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Millionaires who want to pay higher taxes
- Thread starter southernhybrid
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Hello, Einstein. The wealthy own the economy; pregnant women do not.
Hello, Einstein. The wealthy own the economy; pregnant women do not.
That's it. Let your envy flow through your veins.
Hello, Einstein. The wealthy own the economy; pregnant women do not.
That's it. Let your envy flow through your veins.
I'm not envious of intellectual dishonesty and moronic false equivalencies. Is that what you meant?
laughing dog
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How many times do you have to bang your head against the wall before you think that is relevant or clever?
Jason Harvestdancer
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Your question had a faulty premise, I corrected it. Have you stopped beating your wife?
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Since you seemed to realize what the real question was but chose to attack the wording, I'll continue to take your response as a very sad, sad dodge.
Alcoholic Actuary
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Well it's not really their money until after they pay the taxes. Telling the wealthy what to do with their money is like when you guys tell them they should volunteer to pay more in taxes.
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laughing dog
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There was no faulty premise, just the usual evasion. The size of the government in the economy is not the usual interpretation of "concentration of wealth" or "wealth inequality". As anyone familiar with reasoning, let alone, economics, the size of the government in the economy has no necessary correlation to wealth.
Jason Harvestdancer
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Oh I know your real question is exactly what you stated. Your question has a faulty premise. I fixed the faulty premise. Have you stopped beating your wife? I notice you dodged that question.
You've yet to understand what a "premise" is.
laughing dog
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If there was a faulty premise, you would have stated it by now. You've had plenty of time to either state that faulty premise or answer the obvious question instead of engaging in your usual MO tactic of evasion, perhaps to hide your apparent ignorance of basic english and economics.
I noticed you
Bomb#20
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When wealthy Americans try to influence their peers to join them in taking more responsibility to improve things, they donate to charity. They hold fundraisers. They start charities. Bill Gates creates a foundation and influences Warren Buffett to contribute billions to it. This is very sensible. Whatever good cause a wealthy American wants to take responsibility for and wants to influence his peers to join him in, all that money is going to do more for that cause if they direct it themselves, or if they put it directly in the hands of someone devoted to that cause, than if they give it to a government that's going to blow a trillion dollars on F-35s nobody needs.
So when a wealthy American advocates that his taxes be raised, he is evidently not doing so in order to influence his peers to join him in taking more responsibility. He is doing so in order to influence his non-peers to vote to order his peers to spend his peers' money on his goals instead of on their own.
So who's advocating greed? What would be the point of Jason et al. inviting the millionaire to donate his money to the government if they wanted the millionaire to be greedy?
There are two perfectly sensible reasons to be against Jim Millionaire agitating to get Jerry Halfmillionaire to raise Joe Millionaire's taxes. One might think (a) that the government is quite big enough already, and wealth in the hands of those who earned it is doing more good than it would in the hands of politicians. And/or one might think (b) that further exacerbating the citizenry's already severe tribal tendency to conceptually divide itself into "us" and "them", vote more services for "us", and vote higher taxes for "them", is a socially destructive activity.
We have all greatly benefited from the system, the infrastructure, the laws. We all need to take responsibility to improve things like our schools, our infrastructure, etc. If our existing public resource pool is insufficient for this task, and if we can't get our collective act together enough to kill our various F-35s and free up our various trillion dollar drains on it, then we the people need to vote to tax ourselves more. Ourselves.
laughing dog
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That is not evident in either reason or practice. It is entirely possible that he or she is trying to influence his/her peers. And, it is entirely possible that he/she is also trying to influence others into political action as well.
Bomb#20
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"On their level"? "In your peer group"? Who got put in charge of defining what each person's level is and who each person's peers are?
And all that applies equally across "levels" and "peer groups". It is equally folly for a "peer group" to voluntarily pay more if nobody else's "peer group" is required to join in. A "level" equally sacrifice themselves by putting themselves at a competitive disadvantage to benefit everybody when other "levels" are just going to capitalize. Eventually you have half the "peer groups" operating in your country without paying taxes to the country, and the burden to pay for the infrastructure that they use falls on income taxes paid by everybody else's "peer groups" in the country.
