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The Big Obscenity: A Trillion Dollars a Year to the Richest 1%
(That's seven times more than the budget deficits of all 50 states combined)
If you make less than $114,000 a year (90% of us), you've been financially damaged by the flow of income to the richest 1% of Americans over the past 30 years. Based on Internal Revenue Service figures, if middle- and upper-middle class families had maintained the same share of American productivity that they held in 1980, they would be making an average of $12,500 more per year.
If you make less than $160,000 a year (95% of us), your household value has decreased, percentage-wise, over the last 25 years. According to noted researcher Edward Wolff, only the top 5% of American families increased their percentage of the country's total household net worth from 1983 to 2007.
U.S. GDP has quintupled since 1980, and we all contributed to that success. It's not unreasonable to say that upper-middle class families should have maintained the same size of their slice of pie.
But if earnings since 1980 were based on this measure of productiveness, the richest 1% of Americans would be making $1 trillion less per year.
A trillion dollars a year. That's more than we spend on the entire military.
A trillion dollars a year. That's seven times more than the budget deficits of all 50 states combined. Many states have been forced to cut police forces and teachers to balance their budgets.
A trillion dollars a year. Yet Congress just voted to continue the Bush tax cuts.
The richest 1% ($400,000 or more) didn't work harder than the rest of us. They profited from stock market gains, shrewdly designed financial instruments, and tax cuts.
The very wealthy insist that all their income will stimulate the economy. But low-income earners spend a greater percentage of their overall income on consumption, while high-income earners save more. Middle-class America has been led to believe that the growth at the top will eventually produce more jobs. But many of us have college-educated sons and daughters who can't find suitable employment. Fortune Magazine reported that the 500 largest U.S. companies cut a record 821,000 jobs in 2009 while their collective profits increased to a record $391 billion.
Even the upper class should be concerned about this. As inequality increases, the majority of Americans will consume less, leading to conditions not unlike the years before the Great Depression, when the working class was unable to buy the goods they produced. The rich, with extra money, speculate in risky investments. The majority of middle-class Americans, with little money, go deeper into debt. The result is an unstable economy for all of us.
Who are the people making up the richest 1%? Bankers, CEOs, upper management, university presidents, Congressmen. They live in their own world, supporting each other's needs. They can no longer relate to the needs of average Americans.
Taxing them is not "soaking the rich." The greatest redistribution of income in history has taken place over the last 30 years, and the victims are beginning to make a fuss about it.
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129 Comments so far
Show AllTimothy Price,
I join you in a peaceful revolution for sanity.
WVK and Horace's views that are shared by too many fellow Americans, for now, which governs the status quo, can be clearly seen to be a failure in that the country is visibly failing in terms of what defines a healthy vibrant society.
One Percent Solution
- 2 - 3 - 4
Peel me a grape, crush me some ice
Skin me a peach, save the fuzz for my pillow
Talk to me nice, talk to me nice
You've got to wine and dine me
Don't try to fool me bejewel me
Either amuse me or lose me
I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape
Pop me a cork, french me a fry
Crack me a nut, bring a bowl full of bon-bons
Chill me some wine, keep standing by
Just entertain me, champagne me
Show me you love me, kid glove me
Best way to cheer me, cashmere me
I'm getting hungry, peel me grape
Here's how to be an agreeable chap
Love me and leave me in luxury's lap
Hop when I holler, skip when I snap
When I say, "do it," jump to it
Send out for scotch, call me a cab
Cut me a rose, make my tea with the petals
Just hang around, pick up the tab
Never out think me, just mink me
Polar bear rug me, don't bug me
New Thunderbird me, you heard me
I'm getting hungry, peel me a grape
But Trylon, some people still think money CAN buy love. Sad, huh?
Maybe they are getting hungry for true love and true friends?
Hmmm
CEO's "work harder". Bull buddy. I am a UPS driver. We work 50+ hours every week. Most drivers on average only get 2 weeks vacation. We work very, very, very hard. And we make on average about 70K per year. Frankly I don't believe for a second that most CEO's have a clue about hard work of either the mind or body. Oh and take a look at how much time "off" CEO' really take. Not the "official" amount. Read some accounts of assistants who have worked with these guys. They manage to spend a huge amount of time in warm places in the winter and Europe in the summer. All work related of course. And all those "perks" are not designed to maximize productivity, they are designs for leisure. Wake up people we are being screwed
What a load of crap. I can think of a dozen professions right off the top of my head where the work pace is brutal the hours are long and the pay sucks. COE's of furtune 1000 companies are not on the list.
