High taxes on the super-rich are back in vogue

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by Bic_Cherry, Feb 27, 2019.

  1. Bic_Cherry

    Bic_Cherry Active Member

    Joined:
    Jun 24, 2012
    Messages:
    597
    Likes Received:
    41
    Trophy Points:
    28
    To reduce wealth inequality, top income Tax level must go UP.


    The only real definite way to avoid GST increase is to increase the maximum income tax level.

    In USA in 1930s to 1980s, it was 78%.

    It is now down 35% but calls are for the top tax rate to increase again to pay for social programmes to uplift low wage workers etc.

    There is also a movement against rent seeking: e.g. curb chief executive pay, reduce patent periods to prevent patent owners from excessive rent seeking etc etc.
    ==============
    Economic Affairs
    High taxes on the super-rich are back in vogue

    Vikram Khanna
    PUBLISHED on 27 February 2019.
    A tax counter-revolution may be under way
    Could a new tax revolution be on the cards that will end the long era of low taxes for the super-rich? We don't know yet, but in the United States, the battle lines are being drawn.

    The newly elected US Congressman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made headlines recently when she proposed a top marginal tax rate of 70 per cent on incomes of US$10 million (S$13.5 million) or more. The left-of-centre US politician and presidential candidate, Senator Elizabeth Warren, proposes a 2 per cent "ultramillionaire wealth tax" on people with a net worth of US$50 million and an additional 1 per cent on those worth more than US$1 billion. This tax would be levied on the combined value of all assets, including financial assets and real estate held both within and outside the US... ...

    https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/high-taxes-on-the-super-rich-are-back-in-vogue

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Kode

    Kode Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 5, 2016
    Messages:
    26,310
    Likes Received:
    7,461
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    They're not "back in vogue". They were always in need of being over 50% in a high income bracket.
     
  3. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    The moment you advocate income tax, you're wrong. The only effective way to reduce excessive inequalities of wealth, income and condition is by removing or taxing away PRIVILEGE, because PRIVILEGE is the source of the problem. No other measure can possibly work in the long run.
     
  4. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Income equality or lack thereof is of no business or concern of the federal government. It has no authority to try and regulate the incomes or wealth of the citizens and in fact quite the opposite it is to protect it from such government seizure and redistribution.

    Marginal rates, but there were huge deductions and credits and EFFECTIVE tax rates were about the same.

    And I would remind you that after the Gingrich/Kasich tax rate cut and the Bush43/Republican tax rate cuts tax revenues soared and we not only have measly deficits with the latter but actual surpluses with the former.
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2019
  5. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Then why are they doing everything they can to aggravate it?
    ROTFL!! It is government that is shoveling money into the pockets of the privileged at the expense of the productive. Duh.
     
  6. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    They aren't that I know of.

    You mean the privileged who live off government welfare and other subsistence programs paid for by someone else who earned it? Taxing profits IS at the expense of the productive, those who put together the capital to build those businesses and factories. I don't see where government is shoveling them money but in fact want to take more of it from them as the Democrat candidates wanting to increase corporate taxes and taxes on capital gains.
     
  7. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Who gives bank owners the privilege of issuing money in order to charge interest on it? Who gives IP owners their monopolies?
    No, I mean the privileged, unproductive rich who are legally entitled to benefit from the abrogation of others' rights without making just compensation. Such subsidies give rich, greedy takers an order of magnitude more of GDP than the unproductive poor (~40% vs 4%), even though they number an order of magnitude fewer (1% of the population vs 10%).
    Profits might be earned by productive contribution or taken by privilege. The great majority are the latter; but I agree that taxing profits, like taxing income, taxes those who produce and those who take indiscriminately.
    Who issues and enforces the privileges that legally entitle them to take from the community without making any commensurate contribution in return?
    Capital gains are almost never earned by any commensurate contribution to production. They are simply an increase in the expected amount that can be taken.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
  8. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    The investors and depositors. It is regulated by the government and federal reserve.

    Well if it is an existing market they don't have one if it is a new market they have one until a competitor shows up but in answer the investors who put up the capital.

    UNproductive compared to who else? What would make them more productive? Most rich people are so because they started and run businesses, that is VERY productive.


    I have no idea what you are saying here, they pay people for the work they provide.

    Taken from whom and how?

    Why does it matter?

    They are earned by that capital being put to a productive and profitable use growing the economy. And we collected double the capital gains tax revenues at Bush43's 15% rate than we did at Clinton's 29%. four times the realizations which reflect economic activity and growth. That's how he and the Republicans got the deficit down to a paltry $161B in 2007.
     
