2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Tigers!]

I have the incredibly naïve thought that districts should be, as much as is possible given the varying geography of each state, perfect squares. of uniform size. It's a fantasy, but it would be interesting to see.

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.
It will not give you 'nice shaped' or equally sized districts but they will be geographically contiguous i.e. a continuous line can be drawn around the district, no gaps and no pieces elsewhere. The areas of the districts will vary according to population density but that does not matter. Number of noses, just number of noses.
Largest and smallest electorates in Australia based upon area

Yeah, I have suggested something like this.

1) Divide the state into a whole bunch of chunks. Things like every big street etc.

2) Draw districts made out of those chunks so as to minimize the total boundary length. State borders are considered to have zero length, as well as things like major rivers, impassible terrain etc. All districts must be within a defined percentage of equal.

When you say that "All districts must be within a defines percentage of equal" what is the criteria that needs to be equal? Area, population, ??
Because the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) enforces the principle of "one vote, one value" to ensure equal voting power, the total number of enrolled voters per electorate remains relatively uniform (averaging roughly 110,000 voters) despite the staggering differences in physical size.

Rules can't be changed for the next election, only for subsequent elections.

Hmmm

 

[Bomb#20]

I have the incredibly naïve thought that districts should be, as much as is possible given the varying geography of each state, perfect squares. of uniform size. It's a fantasy, but it would be interesting to see.

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.
It will not give you 'nice shaped' or equally sized districts but they will be geographically contiguous i.e. a continuous line can be drawn around the district, no gaps and no pieces elsewhere. The areas of the districts will vary according to population density but that does not matter. Number of noses, just number of noses.

Yeah, I have suggested something like this.

1) Divide the state into a whole bunch of chunks. Things like every big street etc.

2) Draw districts made out of those chunks so as to minimize the total boundary length. State borders are considered to have zero length, as well as things like major rivers, impassible terrain etc. All districts must be within a defined percentage of equal.

Rules can't be changed for the next election, only for subsequent elections.

As you know I consider all this to be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic -- the whole concept of geographic districts is fatally flawed and anachronistic as hell since it's a solution to 18th-century communication technology limitations that no longer exist.

But that said, if we're stuck with them, it used to be customary to draw boundaries that theoretically held together communities of interest to some degree, following city and county boundary lines and so forth. Perfect squares, minimal total boundary length and similar systems are completely unrelated to the geography of who has anything in common with whom. So if we've decided that doesn't matter, there's a better method than any of the proposals I've seen. It has the great merits that (1) its "defined percentage of equal" is 100% -- there's no arbitrary "close enough" number to leave some people's vote counting more than others'. (2) it's physically impossible to game it. And (3) it's trivial to compute so anybody with a database of where people live can verify for himself that it wasn't gamed. It works like this: (Step A) if there are P people and N seats, let X = P / N be the number of people in each district. (Step B) for each person {i}, count how many people S{i} live further south than person {i}. (Step C) let D{i} = floor(S{i} / X) be person {i}'s district number. Which is to say, every district boundary is a single east-west line running the whole width of the state.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Thomas Massie of KY-04 lost the Republican primary to former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, 45% to 55%. It was the most expensive US House primary ever, at $32 million, with AIPAC and two like-minded groups spending $16 million against him.

AI ‘deepfake’ ads attack Massie and Gallrein in northern Kentucky GOP primary

The new ad attacking Massie from MAGA KY PAC shows a fake video of him holding hands with Democratic congressional members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar as they check into a hotel, implying they go into a room together. The first words on the screen read “Thomas Massie caught in a throuple!”

In white letters at the bottom of the ad, which includes faked CCTV footage and tabloid-style photos, it states “This satirical ad was created with artificial intelligence.”

Also,

A month ago, Gallrein was also falsely depicted in an ad by Kentucky 4th PAC, which supports Massie. In an AI-generated video, a scared Gallrein flees from a Trump rally and, in another clip, Gallrein appears to flee from a battlefield as Trump shoots at unseen enemies. It does not include any apparent disclosures that AI was used.

“Trump was in the foxhole,” the narrator says, “Woke Eddie Gallrein tucked his tail and ran.”

