Top income brackets should be taxed at 99%.

Discussion in 'Budget & Taxes' started by Bic_Cherry, Oct 8, 2019.

  1. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    <yawn> I repeat, because you obviously didn't read it the first time: he doesn't -- not least because the government that undertakes to secure your rights has no jurisdiction in Japan, and citizens of Japan likewise owe no duty of respect for the rights of people in countries where they have no vote. It's your democratically accountable government that has the job of securing and reconciling your rights, not the Japanese government.
    Sorry, excessive exposure to evil makes me physically ill.
     
  2. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    So the farmer in Japan is depriving me of my right to liberty and yet offers me no compensation?
     
  3. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    To the extent that you are deprived of your liberty to use land in Japan (hint: you aren't), I'm afraid that's the way it is. States -- governments -- administer possession and use of land, remember? There's no common state or government administering your location and land in Japan, so you have no one to secure your liberty right to use land in Japan, or ensure you are compensated for the (non-existent, remember) deprivation you suffer as a result of a farmer in Japan using land in Japan.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2020
  4. Longshot

    Longshot Well-Known Member

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    Hm, then your system stinks. It doesn't prevent people from violating my right to liberty.
     
  5. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    Something stinks, anyway. But I think it might be your tsunami of absurd and disingenuous bull$#!+.
    That is impossible in any case -- as you know very well, but are disingenuously pretending not to. Exclusive tenure inherently abrogates the liberty rights of all who would otherwise be at liberty to use the land. The only question is whether an exclusive tenure holder will simply steal access to the economic advantage of the location from everyone else, or if just compensation will be made both from the beneficiaries and to the victims of exclusive tenure.
     
  6. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    1) See?! There you go again, trying to find a workaround so you don't have to accept 'failure' as a function of free choice. Or IOW, so you don't have to accept free choice. As long as even one person can start with nothing and yet succeed via nothing but their determination, self-discipline, and effort .. then you have zero argument. Clearly, if that one person can do it, then the conditions exist for it to be possible.

    2) On the contrary, since we know that conditions exist for escaping poverty via determination and self-discipline, then it's entirely plausible. And not just plausible, but likely in 99% of cases. Don't take my word for it though .. run your own little experiment. Go to any supermarket in an economically disadvantaged area, and see what people put in their shopping carts. If you really want to be thorough, you should also check what kind of phone they have, if they buy alcohol and/or cigarettes, and what kind of car they drive.

    3) Who is the 'victim', in your scenario? The person who - despite living week to week on a low income - fills their shopping cart with meat, cheese, soda, packaged convenience foods, and snack foods, and who owns a late model iphone and drives a fuel hungry car?
     
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  7. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No, that's just you makin' $#!+ up again. I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that the outcomes of choices are altered by institutional context that is NOT a choice by its victims.
    No, that's just you makin' $#!+ up again. I am merely, unlike you, willing to know the fact that the outcomes of choices are altered by institutional context that is NOT a choice by its victims.
    No, that is nothing but more of the same absurd, evil, anti-factual, anti-moral, blame-the-victim garbage from you that I have already disproved multiple times. Some people are strong enough to run a race while carrying a rider on their back. That does not, repeat, NOT mean that those who are NOT strong enough to run while carrying a rider on their back have "chosen to fail," or are somehow to blame because they didn't try hard enough, didn't train enough, blah, blah, evil blah. It is self-evidently and indisputably the burden imposed by the RIDER that is causing them to fail, not THEIR CHOICES or any deficiency of effort or sacrifice on their part, or flaw in their character.
    FOR. THAT. PERSON. Everything you say is conclusively refuted by that one simple fact.
    No it isn't. That's just you repeating your usual absurd and evil blame-the-victim filth.
    No, that's just you makin' $#!+ up again.
    BWAHAHHAAAAHAAAA!!! People who shop with a cart in a supermarket are already far above the level of the weakest. They've already shown they can carry a rider without stumbling and falling, because they have a place to put groceries, a kitchen with a fridge and stove, a roof over their heads, etc.
    What brand of sleeping bag they have under a tarp in the bushes beside the local golf course...
    We are all victims of privilege. Some are just perpetrators as well as victims. Your claim that anyone who does not embrace a life of privation worthy of a Franciscan monk is to blame for not escaping poverty, and not the burden of parasites they are forced to carry, is evil and despicable beyond the rich resources of the English language to express.
    Part of not being strong enough to carry parasites riding on your back is not being bright enough to handle money skillfully. Advertisers target such people because they are easily controlled. It requires an exercise of the imagination to believe that the resulting "choices" originate with the consumer.
     
