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They're not. Not enen close.
The Elite: It's a Big Club and You're Not in it
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They're not. Not enen close.
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It's this disconnect between actual productive use where products and jobs and services arise and financial shenanigans where illusory complexities that offer zero benefit to society that is the entire problem.
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This x 1000.
The elite do almost nothing to create jobs, that's Regan trickle down belief system garbage. The vast, vast majority of their income comes from dividends which actually has a net negative benefit. It's part of the pressures that contribute to job layoffs and all kinds of job pressures such as salary depreciation, etc.
In reality, what is more valuable than dividend income is increasing employee ownership of corporations. You want to engender people to stick around, create stability and produce sustainable growth? Give them a piece of the pie. Today, corporate wealth goes into share buybacks.
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They don't need to. The elite are a parasite, a huge net negative just like people that fake disability and suck up benefits. You want to sit on your money and live on an island, go have fun, but stop pressuring corporations for layoffs and contributing to middle class instability when your precious dividend is at risk.
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WTF? I'd rather just socialize the educational industry like Europe than have this idiocy. Then there is some meritocracy about it and no debt for dummies.
Even the robber barons had noblesse oblige. They had some sense of shame about their inordinate luxury and at least made a display of philanthropy.
To be quite Inuit, if someone is not of benefit to society, why are they allowed to function in it all?
The very high and very low classes share idleness, unearned income, high drug and alcohol use and familial dysfunction. They also know exactly who they are and don't bother hiding it, whereas the middle class is all about pretense.
Why should they be allowed to profit otherwise?
Even the robber barons had noblesse oblige. They had some sense of shame about their inordinate luxury and at least made a display of philanthropy.
To be quite Inuit, if someone is not of benefit to society, why are they allowed to function in it all?
What? The aspirational middle is vastly separated by the entitled and moribund classes at the extremes.
The very high and very low classes share idleness, unearned income, high drug and alcohol use and familial dysfunction. They also know exactly who they are and don't bother hiding it, whereas the middle class is all about pretense.
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Actually, I am. A true meritocrat realizes that the elite don't provide anything. Apple, a company I hate, develops good products and has innovated tremendously. Derivatives and HFT and the Federal Reserve gave us what? That's the useless stuff of which I speak.
A person that creates and builds and invests (into something real and not just a financial construct) deserves whatever reward the free market bestows upon them. Do they deserve federal bailouts, do we need to devalue our currency to enrich them further? Do they need lower taxes than anybody else?
Can I go out on the street and set up a 3-card monte table and profit from it, or is the government correct to prevent me from immoral predation of no benefit to society? I'm all in favor of libertarianism and small government, but with the elite, you are with them or against them. This country was founded by people who, despite being largely of inherited wealth themselves, despised the notion of aristocracy and unearned wealth.
Also, I'm not saying tax the rich to death or persecute them in any special way. Merely stop incentivizing their misdeeds. Stop giving hand ups and hand outs to those already on the very top.
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Fuck all the Ayn Rand tyrannical stuff and evil of taxes. Taxes exist, so it's moot. This is about things being fair to everyone. When Warren Buffet pays a lower tax rate than I do, something is wrong. If he at least paid equal, that's one thing, but his effective rate is 1/2 of mine and most everyone in the middle class.
This is a MASSIVE payoff to the rich, and that's what fundamentally stinks.
This is a MASSIVE payoff to the rich, and that's what fundamentally stinks.
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Um, it created it. When union representation became someone that was not a regular worker, then an elite developed. A parasitic elite.
Yes. I am not saying that wealth should be illegal or stolen. And I'm not pretending that people with paltry net worths are making use of, much less making obscene profit from, elaborate power connections and financial/legislative shadiness. Were the same crimes achievable at smaller scales, they would actually be all the more intolerable because we could see them outright and recognize the scoundrels perpetrating them. It's lent an air of legitimacy that it does nto deserve merely because ...
#banalityofevilC.S. Lewis said:
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The wealthy are getting wealthier at the expense of almost everyone else. You've got it backwards. I think it should be fair, like equal. You seem to believe the rich paying equally is unfair which is rather illogical. Taxes are evil, but it holds no meaning against this topic.
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The level to which you cannot seem to comprehend this issue continues to astound me.
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Don't twist my words. The stealing is happening now. I am suggesting it stop.
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Were I to believe the rich had reached such exalted position solely by their own merit, by the greatness they had created, I would be motivated. The reality is the opposite. It's all graft and skullduggery. This causes the honest working man to do what? At best to opt out and be non-competitive, at worst to be bitter and redistributive.