That's even worse than the billboards I see around here.

And why in the world is calling it "satirical" a reasonable defense against defamation?

We've started early voting and all I see are a bunch of I'm Trumpiest proclamations.

 

[Tigers!]

I have the incredibly naïve thought that districts should be, as much as is possible given the varying geography of each state, perfect squares. of uniform size. It's a fantasy, but it would be interesting to see.

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.
It will not give you 'nice shaped' or equally sized districts but they will be geographically contiguous i.e. a continuous line can be drawn around the district, no gaps and no pieces elsewhere. The areas of the districts will vary according to population density but that does not matter. Number of noses, just number of noses.

Yeah, I have suggested something like this.

1) Divide the state into a whole bunch of chunks. Things like every big street etc.

2) Draw districts made out of those chunks so as to minimize the total boundary length. State borders are considered to have zero length, as well as things like major rivers, impassible terrain etc. All districts must be within a defined percentage of equal.

Rules can't be changed for the next election, only for subsequent elections.

As you know I consider all this to be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic -- the whole concept of geographic districts is fatally flawed and anachronistic as hell since it's a solution to 18th-century communication technology limitations that no longer exist.

But that said, if we're stuck with them, it used to be customary to draw boundaries that theoretically held together communities of interest to some degree, following city and county boundary lines and so forth.

Why do communities need to be held together? We are talking about looking after the common good , not just a community good. This is where you need your state, federal, local electorates.

Perfect squares, minimal total boundary length and similar systems are completely unrelated to the geography of who has anything in common with whom. So if we've decided that doesn't matter, there's a better method than any of the proposals I've seen. It has the great merits that (1) its "defined percentage of equal" is 100% -- there's no arbitrary "close enough" number to leave some people's vote counting more than others'. (2) it's physically impossible to game it. And (3) it's trivial to compute so anybody with a database of where people live can verify for himself that it wasn't gamed. It works like this: (Step A) if there are P people and N seats, let X = P / N be the number of people in each district. (Step B) for each person {i}, count how many people S{i} live further south than person {i}. (Step C) let D{i} = floor(S{i} / X) be person {i}'s district number. Which is to say, every district boundary is a single east-west line running the whole width of the state.

Indeed population density needs to be considered. But if N citizens/district is the aim then the area of the district should/will not be an issue.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC), an independent body reporting only to the Commonwealth Parliament, working within state boundaries, a legacy of our colonial part and federated structure, is responsible for the drawing of electoral boundaries. No pollies, no political parties involved.
The AEC has set N at approx. 110,000 eligible voters, not people. From that the electorates are drawn. So far should be quite plausible.
The AEC does not put a physical limit on the size of electorates, only numeric.
Thus our electorates can vary greatly in size.
Largest Electorate (By Land Area)

• Name: Division of Durack
• Location: Northern and central Western Australia
• Size: Approximately 1,410,947km^2. It covers roughly 56% of Western Australia and is larger than many countries.

Smallest Electorate (By Land Area)

• Name: Division of Wentworth
• Location: Sydney, New South Wales (encompassing the eastern suburbs)
• Size: Approximately 31km^2.
• Comparison: Durack is about 45,000x smaller in area than Durack.

But so what? Size is not everything.
By no means perfect but it reduces the problems of colour, creed, how the area voted last time etc.

 

[Elixir]

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.

Sounds like such a straightforward, simple and logical idea at first glance.
Until you look at the BIG picture.
Capriciously, randomly disenfranchising noseless people might not look too fishy at first glance, until you realize that the noseless are already a repressed class of citizens.
But leave it to those big-nosed Australian conservatives to turn their noses up at the innocently noseless. I guess they fear that letting the noseless vote, could some day saddle them with a noseless majority in leadership.

 

[Tigers!]

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.

Sounds like such a straightforward, simple and logical idea at first glance.
Until you look at the BIG picture.
Capriciously, randomly disenfranchising noseless people might not look too fishy at first glance, until you realize that the noseless are already a repressed class of citizens.
But leave it to those big-nosed Australian conservatives to turn their noses up at the innocently noseless. I guess they fear that letting the noseless vote, could some day saddle them with a noseless majority in leadership.