  8. cirdellin

    cirdellin Banned

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    Why not tax everyone above middle class 100 percent?

    They won’t give up and say what’s the point in working and investing, right?

    Investment has nothing to do with GDP right?

    Landlords and tenants and grocery stores don’t need people with jobs, right?

    Money is merely a fake social construct, right.

    Let’s see how the real world deals with this!
     
  9. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    1) No, it means the conditions for success MUST exist within the given society (and let's not forget that it's you who insists society prevents success - so let's be intellectually consistent). Else that person couldn't have done it. This is an exercise in logic. You can claim the gate is locked (tight, beyond breaching), but if some random guy manages to open it .. then clearly the gate is not locked. In this analogy, your claim that the gate is locked is predicated upon your lack of desire to test the latch. Or perhaps the fear you'll have to accept tthat trying the gate latch is a choice.

    2) Don't be ridiculous. No one is holding a gun to our heads and making us buy fast food and iphones. Of COURSE it all starts with the consumer. Do you think manufacturers would keep spending their billions churning out products no one was buying?
     
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  10. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    For the success ONLY of those who actually succeed. The rest may still face conditions that make success impossible FOR THEM.
    Some people have genetic resistance to malaria parasites. They can thrive despite being infected. So the conditions certainly exist within a given malarial environment for them to thrive despite carrying a load of parasites. That doesn't mean the conditions exist for people who are susceptible to malaria parasites to thrive in such malarial environments.

    GET IT???

    Rich, greedy, privileged parasites create a hostile environment for people, just like malaria parasites. Some of the victims are resistant, and able to thrive despite the hostile environment, while others lack such resistance, and succumb to the burden of parasites placed on them by the hostile environment. The fact that some are naturally resistant and can survive the hostile environment does not mean the environment is not hostile.

    GET IT???
    That a given person is resistant to malaria does not mean their environment is not malarial. This is an exercise in logic. One that, sad to say, you have repeatedly failed to master.
    No, just too tightly for a person of ordinary strength to work the spring.

    Just as a few might be strong enough to run a race while carrying parasites on their backs, while the great majority are of only ordinary strength, and cannot.

    GET IT???
    It is not a random guy who thrives in a malarial environment. It is only the specific guy who is resistant to malaria who thrives there.

    Similarly, it is not a random guy who runs a race carrying someone else on his back; it is only the specific guy who is strong enough to do so.

    And it is likewise not a random guy who succeeds in an economic environment made hostile by the privileges of rich, greedy parasites, but only the specific guys who have the specific qualities needed to thrive despite such hostile conditions.

    GET IT????
    No, that is nothing but another absurd and disingenuous ad hominem fabrication on your part. What is actually going on in this analogy is that you are, much like a carny at a midway gyp joint, claiming that what is demonstrably easy for someone who knows the trick should also be easy for the sucker who can't see the trick being worked.
    The notion that working poor people struggling to keep their heads above water haven't chosen to "try the latch" is nothing but more of your absurd, disingenuous, and evil blame-the-victim filth.
    I'm not the one claiming a multi-trillion dollar industry -- marketing -- is nothing but smoke and mirrors. You are.
    So what? If the purveyors of such goods can make someone feel like they have a gun to their head, the effect is just as profitable.

    GET IT???
    Garbage disproved in any introductory marketing course.
    I know they spend billions making people buy products they don't even want.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2020
  11. Patricio Da Silva

    Patricio Da Silva Well-Known Member Donor

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    Wrong question, the right question is:

    Why do you think the highest paid have a right to YOUR money.

    Allow me to explain:

    See, it's the other way around, so, if in the 50s they were being paid 50 times the lowest wage, and now they are being paid over 300 times the lowest wage, what is happening is they are taking more from YOU than they used to.

    So, progressive taxation is just taking it back.

    It all depends on which side of the political fence you sit, how you look at it.

    I think 99% is a bit much, but I'm all for a progressive tax.

