First off, I agree with many here who claim that extreme wealth inequality is causing great harm to our national economy. I disagree that progressive income taxation is the most efficient way to correct the problem. Instead of taxing the rich, the government should be looking at ways to bring more competition into the market. When competition is unrestrained then labor moves where the profits are greatest. This movement of labor seeking the greatest profit tends to reduce profits to zero and increase wages in proportion to the erosion of those profits. Suppose medical Doctors are making more money than other occupations. Then instead of taxing Doctors more, the government should be looking to what is restraining competition from moving into that occupation, and making corrections that will remove those restraints. In a world of perfect competition (perfectly free markets), the average medical doctor and the average toilet cleaner should earn about the same amount of money. Great doctors would of course earn much more money than stupid doctors, or even people who clean toilets for a living nothing wrong with that but on average, there should be very little pay discrepancy between occupations when labor is allowed free movement. Next, government should not be taxing Apple Inc. more. Government should be asking why there are not more competitors in the market, eroding the profits that Apple Inc. is currently capturing. Are legal privileges, such as copyright and patents, keeping competitors from entering the markets? If so, then government should eliminate these privileges, and allow competition to remove these profits from Apple Inc., in a true free market environment. In regard to intellectual property I recommend reading this book: Against Intellectual Monopoly Finally, the government should replace the current tax systems, which interfere with the free market, and replace them with taxes on land values. This would remove land monopolization, eliminate the cost of buying land, and allow the free market to allocate land usage. It (land value taxation) guarantees that no one dispossess fellow citizens by obtaining a disproportionate share of what nature provides for humanity. William Vickrey, Nobel laureate in Economics (1996)
That is precisely why the right wing wants to de-nut every regulatory agency from oil drilling inspectors to the SEC. They are OPPOSED to competition, except for hot dog vendors and ceramic mug manufacturers. When was the last time the SEC turned down an airline merger?
It is very good idea, but implementation is impossible. There is no mechanism that prevents rich people from bribing and selecting politicians? Besides people are divided and brainwashed by propaganda paid by wealthiest folks.
The same way that a thief or counterfeiter harms the economy. The thief or counterfeiter does not contribute to production, so any share of production they take means less for the actual producers of wealth to receive. Bill Gates income does not come from his productive contributions, so it harms the purchasing power of producers in the same way that a thief or counterfeiter would. Bill Gates income is actually worse for the economy, and producer wages, than the thief or counterfeiter, because his legal privileges (patents and copyrights) also work to stifle innovation. That is like asking how a leach, tick, lice or tapeworm would affect you in any way.
And how does taking 10 dollars from Bill Gates and giving it to a poor person constitute a productive contribution? Seems like it is just changing hands to me, there is nothing being produced.
when someone turns up to hospital emergency with an arm severed, we don't lecture them in accident prevention.
