Why Are We Afraid to Tax the Super-Rich?

[dreamdancer 0]

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first - what is money?

money is an instrument used in trade. It's percieved value is used for exchanging of a liquidated portion of your assets to gain another asset. It came in place when trading of geese for wagons or hay got too complicated. For money to work, people have to be on the same page to its percieved value. In early days, certain stones, metals and such was commonly used. That's because they believed in its value. Today, its govt currency. And in truth, there's no difference between currency and gold as they both are valued by its want; a problem that "gold bugs" can't seem to comprehend. Money is valued by its want.

Now you tell me where you are going with this, or what you think money is.

before there was 'money' we lived for hundreds of thousands of years in hunter gatherer groups. in these groups 'fairness' is crucial. everyone needs to do their bit and get treated fairly in return - or the group will just fall apart. not only this - but because the group is so small - everyone is watching each others' backs, so it is easy to work out if you are being treated 'fairly' or not.

WOW that is some bizarre idealized conjectural nonsence

AS in places where warlords rule... those who rule by force and their favorites tend to get the best... and the leftovers go to the weak members of the group.

this is in a time before warlords - there were natural leaders who would have been the best hunters and gatherers

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[billvon 3,119]

> there were natural leaders who would have been the best hunters and gatherers

Yep. And the appropriate solution back then would have been to find those best hunters and gatherers and take all their food away (or at least 99.9% of it.) Then you could give it to the people who didn't hunt or gather. If this bothered the best hunter/gatherers, they could always decide to just do nothing all day, and that free food would be distributed to them as well.

I can't see any flaw in that system.

[futuredivot 0]

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there were natural leaders who would have been the best hunters and gatherers

In today's measure-we call those entrepreneurs and CEOs and the weak want to legislate away what they've hunted and gathered instead of honing their H&G skills.

You are only as strong as the prey you devour

[dreamdancer 0]

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> there were natural leaders who would have been the best hunters and gatherers

Yep. And the appropriate solution back then would have been to find those best hunters and gatherers and take all their food away (or at least 99.9% of it.) Then you could give it to the people who didn't hunt or gather.

like warlords?

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[dreamdancer 0]

remember this time was for hundreds of thousands of years - the much greater part of our civilised existance. barter trade grew between hunter gatherer groups that had a surplus of goods. seasonal proto 'markets' arose at special sites where more varieties of surplus goods were bartered.

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[billvon 3,119]

>like warlords?

?? No, warlords would have to be "taxed" heavily as well. All that food would go to the people who did no work, as it should be. I mean, is it their fault that they're tired all the time? No! They deserve as much meat and forage as anyone else. Even more; they're not evil elite hunters basically living in a "food downpour."

[dreamdancer 0]

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>like warlords?

?? No, warlords would have to be "taxed" heavily as well. All that food would go to the people who did no work, as it should be. I mean, is it their fault that they're tired all the time? No! They deserve as much meat and forage as anyone else. Even more; they're not evil elite hunters basically living in a "food downpour."

but warlords do no work - they just take
(just to be fair - they'll call it a 'tax')

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[dreamdancer 0]

potlach...

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The potlatch is a festival or ceremony practiced among Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast. At these gatherings a family or hereditary leader hosts guests in their family's house and holds a feast for their guests. The main purpose of the potlatch is the re-distribution and reciprocity of wealth.

Different events take place during a potlatch, like either singing and dances, sometimes with masks or regalia, such as Chilkat blankets, the barter of wealth through gifts, such as dried foods, sugar, flour, or other material things, and sometimes money. For many potlatches, spiritual ceremonies take place for different occasions. This is either through material wealth such as foods and goods or non-material things such as songs and dances. For some cultures, such as Kwakwaka'wakw, elaborate and theatrical dances are performed reflecting the hosts' genealogy and cultural wealth they possess. Many of these dances are also sacred ceremonies of secret societies like the hamatsa, or display of family origin from supernatural creatures such as the dzunukwa. Typically the potlatching is practiced more in the winter seasons as historically the warmer months were for procuring wealth for the family, clan, or village, then coming home and sharing that with neighbors and friends.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potlach

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[kelpdiver 2]

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and what are the super rich going to do to tell us to 'fuck off'?