I will not pretend I have any idea what you are trying to say.

 

[Bomb#20]

Of course we are. We are subsidizing any employer who pays employees so poorly that they must supplement their income by food stamps, Medicaid, and other poverty relief measures. We are subsidizing them by increased number of children who need to go to subsidized daycares, Head Start programs, be in Medicaid, or free lunch programs, etc.

That's religious catechism, not economic reasoning. If a guy does not have the skill set to increase any employer's revenue enough to cover the cost of supporting himself and his family, he has a problem. When an employer buys the guy's labor at fair market value, she's solving part of his problem for him. If you solve part of somebody's problem, that does not magically make his whole problem your problem. You might as well claim his food stamps are a subsidy to his grocer because the grocer doesn't sell him $500 worth of food for the $200 he can earn himself.

We also are subsidizing all corporations by building infrastructure: roads, water and sewer, utilities, etc.

Corporations pay corporate income taxes that help finance that infrastructure. You haven't shown the tax revenue is less than the cost of providing the service.
<more exchange snipped>

Did you swallow whatever Loren drinks and now must rely on denigrating any argument t against which you cannot defend by calling it religion?

This is ignorant even for you. You can snatch some verbiage off of AI all you want t but that dies t mean you actually understand the terms or their usage or basic economics.

I'm pretty sure I've been pointing out how loaded progressivism is with religious thinking longer than Loren's been doing it; I've definitely been pointing out the irrationality of the "We are subsidizing any employer who pays employees so poorly that they must supplement their income by food stamps" argument a lot longer than verbiage-spewing AIs have been a thing. If you want to claim I cannot defend against it then it's kind of odd for you to quote my defense against it back to me. I've taken basic economics and the prof and textbook never made the claim progressives endlessly preach. And if the religion bit bugs you so much, how about I stop accusing you of religion and you stop accusing people of racism? Deal?

You have not shown how corporations DO pay enough tax to offset their demands for new infrastructure not their use of existing infrastructure.

That's called "reversing burden of proof". You're the one claimed they don't. Accusations aren't true by default when people have not shown them to be false. You have not shown you didn't kill Jimmy Hoffa.

What is this <expletive deleted> elitist corporate worshipping crappoloa about it being workers fault that local entities allow Walmart to wipe out local businesses leaving local people little choice about their employer

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Abd then criticizing the workers for not offering enough value to the corporations?

Take off your English-into-Progressivese Google Translate device and, in the words of Judge Judy, put on your listening ears. What I wrote wasn't a criticism of workers. It was a criticism of your argument. Food stamps et al. are a subsidy to the workers, not to the employers.

Corporations exist to provide goods and services to people—and profits to shareholders, of course. Which would not exist without people wishing to buy what the corporation sells.

People do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders.

Your lips to the progressivism god's ears. People do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders. Say it to yourself a hundred times, just to make sure you have it down. Then reason from it! Follow its implications to where they lead.

When we give someone with $1700 in wages another $300 in food stamps, we do it because he is our fellow man and we value him at at least $2000. From this it does not follow that his labor is also worth at least $2000. He himself can be worth more than his labor is worth, because he himself is more than his labor, because people do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders!

 

[Bomb#20]

The dynamic in play in ‘Murka conceals billionaires’ consumption of “public” assets, largely by privatizing what was once accessible to the public - but that effect is never accounted for.

It's been going on for a long time. As described in the well known 18th century quatrain by that prolific author, Anon:

They hang the man and flog the woman,
Who steals a goose from off the common,
But leave the greater rascal loose,
Who steals the common from the goose.

Um, you do know that "the common" was not a public asset, don't you?

To translate into modern terminology, "the common" was private property with a whole lot of easements. The land was all owned by a guy called "the lord of the manor"; the easements were held by a legally defined set of "commoners" who had rights in customary law to use that portion of the lord's land categorized as "the common" for specific purposes to a specific extent. Bill Smith might inherit the right to run up to ten geese on Lord Farquaad's common for purposes of feeding on what they could find. The so-called "Tragedy of the Commons" so often used as an excuse to justify enclosure wasn't a real thing, because all those easements and restrictions were engineered to prevent it.