    ( by 'you' I mean the collective 'you').
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2020
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  12. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    1) If you take a hundred people from the same same social and educational background, put them in a situation where all have the same cost of living, then give them a million bucks each .. you'll find out very quickly just how silly your argument is. People choose (for a zillion different personal reasons, none of which you can possibly know or question) to exercise self-discipline, or they don't. Since survival of ANY species depends upon self-discipline, you have no option but to accept that some people choose not to survive. You can't make them want it. And if they don't want it, you cannot force it upon them. They won't accept it. Their rejection of it will be in the rapid loss of that million dollars. Those who want survival will at the very least keep that million intact, if not torque it into more. No magic, no 'resistance', no abuse, no coercion, no force - nothing but a simple freely made choice.

    2) Self-discipline is not trickery. It's not even tricky. It's simply saying 'no', in the interests of both the self and one's society.

    3) If people are struggling to keep themselves afloat, they're doing it wrong. That's pretty darned obvious. Americans on welfare can own property and live rent free (even off the land, if they're really determined to save money), so all is just excuse to avoid adapting to circumstances. If you fail to adapt your circumstances to your income, you have chosen to be 'entitled'. You're in no position to vocalise your Buyer's Remorse.

    4) I'm subjected to all the same marketing, and don't buy their crap. Millions of people just like me, also have no problem choosing to say no. The makers and sellers of crap DEPEND upon the folk who feel entitled to keep operating. Your argument is with those who believe themselves entitled to things they can't afford. They're like children in adult bodies, driven by impulse. Well in fact, it's not they who are ultimately responsible, it's the Welfare State - for convincing them that they didn't need to strive to survive, and that they're owed a plush lifestyle.
     
  13. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No you won't. You'll find out that I am indisputably right: people are different, they have different resources of knowledge, personality, intelligence, etc. that lead them to different outcomes given the same initial conditions. And the fact that their outcomes will be different does not reflect in even the smallest measure on the rightfulness or justice of those initial conditions.

    GET IT???
    False. Unlike you, I know the fact that the reasons typically revolve around their personality type, which is largely genetically determined. People who are high in trait conscientiousness, agreeableness and emotional resilience are more able to "exercise self-discipline" than those whose genetic make-up is lower in those traits.
    When Africans were enslaved and loaded onto ships in chains like cordwood, with no space even to turn over, the slavers recognized that some of the slaves would die en route, not of injuries or disease, or because they did not have enough food or water (though some died for those reasons too), but out of sheer horror and despair. You are saying that when those slaves died it was THEIR FAULT, and not the fault of the slavers, for not having the self-discipline to just suck it up and get on with life, because there were other slaves -- most of them, in fact -- who did manage to survive the passage.

    Interestingly, such claims probably rank among the most evil sentiments ever expressed by any human being who has ever lived.
    People react differently to good fortune, just as they react differently to injury. Your claim is that when anyone who is injured by another suffers any more than those who suffer least from similar injuries, it is THEIR FAULT that they suffer so much, and not the fault of those who inflicted the injury.

    One struggles to recall encountering a more vicious, despicable and evil sentiment expressed by any human being, ever.
    But somehow, it is never up to those who establish and then exploit unjust institutions and laws to inflict injustice on their fellows to say, "No" to their own greed, privilege and parasitism....?

    Somehow, I kinda figured it'd be something like that...
    Right, like the one-punch knock-out victims who "do it wrong" when they are attacked, fail to duck, protect themselves, or roll with the punch, and consequently suffer life-altering disabilities or death. You say it is THEIR FAULT that they suffered disability or death, and not the fault of the perpetrators, because others who have been similarly attacked "did it right," and were consequently able to get up and walk away.

    The viciousness of such claims is impressive -- but not surprising.
    What is pretty darned obvious is that you will say, do, and believe ANYTHING WHATEVER in order to blame the victims of injustice for their suffering, and thus to excuse the perpetrators.
    Right. Like the slaves chained in the ship's hold who couldn't adapt to their changed circumstances...
    No, that is just more of your usual absurd, grotesque, and disingenuous blame-the-victim filth. It is never a victim of injustice's fault that they do not sufficiently "adapt" to the injuries inflicted on them.
    Buying would be a choice. No one ever got a choice about whether to have their rights forcibly stripped from them and made into the private property of the privileged.
    Just as some are able to get up and walk away after suffering a one-punch knock-out attack. So, your claim is that it is the victim's fault if they can't just get up and walk away, because some victims are able to just get up and walk away.

