The wealthiest person you know is probably still on the horizontal part of the graph that begins this video. This is wealth inequality. Taxing those obscene amounts of money at the top end isn't going to make any of them even notice, much less go hungry. (via Digg)
After WWII, during the Eisenhower administration, when the US economy was growing like crazy and we were helping rebuild Europe, the tax rate for the top end of the rich income was 90%.
I am opposed to the concept of punishing successful people, but they do use the infrastructure of our land to continue making a buck. Why should they not pay their fair share for our highways, postal systems, and more?
That's the way I feel, jimjim. If you have 100 million dollars, and the government wants a million of it, that's hardly a punishment. You'd never feel the difference. But that million would make a big difference in some school system's ability to buy new books, or a bunch of single mothers trying to stock the refrigerator.
I’m not an economist, but if you want to “tax wealth”, isn’t the easy way to allow inflation to rise? Inflation causes all cash assets to depreciate, so anyone with a mountain of cash is encouraged to spend it, putting it back into circulation.
Just as a rising tide raises all boats, an ebb tide lowers them. Inflation is not something that only hits the rich.
Haven't you ever saved up money to be able to buy something, only to find out that the price had gone up over the intervening time? That's inflation, and it hits everybody. In fact, one of the few things it doesn't hit is debt. That's why we are now a credit-card, cashless society. We incur a debt today for 'X' dollars, and expect that by the time we pay it off we are earning more dollars because of adjustments for inflation.
I don't know about "not punishing the successful". Far too often they are not so much successful as greedy and believe themselves above the rules that apply to commoners like us. For example, the current college admission investigation.
I also cannot fathom why people support CEOs etc who make obscenly more than the people who work for them. I worked in government and I can tell you that I didn't make in a day what my staff made in a year.
But keep believe the myth. They are counting on it.
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After WWII, during the Eisenhower administration, when the US economy was growing like crazy and we were helping rebuild Europe, the tax rate for the top end of the rich income was 90%.
I am opposed to the concept of punishing successful people, but they do use the infrastructure of our land to continue making a buck.
Why should they not pay their fair share for our highways, postal systems, and more?
That's the way I feel, jimjim. If you have 100 million dollars, and the government wants a million of it, that's hardly a punishment. You'd never feel the difference. But that million would make a big difference in some school system's ability to buy new books, or a bunch of single mothers trying to stock the refrigerator.
I’m not an economist, but if you want to “tax wealth”, isn’t the easy way to allow inflation to rise? Inflation causes all cash assets to depreciate, so anyone with a mountain of cash is encouraged to spend it, putting it back into circulation.
Just as a rising tide raises all boats, an ebb tide lowers them. Inflation is not something that only hits the rich.
Haven't you ever saved up money to be able to buy something, only to find out that the price had gone up over the intervening time? That's inflation, and it hits everybody. In fact, one of the few things it doesn't hit is debt. That's why we are now a credit-card, cashless society. We incur a debt today for 'X' dollars, and expect that by the time we pay it off we are earning more dollars because of adjustments for inflation.
I don't know about "not punishing the successful". Far too often they are not so much successful as greedy and believe themselves above the rules that apply to commoners like us. For example, the current college admission investigation.
I also cannot fathom why people support CEOs etc who make obscenly more than the people who work for them. I worked in government and I can tell you that I didn't make in a day what my staff made in a year.
But keep believe the myth. They are counting on it.
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