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(From ipsedixit)
Few people remember that the last time America was great was the period after the war, up to the early 1960s, when the top tax rate was above 90%.
No, This quote needs to be killed with a stake. Rich people are smart and know what to do, see tax havens. All that 90% tax rate did was make rich people very clever. Businesses paid for all the rich people's expenses.
originally posted by: ipsedixit
Reply to jellyrev:
(From ipsedixit)
Few people remember that the last time America was great was the period after the war, up to the early 1960s, when the top tax rate was above 90%.
No, This quote needs to be killed with a stake. Rich people are smart and know what to do, see tax havens. All that 90% tax rate did was make rich people very clever. Businesses paid for all the rich people's expenses.
The interesting thing about the 90% tax rate is that it was sustained through a considerable period of prosperity and, I think, represents a more reasonable response by society in general to the many built in advantages that corporations and the rich enjoy, than a 35% tax rate.
Our elected representatives created tax havens for the oligarchs. As far as I'm concerned, their bodies should be exhumed and burned at the stake and tax havens and loopholes should be eliminated completely.
originally posted by: ipsedixit
a reply to: Flavian
One of the problems with the type of analysis at your linked article is that money in the economy has aspects of a "zero sum" game.
When one says that the rich are paying 50% of the taxes paid in the country, it begs the question, "Where did they get the money to pay that 50%?" Presumably they got that money from the general population in trade. So the general population paid those taxes through the rich.
That may sound glib, but it serves to introduce a lot of question marks around the movement of money in the economy. Are prices exorbitantly large? Is the labor force under pressure from the oligarchy to work for low wages?
It gets tricky. I think it would be very naive to believe the oligarchy, the wealthy business class or the old money when they cry, "Have pity on me. I'm a poor little overburdened rich boy."