Redistribution of American Wealth

Let me guess, you can't compare percentiles.

 

That question is irrelevant in addressing the growth in income disparity.

No secret that this growth and the destruction of our middle class is off shoring our middle class economy to max profits for a few at the top. Just like Perot told us.

Ain't rocket science.

 

Eventually being the operative word - Industrialization will destroy the Ocean long before Global warming kicks in - and long before population is controlled via industrialization.

So your solution is a non- solution. We need to stop incentivizing industrialization - and incentivize population control.

This the problem you need to solve.

 

Nonsense. Industrial techniques are getting cleaner and better year by year. And the only way you get population control without industrialization is poisoning the water supply or implementing a far more deadly pandemic than the current one.

 

I thought you said you knew whom those names identify. Obviously, you don't.

 

Read

the

chart.

 

Except for Canada, Australia, Argentina...

 

The changes in tax laws implicit in correcting what you assume to be necessary to alleviating the scourge of wealth disparity are not irrelevant to those about to have their income seized.

The important matter is to present a tax system with clearly bracketed income/wealth/tax rate tables that can be open for economic debate in a democratic forum.

What is fair/practical is or should be the overriding concern.

 

There cannot be an empirical answer to your question, only a normative one. Since the beginning of the Reagan administration real after tax income for 80% of the American people has stagnated or declined, while the best paid ten percent of the population have paid lower taxes on more money. One either likes that or one does not.



Most Americans do not. That is why public opinion polls have indicated for years that most Americans favor a more progressive tax system.

https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf...hUKEwj5g93Lg4zrAhUYhXIEHXJIAFQQ4dUDCAk&uact=5

What Republicans condemn as "class war" and "the politics of envy" are the best issues the Democrats have. Nevertheless, the Democrat Party has come to be dominated by well educated, well paid, bi coastal professionals. These lack the public enthusiasm the Republican Donor Class has for tax cuts for the rich. Nevertheless, they do not really mind, because they benefit from those tax cuts.

Consequently, the leaders of the Democrat Party have abandoned efforts to redistribute America's wealth, in favor of identity politics, support for Black Lives Matter, and spectacles like this.



This, of course, is why most white blue collar workers vote Republican. When I ask a white blue collar Republican, "Why do you vote Republican?" he does not tell me that progressive taxation punishes success. He does not tell me that strong labor unions force employers to move production to low wage countries.

He tells me about crime, especially black crime. He, his relatives, and his friends have probably been victims of black criminals. He tells me what it it was like attending black majority public schools. He tells me about jobs he did not get because of affirmative action. These are legitimate complaints. The leaders of the Democrat Party ignore them to their peril. When class is the issue Democrats win. When race is the issue Republicans win.

 

Or another 20.

 

All I’m asking for is a table of proposed tax rates relative to income and net wealth.
This can then be argued amicably via practical/fair economic considerations.
But most people here are saying that the very rich are getting away with murder and something needs to be done without proposing a single testable alternative.
This leads me to believe that complaining is the sole end game.

 

The growth in income disparity cannot be corrected by taking taxes from the rich and giving it to the poor!

The growth in income disparity comes from off shoring our economy. Which sends growth to the top and impoverishing the middle.

 

The growth in minority communities will likely have to come from investments.

That means tons of education and lots of internal economic discipline.

 

Why do we have to ban all thinking and discussion about WHAT should be taxed, and restrict economic debate to HOW MUCH people's income or wealth should be taxed?

The two most fundamental and widely accepted principles of sound taxation policy are, "ability to pay" (the major factor in practicality) and "beneficiary pay" (the major factor in fairness).

Ability to pay is conferred by assets or net worth, not income, so in that sense a wealth tax is more practical than an income tax. However, there are practical problems with asset/wealth/net worth taxes such as offshore holdings, manipulation of debt to make net worth invisible, use of trusts, nominees and agents, valuation issues, personal vs. corporate assets, etc. Many countries that have tried wealth taxes have found them difficult to implement, administer, or obtain substantial revenue from. However, there are exceptions, such as Japan's use of a one-time wealth tax after WW II to get out from under a crushing debt burden.

The net beneficiaries of government spending are almost exclusively the privileged -- i.e., those who hold government-issued and -enforced land titles, bank licenses, IP monopolies, etc. -- whose expected net benefit is equal to the market value of their privileges. So adherence to the "beneficiary pay" principle would require such people to pay the lion's share of the taxes. There is very little relationship between income and net benefit from government except at the very highest income levels (where income consists almost entirely of the rents of privilege); so just as with "ability to pay," income is not a valid tax base on the criterion of "beneficiary pay."

The other desirable thing about taxing privilege specifically, rather than wealth in general, is that unlike wealth, privilege is inherently visible to the taxation system because it is created, issued and enforced by government as well as getting its value from government. A gold bar or valuable artwork can easily be hidden or moved to another country; but a landowner can't hide their land or move it to a different country, or even a different neighborhood. A bank license can't be moved offshore or hidden, as it is only useful in the country where it is issued, and where government regulation ensures the bank's reliability. IP monopolies are only useful to the extent that government enforces them, and stops others from producing that intellectual property. Taxing away the government-created value of privilege would also erase, at a stroke, the excessive disparities of wealth and income seen in all advanced capitalist countries.