They'll retire to a beachfront villa with their 2.5mil. Since you're taking away any further earnings, they have no reason to work 10x7 or more to earn money. Instead, they'll shutter the company. No Microsoft, Oracle, Bershire. No technological innovation - even the open source stuff will badly falter as most of those guys do the 'free' work on the side after getting paid at a commercial entity.

fine, let them retire - in the meantime the economy gets a huge boost from those smart students who get to spend what they earn rather than having to pay the money to the super rich

Duh, students don't earn anything. They're STUDENTS. At best they're making 10k/year in part time work to cover some of the costs. I was able to pay about half of my UC education when it was a good amount cheaper. And I recall my tax returns - I paid virtually nothing in taxes to the super rich, or to anyone at all. I paid 1.65% for medicare, none for SS (worked for the university, has it's own plan), and all of my income taxes were returned once I filed the 1040EZ.

So there's no boost coming from them. They don't pay off until they graduate and get jobs, but unfortunately you forced their future employers into retirement, so now they're going to get service sector jobs and produce nothing.

DD - what Karl Marx would be like with a second rate education.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Duh, students don't earn anything. They're STUDENTS.

they have the money they would be using to repay debts. this money will be used and taxed much faster than any of the super rich can spend it
(remember the super rich don't want to 'spend' their money they want to 'invest' it - which means they're acting as banks and there needs to be a constant boost in the money supply to pay them off)

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[airdvr 210]

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this thread is fairly spastic

So far one of the most clear statements on this thread ...

Please don't dent the planet.

Destinations by Roxanne

[kelpdiver 2]

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Duh, students don't earn anything. They're STUDENTS.

they have the money they would be using to repay debts. this money will be used and taxed much faster than any of the super rich can spend it

I defy anyone here to come up to a rebuttal to such brilliance. Extra points if you can somehow reintroduce logic or basic accounting to the thread.

[billvon 3,119]

>but warlords do no work - they just take

Neither do hunters - they just take meat. Neither do gatherers - they just take food. The only real workers are the people doing nothing because they're tired; those are the ones who deserve all the food. (Hey, they must be tired for a reason!)

[dreamdancer 0]

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>but warlords do no work - they just take

Neither do hunters - they just take meat. Neither do gatherers - they just take food. The only real workers are the people doing nothing because they're tired; those are the ones who deserve all the food. (Hey, they must be tired for a reason!)

hunters hunt for their meat. gatherers gather their food. warlords just take/tax

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[billvon 3,119]

>hunters hunt for their meat. gatherers gather their food. warlords just take/tax . . .

Well, no, warlords do the whole war thing (thus the name.) All three just take stuff that's available for the taking; clearly none of them deserve what they get.

[dreamdancer 0]

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Duh, students don't earn anything. They're STUDENTS.

they have the money they would be using to repay debts. this money will be used and taxed much faster than any of the super rich can spend it

I defy anyone here to come up to a rebuttal to such brilliance. Extra points if you can somehow reintroduce logic or basic accounting to the thread.

my proposition is that by not taking on the liability of a student loan - students will immediately spend more
(does that make sense)

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[dreamdancer 0]

assume we have an economy with 100 units total of money. this money gets exchanged from person to person and back round again - the same 100 units of money, a very primitive 'economy'. assume a bank at one point holds all the 100 units of money. when that money is exchanged it is exchanged only for the promise of more money back in return. at the end of the loan period 110 units of money is expected to be repaid to the bank. where does that extra 10 units come from?

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[pirana 0]

Sorry, but you are, and this has become, entirely too silly.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[billvon 3,119]

>at the end of the loan period 110 units of money is expected to be
>repaid to the bank. where does that extra 10 units come from?

