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Criticism of billionairism

VanceMack said:
When will you learn?

If you cap wealth, the super wealthy will take their wealth elsewhere. If the super wealthy stop generating wealth YOU DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY GET WEALTHY. NO ONE gets wealthy. See...the reason the super rich get super rich is because they are busting their ass and EARNING it. And NOTHING is stopping you from earning your OWN. But you dont get to take someone elses **** just because THEY make it and you dont/cant/wont. And if you decide to try, and have enough idiots in congress to support the idea, then the super rich will simply take their ball and go home. And then you will be DOUBLY ****ed. No...triply ****ed. Because you wont have their wealth, you wont have anyone to take care of you, and you wont have anyone to blame for your failures.
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Who is talking about capping wealth? What high top income tax rates do is encourage corporations to find other uses for their profits than executive compensation. No one needs or can spend $10 or $20 million in a year. It is absurd to pay that much.
 
What if...? said:
The whole "the rich will just leave" bit requires the uber wealthy to he doing something other than they are.

They are competing with each other. Hindbrain status games.

So I'm not sure where they're gonna go where the status seekers there are gonna go for new competition right in their backyard. Using THEIR cheap labor and using THEIR golf courses. What if some American buys the biggest house in Lithuania?
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That's true. If their assets are in America, they pay U.S. taxes. It doesn't matter where they physically reside. (e.g. you don't escape U.S. taxes if your investments are in the U.S. but you live in the North Pole.)

So, it would require these rich folk to sell everything (and pay capital gains taxes) and reinvest somewhere else, usually in a place that has just as high a tax-rate.

As an aside, that's one argument for not lowering corporate taxes and capital gains taxes: About 40% of stocks are owned by foreigners -- which means that when Congress lowers taxes, 40% of the benefits go to foreigners. Some "America First" policy, huh?
 
iguanaman said:
Who is talking about capping wealth? What high top income tax rates do is encourage corporations to find other uses for their profits than executive compensation. No one needs or can spend $10 or $20 million in a year. It is absurd to pay that much.
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Any time you have a discussion that includes the starting dialogue "income instead is dispersed" you expose your true motive...steal from the rich.

No one is keeping you from being successful. Certainly no that rich person.

Well...thats not true. There is that person that stares back at you from the mirror when you brush your teeth in the morning.
 
VanceMack said:
Any time you have a discussion that includes the starting dialogue "income instead is dispersed" you expose your true motive...steal from the rich.

No one is keeping you from being successful. Certainly no that rich person.

Well...thats not true. There is that person that stares back at you from the mirror when you brush your teeth in the morning.
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Theft! Tyranny! OK, I hear you. This can’t be argued on rational grounds; I think there are a lot more important moral issues in the world than defending the right of the rich to keep their money, but whatever.

My point, then, is that this claim-- and the lionization of high earners as people who make a vast contribution to society -- is not, in fact, something that comes out of the free-market economic principles these people claim to believe in. Even if you believe that the top 1% or better yet the top 0.1% are actually earning the money they make, what they contribute is what they get, and they deserve no special tax treatment.

We have a country that requires money and that means taxes. So, we can either keep taxes low on the rich, which means raising it for everyone else, cutting programs for Americans or raising the debt. That's them choices.
 
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VanceMack said:
Any time you have a discussion that includes the starting dialogue "income instead is dispersed" you expose your true motive...steal from the rich.

No one is keeping you from being successful. Certainly no that rich person.

Well...thats not true. There is that person that stares back at you from the mirror when you brush your teeth in the morning.
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The failure of corporations to share their increased profits with their workers is the main problem with our middle class. This is also the main cause for our slowed GDP growth as less and less of profits goes to those that spend it in the economy. This hurts everybody but no group more than the middle class. The data is quite clear on this.

The divergence between productivity and labor (including wage compensation and employment) is the key to understanding rising income inequality, the stagnation of average wages, and the current state of our jobless, 1-percent-oriented recovery. “Productivity and the compensation of the typical worker grew in tandem over the early postwar period until the 1970s,” writes Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute. “However, the experience of the vast majority of workers in recent decades has been that productivity growth actually provides only the potential for rising living standards.” In reality, average wage growth has stagnated, while the gap between productivity and compensation has accelerated.
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thp_20170926_thirteen_facts_wage_growth_figb.jpg
 
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grainbelt said:
I hypothesize that supporting, subsidizing, or protecting the creation or sustenance of billionaires is antithetical to supporting a strong middle class and in turn a strong consumer capitalist economy.

If you get the idea that removing a middle man from a supply chain could lower cost and enrich the whole thing, you should also get that removing the billionaire at the top could do something similar. By not having to appease the billionaires big ROI, income instead is dispersed at lower levels amongst more people and spent much more efficiently in the economy. To this end, progressive taxation, enforcement of tax and other white collar laws, anti trust laws, all need to be strengthened and enforced. Competition needs to be restored as a necessary pillar of our form of capitalism. Worker and consumer rights need to be elevated. Small businesses should be incentivized further. And the various governments need to stop pandering to mega conglomerates. This kills competition!

