Time to redistribute the wealth . It's only fair.

[OscarLevant]

Why is this fair again? These people as a whole contributed what to equal the work done by the others? These contributions are measured by what? I'm just curious. Why is it fair that joe schmoe who never gets off his couch earns the same as chuck the worker who does two shifts a day? Maybe the guy who invented the vaccine saving billions of lives only spent a year at work and should really only get about 34k.

What's fair?

You're making assumptions about people who are disadvantaged, and you are doing this to frame an argument in a disingenuous fashion.

You can't ask a question with an assumed premise. Prove your premise, first, then ask the question.


As for vaccines, Bill Gates sent 2 million doses ( I forget the exact number) of a polio vax to india, which resulted in over 47,000 cases of (accute flaccid) paralysis.

Polio programme: let us declare victory and move on | Indian Journal of Medical Ethics

This shows that the non-polio AFP rate increases in proportion to the number of polio vaccine doses received in each area.

 

[Nap]

No, 25% on a zillionaire is a lot less than 25% on a poor person.

The correct percentage should be determined on ability to pay. Flat taxes are a gift to the rich, and a penalty to the poor.

I think your math is a bit off. Would you rather have 10% of 1,000,000 dollars or 10% of 1,000 dollars?

 

[Brochacholomigo]

Most of the "homeless" are mentally ill. Many on food stamps have jobs that don't pay enough to live. I know people who work 3 jobs, because each job doesn't pay enough to live. They work harder than most people.

Sadly, that truism about homeless people is becoming less and less accurate with every passing year. In California, for example, much of the homeless crisis is the result of individuals and families who can no longer pay for the exorbitant rent prices caused by gentrification. Granted, they may end up mentally ill from their situation.

 

[Nap]

Wealth redistribution is meaningless. What must be done is to restructure our system of property ownership in America - until the workers own their own means of production, we will only see escalating poverty and human misery. It's the inevitable course of all economic hierarchies.

Workers do own their own means of production.

Escalating poverty and human misery?

 

[Brochacholomigo]

Workers do own their own means of production.

Escalating poverty and human misery?

No, workers own their labor, which they must rent to whoever owns the means of production. A factory is the means by which cars are produced; the labor of workers produces those cars, but because the factory owner has a piece of paper that says he owns the factory, he gets the lion's share of wealth produced by the factory workers' labor. Those factory workers, where they are not protected by a labor union's collective bargaining power, will inevitably be paid as little as the factory owner can get away with, as he profits directly from doing so.

It's a fairly simple logical conclusion to decide that the factory owner is an unnecessary drain on his workers, who exists solely because of legal technicalities regarding the ownership of a factory.

 

[eohrnberger]

And no one loves "other people's money" than guys like Trump and big corporations who feed from the government trough.

There may be some of that. I'm no fan of crony capitalism, which isn't really capitalism after all.

The meme is appealing, but factually inaccurate in it's implication.

So where does all the money come from which the Socialists want to re-distribute? Oh, right. Other people's money.

 

[Nap]

No, workers own their labor, which they must rent to whoever owns the means of production. A factory is the means by which cars are produced; the labor of workers produces those cars, but because the factory owner has a piece of paper that says he owns the factory, he gets the lion's share of wealth produced by the factory workers' labor. Those factory workers, where they are not protected by a labor union's collective bargaining power, will inevitably be paid as little as the factory owner can get away with, as he profits directly from doing so.

It's a fairly simple logical conclusion to decide that the factory owner is an unnecessary drain on his workers, who exists solely because of legal technicalities regarding the ownership of a factory.

So a factory owner should just let people use his equipment and supply them with materials to produce the cars without any form of compensation?

The labor provided by the workers is their "means of production". A factory owner purchases that labor in a consensual agreement. Workers are free to pool their resources together and start their own business if they feel the risk is worthwhile.

 

[bave]

Yes, it does. We make such choices all the time.

Yea, not really. We have progressive taxes, but we do not have confiscation to provide. Your logic would extend to collective level organization.

Actually, we can decide that any time, and we do, or choose not to. We can decide whether the rich should more or hugely more, as we have as we changed our tax policies from pre-Reagan to now.