  9. modernpaladin

    modernpaladin Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2017
    Messages:
    27,703
    Likes Received:
    21,104
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Any raise on taxes that doesnt include the elimination of loopholes and bailouts is fail.

    If the 'super rich' were paying at the current rate, there wouldn't be any problems. But the 'super rich' tend to lobby to alter the tax code and set up bailouts so they can get out of it regardless what the rate actually is, so their competitors get hit instead. Thats why they're 'too big to fail' (too rich to get punished). And all the 'rich have too much' crowd are their useful idiots helping them monopolize.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
  10. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No, that's just objectively false. If I don't have a government-issued bank license, I can't do what banks do no matter how many investors and depositors I have.
    Which privilege them to create money in order to charge interest on it.
    Wrong again. Government does. It's in the US Constitution.
    Those who contribute to production of goods and services.
    Contributing to production instead of taking from it.
    No, most rich people are rich because they bought land, which the community then increased in value for them. The business owners who get rich almost always get rich by owning the land under their premises, not by doing anything productive.
    Nope.
    From everyone, by legally removing their rights to liberty and pocketing the taxes on their production.
    Because it is government.
    Nope. There is nothing productive about owning land while the community makes it more valuable with no contribution from you.
    It only reflects seizure of an opportunity to pocket publicly created value and repay the minimum fraction of it in taxes.
    Clinton and the Democrats eliminated the deficit entirely. Duh.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2019
  11. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Objectively correct the government merely sets the rules and enforces. The investors and depositors put up the capital and take the risk and that is to whom the board is beholding. The FED is nothing more than an economic utility in a necessary economic system.

    You mean as in labor? Labor is just an expense in producing goods or providing services. What would make those who create these business from the accumulation of putting together the capital, developing the business plan, building, equipping, staffing, permitting, obtaining necessary suppliers and supplies, obtaining the credit lines and banking lines and on and on more productive than they actually are. How do you measure that productivity to that of the person operating drill press?

    If it increased in value it wasn't because they just sat there and watched the grass grow else EVERYONE could be rich just buy some land and then sit on your arse.

    Yep, an employer pays people for work they provide. What do you think they pay them for?

    Who gets taxed on their production?

    Why does that make a difference?

    Nope. There is nothing productive about owning land while the community makes it more valuable with no contribution from you.

    It reflects a good use of capital to create a profit and income created by a private business. Repaid to whom, who is owed by whom?

    Ahhh nope, Gingrich and Kasich and their budgets which they forced Bill Clinton to sign, their welfare reform and their spending restraint is what produced them. And Bush and the Republicans had them heading back to surplus until the Democrats took back the Congress in 2007.
     
  12. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    In theory. In practice, the board just shovels money into each other's pockets.
    Or addition to producer goods.
    Ah, no. Labor actually PRODUCES them. Rentier extraction by the privileged does not.
    The free market could measure it. But we don't have a free market. We have a privilege market -- i.e., in effect, a slave market -- where the privileged buy and sell everyone else's rights to liberty to see who can extort the most from producers and consumers without making any commensurate contribution to production in return.
    That is exactly what landowners do, and how they get rich:

    "The most comfortable, but also the most unproductive way for a capitalist to increase his fortune, is to put all monies in sites and await that point in time when a society, hungering for land, has to pay his price." -- Andrew Carnegie

    "Buy it by the acre, sell it by the foot." -- John Jacob Astor
    Adding value.
    Producers. That is the actual effect of modern income taxes, which bear almost exclusively on earned income.
    Because it is a choice by people, not a law of nature.
    Me:
    Good for the landowner who gets something for nothing. Not so good for the taxpayers who get nothing for something.
    To the community, which provided the welfare subsidy giveaway to the landowner.
    Garbage.
    BWAHAHHAAAAAA!!!1! Bush, the Republicans, and their Wall Street bankster buddies were the ones who got the Fed to kite the housing market until it exploded, necessitating the biggest deficits IN HISTORY to prevent a deflationary collapse.
     
  13. rahl

    rahl Banned

    Joined:
    May 31, 2010
    Messages:
    62,508
    Likes Received:
    7,651
    Trophy Points:
    113
    This has all been repeatedly refuted, as you are well aware.
     
  14. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male

    Yeah yeah yeah, blah blah blah when you can't refute the facts just claim you already did, it fools no one.
     
