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Original post by ibebrett I don't know who is right and who is wrong, but your arguments were not addressing the point he was making

I don't see how you can think that they are not addressing his points.

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Original post by way2lazy2care Quote: Original post by Khaiy Investment doesn't necessarily benefit people. I cut most of this for length, but for similar reasons you may as well not teach anyone to fish because someone fell off a boat and drowned one time. May I ask you a question. If I give you $200, and you proceed to go buy a gun with it and shoot someone. Is it my fault?

Don't worry about cutting my quotes for length, I'm kind of long-winded (even when I try not to be).

Your analogy about fishing doesn't really apply. My statement was a direct response to your statement, in which you said that the rich don't necessarily spend their money on useless things, and make great and valuable investments beneficial to a lot of people when their tax rates are low. But as I mentioned, speculative investments (which don't benefit anyone other than the early speculative investors) increase when more and more wealth concentrates into fewer and fewer hands. This can be mitigated by increasing tax rates on the wealthy or by reducing income disparity, and probably in other ways as well.

But if your argument is that lower marginal tax rates for the wealthy has far-reaching economic benefits for lots of people, because of investments rather than other allocations, then the burden is on you to explain why the speculative investing trend isn't going to occur again. Historically it's not a question of whether or not it will happen, but rather at what concentration of wealth it starts to take off.

As to your giving me $200 question goes, I have to admit that I'm not quite sure how it's related to our discussion. But by my reading, here's how that scenario would be related to our tax rate discussion. If you gave me $200 with the promise that by doing so more people would be healthy, happy and alive, despite historical evidence that when given money in the past, I have bought guns and shot people, and you've made no argument for why this won't be the case in this instance, you're on shaky ground. If I then buy a gun and shoot someone, of course the responsibility for that allocation of money and its consequence are mine alone. What is your fault in that scenario is making a promise contrary to the historically demonstrated result of giving me $200. If that promise was the basis of the decision to give me $200, then you bear some responsibility for the resulting situation, if not for my action itself.

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Quote: Plus, there's no particular reason that someone would invest in the US rather than another country, which may not do anything for Americans at all. It's probably not a bad financial decision on the part of the investor, but that's not something that lower classes should have to finance by subsidizing lower taxes on the affluent. and the lower classes finance it by paying disproportionately less taxes BY AN ENORMOUS MARGIN if they pay any taxes at all?

It's financed by the lower classes in a variety of ways. But broadly speaking, tax cuts for the wealthy are not offset by any spending reduction and are funded by adding to the deficit. Ultimately this forces cuts in services which lower classes may depend on. They finance it by losing jobs to investments in foreign countries. They finance it by seeing underinvestments in the national infrastructure. Because the lower classes depend on such things far more than the wealthy, they miss out substantially, particularly as they watch their wages decline and spending power erode.

When the wealthy take actions which drive reductions in the money that lower classes have available to them, they also reduce the ability of those people to pay for anything, whether it be taxes or necessary expenses or even, god forbid, luxuries. It's not the fault of the lower classes that they are not paid much, and workers might well prefer to pay more than $0 in taxes if their spending power could just increase rather than erode. Certainly they don't want those things to happen just to see the rich get richer.

We can have a discussion on whether or not it's acceptable for people to expect a government service, or how the tax incidence to pay for those services should fall. But it's hard to drive wages down, reduce or eliminate services, reduce employment, and reduce public works and claim that the lower classes aren't giving something up. The wealthy pay more taxes because they have more money, yes, but also because they have vastly more influence in tax legislation and have been directly responsible for the reduced ability of others to pay their own share.

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Quote: It's not much of a penalty to pay a slightly higher marginal rate on income and still have more income left over than the vast majority of people. It's not much of a penalty... in your opinion.

So because it's an opinion that it's not a severe penalty we should default to your opinion that it is? It's not a matter of opinion anyways, but of supporting your position. I question whether or not getting $2 million a year, and thus being quite wealthy, is a penalized situation compared with having $2.2 million per year.

I've tried to outline why I hold the opinion that I do in relation to yours:

-The rich are still going to be quite rich regardless of a >5% bump in the marginal rate for income over $250,000.