CEO's don't work 300 times harder or 300 times smarter. The do however, lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, bribe, intimidate at every turn. Take a good hard look at the "partners" at Goldman Sachs. They have a job today NOT because they work harder. They have a job today because they bribed our politicians and the FED to give them hundreds of Billions. (yes hundreds people-far more than was reported in the MSM) Is that smarter? or just crooked?
Good comment.
More and more people are seeing the light, but at the moment there is no mechanism for translating this understanding into productive action.
The political parties outside the duopoly need to combine under a strong leader to promote sound policies for recovery so that they can become a credible challenge. The duopoly is quite happy with the status quo of the other parties because they can effectively denigrate them with derogatory labels and then divide and disperse them. Moreover, with common cause, pooled resources and a clear message - for instance to "Get America Working Again" - such a party would be a focus for the disillusioned and could well gain the necessary traction to be able to take on the ugly, moribund fraudsters running the country into oblivion.
A close look at the many shenanigans of Goldman Sachs provides insight into how the US political/economic system has been evolving into, and continues to evolve into, some bizarre and self-destructive form of parasitocracy.
A WALL STREET TAX (a.k.a. Tobin Tax) on all stock, bonds, & derivatives transactions would raise hundreds of billion$ in revenue and be supported by 90% of USans.
For example, NY State has a $9.3 billion budget deficit now being cited by its new Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo as the reason to cut state services and lay off hundreds of state workers.
Meanwhile, the NY State Stock Transfer Tax raised $16 billion in revenues last year.
What's wrong with this picture? ALL those revenues were REBATED, as they have been every year since 1979, because of "threats" by Wall Street brokerages to "leave NY State/NY City" if the taxes weren't rebated!
Outrageous, as well as ridiculous!
Wall Street, which has not only benefited, but profited due to OUR trillion$ in bailouts, must be taxed.
If this nation's legislators cannot put Main Street ahead of Wall Street and its casino capitalism, they deserve impeachment and conviction for corruption and failure to obey their sworn oaths.
From Lao Tzu in the Tao Te Ching:
"Those who do not understand when enough is enough,
can Never have enough!"
Food for thought: America's Newspapers and Who reads them
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.
2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.
3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.
4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.
6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.
7. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
8. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country, but need the baseball scores.
9. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is read by people who want only the score of the Cardinals game. They drink Budweiser, Budweiser, and -- wait a minute -- what was the question?
10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.
11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
12. The Portland Oregonian and Eugene Register Guard are read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something to wrap it in.
oh so clever, and oh so pointless. Do you get all your ideas from Limbaugh joke-email forwards?
Obvious troll is obvious.
Why are you here?
You really are a self-serving prick.
That was funny, especially using the paper to wrap a fish...snicker...
Many years ago, I wrote a weekly column. I decided to see if it would catch on elsewhere. One weekly to whom I would have sent the column for free was the only really honest paper I ran across. It was:
The Kodiak Fish Wrapper and Litter Box Liner.
Sadly, I think it is no longer in business.
Yes, quite humorous except that Horace didn't cite the source. Horace where did you get this? Mainly because real St. Louisans head for the mountains (Ozark Mountains, that is) and drink BUSCH!!!
Direct question, Horace.
Why should the biggest get the most breaks, taxwise?
They get the most federal income tax breaks (e.g., lower capital gains tax) because, notwithstanding these breaks, they pay the most federal income taxes. The top 1%, according to the IRS, pay about 38% of all federal income taxes; the bottom 50% hardly pay any federal income taxes (about 2.7%). See, e.g., http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html.
Before tax they take 75% of the wealth.
After tax they take 63% of the wealth, or thereabouts.
Making out like the bandits many of them are.
You mean no one actually gives them that? They "take" it? Do they use the threat of deadly force or something when they "take" it?
You must not be drinking the cool-aid that most of the posters on this website are drinking. Shame on you! :-)
Property is Theft ya know! :-)
Bite your tongue (or your keyboard)! :-)
Yes.
Government bailouts. Interest free loans, low interest loans from government.
"Yes."
"Yes", as in they "take" using the threat pf physical violence? Your *very best* example please.
"Government bailouts. Interest free loans, low interest loans from government."
The discussion you have joined was about federal income tax breaks. This discussion obviously stems from recent events concerning such breaks for *individuals* i.e. the "wealthy". The items you have listed were provided to a very small number of *companies* subject to a completely different taxation scheme, so you are changing the subject.