So when somebody stole a goose from off the common, he wasn't a poacher hunting wildlife; he was a stranger stealing from a local poor man, or else one of the commoners stealing from one of his own neighbors. When the greater rascal stole the common from the goose, he wasn't privatizing what was once accessible to the public -- it was never accessible to the public. Enclosure, typically committed by Lord Farquaad himself so he could use the common for growing sheep for the wool trade instead of food for the tenants, meant canceling all those bloody easements. Sometimes it was consensual -- he paid off all the commoners to agree to give up their easements, or the commoners all agreed to divide the common up into private farms -- but all too often it was coerced. The point is, when that happened the greater rascal who stole the common wasn't stealing from the public. He was stealing from all those local easement holders. It was all private* property from beginning to end.

(* To the extent that Britain has such a thing. Every bit of land is ultimately owned by the King; to be a landowner is to hold part of a hereditary fief.)

 

[Bomb#20]

I said taxing someone not to raise revenue but in order to hurt them -- to tax them so heavily you kill their incentive to produce more wealth and thereby reduce revenue -- is treating them as an enemy. Sanders-style 100% tax brackets and Toni-style billionaire elimination treat the uber-wealthy as an enemy.

But Eisenhower’s ~91% top marginal rate didn’t seem to create a lot of enmity, or inhibit innovation, or keep the Uber wealthy from becoming even wealthier.
...
I keep harping on that model because I think it was superior in every regard,

Well, that's why I didn't say you and Eisenhower were treating them as the enemy. It was Truman's 91% rate, by the way; Eisenhower and Kennedy inherited it.

The first American billionaires (JD Rockefeller, Henry Ford) had died by Eisenhower’s time. No new billionaires were created during the Eisenhower administration*
...
* possible exception, JP Getty whose wealth was estimated at over 700m in 1957

Yes, Getty is the one I had in mind. (HL Hunt probably became a billionaire back in the Truman administration, Howard Hughes in the Kennedy administration.)

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I have the incredibly naïve thought that districts should be, as much as is possible given the varying geography of each state, perfect squares. of uniform size. It's a fantasy, but it would be interesting to see.

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.
It will not give you 'nice shaped' or equally sized districts but they will be geographically contiguous i.e. a continuous line can be drawn around the district, no gaps and no pieces elsewhere. The areas of the districts will vary according to population density but that does not matter. Number of noses, just number of noses.

Yeah, I have suggested something like this.

1) Divide the state into a whole bunch of chunks. Things like every big street etc.

2) Draw districts made out of those chunks so as to minimize the total boundary length. State borders are considered to have zero length, as well as things like major rivers, impassible terrain etc. All districts must be within a defined percentage of equal.

Rules can't be changed for the next election, only for subsequent elections.

As you know I consider all this to be rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic -- the whole concept of geographic districts is fatally flawed and anachronistic as hell since it's a solution to 18th-century communication technology limitations that no longer exist.

So a person in Maine can legislate for Oregon because communication is good? In my field of work, going out to a site is worth a hundred times more in data than using Google Earth.

But that said, if we're stuck with them, it used to be customary to draw boundaries that theoretically held together communities of interest to some degree, following city and county boundary lines and so forth. Perfect squares, minimal total boundary length and similar systems are completely unrelated to the geography of who has anything in common with whom. So if we've decided that doesn't matter, there's a better method than any of the proposals I've seen. It has the great merits that (1) its "defined percentage of equal" is 100% -- there's no arbitrary "close enough" number to leave some people's vote counting more than others'. (2) it's physically impossible to game it. And (3) it's trivial to compute so anybody with a database of where people live can verify for himself that it wasn't gamed. It works like this: (Step A) if there are P people and N seats, let X = P / N be the number of people in each district. (Step B) for each person {i}, count how many people S{i} live further south than person {i}. (Step C) let D{i} = floor(S{i} / X) be person {i}'s district number. Which is to say, every district boundary is a single east-west line running the whole width of the state.

