many low income folks already pay ZERO federal income tax, you can't get more progressive than that without giving them something. Minimum wage hikes would have to be huge to beat what is now offered - remember that social "safety net" benefits are based on household size not working skills. To "earn" enough to get to 150% of the federal poverty level for 3 person household ($29,295) would require over $14/hour for a single full-time worker. Much of that added "earnings" would add nothing to their current household budget, since it would be offset by reductions in social "safety net" benefits.
Still won't work. Whether or not I choose to going shopping at Walmart or on Wall Street will affect my wealth accumulation more so than any government policy can. In addition, giving everybody twice as much money will make no difference because the poor will still be relatively poor. You would be be removing the incentive for people to make better decisions.
I didn't say that we should "give" everyone twice as much money. I said that we should pay lower end workers more.
We have already established that increases in the minimum wage have NEVER in history caused inflation to the same degree (%) as the min wage increase.
And I guess that you don't think that my suggestions on taxation would "work" either.
The only thing increasing minimum wage does is freeze out more entry level people the would like to enter the workforce...
Do you have any actual historic facts which prove that?
You should look at teen unemployment levels...
I didn't say that we should "give" everyone twice as much money. I said that we should pay lower end workers more.
We have already established that increases in the minimum wage have NEVER in history caused inflation to the same degree (%) as the min wage increase.
And I guess that you don't think that my suggestions on taxation would "work" either.
Doesn't change that people will not accumulate wealth.
We need to have consumption taxes, not more income taxes. It encourages people to invest by punishing them for consuming.
It will lead to more thoughtful purchases over time. People say we shouldn't do it when the economy is bad because it costs jobs and we shouldn't do it when the economy is good because it will derail the economy. It is the only rational way we are going to close the wealth gap unless we completely overhaul the pay system to away from an hour's cash for an hour's work.
People being held responsible, or in this case, having real goods taken from them, for what was done under 'proceeds of war' would open a Pandora's box of unimaginable proportions. We're not talking one or two generations here.
No ... The native Americans didn't "Own" the land, it was the commons, you cannot "own" the commons, no one can.
Justice is justice. If we don't do everything necessary to remediate the injustice, those who would commit injustice can be successful by making it overwhelming. We can't say fixing it is too hard because that would create an advantage for the offender.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?