From another loan the bank has made to someone else.

Note that if your bank reports a cash reserve of $2 million, they do not have $2 million worth of currency. It's all on paper.

[dreamdancer 0]

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>at the end of the loan period 110 units of money is expected to be
>repaid to the bank. where does that extra 10 units come from?

From another loan the bank has made to someone else.

Note that if your bank reports a cash reserve of $2 million, they do not have $2 million worth of currency. It's all on paper.

this is a closed economy - all 100 units of money have been loaned out. now the bank expects 110 units back. where does that extra 10 units of money come from?

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[dreamdancer 0]

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first - what is money?

money is an instrument used in trade. It's percieved value is used for exchanging of a liquidated portion of your assets to gain another asset. It came in place when trading of geese for wagons or hay got too complicated. For money to work, people have to be on the same page to its percieved value. In early days, certain stones, metals and such was commonly used. That's because they believed in its value. Today, its govt currency. And in truth, there's no difference between currency and gold as they both are valued by its want; a problem that "gold bugs" can't seem to comprehend. Money is valued by its want.

Now you tell me where you are going with this, or what you think money is.

the very basic function of money though - is as a promise/iou

stay away from moving propellers - they bite
blue skies from thai sky adventures
good solid response-provoking keyboarding

[billvon 3,119]

>this is a closed economy - all 100 units of money have been loaned out.
>now the bank expects 110 units back. where does that extra 10 units of
>money come from?

I just told you, from a loan the bank has made to someone else. Here's how it works:

Al comes in to repay the loan. "But I only have 100 pieces of gold!" he laments.

Bank says "you're in big trouble mister. But if you pay back 50 now and 65 in two weeks we won't call the cops."

Al says "OK" and pays the bank $50. The bank then loans $50 to Bob the Baker.

Al is now desperate and seeks out Bob the Baker. "Please let me have my job back! I'll work for less; I just need to pay back that loan!"

"OK" says Bob. Al works and pays Bob $20 for the week. Bob now has $70 (his original $100 minus the $50 he paid back plus the $20 he earned.)

Bob now pays the bank $65 to complete his payment of the loan. The bank is happy and Bob still has $5.

========================

If you mean "only monetary units count, no paper accounting allowed" then the answer is simple - there's no such thing as interest, since that's a mathematical concept (i.e. paper accounting) and does not physically change the amount of money present. Heck, there's no such thing as a loan; whoever owns the physical money owns it.

[Amazon 7]

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>at the end of the loan period 110 units of money is expected to be
>repaid to the bank. where does that extra 10 units come from?

From another loan the bank has made to someone else.

Note that if your bank reports a cash reserve of $2 million, they do not have $2 million worth of currency. It's all on paper.

this is a closed economy - all 100 units of money have been loaned out. now the bank expects 110 units back. where does that extra 10 units of money come from?

From the warlord selling opium.

[kallend 2,150]

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How about those billionaires who ran their banks into the ground yet walked away with more $millions of taxpayer money in in undeserved bonuses?

LOL ... and you think I was in favor of governments bailing out the bankers and the auto industry? Wherever did you get that impression? I just called for smaller government in a previous post and now you criticize me because governments (not myself) decided to get into the banking and auto industries? Too funny ...

You ALSO wrote (and this is what you deleted in your rant): "Not counting the military spending, the "Super-Rich" are not creating the massive debt." I just pointed out that you are wrong, as usual. Absolutely NOTHING to do with whether you approved or not. Your creative snipping was just lame.

Hence the rest of your rant is irrelevant.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[kallend 2,150]

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there were natural leaders who would have been the best hunters and gatherers

In today's measure-we call those entrepreneurs and CEOs and the weak want to legislate away what they've hunted and gathered instead of honing their H&G skills.

I'll give you entrepreneurs, who actually create wealth (rather like hunters and gathers), but many CEOs don't create wealth at all, they just manipulate it and skim a few $millions off the top.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.