1Perry
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I'm betting you could help 1-2 families improve their lot in life. When do you suppose you'll start?
If Paris Hilton's family could help thousands of working-poor families rise from "barely getting by" to "doing all right", by cutting back a little on their extravagant lifestyles, is that really so horrible?
I've always said no to wealth redistribution before... but I'm starting to have my doubts.
I'm betting you could help 1-2 families improve their lot in life. When do you suppose you'll start?
http://www.debatepolitics.com/economics/90108-truth-can-afford-pay-taxes.html....You're the first person making this type of argument, to succeed in convincing me that you have a point. Congratulations.
me said:'Flattax' is better but still Impossibly Regressive.
You simply can't raise the rates on the low/middle at all. (while lowering it on the rich)
Someone who makes 26k - aka Walmart, our largest employer- simply can't pay the same, ie, 25% as someone who makes 300k, or 300M.
In past years we have had to regularly send out stimulous checks (which are progressive and mean more to the bottom) to keep the whole system running.. at all.
Yes the proof of the pudding is even the big guys and the congress they finance have to send out some goodies so their Stock portfolios don't collapse because the Bulk of consumers can't afford that computer or car.
No, what's need is to leave the rates alone.. just add a bracket 50%, for those making over $1 Mil a year. (and perhaps return the cap gains/Divs tax to what it was before the Bush Halving of those rates).
That would return us to our more traditional top marginal rates when we were a 'socialist' country.
Normally I don't like to brag about what I do charity wise, but in this case I'll answer the implied question: I'm already helping 2 families improve their lot in life, even though I'm not exactly swimming in cash either... I gave one family a car to use when theirs fell apart, and I bring the other family groceries and a little cash when they run short. I found one of them a job and persuaded the boss to hire him. I also offer lots of suggestions and moral support.
I'd do more if I could, but I'm just a land-poor country boy living on the old family farm, so I do what I can.
Now you know that I put my money where my mouth is, so let's get off the subject of me and back to whether Paris Hilton would absolutely perish if her allowance was halved. :lol:
Okay.... we've established that a 50% tax on the very rich (top 1% or so), directly redistributed to the lower 25% of households, would have a substantial benefit to their quality of life.... yet at the same time, leaving the rich plenty for themselves.
So... we could do this.
Should we? Is it moral, ethical, wise and prudent? Now that we know what the effects would be, I think this is the more intresting question.
Would it be so terrible for Jessica Alba or Mila Kunis do have to service a random number of men drawn from a voter's list? It's no skin off my nose, (see how calmly I can lay out this scenario - depriving OTHER PEOPLE of their rights is easy to talk about) just like it's no skin off your nose if Theresa Hines-Kerry has her money stolen from her.Would it be so terrible if Theresa Hines-Kerry only got to keep ten million a year instead of twenty million?
But most of that bottom 25% works hard. Many of them have two jobs. Many of those households have a Daddy who works 40-60 hrs a week and comes home worn out and sweaty.... but just doesn't make a lot of money because his job isn't valued by the marketplace so much.
In December 2007, Paris Hilton's grandfather, Barron Hilton, pledged 97 percent of his estate (the Hilton family fortune) to a charitable organization founded by his father, Conrad N. Hilton, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation.[98] As a result, the inheritance of his grandchildren is sharply diminished.[99][100] An immediate pledge of $1.2 billion was made (the proceeds of the sale of Hilton Hotels Corporation), with a further $1.1 billion due after his death.[98] He cited the actions of his father, Conrad N. Hilton, as the motivation for his pledge.[98] Conrad, Barron's father, had left 97% of his estate to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundaton and Barron subsequently contested his father's will to win back a sizeable amount of the Hilton family fortune in a settlement.[101] By leaving his estate to the Foundation, Barron is donating not only the fortune he has amassed on his own, but he is also returning the Hilton family fortune amassed by his father, Conrad, to the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, where it would have gone over 30 years ago had Barron not contested his father's will
Similarly, we can establish that forcing all women between the ages of 18 and 28 to take on randonly assigned sex partners from the pool of men who are not experiencing the mean level of sexual encounters per year would create a substantial benefit to the quality of life of these men. . . . yet at the same time leaving these young women plenty of time to have sexual encounters with the men of their choice, be they their husbands, fiances, boyfriends, friends with benefits, or just random men who they are sexually attracted to.
