What should the progressive tax rate be?

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Did you specifically attempt to make the most idiotic tax structure you could?

Cycloptichorn
NO; the FAIREST.

You've already been shown, earlier on this thread, that this is perfectly incorrect. It's mostly just a way for you to express your greed.

Moreso, the government would collapse under your funding structure, and all that money you kept would quickly become MY money, as you would have no way to defend it from me.

Cycloptichorn

2 Replies

@OmSigDAVID,

BS--A very important function of government is essentially 'protection of assets.' The wealthy have more assets than the poor and more to lose if they aren't protected.

Rap

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@OmSigDAVID,

The rich are seizing wealth by paying an army of lobbies and congressmen to rigged the system for their benefits and it damn past time to take some of that wealth back.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

The rich are seizing wealth by paying an army of lobbies
and congressmen to rigged the system for their benefits and it damn past time to take some of that wealth back.

That is free speech and democracy, both of which the poor use, themselves.

U advocate the filosofy of criminality.

David

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Did you specifically attempt to make the most idiotic tax structure you could?

Cycloptichorn
NO; the FAIREST.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

You've already been shown, earlier on this thread, that this is perfectly incorrect. It's mostly just a way for you to express your greed.

Moreso, the government would collapse under your funding structure, and all that money you kept would quickly become MY money, as you would have no way to defend it from me.

Cycloptichorn

BULLONEY! (except the part about my greed)

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

That is free speech and democracy, both of which the poor use, themselves.

Money by the truck load is free speach?????

In any case no society can last long where one or at most two percents live like kings and the rest of us live as slaves in the modern world.

Quote:

U advocate the filosofy of criminality.

If the conditions keep getting worst instead of turning around for 98 percents of the popultaion I advocate the following by arm force if need be as our form of current government would had fail.
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That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

BULLONEY! (except the part about my greed)

Well, tell me: how would the government operate with a 90% reduction in revenue, and how would you keep me from taking the money that you greedily keep?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

David wrote:

BULLONEY! (except the part about my greed)

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Well, tell me: how would the government operate with a 90% reduction in revenue,

I don 't accept your number.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

and how would you keep me from taking the money that you greedily keep?

Cycloptichorn

U underestimate my security force, commie.

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

David wrote:
BULLONEY! (except the part about my greed)
Cycloptichorn wrote:
Well, tell me: how would the government operate with a 90% reduction in revenue,
I don 't accept your number.

That's immaterial. It's clear that I understand the method of our nation's finances to an infinitely higher degree than you, if you believe your proposal would in fact result in anything less than a 90% revenue drop for the nation.

Quote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
and how would you keep me from taking the money that you greedily keep?

Cycloptichorn
U underestimate my security force, commie.

You over-estimate your (non-existent) security force. There is no force in the world that can stop a determined assassin from killing someone and the vast majority of security operations have a difficult time stopping even a low-technology attack from suceeding. For example, do you honestly think, in your fantasy world, you could stop the poor masses - who you are asking to pay the lion's share of taxes, to support the idle rich - from storming your property, taking that property, and ending your life? I assure you that you could not.

Not only that, I submit that you have not put any serious thought into the difficulties of living life in a place with no police or fire department; after all, under your plan, we certainly will have neither.

Calling me names has nothing to do with the fact that your projections are a joke. Just be honest and admit that they were intended as a joke; you've put no thought into them at all and don't intend to.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Why would his pay securety force not turn on him themselves?

In any case it sound like a wonderful world/society to live in surrounded by fellow citizens that hate you to the point they would cut your throat in a heartbeat all so you can keep a larger share of the total wealth.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

BillRM wrote:

Why would his pay securety force not turn on him themselves?

Damnit Bill, I'm trying to string the guy along here! Laughing

Of course they would turn on him instantly, and he would die understanding why they did - greed. Hopefully with a smile on his face.

Quote:

In any case it sound like a wonderful world/society to live in surrounded by fellow citizens that hate you to the point they would cut your throat in a heartbeat all so you can keep a larger share of the total wealth.

Yeah. I sometimes think that guys like David here were simply born in the wrong era. They would have been much happier being a dictator sometime in history.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

Yeah. I sometimes think that guys like David here were simply born in the wrong era. They would have been much happier being a dictator sometime in history.

Well after the Romans destroy their republic by wiping out their small land owners class the backbone of the legions, he would fit right in.

Oh in relationship to security forces to deal with the non-stakeholder mobs in Rome they try importing mercenaries from outside the empire under the theory that they would fears that if they did turn on the emperor that they would in turn be torn apart by the mob.

Maybe David could try bringing in his security force from Africa or some other third world area.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Every time someone disagrees with your tax-happy politics do you call them greedy?

Can you even imagine someone being able to disagree with you simply by drawing different conclusions about what is best for the country or does it always have to be the personal defects you acribe to them?

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Every time someone disagrees with your tax-happy politics do you call them greedy?

When I believe their motivations is, in fact, greed, yes. I will do exactly that. I'm sorry, is it somehow uncouth to call people greedy, when they openly admit that it is greed that drives their position?

Quote:

Can you even imagine someone being able to disagree with you simply by drawing different conclusions about what is best for the country or does it always have to be the personal defects you ascribe to them?

Of course I can. However, I have been long disappointed by the lack of ability to show the process that went into their conclusions, and also their inability or unwillingness to address logical errors with their conclusions. It's tiresome and frankly I don't respect it.