-The rich inherently have greater access to and influence over politics than others, and so they own the debt and deficits incurred in the past in a way that others don't.

-While the wealthy do pay much more in taxes than the poor, they also are largely responsible for depression of spending power that reduces the ability of many to pay.

-Promises of wealth trickling down from the wealthy are anything but guaranteed, so it's hard for me to buy economic arguments about the benefits of doing so.

-And at some point (I'm not saying I know exactly where), concentrating too much wealth in too few hands drives rampant speculation which eventually damages the economy without ever giving much back.

It seems to me that the crux of your position is:

-It's morally unacceptable for those paying the majority of taxes to pay yet more, regardless of other considerations.

-People have a right to hold as much money as they can from their income, regardless of other factors.

Assuming that I have characterized your position more or less correctly, I have to say that I do not find your reasoning to be convincing. Therefore I hold the opinion that I do, rather than the one that you hold.

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Original post by KhaiyPlus, there's no particular reason that someone would invest in the US rather than another country, which may not do anything for Americans at all. It's probably not a bad financial decision on the part of the investor, but that's not something that lower classes should have to finance by subsidizing lower taxes on the affluent.

Again, the silly notion that the wealthy paying less is somehow an unfair tax burden on the poor. That's like one of the core tenets of class warfare.

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Original post by Quasimojo Quote: Original post by KhaiyPlus, there's no particular reason that someone would invest in the US rather than another country, which may not do anything for Americans at all. It's probably not a bad financial decision on the part of the investor, but that's not something that lower classes should have to finance by subsidizing lower taxes on the affluent. Again, the silly notion that the wealthy paying less is somehow an unfair tax burden on the poor. That's like one of the core tenets of class warfare.

It's more complex than taxes, as I explained in my last reply to one of your posts. All other things being equal, I would agree that there's no problem with the wealthy getting a tax reduction. But there are plenty of other factors which favor the wealthy over the rest which make the current distribution of wealth and tax incidence such that an entirely unfunded reduction in taxes for 2% of the country is an unfair burden on the rest. When income disparity is on the decline, or at least when spending power for the middle and lower classes is increasing rather than decreasing I'll be more receptive to your position, but not before.

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Original post by Valderman As previously stated, "success" is NOT a function of competence, hard work or anything else sensible.

If you're argument is that there are other ways to be successful, then you're correct. Some people luck into it. Others may simply inherit it (in which case the wealth was most likely generated by other, more effort-based means).

If, however, you're trying to say that you can't be successful by being competent, working hard and showing ambition, then you've got a screw loose. I can't even begin to tell you how scary it is to actually hear someone say that in a public forum. That's the kind of philosophy that is so dangerous to the world today, and the very thing that stifles success and innovation.

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Original post by KhaiyAnd since the wealthy have had everything to do with depressing real wages of the middle and lower classes while their own income has skyrocketed, why shouldn't they bear at least a slightly higher cost? Particularly on things that we all, as a nation, use?

So what you're saying is that it is *not* in the best interests of stock holders for a company to employ loyal, satisfied lower- and middle-class employees?

Where wages are concerned, the wealthy are no more in control than the labor force. If you want to produce a better product or service, you pay your workers enough to both make them content enough to maintain product/service quality and keep them from taking a better deal with your competitors. It's a core concept of free enterprise. Where the fly enters the ointment is when the government steps in to regulate business or help labor unions to strong-arm the employers. That upsets the balance.

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Original post by Khaiy Quote: Original post by Quasimojo Quote: Original post by KhaiyPlus, there's no particular reason that someone would invest in the US rather than another country, which may not do anything for Americans at all. It's probably not a bad financial decision on the part of the investor, but that's not something that lower classes should have to finance by subsidizing lower taxes on the affluent. Again, the silly notion that the wealthy paying less is somehow an unfair tax burden on the poor. That's like one of the core tenets of class warfare. It's more complex than taxes, as I explained in my last reply to one of your posts. All other things being equal, I would agree that there's no problem with the wealthy getting a tax reduction. But there are plenty of other factors which favor the wealthy over the rest which make the current distribution of wealth and tax incidence such that an entirely unfunded reduction in taxes for 2% of the country is an unfair burden on the rest. When income disparity is on the decline, or at least when spending power for the middle and lower classes is increasing rather than decreasing I'll be more receptive to your position, but not before.