.....Similarly there are obese men, men with bad body odor, men with rotten teeth, men with atrocious personalities, men with violent streaks, etc who just can't entice women into sexual relationships. Think of how much their self-esteem would improve if they could look forward to a twice monthly service call from some young women who is forced to have sex with him.
That's totally awesome. The Conrad Hilton Foundation gave away 100 million in grants last year. I sincerely applaud them. That institution was founded by Conrad Hilton, who died quite some time ago.
Not all the Hiltons were thrilled by this... Barron contested it and apparently kept most of it from being given to charity for about three decades...\
Hilton International's annual revenue is 8.162 Billion. Also founded by Conrad.
From what I can gather, poor Paris may only inherit around 33 million dollars... poor dear, however will she survive?
This doesn't really have a lot to do with the question of principle I proposed however....
Is is wise/prudent/moral to coerce about a million very-wealthy households to live a little less extravagantly, so that over 28 million households can make the difference between barely-hanging-on and we're-doing-okay?
Before personal attacks start flying at me, I'd like to note that I've posed that question... I haven't answered it. I haven't answered it because I remain uncertain... I've never supported wealth redistribution in my life, and this would be a major change, and I'm still thinking about it.
and we have to ask what have those who are being given all this do in return?
They fix your car, deliver your pizza, take care of your children at the Daycare, clean up your office building and polish the marble floor, park your car, fix your lunch and ring it up and hand it to you, dry-clean your suits, landscape your yard, read your gas/electric/water meters, cut your trees so they don't fall on the house, try to arrest criminals so you and yours are a little safer, put out fires and rescue people from burning houses, come get you in the ambulance when you think you're having a heart attack and take you to the hospital while reassuring you with gentle words that you'll be all right; they cut the grass and trim the trees in the graveyard where your parents are buried, man the guard shack in your gated subdivision and try to keep the riffraff out, cook that fine meal you had at the Italian restaurant, serve it and bring your drinks, make your mocha latte and serve it to you at the coffee shop, stand in the road wearing a yellow vest to make sure your children cross the street safely in front of the school, clean up after you when you barf in a public restroom, and other useful things many people don't really want to do for a living.
I'd like to see some proof of the assumption that most of those in that group are hardworking.
They fix your car, deliver your pizza, take care of your children at the Daycare, clean up your office building and polish the marble floor, park your car, fix your lunch and ring it up and hand it to you, dry-clean your suits, landscape your yard, read your gas/electric/water meters,
cut your trees so they don't fall on the house, try to arrest criminals so you and yours are a little safer, put out fires and rescue people from burning houses, come get you in the ambulance when you think you're having a heart attack and take you to the hospital while reassuring you with gentle words that you'll be all right;
they cut the grass and trim the trees in the graveyard where your parents are buried, man the guard shack in your gated subdivision and try to keep the riffraff out, cook that fine meal you had at the Italian restaurant, serve it and bring your drinks,
make your mocha latte and serve it to you at the coffee shop, stand in the road wearing a yellow vest to make sure your children cross the street safely in front of the school, clean up after you when you barf in a public restroom, and other useful things many people don't really want to do for a living.
mbig said:washunut said:What I find interesting is that people are fixated on income disparity in the U.S. but fail to question why a factory worker here deserves to be paid $30 per hour while someone in Asia is paid $2 per hour and is just productive.
And why someone gets paid $3000 an hour at Goldman Sachs vs a math teacher of the same ability who makes $30 an hour in a High School and contributes More to society. (perhaps several of those very GS traders)
If you wants stats, I can try to look them up... but I can tell you right now, half of the people I know are in the bottom 25%, and most of them work very hard. Most have at least one full time job, unless they've been laid off, in which case most are busting ass to find a new job... because the unemployment payments barely cover their bills.
They do a lot of things that are needful and make life a lot nicer for others in the end, even though the market doesn't value those jobs so much.... see my list above.
IF they do all that they are getting PAID for it.
Yup.
Let me tell you a little story, a true story.
It's about an emergency medical technician (EMT) who worked in Charlotte NC, a substantial metro city.
He worked some hard-ass hours, let me tell you, and saw every ugly thing you can imagine going on in a big city. He dealt with some really scummy people and saved their lives despite themselves. He also saved the lives of prosperous suburbanites and rushed many a pregnant mother to the delivery room. He risked exposure to HIV, Hep-C, tuberculosis, resistant TB, and other possible pathogens every night. He dealt with druggies and small children, accident victims and middle-aged men with heart attacks, mentally disturbed persons and criminals, mothers and assholes.
