Are You in the Top 1% ?

What I believe to be the core portion of the discussion is the structural issues that lead to the vast differential. I'm arguing here for a level playing board. Unlike you, I also believe in the elimination of subsidies to people that won't play.

 

Your suggestion is oxymoronic. You can't give an unproductive person something productive to do and expect production to take place.

15% of society has an IQ below 85. There's a reason you can't get into the military with an IQ less than that. It's because trying to find something for you to do actually reduces productivity. Then there's people with addictions and illnesses, poor ethics or just a simple unwillingness to produce. Say what you want about this section of society, but two facts will always remain. They cannot be eliminated from society and they cannot be made to produce as much as they consume.

Now there's lots of ways that we can ease the suffering caused by that reality, but simply forcing redistribution from the most productive to the least is the worst of them.

 

ok, so why do we always talk about hammering people making over 250 with the tax code?

 

I have a Series 7, and if I recall the inheritance tax had a cap, so rich paid smaller portion than they would without a cap.

 

A couple per cent on money made OVER that amount is hardly "hammering" especially when you consider they DON'T pay the 6% on anything over $110K that everyone else does

 

Nevermind apparently you don't have to pay estate tax up to ~5 million; then you are charged.

I think this used to be different, i took the test in 2013

 

Envy is the problem? Hey, you are my kind of guy! For that is what my great, great, grandpap said when his slaves wanted more than the food he allowed them to raise, the game he allowed them to hunt and the cloth he gave them to make their clothing from. When they wanted more than this, it was just that sinful envy, he said, and he would whip that out of them if it got too pestiferous. Would you not just love to beat the envy out of the masses who want a living wage for their work? What in the hell is wrong with these people? Uppity? Envious? Yep, my kind of guy you are! We always got the envy card to play to keep from deeper economic thinking, and looking at the big picture. I like being stupid, don't you? Of course you do! Comrades, yes sir we are.

 

America should be all about equality of opportunity and not equality of results.

 

Agreed.

To make that possible though; we've gotta take some of that money/ some of those talented teachers from those rich school districts and distribute it to amongst the poorer school districts. We've got to redistribute wealth to some degree, in order to make sure there is equality of opportunity.

 

No, you don't. That is simply your unfounded claim. Opportunity has to be taken advantage of. It isn't even something that has to be given; it is best taken.

 

If we did it your way; opportunity is not equal. I believe the Texas Republican said "America should be all about equality of opportunity and not equality of results" to which I agreed. The person born in the projects of New Orleans does not get the same schooling/opportunity as a person born in Orange County, California.

 

You misunderstand the term 'equality of opportunity'. It doesn't mean that everyone comes from the same circumstance.

 

meds problem?

 

Might want to study history. Political violence and economic inequality are inextricably linked. But hey, its simply a problem of envy, not greed.

 

Their benefits are likewise capped.
Fail

39% is hardly a few percent.
Fail

 

they get enough opportunity to not be in poverty.
No excuses

 

There will always be a difference in circumstances and opportunity. I'm saying we should work to mitigate those differences; strive for a more balanced playing field. I'm not against rewarding the hard working, lucky, talented, done-things-the-right-way type of people. That's what our society is based on, and we need competitiveness and rewards. But I think we could do more to balance the opportunity end, i.e. the opportunities for children.

There are several schools of thought on what exactly equal opportunity entails. I prefer the functional version; which I read about here:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/

There are others; and this is a modified (some would say improved) version of the original Platonic ideal.

 

as someone in the top one percent you must understand we are the job creators, if you cross us the wrong way we can make your lives really miserable by preventing real economic growth and opportunity so you are unable to purse happiness.

lower our taxes, remove our regulatory burden, and we will trickle down crumbs to you and keep the bread for ourselves. if you continue to complain you will not get the mercy of our crumbs to eat.

we control both political parties, and everything you depend on for a livelihood, you really have no choice in the matter.

 

Don't know where that "unlike you" argument comes from. I am all for kicking able-bodied people off benefits, beginning with the elimination of the earned income tax credit

 

It's not fair that someone makes more than me. Make them pay!!

 

It's easy to smugly dismiss my argument, less so to actually address it. Your assertion that I should study history makes me think that if you did study history you didn't understand it.

Don't feel too foolish. Many people in multiple societies made the same mistake. That mistake cost millions of lives to correct. Many tried to solve the equality problem by simply murdering the most and least successful people. When that happens everyone's prosperity sinks in the basement (except for the 20 percent of people at the new top) That hardly seems like the way to go.

As I've argued, advancement in prosperity inherently creates imbalance because the production of that advancement follows the 80 / 20 rule. As societies grow the people at the bottom become more and more frustrated regardless of their own advancement. The people at the top become a status archetype that at least 80 percent of the population could never achieve. This is regardless of greed. This is regardless of envy. It is a simple fact of 80 / 20 rule. So while violence and inequality are linked, the solution isn't redistribution of equality because it's not possible. You can't command value. You can't command production.

The anger about that fact is expressed in many ways. As I wrote about before, the violence is typically acted out among neighboring status groups. This is the reason for gang warfare. The 80 / 20 rule is fractal, so among the bottom percentages of the population there's also an 80 / 20 split. Do you hear anyone calling for the redistribution of wealth from the top 20 gangs to the bottom 80 in order to resolve gang violence? The idea is just as preposterous.

 

Yes, the Pareto distribution is powerful.

The problem is, though, that we are far beyond the 80/20 rule for wealth distribution. The top 20% own 85% of the wealth, and that disparity is increasing. What if we get to the top 20% owning 95% of wealth? 99%? Do you still think this would be good?

The reality is that economic growth was much stronger when wealth inequality was less. In contrast, in the 1920s, when wealth inequality was as bad as today, we got the great depression. Thus, the argument against outsized wealth disparity is an economic one, not an emotional one, as the GOPers want to frame it with their emphasis on envy.

 

Liberals are so convinced of the possibility of their idealism becoming a reality, yet they must populate their real world with fictional characters for their ideal to make sense. Why is that?

They imagine all the people at the top as mustachioed villains and then wonder why nothing can get done after they slay them all.

It never dawns on them that their premises regarding how things get done are wrong.

 

Because they are a minority and therefore an easy target for progressive Marxists.

 

We have to make opportunity available to make money, not opportunity to rip off people that already know how and are actively making it.