This applies to everything far beyond recycling to fish stocks. Suppose we as a Christian family decide to voluntarily pay more taxes to the Sultan in Istanbul. That hurts us relative to everybody else in our religion, because other people in our religion have more money so the prices stay the same or go up while our budget goes down. Our lone sacrifice doesn't provide a real boost in revenues so the roads don't get any better so we sacrifice and get nothing in return. Do you think that means we should be arguing for an increase in the Jizya?
southernhybrid
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Wow! I'm amazed at all the people who are so upset about patriotic millionaires who want to pay more taxes out of love for their country and the belief that those who benefit the most from the system, should be willing to pay more to the country that has provided that system. Amazing.
I already mentioned that Bill Gates has also stated publicly, just this week, that he agreed that people like him should have their taxes raised. A rich bitch can give to charity and help the country that has enabled him to be successful. I really don't understand how any sane person could be against that. Do y'all think that you'll be among the upper fraction of a percent, one day, and you'll be too greedy to want to share more of your wealth with your country? Yeah. Right. That must be it.
Instead of having such concern and compassion for the ultra wealthy, I suggest you get out and make friends with some poor people, visit some schools in poor neighborhoods, see how hard a lot of minimum wage earners work etc. Apparently, some of the patriotic millionaires have developed a sense of compassion and a desire to make their country better. Or maybe, some of them are fearful that if they don't help lift up the standard of living for more people, their own success will be in jeopardy. I won't judge their motivations but I applaud their cause because if they are successful, and that's a big if, there will be more money for things like infrastructure, health care, schools, etc. How dare they want to improve the country by using their power to organize their peers to lobby for changes in our tax laws?
I already mentioned that Bill Gates has also stated publicly, just this week, that he agreed that people like him should have their taxes raised. A rich bitch can give to charity and help the country that has enabled him to be successful. I really don't understand how any sane person could be against that. Do y'all think that you'll be among the upper fraction of a percent, one day, and you'll be too greedy to want to share more of your wealth with your country? Yeah. Right. That must be it.
Instead of having such concern and compassion for the ultra wealthy, I suggest you get out and make friends with some poor people, visit some schools in poor neighborhoods, see how hard a lot of minimum wage earners work etc. Apparently, some of the patriotic millionaires have developed a sense of compassion and a desire to make their country better. Or maybe, some of them are fearful that if they don't help lift up the standard of living for more people, their own success will be in jeopardy. I won't judge their motivations but I applaud their cause because if they are successful, and that's a big if, there will be more money for things like infrastructure, health care, schools, etc. How dare they want to improve the country by using their power to organize their peers to lobby for changes in our tax laws?
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You're absolutely right it's his usual tactic, to evade. Everytime he gets a chance to support his libertarian policies, he turns to evasion. I believe he knows he can't defend them and would prefer to continue to believe them instead of adjusting his position to reflect reality.
Jason Harvestdancer
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I know your real question is exactly what you stated. Your question has a faulty premise. I fixed the faulty premise. Have you stopped beating your wife? I notice you dodged that question.
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You're not worth it. You're a popcorn fart.
Upset? Who do you think is upset? I'm happy for these guys to pay more taxes if they want to: Just send it in.
The weird thing is all the big government types who are engaging in ridiculous apologetics for these guys not just sending it in.
ronburgundy
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Nice false analogy based on a mindless tautology. "The rich should keep their money because it is their money."
The whole issue is that it isn't "their" money. It is money that moves around due to economic activities that centrally depend upon, use, erode, and/or cause harm to a complex infrastructure, public resources, a government, and all the people within that system.
Thus, part of every dollar involved in these activities belongs to every person in that system (and therefore the government that represents them). Just because a person has cash in their hand during a particular moment of the economic process doesn't make it "their" money, any more than your car becomes the valet's car when the keys are in their hand.
This is in contrast to a woman's body, which from the moment of birth till death is the definition of the woman and thus is by definition "her's". In fact, since the woman and her body are equivalent and the same thing, it is really a misnomer to refer to it as possessed property and thus "her's", rather it is "her". Property is a legal construct and ownership a matter of negotiated law. Being one's body is a matter of definition and scientific truth.
And since basic human rights apply to human person's, the right to control's oneself is more fundamental than the right to control one's property, even when that property is legally deemed to be "your's".
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