On Mon, 05 Apr 2010 22:16:55 -0700, Hawke
wrote:
Does anyone actually deserve 400 million dollars? What's the point of
having that kind of money in the first place? Once you have all the
necessities of life covered everything else is just for useless luxuries
and doesn't do anything for you. Might as well let the government take
that surplus and use it for the common good. I would be glad to give up
that money if I were in his shoes. That's better than having one person
just buy himself more houses, cars, jewelry, and other crap rich people
buy because they have nothing better to do with their time.
Hawke
So you want to take 400 million out of the economy and put out of work
all the carpenters, gardeners, architects, yacht builders, etc. And
then maybe have the government spend 400 million to stimulate the
economy.
Dan
No that's not what I would want. I don't know about you, but I think I
could spend the money better so that it would stimulate the economy and
improve the lives of lots of regular people rather than to have the rich
put people to work building luxuries for them. For example, what you
suggest is that having someone like Saddam Hussein build a whole lot of
palaces and blowing money on gambling, living it up, and buying
extravagances for himself, his family, and his friends would be money
better spent than having a responsible government put that money to work
for the common good. Is that right? Because I think not only me but
almost anyone could put better use of surplus money for the good of the
country than a few insanely rich people could just spending lavishly on
their own whims. I mean, what's money for when you already have
everything you could want? Beyond that point why not give it up for the
good of your country?
Hawke
===========
There are several reasons why a gross difference in the
distribution of wealth/income is not good.
One of the most troubling is that historically when wealth/income
becomes concentrated, serious economic/social disruptions occur.
From the available records it appears that just before every
major economic crash the income/wealth had become concentrated.
FWIW the concentration of U.S. wealth/income as measured by the
GINI coefficient/index is higher now than it was just before the
29-33 depression.
Another serious problem is the difference in perception of
life/reality between the small (monied) elite and the majority.
This results in working at cross purposes and political
stalemate.
For a discussion of this point see
http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20...VhbHRoZm9ydGhl
snip
Between 1960 to 2004, the top 0.1 percent of U.S. taxpayers have
seen the share of their income paid in total federal taxes drop
from 60 to 33.6 percent. The top 400 income-earners have seen the
share of their income they pay in federal income tax alone
plummet from 51.2 percent in 1955 to 16.6 percent in 2007.
In 2007, if the top 0.1 percent of taxpayers had paid total
federal taxes at the same rate as they paid in 1960, the federal
treasury would have collected an additional $281.2 billion. If
the top 400 had paid the same rate as it did in 1955 it would
have meant an additional $47.7 billion in revenue. (The incomes
of the top 400 have multiplied by 27 times--adjusted for
inflation--since 1955, yet back then they paid over three times
more of their incomes in federal income tax.)
Meanwhile, the middle class has seen their taxes increase. The
report lays out that, "Despite all the 'tax cut' political
rhetoric and action of recent years, average Americans have seen
no tax savings at the federal level."
Taxpayers in the middle--who made more than the bottom 40 percent
but less than the top 40 percent--saw an increase in their taxes,
paying 15.9 percent of their incomes in total federal taxes in
1960 and 16.1 percent in 2004. Adding insult to injury, "Our
children and grandchildren... will be asked to pay back, with
interest, the trillions our federal government has been borrowing
to offset our loss of tax revenue from wealthy taxpayers."
snip.
==What's really shocking is we can't even manage Tax Reform
101--to tax the hedge fund managers like we do normal working
people. They pay a stunning 15 percent on their billions--a lower
rate than teachers, cops, even their own assistants! (see here,
here, and here.) And a 2008 GAO report found that two-thirds of
US corporations paid zero federal income taxes from 1998-2005.
Twenty-five percent of the largest US corporations had $1.1
trillion in gross sales in 2005 but paid no federal income
taxes.== {emphasis added}
snip
Unka George (George McDuffee)
...............................
The past is a foreign country;
they do things differently there.
L. P. Hartley (1895-1972), British author.
The Go-Between, Prologue (1953).