Theres no leeway for more corporatist judicial decisions or laws. They are middle class killers that suck the wealth and opportunity out and away from the working class.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
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Money is power and if you are richer than some smaller Nations you have a lot of power and it is my view that individuals should not have that much power.

But limiting incomes has a whole host of problems though I think the complications that arise out of it can be addressed via legislation
 
VanceMack said:
Any time you have a discussion that includes the starting dialogue "income instead is dispersed" you expose your true motive...steal from the rich.

No one is keeping you from being successful. Certainly no that rich person.

Well...thats not true. There is that person that stares back at you from the mirror when you brush your teeth in the morning.
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And the rich don't steal?

In my view paying somebody less than they need to live is theft of the American taxpayer since those persons will have to apply for welfare food stamps etc.

You are thinking in simplistic black and white terms and reality is much more nuanced and complicated than that
 
iguanaman said:
Tax rates influence behavior. That is the purpose of high rates on top earners. It was never about revenue.
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So billionaires raise the pay of workers when tax rates increase?
 
American said:
So billionaires raise the pay of workers when tax rates increase?
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Or they can invest in their business or any other tax deductible expense. History shows us they are understandably adverse to paying the govt. 70% of their top rate income. Very few paid those rates when they were in effect. CEO's made 20 times their workers salaries instead of 300 times back then. Why is that do you think?

ceo-compensation-ratio-2016.png
 
OscarLevant said:
Money is power and if you are richer than some smaller Nations you have a lot of power and it is my view that individuals should not have that much power.

But limiting incomes has a whole host of problems though I think the complications that arise out of it can be addressed via legislation
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Agreed and I don't think a tax on wealth would fly here anyway but when you are in a hole the 1st thing to do is stop digging. A rethinking of our tax structure and inheritance taxes to discourage the massing of wealth will go a long way to evening things out over time.
 
iguanaman said:
That is not a wealth tax it is land tax. A wealth tax is based on net worth of ALL assets.
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Yer blowing smoke, a "wealth tax" CAN be on all assets, it can also be targeted....but the point is, you made a claim that a wealth tax would not fly, yet we have an example of of an asset that is currently taxed in the US....and it does indeed "fly".
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Gimmesometruth said:
Yer blowing smoke, a "wealth tax" CAN be on all assets, it can also be targeted....but the point is, you made a claim that a wealth tax would not fly, yet we have an example of of an asset that is currently taxed in the US....and it does indeed "fly".
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Real estate taxes are levied by State and local Govts. and really have no bearing on this discussion of Federal taxes. But true wealth taxes have been proposed by David Stockton and others as a way to pay down Federal debt. That is what I was discussing.

David Stockman is at it again. The Reagan-era budget director caused an uproar in 1981 by publicly decrying the moves of his boss to spur the economy with tax cuts. Now a private investor and author, he's pushing for a huge new tax on big earners. Stockman would subject the nation's top 10% of households to a levy equal to 30% of their wealth, payable over a decade. Without it, he maintains, the U.S. will wind up in a horrific, Greece-style debt wreck.
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https://www.barrons.com/articles/david-stockman-soak-the-rich-1381515461
 
iguanaman said:
Real estate taxes are levied by State and local Govts. and really have no bearing on this discussion of Federal taxes. But true wealth taxes have been proposed by David Stockton and others as a way to pay down Federal debt. That is what I was discussing.


https://www.barrons.com/articles/david-stockman-soak-the-rich-1381515461
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Yer blowing more smoke, I was not making a point about whether an asset is taxed at the state, county or local level, the point was that assets are taxed in the US. They have been for a long time, asset owner in the US have accepted it, it is not new, it has "flown for a long time.

I could care less about what scheme you have in your mind, I am correcting a VERY basic blind spot you had.


Accept it or not, whatever.
 
Gimmesometruth said:
Yer blowing more smoke, I was not making a point about whether an asset is taxed at the state, county or local level, the point was that assets are taxed in the US. They have been for a long time, asset owner in the US have accepted it, it is not new, it has "flown for a long time.

I could care less about what scheme you have in your mind, I am correcting a VERY basic blind spot you had.


Accept it or not, whatever.
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LOL So then it would be a small step to implement a 30% tax on the net worth of the top 10% then? I mean we are all used to property taxes so this is just a little extension, Right? We could pay back many trillions of our debt which is a good thing ,right?
 
Still not getting why that growing 1% is good?