I agree that it'd be nice to use geometry and math to manage a political situation as it can be more antiseptic. However, the problem isn't drawing lines, it is who is doing it and their ambition in doing so. And they ain't going to support changing a system to one that makes it harder to game and cost them seats.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

You make electorates, districts based solely upon number of noses. Pick a number N and all districts need to be that size =/-%N.
The key is N is solely numeric. You do not concern yourself with what colour the noses are or how they voted large time. Just numeric.

Sounds like such a straightforward, simple and logical idea at first glance.
Until you look at the BIG picture.
Capriciously, randomly disenfranchising noseless people might not look too fishy at first glance, until you realize that the noseless are already a repressed class of citizens.
But leave it to those big-nosed Australian conservatives to turn their noses up at the innocently noseless. I guess they fear that letting the noseless vote, could some day saddle them with a noseless majority in leadership.

I will not pretend I have any idea what you are trying to say.

That isn't a surprise, seeing your solution provides no more guidance than the Constitution does. You seem to be unaware that states can be split up into roughly an infinite number of orientations if you just count noses. How in the heck do you think that solved anything?

 

[laughing dog]

Of course we are. We are subsidizing any employer who pays employees so poorly that they must supplement their income by food stamps, Medicaid, and other poverty relief measures. We are subsidizing them by increased number of children who need to go to subsidized daycares, Head Start programs, be in Medicaid, or free lunch programs, etc.

That's religious catechism, not economic reasoning. If a guy does not have the skill set to increase any employer's revenue enough to cover the cost of supporting himself and his family, he has a problem. When an employer buys the guy's labor at fair market value, she's solving part of his problem for him. If you solve part of somebody's problem, that does not magically make his whole problem your problem. You might as well claim his food stamps are a subsidy to his grocer because the grocer doesn't sell him $500 worth of food for the $200 he can earn himself.

We also are subsidizing all corporations by building infrastructure: roads, water and sewer, utilities, etc.

Corporations pay corporate income taxes that help finance that infrastructure. You haven't shown the tax revenue is less than the cost of providing the service.
<more exchange snipped>

Did you swallow whatever Loren drinks and now must rely on denigrating any argument t against which you cannot defend by calling it religion?

This is ignorant even for you. You can snatch some verbiage off of AI all you want t but that dies t mean you actually understand the terms or their usage or basic economics.

I'm pretty sure I've been pointing out how loaded progressivism is with religious thinking longer than Loren's been doing it; I've definitely been pointing out the irrationality of the "We are subsidizing any employer who pays employees so poorly that they must supplement their income by food stamps" argument a lot longer than verbiage-spewing AIs have been a thing. If you want to claim I cannot defend against it then it's kind of odd for you to quote my defense against it back to me. I've taken basic economics and the prof and textbook never made the claim progressives endlessly preach. And if the religion bit bugs you so much, how about I stop accusing you of religion and you stop accusing people of racism? Deal?

You have not shown how corporations DO pay enough tax to offset their demands for new infrastructure not their use of existing infrastructure.

That's called "reversing burden of proof". You're the one claimed they don't. Accusations aren't true by default when people have not shown them to be false. You have not shown you didn't kill Jimmy Hoffa.

What is this <expletive deleted> elitist corporate worshipping crappoloa about it being workers fault that local entities allow Walmart to wipe out local businesses leaving local people little choice about their employer

I didn't say anything of the sort.

Abd then criticizing the workers for not offering enough value to the corporations?

Take off your English-into-Progressivese Google Translate device and, in the words of Judge Judy, put on your listening ears. What I wrote wasn't a criticism of workers. It was a criticism of your argument. Food stamps et al. are a subsidy to the workers, not to the employers.

Corporations exist to provide goods and services to people—and profits to shareholders, of course. Which would not exist without people wishing to buy what the corporation sells.

People do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders.

Your lips to the progressivism god's ears. People do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders. Say it to yourself a hundred times, just to make sure you have it down. Then reason from it! Follow its implications to where they lead.