Most of us have every opportunity we need to attain the position where it is less of a burden, as you describe. Sure, it would be a longer road for some than others, but that's life for you. It's not meant to be everyone's burden.

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Original post by Khaiy Your analogy about fishing doesn't really apply. My statement was a direct response to your statement, in which you said that the rich don't necessarily spend their money on useless things, and make great and valuable investments beneficial to a lot of people when their tax rates are low. But as I mentioned, speculative investments (which don't benefit anyone other than the early speculative investors) increase when more and more wealth concentrates into fewer and fewer hands. This can be mitigated by increasing tax rates on the wealthy or by reducing income disparity, and probably in other ways as well.

the fishing analogy is that you cannot blame investing, which helps people directly by giving them money with which to improve a business or whatever you're investing in. What happens after that point is not a matter of investing being good or bad. If I kill someone with flowers should we say that flowers are bad?

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It's financed by the lower classes in a variety of ways. But broadly speaking, tax cuts for the wealthy are not offset by any spending reduction and are funded by adding to the deficit. Ultimately this forces cuts in services which lower classes may depend on.

so it's the wealthy's fault that our government is irresponsible and they should have to pay for it?

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It's not the fault of the lower classes that they are not paid much, and workers might well prefer to pay more than $0 in taxes if their spending power could just increase rather than erode. Certainly they don't want those things to happen just to see the rich get richer.

so it's big business' fault for hiring people willing to do the work for less? Clearly if someone offers to do a job for $10 and another for $8 the smart money is on the $10 guy. If there were more monopolies in the world it might be a problem, but that is simply not the case.

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The wealthy pay more taxes because they have more money, yes, but also because they have vastly more influence in tax legislation

So you want to tax them more giving them more influence because they have more influence already.

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and have been directly responsible for the reduced ability of others to pay their own share.

How is bill gates directly responsible for the reduced ability of anyone to pay their own share.

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So because it's an opinion that it's not a severe penalty we should default to your opinion that it is?

my opinion isn't that it's a severe penalty. My opinion is that the severity of the penalty is decided entirely by the person being penalized.

to give an example, Bill Gates has donated a large portion of his wealth through the B&MG foundation. Does he really care if he donates 35 billion dollars 35.35 billion, probably not, but that's $35,000,000 that is now not going to charity for FAR better causes than the government will ever use them for.

or say that he wasn't even donating it to charity and he was investing instead. Given that he's not a dumbass and he ran one of the most successful corporations in the world he's probably not going to invest it in a dildo factory. The extra $35,000,000 invested would probably go to something that would result in general forward progress of humanity as a whole even if his desires were completely

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It seems to me that the crux of your position is: -It's morally unacceptable for those paying the majority of taxes to pay yet more, regardless of other considerations.

no. it is morally unacceptable to inconvenience a minority of people because it inconveniences them less than the average person.

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-People have a right to hold as much money as they can from their income, regardless of other factors.

why do you not believe this?

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Original post by Quasimojo Quote: Original post by Ftn...what if Palin gets to power. She thinks world is 6k year old and final judgement is upon us? Cite please. Seriously. If you're going to make that kind of accusation, surely you have some kind of evidence. I'm a born-again Christian, myself, and I don't believe the world is only 6k years old, so where is that coming from?

Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted
Palin canny on religion and politics
Just 2 first hits from googling "palin dinosaurs". That just stick to my mind becouse how dumbfounded I was.

EDIT:
End times

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Original post by Ftn Palin Claimed Dinosaurs And People Coexisted Palin canny on religion and politics Just 2 first hits from googling "palin dinosaurs". That just stick to my mind becouse how dumbfounded I was.

Well c'mon it's either that or fossils were put there by god to test man's faith. Which seems more logical to you? Besides, I've seen a picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur, so I know it's true.