    I'm curious: can you give an example of a more despicable, evil and vicious sentiment being expressed by any human being, ever?
    Feeling entitled has nothing to do with it, as anyone who has studied marketing could inform you, if you were willing to be informed.
    No, my argument is with those who disingenuously try to rationalize and justify systematic, institutionalized injustice on the grounds that some are able to survive and thrive even despite suffering it.
    They are owed their rights, or just compensation for their removal. Welfare -- state charity -- is a poor substitute for justice, but if you oppose justice, as you do, then you had better get used to providing charity to the victims who can't just adapt to being relentlessly injured.
     
  14. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    1) Exactly my point. People make different choices, because people are different. That's what I've been saying all along. It's you who insists everyone will respond the same way to the same things. Or worse (and this is beyond elitist thinking, grotesque even) that First Worlders are so infinitely special that every single one deserves careful and unconditional consideration of their life story, lest some minor insult be overlooked. Don't worry about the seven billion, most of whom are outrageously poor, focus all those resources on guarding against failure to consider First World 'reasons for bad choices'.

    2) BS. There is no 'personality type'. Bad decisions are related to CHARACTER, not personality. Character is the substance, personality the flavour. The only way we can be of responsible and motivated character, is if we're raised in an environment of same. None of it is genetic (yet another lame excuse for bad choices). It all comes down to how we're parented - not money, not luck, not anything but that. The poorest people can raise the most responsible and motivated people, and the richest can raise the laziest and most irresponsible. And the Welfare State has created an underclass of people who've been convinced they don't need to parent for responsibility. Thank the Bourgeoisie masquerading as Socialists on the Left for that. It's all part of their plan.

    3) There is no injury involved - there is only the realities of the world we exist in. To call everything we don't like or find challenging an injury, is to perceive oneself as special and therefore especially insulted. The reality of the world we live in is PERCEIVED differently because people are different. Just as many love it, as hate it .. and neither are predicated upon our financial position. If you want a future wherein more people work positively with the realities instead of opting for dependence, then raise your kids accordingly. That's where your power for real change comes in, beyond immediate changes you can make to your own life.

    4) Those at the top of the money tree are creating an underclass, yes. But they've done so via the careful exploitation of human nature, and we should all be aware of that. They know that the path of least resistance is usually chosen (even the Wolf Pack takes the path of least resistance at times, because it saves 'fuel'). However unlike the Wolf Pack, employing the path of least resistance only when there's a corresponding ability to do the hard yards when necessary, isn't what's being done. The Wolf Pack approach leads to independence, and thus independence of thought. It removes the power from the hands on the puppet strings, and places it back in the hands of the people. No, the Welfare State wants you entirely helpless, and entirely dependent. They don't want you gaining any sort of foothold on the ability to say 'no thanks' to their politics and other tools of disenfranchisement. They want you incapable of self-determination, and they'll do whatever they can to convince you that you're already there.

    5) There are no 'perpetrators' where no force or law compels us to make bad choices. It's on us (especially if we're parents) to parent for both good choices, and awareness of what/who/how/why disenfranchisement happens.
     
  15. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    No. Your claim is that people are NOT different, as they ALL have the same ability to make any given choice.
    No, you made that up. I have stated that they will not and cannot.
    You made that up, too. I am concerned with people's rights, and their life stories are irrelevant to their rights.
    You are behind the times. Extreme poverty has declined markedly in the last 30 years and now affects fewer than a billion people worldwide:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty
    The danger is that poor countries will copy the bad choices of rich ones, as Russia did in 1991, rather than the good choices, as China did in 1981.
    You thus disqualify yourself from serious discussion of human behavior.
    Wrong. What you call "character" is part of personality, largely trait conscientiousness and emotional resilience.
    Nonsense. Much of personality is present virtually at birth, and shows substantial genetic heritability: i.e., adopted children grow up to behave more like their biological than their legal parents.
    I guess you have not only never read any research on the subject, but never raised any children.
    The adoption research just flat-out proves you wrong, sorry.
    Right, because even though the genetic dice are loaded, they can still come up lucky seven or snake-eyes on any given throw.
    A lot fewer people would need charity if they had their rights, or just compensation for their removal.
    There is most definitely and indisputably an injury involved: people's individual human rights to liberty and property in the fruits of their labor are forcibly stripped from them and made into the private property of the privileged. To claim that is no injury is vicious, grotesque and outrageous.
    There is a difference between natural laws and lawyers' laws, a difference with which you should perhaps try to acquaint yourself.
    That is an outrageous and disingenuous mischaracterization of my objection to the injury caused by systematic, institutionalized abrogation of individual human rights without just compensation.
    You are just makin' $#!+ up again.
    True: most people are good, but some are evil. Greed -- unfortunately mistranslated as "love of money" -- is the root of all manner of evil. Privilege is government taking the side of greed and evil against justice and its own people's rights.
    Very few understand it well enough to love or hate it.
    GARBAGE. The privileged are far more likely to love the system that profits them at the expense of their victims, and the victims far more likely to hate it.
    How will that do anything to reform evil laws and institutions? You might be content to help one person at a time have better than squalid lives, I am aiming to help billions at a time have free and prosperous lives.
    There are people who have more power than that, people whose ideas can advance society, even all of civilization. To try to do that is ambition.
    It is systematic, institutionalized privilege that has created and is expanding the underclass, not just some few wealthy, greedy individuals.
    True: especially the human propensity to submit to and suffer injustice rather than risk opposing it.
    True, people are lazy (especially intellectually) and cowardly. And that's before we even get to how dishonest, ignorant, stupid, dishonest, gullible, greedy and dishonest they are.
    Garbage. The perpetrators forcibly remove our good choices, and force us instead to choose between toiling on their treadmill (which not coincidentally powers the escalator they ride up at their leisure) and falling off the back.
    I get it: you think good parenting consists in getting your children firmly into harness on the treadmill, so they can do their part to serve the privileged riding up on the escalator it powers, much as slaves taught their children to submit obediently to their masters rather than risk rebellion against injustice. That's human nature, I guess. But all human progress depends on those who will not submit. That would be me and my kids.
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2020
  16. crank