But since you have shown such interest and indicate so much evident knowledge about it, please *quantify* the value of these government granted things, over whatever time period you designate. Also provide an *analysis* as to exactly where these items were distributed, with backing evidence. Once you do this, then we can compare what went to "rich" *individuals* and compare it to their total income and assets, so as to have a basis for seeing how *significant* it is.
*Thanks* in *advance*!
""Yes", as in they "take" using the threat pf physical violence? Your *very best* example please."
Ah, jakenewton doing his best impression of an idiot. But since you appear to be stupid, if someone refuses to pay his taxes because he refuses to give it to bankers, or soldiers, guess what? The threat of physical violence will be used.
"The discussion you have joined was about federal income tax breaks. This discussion obviously stems from recent events concerning such breaks for *individuals* i.e. the "wealthy". The items you have listed were provided to a very small number of *companies* subject to a completely different taxation scheme, so you are changing the subject. "
No, not really. Wealthy individuals benefit from those companies.
"But since you have shown such interest and indicate so much evident knowledge about it, please *quantify* the value of these government granted things, over whatever time period you designate. Also provide an *analysis* as to exactly where these items were distributed, with backing evidence. Once you do this, then we can compare what went to "rich" *individuals* and compare it to their total income and assets, so as to have a basis for seeing how *significant* it is."
Why should I? You're not paying me, right wing troll, apologist for slavery.
You do it yourself.
"*Thanks* in *advance*!"
LOL. ROLFPML.
Above is "his best impression of an idiot". We were talking about ordinary albeit rich citizens, not the government, taking wealth by force. Idiot. The question stands unanswered.
"Wealthy individuals benefit from those companies."
As well as the not so wealthy like me. The point is you threw out the *cliche* that the rich are rich because of government handouts, but when I asked you specifics around the quantization of those handouts, you balk, and more or less repeat the original claim. *Who* and *how much* rfloh?
"Why should I?"
So as to demonstrate that your *cliches* actually have meaning. Your "why should I" stance demonstrates that you like to subscribe to cliches without reasoning. That's all we need to know.
Absurd. What is the difference between government money given to individuals who own companies or that given to the companies? Different scams for the same ends.
You cannot or will not defend or support your assertions, but then demand that others do.
"What is the difference between government money given to individuals who own companies or that given to the companies?"
A great deal actually. Stockholders were not directly given checks from the government. And no one has provided any accounting as to how the government money was spent as I asked, they simply assumed it went to "the rich", and did not show what proportion of the wealth of the rich is derived this way. See below.
"You cannot or will not defend or support your assertions, but then demand that others do."
Nonsense. By demanding that the poster makes an accounting as above, I am effectively pointing out the specific short comings of their simplistic assertion. Cliche.
Lest anyone believe that Horace's statement is the full story, remember that "they" pay the most federal income taxes due to the PRICES charged for their products & services. Prices & costs determine profit; profit determines owner salary & equity values. The prices charged are maximized per aggregate demand as manufactured by marketing campaigns. Labor expresses its demand despite its lowered real wages by its demand for credit (also manufactured!). So don't believe that they're paying too much... those companies are receiving an excess cash flow that is obscene in itself. Most particularly when IT IS NOT REINVESTED.
All that said, remember that the tax system is used to 'fix' several unfortunate characteristics of capitalism one of which, as you can see from the above paragraph, is the monstrously different amount of market power that exists between capital and labor. Labor canNOT 'manufacture' demand for its services anywhere near the degree that capitalists can.
There is moral imperative to establish taxes on owners of capital at an equilibrium that pertains to the goods & services provided by the federal government to the labor class. IOW, we should require as a matter of standing policy that capital owners taxes should always yield a FULLY BALANCED BUDGET, no matter what level of expenditure the federal government has enacted.
That is because of the large income disparity Horace, and that disparity is widening monthly. Serfdom has come to America via these 1% - 5% as enough is not enough. They are destroying the middle class and American economic superiority which will result in the downfall of America. Maybe you and them do have a One World Order establish where you will live in gated communities and have your own security forces to protect you. You will live inside your glass houses as the air that you have allowed to be polluted beyond repair for bigger profits is no longer safe to living breathing humans as your young are getting more sickness and cancers while you were fracturing and putting harmful chemicals in our underground water supply all in search for more profits. enough is never enough Horace. Workers are no longer valued and the components of productivity has lost it value to shareholders.
Thanks for your prompt reply, Horace. And thanks for the link.
