On 11/21/2011 5:38 AM, John B. wrote:

As for myself, yes it's true that I do not have to be employed to live.
I would prefer to but in this economy the jobs just aren't there that I
would be doing if the economy was doing well. So for now I am living on
what comes in from investments. That's what I was shooting for all along
but unfortunately due to the recession and market drop in value I'm not
taking in anything near what the 1% are. It's enough to live on but not
enough to live like a king, that's for sure. So as usual nothing is as
one would like it to be.

Hawke

It is not a matter of how much your investments return.

I was saying, and you are confirming, that you did exactly as the
lower half of the top 1% have done. You worked and invested and now
you are secure. So, you are condemning people who did exactly as you
did and were either harder working or luckier then you and have a few
more quid. So, should you be assessed higher taxes simply because you
worked your butt off?

I'm not condemning anyone for making a lot of money unless they did it
unethically. I believe we all set out to work to make enough so that we
can retire and not still have to work to live. So whether I am there or
not is irrelevant as far as what I think is right. If I am barely making
it from what I have put away then I should not be taxed heavily. If I
made a fortune from my investments than be my guest and tax me at 50 or
75 percent of what I bring in. As long as my lifestyle is still lavish I
would not care how much I am paying in taxes. You pay according to your
ability to handle the burden. I believe that is a fair system.

And if not, why should others who only did as you did be penalized?

Paying high taxes is not a penalty of any kind. It's actually just what
goes along with making huge sums of money. You make a lot you are
obligated to pay in a lot too. Would you rather have the alternative?
You don't pay in much because you have very little? Not me. Tax me but
let me make a lot so I have plenty left over.


As for your "soak the rich" thesis, post your net worth and I can find
a hundred people who have less and would agree that your taxes should
be higher. So that certainly isn't a valid notion.

Just because you can find a number of people to go along with you
doesn't make them right. You can find plenty of jealous people. Instead
find a lot of objective people and ask them what's fair. Most would
agree with the theories of taxation we've had for the last 100 years or
so, if they know anything.


But to be more specific, why should Steve Jobs, for example, be
penalized because he started a company in the garage and guided and
goaded it into becoming a real money spinner?

Because as he goes from a kid fooling around in his garage and making
very little money to a rich businessman to ultra rich his ability to pay
increases and so does his tax bill. As you notice, even though you would
expect Jobs to have paid high taxes over the years he still became
fabulously rich, didn't he? So the high taxes didn't keep him from being
a billionaire. So I guess they weren't that high after all.



He already pays more dollars then most, why should the percentage of
tax he pays be higher then your's, for example? Solely because he has
more? The Robin Hood theory - take from the rich and give to the poor?

He should pay more because his ability to pay more is greater. You go on
a packing trip with your family and do you make up all the packs to be
of equal weight even though you have women and children with you? No you
don't. You figure how much each person can comfortably manage and you
give them a pack that they can handle. It's the same idea with the
taxes. People pay according to how much they can handle.



Ultimately, of course, your philosophy would result in a nation with
no one having more then the common herd, sort of a "dummying down" of
the financial system to match the dummying down of the education
system (which is now rated lower then Poland - so no more dumb Pollack
jokes). A noble purpose that, the creation of a poor. dumb, nation.


You would like to think that is what it would be like but you would be
wrong. We are not looking to make a system where everything is equal. We
want one where everything is fair though. That means we will have all
classes of people but we want most to be middle class with a small
number of poor and a small number of rich. We want most people to be
prosperous and have good lives but not to have very many living like
sultans or in poverty.

We just spent 30 years helping the upper class in the goofy notion that
if you make it better for them it will help all. We now know better than
that. So I say for the next 30 years we help the middle and lower
classes regain a stronger financial position and my bet is that by
helping the middle class you actually will help all the other classes as
well. That means taxing the top earners a lot more and lowering the tax
burden on everyone else. That alone will flatten out the inequality
curve that has gotten so out of whack over the last 3 decades. Much as
you dislike my methods they will work and they will make a better
country for most people. To me that's what I call fair. Not making a
country better for the top 300,000 people.

Hawke