 

Lectures but mostly from book sales.

https://www.businessinsider.com/barack-obama-michelle-obama-net-worth-2018-7

 

I'd appreciate it if you could substantiate that claim.

 

"I’m asking how people who are extremely concerned about wealth disparity feel about how much wealth a person should be allowed to have."

I can't help feeling you are trying to engender the notion of a government board deciding who gets to have X amount of wealth. Again, there are no such proposals that I am aware of. There are a number of remedies focusing on trying to help low income people thru better opportunities and tax credits. As well as suggestions that corporate governance be focused a more egalitarian approach to the distribution of earnings including the pay scale. And, of course, using the tax code more progressively. The tax code being something that has become both more progressive and more regressive over the years.

 

I did, and it is clearly telling me the rich aren't paying their share.

Psst, that's getting worse, too...

 

Because the wealthy pay virtually no tax now due to present tax laws that they can pay expensive tax attorneys to avoid.

The poor want to pay nothing and the US government will oblige. The wealthy want to pay nothing and the US tax laws will oblige so the middle class will pay for both groups.

Hard work is essentially what is taxed,

Both the very wealthy and the very poor fight tooth and nail against anything as fair as a flat tax!

 

Once again you dive head first into a brick wall - pretending you have some idea what you are talking about - but you do not.

I posted some math in previous posts - did you not see it - cause I think you jumped in late.

for review -

(1) = consumption - and subsequent biproducts of that consumption - of a third world dweller feeding on a bowl of rice a day.

(36) = First world rate of consumption - biproducts.

China was at (11) round a decade ago - study stated if China was to reach first world levels of consumption .. world resource production would have to double. .. and that's pretty much how things are turning out.

At the time there were 7 Billion on the planet. of which 1.4 were industrialized/ first world. - 5.6 not industrialized.

In 20 years - we will have industrialized double what are currently industrialized. The increase in pollution has been high - as the process of industrialization - is dirty - at present - real world - not some "maybe in the future we won't put gas in our cars" - and that future may come some day - but for the moment - we are using 20 million barrels a day - and will be for the foreseeable future.

But good .. its now 2030 and we have gone from 1.4 industrialized - to 2.8 industrialized. A massive increase in consumption but we only have 4.2 Billion left to industrialize .. we are 40% the way home - and the planet has not blown up yet

Ohhhh - but ... sorry Luke - your friends won't be joining the party - in the meantime - the world population has grown from 7 Billion to 8.5 Billion

So while we have industrialized 1.4 Billion more people - effecting a huge increase in the carbon footprint - the population has grown by 1.5 Billion in that time period .. so we havn't made a dent in the non industrialized number of people.

We are already hitting measurable levels of impact to the Oceans from various pollutants. This not like climate science where we guess - and need complex models just to attempt prediction - This is "Average Mercury Levels in Tuna Off Hawaii" X .. we know what the source of the pollutant how it is getting there .. and so on.

This is what it is .. "right now" - not what it might be in 2050. and right now more than 2 cans of Tuna a week and you are exceeding the Mercury Guidelines for Pregnant women.

These are Low - Got it - but - we are hitting that number - right now .. and that is just one of many toxins. Fertilizer - Nitrogen is causing the bacteria to eat up the oxygen creating "dead zones" in the Ocean - anoxic regions where fish and other creatures can't survive.

Google it - these zones have been increasing big time over the last few decades - you are probably not a Environmental Microbiology specialist but I am - and this is not good.

What % of the Ocean can we turn into a "Dead Zone" - before the equilibrium hits the fan - and the amount of oxygen the Ocean produces starts decreasing significantly .. hmmmmm .. that might be bad don't ya think ?

This is not .. OH Gee - I may have to sell my cottage on the beach in 30 years because sea level might rise.

This is " we are already noticing water seeping into foundation at high tide" - Check out the Sargassum epidemic on beaches in the Carribean - Gulf of Mexico - US - it nasty. Stinks cause it puts out H2S - grows in anaerobic conditions

This is from nitrogen/fertilizer - sewage and other organics - but lets take the rice eater and give him steak 3 times a week - increasing the nitrogen consumption of that individual - and subsequent output into the environment - by 36 - and do this over double the people that are currently industrialized - and we are only halfway there - 10 years more to go. - at which point we will not have made a dent in the non industrialized population.

Just too many fruit flies in the box already - and they are still multiplying - "Industrializing them" is not the solution.

 

Or - we may already be there - for the most part. Folks should not expect the next phase of Totalitarianism to look like Adolfs Germany, China - or the Totalitarian Orwellian Nightmare - Saudi Arabia.

It may resemble more the Feudal System - where you have the rich elite owning most everything - and the rest of us are Surfs.

 

The poor can't pay anything. "Ability to pay," remember?

Or at least productive contribution.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." -- Anatole France

 

Should offshoring be illegal? If so what should be the penalties?

If you owned a company and you saw huge savings in offshoring would you do it?

 

Or North Korea, which seems to be literally modeled on Orwell's nightmare vision.

If they continue to be granted legal ownership of AI technology, it is game over, as they will then be able to treat the rest of us not as serfs, but as cattle, sheep, or chickens.

 

nvm