Unfair advantage is what we mean when we talk of the elite. Can anyone think of some noteworthy successful capitalist of note that has become rich and been a great guy and is not guilty of shady dealings, squelching competition, and other murkiness? Please prove me wrong with a few white knight examples.
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Fair and equal are different words but contextually (like, here) it means level playing field. This system *is rigged*. The elite 1% will own 99% of the wealth in 2 years.
I'm not sure how it can be seen another way other than having your head in the sand.
I'm not sure how it can be seen another way other than having your head in the sand.
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In your analogy, I'm saying that the players are rigging the game. Who has more to start is irrelevant. And I've said this multiple times.
Please abandon the hate line and either debate the actual point about the rigged system or just concede it. You keep saying the same thing and it misses the point entirely.
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Are y'all talking about Amurica?
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That is his MO, Man
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Lowering taxes for whom in particular?
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There is a population that believes that the answer to everything is less government regulation/interference/intrusiveness/spending. The end result of that is just a system rigged from the opposite extreme (Azerbijan). The answer to rigging is no answer, it can't be changed.
For example, deregulation of banks has been a big problem. Regulation of banks has become socialized losses and privatized profits. Elite win on on both fronts.
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Your constantly refer to tax deductions as loopholes as if they are all wrong or underhanded. If they exist in the tax code they are legitimate unless there is a difference of opinion between the IRS and you.
Tax deductions are set up to favour business and those with money absolutely so there is where the inequity is.
Not everyone is a salaried employee with a limited number of personal deductions.
You need to be more precise in your language because your generalizations often defeat the point you are trying to make.
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It's one of the inequalities. There are many, many others, and the biggest one is that the vast majority of wealthy people's income is derived from dividend income. This is not a tax break or a loophole. The tax rate for dividend income is less than 1/2 of what he tax rate is for Joe the Plummer's income is.
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Absolutely, it is formalized and engrained and benefits higher earners. However - and this is based on how it is here - you also have to realize that if I pay myself or my wife a dividend from my company (a small to medium company not PesiCo) the company has paid corporate tax and the individual pays personal tax and the total of those taxes are only slightly lower than the marginal tax rate on non-dividend income earned by the individual. The system has to account for all combinations and permutations which is its downfall as it is cobbled together. That is why I continue to beat the drum for a flat tax for corporatations and individuals which would be fair, devoid of deductions other than the cost of doing business and formalized inequities as well as progressive. differential tax rates are counter intuitive; a flat tax ensures everyone pays their "fair" share. Make more, you pay more in absolute terms. Everyone pays (except those who do not meet a set income threshold) not only a few and you end the endless debate that the rich don't pay enough and everyone else pays too much.
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This is only true if you have a C corp. An S corp doesn't have this issue, so the vast, vast, vast majority of corporations are not exposed to this. This dynamic is exactly the Joe the Plummer smoke screen that defines why the elite get away with it. The marketing campaign says that it will affect small businesses, but it wont. It's just a lie.
I believe personally a tax on consumption is the more fair approach. This distributes tax according to what you spend, not what you earn.
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How would that work? Change sales taxes or institute a consumption tax?
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More along the lines of a sales tax, but they're not a lot different. A sales tax is basically a type of consumption tax.
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Agreed. But what % rate would be required?
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Don't you have a problem with taxing rich people anyway?
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Whatever rate balances the budget. It would probably be 20 to 35%. It could be variable depending on whatever the budget is.
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This is wonderful in a communist paradise but, sadly, the real world does not work this way.
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Maybe, but the point about being taxed for your consumption seems reasonable/non-communist to me. We'd need Rustler to weigh in since he is our local arbiter of all things communist.
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Variable based on the Government's budget but set for all citizens?
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Oh, the idea is reasonable. The problem with it is that the ultra rich will never, ever, spend all of their money. This actually ties in to your argument on investment tax quite nicely.
LKP
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it is not a big club
me being teh very elite; i can choose who is considered elite
and
i do not see many people
me being teh very elite; i can choose who is considered elite
and
i do not see many people
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Yes. You'd naturally pay more tax according to what you are capable of spending. If the citizenry wants more stuff, they pay more tax to have it.
LKP
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As long as the tax is flat rate and applies to everyone save teh poors
LKP
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russia = good
13% income tax for EVERYBODY
no other tax obligations
13% income tax for EVERYBODY
no other tax obligations