    crank Well-Known Member

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    I'm the one saying that we're all making different choices, remember. It's you who claim it's not us, but 'the system', which clearly implies you think we're all the same. You're the one who can't accept that people make different choices, and so claim that these poor 'choices' are somehow forced. The implication being that everyone is exactly the same - that provision of the right set of tools will magically result in a uniformly identical outcome.

    It's YOU who cannot accept that some people just aren't motivated. That some are just lazy. That some are just impulsive. That some are addicts. That some are immature. That some are irresponsible. Etc etc. YOU think the differences in outcomes are due to external forces .. which again reveals that you think everyone is exactly the same. That everyone is decent, honest, hard working, and just waiting for a lucky break.

    My only argument on 'sameness' is in terms of opportunity. We ALL have access to the same opportunities, but our differences will decide how we exploit them.
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2020
  17. bringiton

    bringiton Well-Known Member

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    So am I, remember. YOU are the one claiming we all COULD make the SAME choices. But we can't.
    Nope. Wrong. Flat, outright wrong. That's nothing but a blatant non sequitur fallacy from you.
    That is a baldly false claim about what I have written repeatedly in clear, grammatical English.
    Most of what you call their 'choices' are not choices at all, but conditions imposed by force. Your vicious, evil, and disingenuous claim is that because each of us can choose to either toil on the treadmill that powers the escalator of the privileged or fall off the back, those who fall off the back are to blame for having been forced onto the treadmill in the first place. Obviously, such claims are nothing but vicious, evil, disingenuous filth intended to shift the blame off those who forced the rest of us onto the treadmill, where our only choices are to either toil for their unearned profit or fall off the back.
    You are again just makin' $#!+ up. I have never said any such thing. Indeed, I have explicitly and repeatedly inveighed against the doctrine that equality of outcome is even desirable.
    That is also just baldly false. I have explicitly and repeatedly stated the fact that people have different personalities, intellectual abilities, etc. that define the limits of what they are able to do, and likely to do.
    The differences in outcome have at least three completely different causes:
    1) natural variations in circumstance, or luck, including the genetic dice roll that largely determines each individual's personality, intelligence, behavior, and potential for success;
    2) institutional environments that advantage the privileged at the expense of everyone else; and
    3) individual choices to take certain actions and not others.

    You claim that the first two factors do not exist, and all differences in outcome are caused by the third factor. That claim is objectively false and absurd, as well as vicious and disingenuous.
    No. I have stated repeatedly that rich, greedy, privileged parasites are NOT decent, honest or hardworking, and that they labor mainly to ensure that the rest of us never get a break, lucky or otherwise.
    Already proved false. When some must pay others full market value just for permission to access the opportunities that would otherwise have been freely accessible, that is not equal access to opportunity, sorry.
    You know that your premise of equal access to opportunity has repeatedly been proved objectively false. You have simply chosen to decline, merely on account of having repeatedly seen it disproved, to reconsider that proved-false premise.
     
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2020

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