In 2001 he was getting paid $12 an hour for this privilege.
He spent several years going to school part time to upgrade his certs to the highest paramedic levels. When he finished, his new wage came to a whopping $14 an hour.
Yup, he got paid. He also got fed up and took a job as a contractor in Afganistan for 120k a year. Now Charlotte lost a quality paramedic.
Are ya seeing my point?
half the people YOU KNOW?
sorry Goshin that doesn't cut it. You have to understand, if there are people willing to work doing the stuff you find undervalued for the market rate than that wage is "fair" objectively. if people are not willing to say clean up crap in a bathroom for 6 bucks an hour then those who hire such workers are gonna need to pay 7 bucks an hour
taxing the rich to make up for the fact that enough labor can be obtained for low paying jobs at the going rate is really silly IMHO
yeah, the man was not happy with his wages so he showed some initiative and got a job that paid him what he wanted. God Bless Him.
so what you are saying is that I should be taxed more to subsidize wages for jobs that have too many people willing to work for too low wages?
Is there something shocking about that? I don't live in a gated subdivision Turtle... I live in rural SC, a poor state where a factory job that pays $16/hr is considered very good money by most folks.
I also know several millionaires quite well.... I get around. :lol:
I've long thought so myself.... but I begin to have my doubts. If by simply requiring the top 1% to live in merely great luxury rather than unbelieveable luxury, the bottom 25% can be moved from "barely able to make it IF nothing goes wrong" to "doing okay".... perhaps it is worth a little thought at least.
I'm fairly sure you don't want to dry clean your own suits, do all your own landscaping, fix your own car all the time, clean out your own septic tank, paint your own house, drive yourself to the hospital when you think you might pass out or die any second (instead of the EMTs), clean up your own puke in the public toilet, serve yourself at the fine restaurant, so on and so on. You might do some of these yourself, but not all of them... don't those who do these dirty jobs deserve a living wage?
I'm saying that if every EMT did likewise, you might find yourself short of medical transportation when you have that inevitable heart attack.
If you think most of the top one percent live in GREAT luxury I can understand why the rest of your posts say what they say. Many of those in the top one percent (which is a family income of 375K or so or more) live in places like LA, SF, NYC, Chicago and Boston and that sort of income is not exactly Great luxury.
what is a living wage? if people are willing to do the job competently for the going wage I find it idiotic to say that the "rich"ought to subsidize their wages.
I reject your anti market position and why should the top 1% subsidize these wages when far more than the top one percent benefit (using your view) from these "artificially low" (your terms) wages?
They don't "steal from the poor" they just get taxed 1/3-1/2 of the Top rate they did 30-60 years ago.Does Paul McCartney-who plays to my town tomorrow night at 150 bucks a ticket STEAL from the Poor? Does LeBron James steal from the poor? Does Bill Gates steal from the poor? OR's sloppy thinking pretends that anyone who gives a great deal of value in return for high wages or expensive tickets is "stealing" from the poor
its such crap but they have to engage in this nonsense in order to justify the government stealing the wealth back. If they conceded that an entertainer like Jimmy Page or Bill Cosby earns great wealth honestly then their justifications for massive taxes pretty well evaporate other than their back up position
FROM EACH ACCORDING to their ability. But its so much easier to justify confiscatory tax rates when you have convinced yourself that the wealthy stole the money in the first place
and then the wages would have to rise to obtain a suitable number of competent EMTs
its how the market works
They fix your car, deliver your pizza, take care of your children at the Daycare, clean up your office building and polish the marble floor, park your car, fix your lunch and ring it up and hand it to you, dry-clean your suits, landscape your yard, read your gas/electric/water meters, cut your trees so they don't fall on the house, try to arrest criminals so you and yours are a little safer, put out fires and rescue people from burning houses, come get you in the ambulance when you think you're having a heart attack and take you to the hospital while reassuring you with gentle words that you'll be all right; they cut the grass and trim the trees in the graveyard where your parents are buried, man the guard shack in your gated subdivision and try to keep the riffraff out, cook that fine meal you had at the Italian restaurant, serve it and bring your drinks, make your mocha latte and serve it to you at the coffee shop, stand in the road wearing a yellow vest to make sure your children cross the street safely in front of the school, clean up after you when you barf in a public restroom, and other useful things many people don't really want to do for a living.
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