  15. rahl

    rahl Banned

    Joined:
    May 31, 2010
    Messages:
    62,508
    Likes Received:
    7,651
    Trophy Points:
    113
    White flag noted
     
  16. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Sorry I don't find "Boards and CEO's are all just corrupt" a very interesting argument.

    Me "Ahhh nope, Gingrich and Kasich and their budgets which they forced Bill Clinton to sign, their welfare reform and their spending restraint is what produced them."
    Fact, Clinton requested more money than Congress authorized every year. After he lost the Congress as his polices were slowing a strong recovery and strong tax revenue growth his political adviser Dick Morris told him either get on board with Gingrich and Kaisch or you won't be reelected. The Republicans cut capital gains rates and produced higher reconciliations and resulting revenues. The put people back to work and off welfare creating more revenue and lower expenses. The economy got back on track and we double digit tax revenue growth. Heck Bush43 did even better than that.

    Me "And Bush and the Republicans had them heading back to surplus until the Democrats took back the Congress in 2007."

    The housing market had little to do with the tax revenues that exploded and hit 15% and a resulting deficit of a paltry $161B. His 15% capital gains rate produced double the revenue of Clinton's 29%. Full employment and rising incomes. Then the Democrats took back the Congress in 2007 and lame ducked him. What happened then?
     
  17. tkolter

    tkolter Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 15, 2012
    Messages:
    7,134
    Likes Received:
    598
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Until the rich leave taking their wealth and taxes with them, it has happened with far less taxes in European nations and this is going for he jugular of the wealthy. Its not the 50's money is invested globally and earnings can be sent anywhere and buying citizenship is still an option in some tax haven island nations. If they cease being citizens their taxes go bye bye to a large degree. I would leave and repatriate if you were going to pull this on my wealth if I ever had any.
     
  18. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I didn't say all. But there is a reason CEO pay is negatively correlated with corporate financial performance.
    Which has been refuted many times.
    False. It was the massive increase in the debt-money supply caused by out-of-control mortgage lending that stimulated the economy and expanded tax revenues.
    But NOT SUSTAINABLY. Anyone can cut capital gains tax rates and provoke a flurry of crystallizations by people looking to shovel tax-advantaged money into their pockets. The problem is, the flurry is a one-time event, and after that you just get less revenue.
    The Wall Street bankster chickens came home to roost.
     
  19. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2010
    Messages:
    153,325
    Likes Received:
    38,996
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    That has been your entire rebuttal

    Do you also go by the name rahl around here who when cannot refute the facts asserts he already has?

    Me "Ahhh nope, Gingrich and Kasich and their budgets which they forced Bill Clinton to sign, their welfare reform and their spending restraint is what produced them."

    That is absolute fact. Clinton was facing losing reelection, he had lost both houses of Congress because his policies were in fact slowing the roaring economy he inherited and Dick Morris told him point blank either you get on board with the Republican Congress or pack your bags for Arkansas.

    What expanded tax revenues, the mortgage problems were with residential housing which represents less than 5% of GDP. Capital gains revenues exploded because of other industries and economic expansion.

    It wasn't a one year thing. The fact is people are willing to take more risk when the tax on those risk are lowered. The realizations, economic activity, were FOUR times the amounts. So if you goal is to increase revenues to the treasury LOWER cap gains rates produce those higher revenues. Is that your goal? Or is your goal is to stick it to the people who actually invest and grow the economy and create jobs because you are envious of them?

    How about the Democrats began increasing taxes increasing regulations increasing spending, increasing the government take over of the economy and increase exponentially the deficits and the debt?

    Tell me what between 2007 and 2015 that the Democrats do that put people into good paying jobs, grow the economy and lower the deficits and try to lower the debt?
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2019
  20. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 11, 2016
    Messages:
    11,396
    Likes Received:
    3,010
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Facts are stubborn things.
    No.
    No, it was the exploding money supply caused by the mortgage lending boom starting around 1995.
    5% of GDP is a huge amount of money to inject into an economy.
    Caused by money supply increases, which were caused by exploding mortgage debt.
    It pretty much was.
    <sigh> What do you think people do when they can choose to take either salary or capital gains, and the capital gains are taxed at half the rate on salaries, hmmmmmm?
    One of the most evil and despicable acts a human being can commit is to accuse those who oppose injustice of envy for those who profit by it.
    Irrelevant. It was the money supply boom-bust.
    Obama reappointed all the same Wall Street crooks, who just reinflated the money supply to kick the can down the road.
     

Share This Page