When we give someone with $1700 in wages another $300 in food stamps, we do it because he is our fellow man and we value him at at least $2000. From this it does not follow that his labor is also worth at least $2000. He himself can be worth more than his labor is worth, because he himself is more than his labor, because people do not exist to benefit corporations, increase their profits or to benefit shareholders!

Your analysis is based on the assumption of a competitive labor market with fully informed economic agents (i.e. that workers are paid their contribution to production). That model is a valuable starting point to looking at labor markets, but the underlying assumptions make it an unrealistic depiction.

 

[Toni]

The dynamic in play in ‘Murka conceals billionaires’ consumption of “public” assets, largely by privatizing what was once accessible to the public - but that effect is never accounted for.

It's been going on for a long time. As described in the well known 18th century quatrain by that prolific author, Anon:

They hang the man and flog the woman,
Who steals a goose from off the common,
But leave the greater rascal loose,
Who steals the common from the goose.

Um, you do know that "the common" was not a public asset, don't you?

To translate into modern terminology, "the common" was private property with a whole lot of easements. The land was all owned by a guy called "the lord of the manor"; the easements were held by a legally defined set of "commoners" who had rights in customary law to use that portion of the lord's land categorized as "the common" for specific purposes to a specific extent. Bill Smith might inherit the right to run up to ten geese on Lord Farquaad's common for purposes of feeding on what they could find. The so-called "Tragedy of the Commons" so often used as an excuse to justify enclosure wasn't a real thing, because all those easements and restrictions were engineered to prevent it.

So when somebody stole a goose from off the common, he wasn't a poacher hunting wildlife; he was a stranger stealing from a local poor man, or else one of the commoners stealing from one of his own neighbors. When the greater rascal stole the common from the goose, he wasn't privatizing what was once accessible to the public -- it was never accessible to the public. Enclosure, typically committed by Lord Farquaad himself so he could use the common for growing sheep for the wool trade instead of food for the tenants, meant canceling all those bloody easements. Sometimes it was consensual -- he paid off all the commoners to agree to give up their easements, or the commoners all agreed to divide the common up into private farms -- but all too often it was coerced. The point is, when that happened the greater rascal who stole the common wasn't stealing from the public. He was stealing from all those local easement holders. It was all private* property from beginning to end.

(* To the extent that Britain has such a thing. Every bit of land is ultimately owned by the King; to be a landowner is to hold part of a hereditary fief.)

In the US, the commons is a public square or park. In the US, if something is public, it is owned by and open to the public.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Tax rates are and should continue to be progressive. Someone who has an income of $1B would still have an income of $90M if they paid 91% income tax without loopholes.

I have zero respect for anyone who cannot manage to get by on that.

The problem here is that you seem to assume they will just lie back and think of England.

When I say there should be no billionaires and that at least part of the problem is the tax code, it is for a more than one reason: Yes, to raise tax revenues but also because we have demonstrated over and over again that we do not expect billionaires to follow the same laws that we do. We allow billionaires to have an outsize influence over every aspect of society, including law enforcement. They have far too great an influence over elections ( end Citizens United) and they have far far too great an influence over legislators and it appears these days, courts and federal and state agencies.

THAT undermines our democracy and what is turning our country into a kleptocracy.

We should all object to that.

Taxing billionaires out of existence won't produce very much revenue. There simply aren't enough of them.

And you are reacting the the actions of a few. Not all are evil.

 

[Toni]

Tax rates are and should continue to be progressive. Someone who has an income of $1B would still have an income of $90M if they paid 91% income tax without loopholes.

I have zero respect for anyone who cannot manage to get by on that.

The problem here is that you seem to assume they will just lie back and think of England.

When I say there should be no billionaires and that at least part of the problem is the tax code, it is for a more than one reason: Yes, to raise tax revenues but also because we have demonstrated over and over again that we do not expect billionaires to follow the same laws that we do. We allow billionaires to have an outsize influence over every aspect of society, including law enforcement. They have far too great an influence over elections ( end Citizens United) and they have far far too great an influence over legislators and it appears these days, courts and federal and state agencies.

THAT undermines our democracy and what is turning our country into a kleptocracy.

We should all object to that.

Taxing billionaires out of existence won't produce very much revenue. There simply aren't enough of them.