Stats can be interpreted in many ways.
You've chosen to highlight the percent of taxes paid by the rich in contrast to those paid by the poor.
I look at your highlight differently.
If one person pays 50% on a million dollar income, he still has $500K left, which would be more than enough for 99.99% of people throughout the world.
It would take fifty poor people, making $20K on average, to equal that one contribution, if they were taxed at the same rate.
You seem to think its more than fair that the government only takes $1.5K from each of the poor people who make $20K.
You seem to think it's the rich who are getting shafted.
I sure don't.
What are your objections to ALWAYS taxing the second million higher than the first?
Why do you defend the rights of the corporate rich to get richer?
"You seem to think its more than fair that the government only takes $1.5K from each of the poor people who make $20K"
A person who makes 20K pays around 12.5%. If that's the gross income it get's adjusted down with at least the standard deduction etc., in which case they will pay a lot less. What do you think the 20K rate should be?
I was using Horace's link from the IRS stats, of 38% and 2.7%. That's for total taxes received by the government, which in this hypothetical case would be $575K.
Let's look at your question, Jake, for the appropriate tax rate on a $20K income.
If the government needed another $100K to balance the budget, should they take $2K from each of the fifty poor, since the rich guy has already contributed so much more, or would it be fairer to ding His Largesse another $90K or so, to cover the shortfall?
The bottom line is that the rich have more than they need or can even spend, but they prefer to watch society crumble around them, while they gather even more.
Bigger is badder.
"The bottom line is that the rich have more than they need or can even spend, "
You are entitled to that *opinion* but it doesn't help matters. Let's say you knock The Evil Rich down to size by taking all their wealth via tax policy. What happens then?
Evryone but the poorest of poor should pay at least a little something in taxes.
I think you don't have the least idea as to how wealth is created, while having plenty of ideas as to how it should be ditributed. Punishing employers doesn't help employees, real or potential.
"I think you don't have the least idea as to how wealth is created, while having plenty of ideas as to how it should be ditributed. Punishing employers doesn't help employees, real or potential."
Nah, you don't have the least idea as to how wealth is created.
"Nah, you don't have the least idea as to how wealth is created."
In a modern economy, individuals or groups bring commodities, products, and/or services to the market where willing customers buy these things. That is how wealth is created.
Your turn.
"In a modern economy, individuals or groups bring commodities, products, and/or services to the market where willing customers buy these things. That is how wealth is created."
You mean commodities like slaves, oh apologist for southern slave masters?
"You mean commodities like slaves, oh apologist for southern slave masters?"
Fast forward to 2011. Slavery has been over in the US for quite a while. And I sure hope you aren't referring to "wage slaves", that concept trivializes *slavery*. My statement stands.
No, the other poster did not say that wage slavery is the same as slavery. One need not say the two are the same in order to make comparisons between the two or to point out that the dynamic is the same. The labor of one group is expropriated by the other. In each case the producers get the bare minimum to keep them alive and producing, and most goes into the pockets of the master or the owner. Same process.
Your statement - your assertion - does not stand until and unless you can defend and support it.
"No, the other poster did not say that wage slavery is the same as slavery."
I know that. The poster did what you recently did in another thread, refer to a practice that hasn't existed in almost 150 years in this country. I simply used the wage slave reference to head off any possible misunderstanding i may have had that they were meaning something other than *real slavery*.
"One need not say the two are the same in order to make comparisons between the two or to point out that the dynamic is the same. The labor of one group is expropriated by the other. In each case the producers get the bare minimum to keep them alive and producing, and most goes into the pockets of the master or the owner. Same process."
So please be clear to me now: Are *you* now asserting that one of the commodities brought to markets that create wealth are "wage slave*?
"Same process."
How disengenuous. There is at least one difference in that you can decide not to do something and not have your back split open by a whip. Shame on you, when you are smart ehough to understand this.
Once the insults start from you I take that as a sign that you have been thrashed once again.
"Once the insults start from you"
If I characterize something you say it isn't an insult, unless you take it that way which is only your own fault. Maybe you have a chip on your shoulder. Whatever, you should fix whatever it is.
" I take that as a sign that you have been thrashed once again."
Yeah right, you *still* have unfinished business in some other threads. Where you have been "thrashed". Leaving business on the table is a much better sign then perceived insults.
No it is not. Please support and defend your assertion that "individuals or groups bring(ing) commodities, products, and/or services to the market where willing customers buy these things" creates wealth. It creates profits for the owners - would you claim that profits for owners are the same thing as wealth?