I didn't engage with you early in this thread, when you claimed that 'anyone who is taxed over 50% isn't 'free.'' But, if you're interested in expounding on that earlier statement, I'd ask you to explain how you feel about people in, say, Norway, or other Scandinavian countries, where some people pay far more than 50% of their income in taxes; are they serfs of some type?

If I make 100 million in profits this year and you confiscate 50 million in taxes - I'm somehow not a free man? I'm not still stunningly rich, able to take tremendous action with my money? I find such a position to be far more emotional than logical.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion if you don't even own 50% of your production you aren't the majority stakeholder in your life and are not truly free.

Your desire to portray this as emotion versus your logic is self-serving and itself based in emotion, not logic. It makes you feel good to think I am emoting and you are logical but you certainly can't make that case logically.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. In my opinion if you don't even own 50% of your production you aren't the majority stakeholder in your life and are not truly free.

Your desire to portray this as emotion versus your logic is self-serving.

You should have just stuck with your first comment and saved your opinion regarding my 'desire' for yourself.

Upon what do you base your opinion, that a man who earns 100 million a year, and after taxes has 45 million dollars in his pocket, isn't 'free?' I submit that you are conveniently changing the definition of 'free' to support your emotional position, which is that you want to keep as much of your own money as possible.

I think you do a great disservice to people who actually suffer in non-free societies when you say things like this. Next you'll be referring to them as slaves of Uncle Sam, and it'll be like I'm actually talking to Ican. Rolling Eyes

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Upon what do you base your opinion, that a man who earns 100 million a year, and after taxes has 45 million dollars in his pocket, isn't 'free?'

I just told you, I think he is a minority shareholder in his production and that this isn't true freedom.

Quote:

I submit that you are conveniently changing the definition of 'free' to support your emotional position, which is that you want to keep as much of your own money as possible.

Here you go with your ad hominem doucebaggery again. I just paid a tax bill (by credit card, as I currently don't have enough cash around partly due to the US government taking my poker money) that everyone around me thought was silly, and that I should have deducted more against. I did so simply because I couldn't be bothered to spend time on the deductions and thought they were of dubious validity (even though everyone does them).

My objection to your tax-happy stupidity is not based in greed but an aversion to stupidity (as I see it).

Quote:

I think you do a great disservice to people who actually suffer in non-free societies when you say things like this.

Freedom is in the eye of the beholder. As I have said many times, I find the US to be one of the least "free" states I have lived in.

I don't think I'm changing the definition, I think that freedom is simply not as simplistic a concept as you are making it out to be. Yes, I know we are physically free and are not slaves. But this is hardly the only kind of freedom there is.

As I have said, it is my opinion that if you aren't the majority stakeholder in your own economic activity you are not your own man. It is populism and tyranny of the majority to me.

And this doesn't affect me, I am not in the super-rich tax bracket. So I don't even get why you say it's my greed. I object to you wanting to tax other people this way.

2 Replies

@Robert Gentel,

Quote:

My objection to your tax-happy stupidity is not based in greed but an aversion to stupidity (as I see it).

It's stupid to want our country to continue to function? To be able to pay our bills, while still supporting our social system? Because that all relies on progressive taxation, and higher levels then we currently pay.

Quote:

I don't think I'm changing the definition, I think that freedom is simply not as simplistic a concept as you are making it out to be. Yes, I know we are physically free and are not slaves. But this is hardly the only kind of freedom there is.

I think, by any economic judgment possible, a man with dozens of millions of dollars in his pocket at the end of any given year, who can spend them on pretty much whatever he likes, qualifies as Economically Free. He has the ability to do pretty much whatever he likes, as compared to 99.99% of anyone who ever lived. I don't understand the argument that says such a person is in fact not free, because it doesn't square with their real-world experience in the slightest.

I should add,

Quote:

I did so simply because I couldn't be bothered to spend time on the deductions and thought they were of dubious validity (even though everyone does them).

If the marginal time that it took for you to properly fill out the paperwork, and owe less in taxes (or get a larger return), wasn't worth it for you to do, it's hard for me to understand how that isn't an argument that those taxes you paid are really immaterial to your bottom line. I think this line is better evidence for my argument than yours.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

It's stupid to want our country to continue to function?

No, it's stupid to insist that continuing to waste so much money is the only way to function.

Quote:

To be able to pay our bills, while still supporting our social system? Because that all relies on progressive taxation, and higher levels then we currently pay.

No it doesn't, you are begging the question. I argue that the American government can work just fine (but with the need to trim some of the fat) without raising taxes.

Instead of raising taxes I argue that we should lower the bills and you are merely not willing to cut the spending I am willing to cut but that doesn't mean we can't have a perfectly functioning government without the spending you oppose cutting.

That is something reasonable people can disagree on (and for example I'm perfectly willing to admit that your way can work too, I just think it is stupider than my way) but to insist that your way is the only way to make it work is partisan blindness.

The American government can function just fine without the taxation you want, it will just not function exactly how you would like it to.

Quote:

I don't understand the argument that says such a person is in fact not free, because it doesn't square with their real-world experience in the slightest.

I think this is a logomachy that is pointless to the main points either of us made in this thread and am not that vested in trying to get you to "understand" (you must really mean "agree", as the point was a simple one to understand) with it.

1 Reply

@Robert Gentel,

Yes indeed Robert let the middle class and the old bear the burden so the wealthy can have another tax cut.

Right at the moment the wealthy are acting in a similar manner to cancer cells, the hell with the rest of the body I just care about myself.

I would not be free if I could only buy a hundred foot yacht instead of a three hundred foot yacht.

0 Replies

What should the progressive tax rate be?

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