There were 15.4 Millionaires & billionaires in this country in 2017(0.04% country). Federal, state and and local government spent: 6.9T. To have those people pay all taxes would cost: $448,051 / person. Top 1% medium income is $521,411 / household. That would put a tax rate: 85%: New medium take-home income: $73,360 {about the expenses of a upper middle class lifestyle}

What about the other 99.96% of people? If the same total burden was on just that 207 million people ages 18-65 who make under $100,000 income [90.85%] = 188 million. Total tax burden of $36,702 / person. Medium income by survey $31,099 / person. Tax: 118%. New medium income -$5,603 [lifestyle = abject poverty].

US netted 36% tax bringing in 6.1T of the 6.9T spent. To do so we have a highly complicated tax code and many different methods to raise it for the federal, state and local levels. The same net result could be had, by two step rate income alone: 100,000+ & <100,000: 25% below and 60% above. Keeping in mind that eliminates all other forms of taxes except income. If we keep the others(combining only SI & income) its 25% & 47%. This would have still produced more than 2017 tax revenues and have a surplus at all levels.

My first point is all these tax programs are clealry more social engineering than about fairness or need. I guarantee you a society with less social engineering is a good thing. My second point, is without this growing the 1%[growing fast] taxes go up for the average and by a lot. The flater the curve the higher your tax. I would like to live in society who give at east are bottom 1/5 a 0% rate. They need every penny they earn not government dependence.
 
MTAtech said:
So, you are saying that the U.S. can't afford what other countries have been doing for decades, namely, providing health coverage for all the people? Why do you have such little faith in the ability of this nation?
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The US spends more per capita on government healthcare than other nation and yet the US is still deeply in debt over the growing huge increasing unsustainable costs of 'free' care. Democrats came up with the Obamacare tax hike scheme but that plan did not pan out for them and ended up adding more trillions to the US debt.
 
marke said:
The US spends more per capita on government healthcare than other nation and yet the US is still deeply in debt over the growing huge increasing unsustainable costs of 'free' care. Democrats came up with the Obamacare tax hike scheme but that plan did not pan out for them and ended up adding more trillions to the US debt.
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Yes, countries that have government run, single payer systems have less expenses while providing better medical results than our private system. What can we learn from this?
 
grainbelt said:
I hypothesize that supporting, subsidizing, or protecting the creation or sustenance of billionaires is antithetical to supporting a strong middle class and in turn a strong consumer capitalist economy.
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All you have to do is tax unproductive activities at higher rates.

But yes, I'm in full agreement. When Jeff Bezos has billions and his workers are on welfare, then something is wrong.

Amazon has 600,000 employees.
Jeff Bezos has $150 billion.

Take just an extra $1 billion per year from him, and employees get a nice $1500 bonus that they can use to buy more Amazon products and increase profits.

It's not hard. Just pay your employees well. Capitalist dogma obscures gross injustice.
 
marke said:
Is that what godless universities are teaching in America now? To stop entrepreneurship so the little guy can make more money? That is stupid. At least Trump understands that people need to take risks in starting businesses which hire people and to get those entrepreneurs to take those risks there will of necessity be the promise of wealth to obtained if successful. Only an idiot would take the risk to start a business if he knew there would be no money in it.
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Who is talking about removing all compensation for entrepreneurs? Would people stop being entrepreneurs if they could only make millions instead of billions?
 
VanceMack said:
When will you learn?

If you cap wealth, the super wealthy will take their wealth elsewhere. If the super wealthy stop generating wealth YOU DO NOT AUTOMATICALLY GET WEALTHY. NO ONE gets wealthy. See...the reason the super rich get super rich is because they are busting their ass and EARNING it. And NOTHING is stopping you from earning your OWN. But you dont get to take someone elses **** just because THEY make it and you dont/cant/wont. And if you decide to try, and have enough idiots in congress to support the idea, then the super rich will simply take their ball and go home. And then you will be DOUBLY ****ed. No...triply ****ed. Because you wont have their wealth, you wont have anyone to take care of you, and you wont have anyone to blame for your failures.
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That may be true for some, but a lot of wealth is also created for doing nothing more then what employees do all the time. Do you really think Bill Gates worked hundreds of millions of times harder then a programmer at Microsoft.
 
Vadinho said:
That may be true for some, but a lot of wealth is also created for doing nothing more then what employees do all the time. Do you really think Bill Gates worked hundreds of millions of times harder then a programmer at Microsoft.
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Why do you think there IS a Microsoft?
 
MTAtech said:
Yes, countries that have government run, single payer systems have less expenses while providing better medical results than our private system. What can we learn from this?
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Just because other countries seem to be having success does very little to rescue the American government from deep debt and ongoing fiscal troubles resulting from its current unsustainable 'free' healthcare programs. Changing the program proved to be disastrous in the Obamacare rollout. Leftist liberals still have hope universal healthcare will eventually prove successful in America if we can just make it more mandatory, more universal and raise taxes high enough to supposedly be able to sustain it, but reasonable people are right to doubt such hype and hope.
 
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