Define "the market." You mention "customers" in your description, but not workers. what is the difference between workers and customers?
"Please support and defend your assertion that "individuals or groups bring(ing) commodities, products, and/or services to the market where willing customers buy these things" creates wealth. "
I will do so by example: A farmer creates wealth when he grows a crop. It doesn't do him much good until he brings it to market where someone will trade him something he values for it.
Are you actually denying the truth of the statement that wealth is created as I so stated? If so, why?
"It creates profits for the owners"
Certainly. So what?
"would you claim that profits for owners are the same thing as wealth?"
Why wouldn't it be? Unless you use more narrow definitions of wealth. it certainly creates "value" which people are all too willing to exchange for money.
This is semantic game playing. Stop messing around and tell me how you think wealth is created.
"Define "the market." "
It's a place where buyers and sellers get together and enter into transactions by agreement. Stop playing games.
"You mention "customers" in your description, but not workers. what is the difference between workers and customers?"
When a worker is an employee he is a vendor (seller) of his services to a customer, his employer. Stop playing games.
The value is created when the crop is grown and harvested - obviously. It would have value if people came and picked it up, it would have value if the farmer's family and the people working the farm ate it themselves.
So, no, the value is not dependent upon - let alone created by - the salesperson. Of course, that is what the hustlers would have us believe - that nothing would be of any value were it not for them - the sales and marketing people, the hustlers, the investors. If we started questioning that, they would no longer have carte blanche to manipulate the economy and rip everyone off for their own personal amassing of capital.
On the other points, you have switched your arguments away from your original unsupportable arguments and are now mouthing simple-minded things that are not realtd to what you previously said - a market is "a place where buyers and sellers get together and enter into transactions by agreement." LOL. That is not what you were originally talking about when you said "market."
"When a worker is an employee he is a vendor (seller) of his services to a customer, his employer." Yeah, and when a giraffe has a short neck he is a zebra. Sort of.
Glad you pointed that out though. The argument you are making here and any argument defending "free markets" cannot both be true, since the market for labor - good grief, you do see human beings as a commodity - is clearly rigged against the worker by virtue of the enormous power imbalance. You are making my comparisons to slavery seem more and more valid. Thanks.
You are making contradictory arguments on every aspect of the topic now, which you must do because of the inherent contradictions in your "economic philosophy" - not a philosophy at all, but a set of mystical talking points to defend and protect the interests and needs of the wealthiest few.
"The value is created when the crop is grown and harvested - obviously. It would have value if people came and picked it up, it would have value if the farmer's family and the people working the farm ate it themselves."
So what? Farmers usually raise food in great excess of what they need themselves. It's not always very easy for people to go to the farm to buy food. Why, I'll bet you hardly ever do that and instead buy the vast majority of your food in *markets*.
"So, no, the value is not dependent upon - let alone created by - the salesperson."
I never said anything specifically about a salesperson. Although there is obviously value when a salesperson brings buyer and seller together using expertise buyer and seller don't have. That is value created by a salesperson.
"Of course, that is what the hustlers would have us believe - that nothing would be of any value were it not for them - the sales and marketing people, the hustlers, the investors."
Unsupportable opinion. No one has to give any money to these people except they actually do. Why is that?
"On the other points, you have switched your arguments away from your original unsupportable arguments"
Be specific. When you speak in such vagaries it leads me to believe you are being thrashed.
"That is not what you were originally talking about when you said "market.""
What was I originally talking about when I said "market" then? What is your *guess*? A market is a place (maybe not a physical place) where buyers and sellers come together. That's all it ever is and I never meant it to be anything else.
When you guess so much it leads me to believe that you are being thrashed again.
"good grief, you do see human beings as a commodity"
This disingenuous characterization is simply wrong. I'll point out that I do not feel the least bit insulted by it, in spite of whatever intent you may have had. Your problem is in wrongly equating "labor" and "human beings". That is *simplistic* of you, and I know you are smarter than that.
"is clearly rigged against the worker by virtue of the enormous power imbalance."
Unsupported. I think you have a profound misunderstanding of the labor market in saying this.
"You are making contradictory arguments on every aspect of the topic now,"
Unsupported. A contradiction can be *demonstrated* in the manner similar to a mathematics proof. So I'll make us some popcorn while you get that proof together.
""economic philosophy" - not a philosophy at all,"
We haven't been discussing my philosophy at all, we were discussing how wealth is created, and we actually seem to agree on much of that.
