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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:33
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No...people with specific characteristics are bad....
Translation: If they have more than me, they MUST be lazy capitalist b@stards who stole it!
Izzat about right? 
The original title of the thread is "Tax the Rich!!!" and I'm all for that.
If we're gonna have taxes....if we have decided to use taxation to fund the government and all its various programs, then everybody needs to pay.
Further, everybody needs to pay according to their means. That means that the wealthy pay more, both in terms of absolute dollars, AND in terms of higher tax percentages. The folks who NEED said government programs are certainly not in a position to fund them on their own, and the money's gotta come from someplace, so it seems fairly logical that it's gonna have to come from those who won't miss it as much.
In this country, if you got money, it's about as hard to make more as it is to fall down after ten rounds with Jose Cuervo. If you don't have two nickles to rub together, it's a bit tougher to get started, much less to pay a hefty tax bill AND get started.
It's pretty clear then, where that leaves us.
-=Vel=-
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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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This is exactly why the estate tax seems like the most sensible of the tax methods to me. If we start with the assumption that people should get to keep all of the money they earn and that the government is not entitled to any of it, then taxing money that people do not earn appears to be the obvious and least damaging (since It cannot contribute to transgfering money from people who earned it to people who did not) way of funding government spending.
The last thing libertarians should want is a society where hard work and intelligence are less likely to make you rich than transfers of wealth that you did not earn.
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Velociryx
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of Candle'Bre
Apr 1999
time: 05:33
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What the heck is the matter with YOU? 
The logic is absurd in the extreme.
First, you (and not you specifically, "you" generically) go off spouting all this jazz 'bout how people who inherit tons of money just live off the fat (which, by definition, means that their wealth is declining....which further means that, if it continues long enough they will no longer be "rich"), and then, without even stopping for a commercial break, you say that the most common way to get rich is to inherit it.
Just how many "rich" people do you think there ARE in the US, anyways?
If thousands of newly rich people are creating themselves in this country each year, and if that's a trend that has held true since the fifties (and it has), then don't you think that, mathematically, the sum total of people who have bootstrapped their way to wealth would surpass those who got it the old fashioned way?
I mean...c'mon...it ain't rocket science, but hey...I'm game...show me some numbers. Source it. I'd love to see the data if I'm wrong.
-=Vel=-
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Geronimo
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st cloud USA
Jan 1970
time: 05:33
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quote:
Originally posted by KrazyHorse
The income of parents is by far the best single predictor of a child's probable future income. |
Amen.
and that is totally contrary to the ideals that liberitarians appeal to when justifying their economic model.
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chegitz guevara
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Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:33
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quote:
Originally posted by Velociryx
Massage those numbers enough, and I'll bet we can work it so that the USofA has 25% unemployment, too! |
Not really. Nine percent is the best we can come up with, not counting the under-employed, which would only kick it up a little more.
quote:
Then everybody could take my statistics as the gospel truth! |
You ask for the math then belittle it when you get it? 
quote:
There just aren't that many "old money" familiies in this country, guy. |
Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. Just because you don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there. Old money is rarely ostentatious. They don't flaunt their wealth. But it's there. Trust me, I've known a few and dated the daughters of a couple.
Furthermore, generational transfer doesn't mean the wealth is that old. Look at the Kennedies. They're relatively new money. Joe Kennedy was a rum runner during prohihibition, that's how he made his fortune, he was a gangster. We're only three generations down from him.
I have no idea how far back the Gates fortune goes, but Bill Gates was rich before he ever made a deal with IBM. In fact, he got to meat with IBM because his mother was on the BoD of a Bank with the Chairman of IBM.
quote:
This country is a money making machine, and yes, those who have money to start with have an easier time at making more, but opportunities abound. |
Which is not to say that it's easy for everyone to become rich. You look at absolute numbers, 10,000 people, and say Wow! But there's 293,000,000 Americans. Ten thousand isn't even a whole percent of that. It's less than one percent of one percent. That doesn't strike me as particularly easy to get rich any given year.
Last edited by chegitz guevara on 30-07-2004 at 05:10
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30-07-2004 03:50
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