Net-effective tax rates over the past 100 years have moved slightly down for the rich, but massively down for the poor and middle class. While the welfare programs for the lower end of the spectrum have expanded massively.

No, that's why they received a lot of income (crudely explained as you did, there's more to it). Why they are so rich is because we don't tax them more and have an overall stronger economy with more opportunity, more productivity, and less poverty.

This is factually inaccurate and the driving reason why places like France and Sweden reversed course. They found that high taxes on wealth ended up with capital flight which caused significant damage to the economy, nation, and tax revenue as a whole.

Read the article I lined above and at least stop making some of your basic factually incorrect claims. EU rates are all over the map (literally), higher and lower, so let's look at a little US history, as profits used to be re-invested more, but as capital rates were lowered, people pocketed more of the gains, often taking them out of more productive uses. Again, facts.

The vast majority of the EU has much lower capital gains rates, even France and that's not even including state capital gains taxes. Your chart even shows the key point, lower capital gains generate higher revenues.

The American Bar Association: "A Wealth Tax is Constitutional"

Rather than read a 20 page opinion piece from the ABA, a notoriously liberal organization, I will defer to the SCOTUS which has struck down wealth taxes three times. I will wager they have a better handle on it.

On the one hand, this is why we need more global cooperation on taxation, including economic sanctions on countries that wouldn't cooperate. On the other, people don't just move out of the US as easily as you say, over, say, a 2%-3% tax as Warren suggests. It's an issue, but not as large of one as you say.

Flight we a bigger issue for countries people were less likely to leave - the US was an inviting alternative - for different taxes. But this is your strongest argument I've seen and deserves consideration how to mitigate it.

Ok, so barring a global order, you are screwed. You can't even get states on the same page on taxes, yet you want to do it with global tax regimes? A 2-3% wealth tax is enormous, it effectively doubles the effect of inflation, and then some. Capital would hit the doors like crazy. The idea that you are going to sanction places like Ireland and the UK over their taxes being lower is insane.

 

[Brochacholomigo]

So a factory owner should just let people use his equipment and supply them with materials to produce the cars without any form of compensation?

No, the factory owner should get a real job and stop living off of working people's labor. Everything a business owner does is entirely replaceable with workplace democracy, in the form of worker-owned cooperatives, like the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is collectively owned by their 70,000+ workers.

The labor provided by the workers is their "means of production". A factory owner purchases that labor in a consensual agreement. Workers are free to pool their resources together and start their own business if they feel the risk is worthwhile.

First off, labor is not the means of production. It is the input that makes the means of production productive. A factory worker with no factory to work in produces no cars, regardless of the fact that he still has his ability to work. Consent to subpar wages in the face of homelessness and starvation is no more consent than sex exchanged with a criminal in exchange for not being murdered. And pooling one's resources to start a business is easier said than done when business owners have leeched so much wealth out of the working class that 80 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

 

[bave]

No, the factory owner should get a real job and stop living off of working people's labor. Everything a business owner does is entirely replaceable with workplace democracy, in the form of worker-owned cooperatives, like the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is collectively owned by their 70,000+ workers.

Then what's stopping you from starting and running these cooperatives? Just go ahead and do it....

 

[Nap]

No, the factory owner should get a real job and stop living off of working people's labor. Everything a business owner does is entirely replaceable with workplace democracy, in the form of worker-owned cooperatives, like the Mondragon Corporation in Spain, which is collectively owned by their 70,000+ workers.



First off, labor is not the means of production. It is the input that makes the means of production productive. A factory worker with no factory to work in produces no cars, regardless of the fact that he still has his ability to work. Consent to subpar wages in the face of homelessness and starvation is no more consent than sex exchanged with a criminal in exchange for not being murdered. And pooling one's resources to start a business is easier said than done when business owners have leeched so much wealth out of the working class that 80 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.

And workers are free to start their own business so that someone else isn't profiting off of them. Bezos started selling books out of his freaking garage.

Their labor is what the workers produce and thus their body is their "means of production". A worker in a factory doesn't produce a car, he loads a couple of parts into a jig and hits a button.

 

[nota bene]

Moderator's Warning:

Necro'd thread closed.