And you are reacting the the actions of a few. Not all are evil.

You are not understanding me. Not all drunks are evil but none should be behind the steering wheel.

It's the same principle: I don't think that all billionaires are evil. I think that it is evil that there are billionaires. I think that it is evil that there are billionaires because we treat them differently than we treat people with less wealth, much less than poor people. THAT is the evil.

Just like you don't give a loaded gun to a toddler who doesn't have the sense to know not to use it, we cannot allow billionaires because we have shown over and over and over again that we don't have the sense to treat them like everyone else. Personally, I don't really get why people like the idea of royalty but it seems hard wired into people's psyche, or at least a significant number of them. While I respect many people for being better human beings or more accomplished, more talented, etc. than I am, I do not consider any human being to be a better human being or entitled to rights that I do not also enjoy-or to be a lesser human being entitled to fewer rights than I enjoy.

I don't know what is different about me compared with those who drool over Kardashians or whoever but I know that there is a difference and I think it is absolutely constitutional: built into us.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The higher the income, the more political power, especially at the billionaire strata. Which, imo, is incompatible with a democratic republic.

Why would you think that? There have been hundreds of democratic republics. When has there ever been a democratic republic where high income people didn't have more political power than low-income people? The only country I know of where high income people didn't have more political power than low-income people was the one where Stalin died owning 900 rubles, six tobacco pipes, and a few shirts, pants and boots. The policies it takes to prevent higher income leading to more political power -- abolition of free speech, for one -- are incompatible with a democratic republic.

And the lack of personal possessions is an illusion.

Whether he directly owned things or simply was given control over them makes no real difference to society. (It does matter at a personal level, though, because it ensures loyalty to the system. If they can take away everything because you disagreed with them...)

 

[Toni]

The higher the income, the more political power, especially at the billionaire strata. Which, imo, is incompatible with a democratic republic.

Why would you think that? There have been hundreds of democratic republics. When has there ever been a democratic republic where high income people didn't have more political power than low-income people? The only country I know of where high income people didn't have more political power than low-income people was the one where Stalin died owning 900 rubles, six tobacco pipes, and a few shirts, pants and boots. The policies it takes to prevent higher income leading to more political power -- abolition of free speech, for one -- are incompatible with a democratic republic.

And the lack of personal possessions is an illusion.

Whether he directly owned things or simply was given control over them makes no real difference to society. (It does matter at a personal level, though, because it ensures loyalty to the system. If they can take away everything because you disagreed with them...)

I'm not at all certain it matters at a personal level. Not actually owning a piece of property does not matter if you have the power to sell or destroy or improve that piece of property and to benefit from that action.

I understand having corporate jets: they are convenient for those who own them. Pardon me: for those corporations which own them. But essentially, for all practical purposes, they are owned by whichever executive is impowered to use them. The janitor cannot use it or compel its use for him to travel to visit family or get medical treatment or to attend a conference. Only one or perhaps a few people are allowed to use them because only one or a few people are considered important enough to use them. The difference is really only who is liable for any damage done and who gets the tax write off.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Income is money or value received by an individual or business in exchange for goods, services, labor, or investments. It is the total consumption and saving opportunity gained within a specified timeframe, and serves as the foundation for measuring economic growth, assigning tax burdens, and evaluating wealth. [1, 2, 3, 4] - Legal Information Institute

It was a political decision to exempt stock gains from income.

It was necessary. Trying to tax gains results in a nightmare.

You're going to force anyone who runs a successful corporation to sell it off to pay the taxes. Major punishment for success.

And what exactly is the value of the corporation? We can approximate it if it's widely traded, but stock prices in essence are the net present value of the expected total future earnings. That is horrendously sensitive to the discount rate used on figuring the value of future earnings, and thus horrendously sensitive to expected long term interest rates. And this is just a market consensus, not anything you can truly calculate.

When a company isn't widely traded it gets much worse. What is the value? We've seen tax games based on this--put a bunch of shares of fuzzy value into an IRA. The more specific the item and the less like things are traded makes it even fuzzier. I've seen an attorney throw up her hands over even ballparking the value of something.