"Let's say you knock The Evil Rich down to size by taking all their wealth via tax policy. What happens then?"
Thanks for your reply, Jake, but please don't put words in my mouth to make your points.
In my example, taking $590K in taxes from someone who has made a million, is hardly "taking all their wealth".
When I was young, a sixteen year old high school dropout could make enough money to pay mortgage on a house and support a family.
In those days the rich were taxed at 90%.
Nowadays grad students start off with crippling debt, and most families require two working parents, especially in the lower income brackets.
The poorest of the poor are homeless. How much do you propose they pay in income tax?
I have a very good idea of how wealth is created, but you're just building a strawman when you talk about "plenty of ideas" I supposedly have on distribution.
The only one I mentioned is taxing the second million at a higher rate than the first.
Any comment on that?
"Thanks for your reply, Jake,"
You are welcome.
"but please don't put words in my mouth to make your points."
Fair enough. You did say this though:
"The bottom line is that the rich have more than they need or can even spend, but they prefer to watch society crumble around them, while they gather even more."
I may have read too much into this when I made my comments but let me look at this directly. It is not up to you to determine if the rich have more than they "need" or not. Need is subjective. But if you and I agreed it was true in a specific case, it isn't any of our business, nor a cause of some lack somewhere else. And it is not the job of the rich to prevent the crumbling of society, a characterization of yours which is also subjective.
"When I was young, a sixteen year old high school dropout could make enough money to pay mortgage on a house and support a family."
I am guessing that when you were young, the US still enjoyed a competitive advantage over the rest of the world, much of which was rebuilding destroyed infrastructure of the war and much that was falling into what we now know was the failure of communism. Things are different today.
"In those days the rich were taxed at 90%."
But very few of them actually paid that. They instead reacted to the high rate, i.e. they changed their behaviour when circumstances were changed by acts of congress. You should expect that to happen again.
"Nowadays grad students start off with crippling debt, and most families require two working parents, especially in the lower income brackets."
Things are different now. Try to account for *all* of the things.
"The poorest of the poor are homeless. How much do you propose they pay in income tax?"
They should not pay income tax.
"I have a very good idea of how wealth is created,"
Very well then.
"but you're just building a strawman when you talk about "plenty of ideas" I supposedly have on distribution."
I may have jumped the gun, but you do have to create wealth before you can distribute it. People who create wealth can be expected to react to laws that effect their ability to do that.
"The only one I mentioned is taxing the second million at a higher rate than the first."
The second million is already taxed slightly higher. The most interesting things in economics happen at the margins. As you tax something more, you discourage it. Many times the actions taken to earn a second million involve employees, perhaps additional employees as compared to what was needed to get the first million. At some point, increased taxes will prevent such activity due to a person's decreased marginal demand for additional pay where that higher rate applies. Indeed, they may reach a point where the cost of each after tax dollar becomes too high for them and it's better for them to just stop. I don't think we want to enact policies that encourage the stopping of economic activity and rewards.
Yes, it is up to all of us whether or not you have more than you need. That is now human societies work. Someone is deciding how much you have as it is now. Your wealth is a function of a cooperative human social community. You want to take - which you could not do without the cooperation of everyone else - but then claim that no one has any say over that. This is the position of a petulant and uncooperative teenager masquerading as a political opinion.
Capital is not the source of wealth, labor is. Do you dispute that? How about we put all of your supposed wealth producers - CEOs, investors, bankers - on one island, and all of the workers on another island. Which island would produce wealth?
"Yes, it is up to all of us whether or not you have more than you need. That is now human societies work. "
I don't deny we are subject to tax laws that come with them the threat of enforcement through the armed wing of the government. But there is a philisophical component to this that I assumed was in play. So what you say is only true to some degree, and is subjective.
"Your wealth is a function of a cooperative human social community."
So what? It's *also* a function of my own faculties and exertions and that is *variable* from person to person.
"Capital is not the source of wealth, labor is. "
False. In our modern economy the two are interdependent. That is how modern human economies work.
Regarding your silly island example, *both* groups would experience profound culture shock, adapt, learn, and create wealth with likely a bunch of tragic accidents and other stuff along the way.
You are staking out a position far to the right of Abraham Lincoln, then. There really is no controversy about this, except from the extreme right wing fringe.
"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital; that, in fact, capital is the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed; that labor can exist without capital, but that capital could never have existed without labor. Hence they hold that labor is the superior - greatly the superior - of capital."