Why do people believe in redistrubution of wealth and more taxes for the rich?

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Originally posted by SeleneLux

There really are just 1% that hold the majority of wealth and power. When it is that far out of proportion then these people did not make this money in any ethical or moral way and are criminals that are protected because the massive sums of wealth make them above the law.

So, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg etc all made their money in unethical or immoral ways? I'll give you Zuckerberg and his winklevossing facebook and ignoring privacy concerns but, even then, it isn't immoral or unethical. Just sleazy.

Explain how Steve Jobs, Brin, Page etc made their money in an unethical or immoral manner.

reply to post by SeleneLux


Please. Many actors and athletes are corporate spokespeople and owners themselves. To defend them is ludicrous and a spit in the face of people who have actual priorities instead of those getting paid millions and billions to entertain the masses.

Sure, corporate owners are the brunt of the problem, but you can't brush the skewed American priorities under the rug and pretend like it doesn't have an affect on the outcome of the economy. If people weren't so predisposed with such tiny feats of entertainment they perhaps could have done something about the laws and regulations that were passed that ending up destroying their lives and ultimately this country. Instead, the corporate owned entertainment franchises sucked in all the cash flow, distributed how they saw fit, and the American people didn't, and continue to do nothing about it. Even the beloved OWS protestors who are so against the corporate elite continue to feed of the corporate powerhouse that is the world of entertainment, oblivious to its grip that has taken hold over nearly all the American people.

No, it isn't the main problem - but it sure as hell led to the brunt of it all.

reply to post by ldyserenity


Who is "we"?

And who are "you" to speak for a collective? Were you designated spokesperson?

reply to post by gwydionblack


You are assuming that all progress stems from the super-wealthy, something completely unsupported by facts.

Many people are NOT motivated by greed and still manage to contribute to progress.

Capping wealth wouldn't stop progress, and wouldn't limit the price of anything to a billion, that's arrant nonsense.

If capping wealth would leave someone with too much life ahead with nothing to do, I would suggest that that person find something to do that doesn't involve wealth accumulation, like studying to be a doctor and volunteering their services, or perhaps becoming a physicist and spend their life unravelling the mysteries of the universe. If they can't find something useful and enjoyable to do it shows how limited their thought truly is, and the depth and extent of their addiction.

Capping wealth is necessary and inevitable if we wish to make social progress.

Originally posted by wildtimes

AND who are we to tell anyone they need to help. Helping is a personal choice.

Wow. So, you see someone in desperate need of help, and the "first responder" theory should not be applied?

I'm saying it's a choice not a law or obligation. Well right now it's a choice and that is where it should stay. This doesn't mean I agree with people who choose not to help, it means I will defend their right to choose, even if that choice is not one I like.

Well, considering that my combined household income is currently ZIP, as in NADA, NOTHING, NONE and ZERO, and we are living off of carefully saved "retirement" money until such time as the companies that went overseas come back and hire honest Americans, I don't feel like I need to be "careful".

So you don't care if I pay more taxes because you have less... that is the foundation of the movement we see. I happen to have a nice job so I guess it's my responsibility to mail you some of my hard earned money. Do you think by taxing the rich more that they will in turn bring jobs back to America? Lowering corporate tax will, attacking individuals will not. A company NEEDS to make profit to survive and grow. YES there might be a few stinkers out there and we should focus on them, but with all the ones not doing so well I would like to ask a few questions.

1. What skills do you have?
2. Can you get new skills to fit the future job market.
3. Why should a company hire you?
4. Are you willing to move to any place that would provide a job?
5. Are you willing to work your way back up with new skills?

I'm retired Air Force and what I did in the AF is not what I do now. I had to learn new skills to stay competitive, I had to be willing to move to where the job took me, I had to have an education to show a foundation and to be competitive once again. When I was in my 20s I was lucky to have 5 bucks in my pocket, but I kept improving for the next 30 years and I do well now. Many protester are young and want a piece of what us older people have spend a life time building and nurturing. I happen to not agree with them....

Yes, okay, helping is a personal choice ... one that ANY decent human being would make without being told to do so.

But that's just my kind-hearted, altruistic, idealistic personality.

Once again the number of scrooges we are talking about is a drop in the bucket of the rich. The rich work very hard, provide us jobs, give the vast majority of donations to charities, already pay 90% of all income taxes, have businesses that pay all the corporate taxes, so on and so on

Yep they be the evil ones.

Why don't people complain about the families on welfare their whole lives never giving a thing to society and just take and take blaming everyone else but themselves for their crappy life...I got a sister like that, so I know...

Taxing the rich is not punitive.

It is not punishment, it is simply a logistical part of operating society in a capitalist system.

When individual people are able to monopolize control over our natural resources and manipulate complex financial markets the result is a destabilization of the economy as a whole and our ability to organize.

We need to prevent the destruction of the environment and the enslavement of the masses...

The good news is that "rich" people still get to be incredibly powerful...

Originally posted by wildtimes
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

The biggest negative to a flat tax is it will basically kill charitable donations.

You do realize you are talking out of both sides of your head? If the system were more fair, there would not NEED to be Charitable Donations!!

If the large and wealthy corporations would HIRE people to WORK for them, those people would not be in NEED of "charitable contibutions".

Sheesh.

I'm talking about like giving to cancer research etc not donations to the poor etc. Non-profit orgs that we need are fueled by the donations of the rich and one of the reasons they do it is for the tax breaks from giving.

Boeing has 100,000 employees, so how many more can they hire and keep their head just above water while cutting 50% of the top earners pay in half? What maybe another 10,000 or 20,000 and just what will these people do?

If I have 5 people working for me it's because that is all I need, If I expand then I need more, so what do you propose to help companies expand to create new jobs?

WE on ATS none of us want redistribution, only justice, and the end to tax loopholes.
Personally I also wants them to repeal affirmative action and any other SLANTED laws.

Originally posted by apacheman
A better question, or rather set of questions:

1. Why do the super-rich continue to build wealth long after every conceivable need for now and two, three and more generations into the future has been met?

2. From where do people derive the right to unlimited wealth?

Whose right is it to put a cap on it? why not cap it a 50k? wealth is not a right, its an earned result from one's actions.

3. Why isn't the desire for excessive wealth seen as what it is, an addiction, and treated as such?

4. Why can't the super-rich say enough is enough and gracefully retire when they've reached, say a billion dollars in wealth?

Why should you care other than to desire what they have that you don't have...which way is the addiction here? I personally do not care what they do, it is not my life or apart of my life.

5. Why isn't there a global cap on individual wealth?

Ya its called Communism in many places

The super-rich are being irresponsible due to their addiction to wealth-building and utter lack of self-control, not knowing when to say when, just like any other addict.

All poor are lazy.... same logic




Should we dictate what kind of car you can drive, how big of house you can live in, what foods you eat? I think that is called Comunism and there are countries like that, that I'm sure may suit many here.

reply to post by Xtrozero


The rich do NOT "work very hard": they hire other people to do that at very low wages, for the most part.

The rich, in fact,seldom work at all, so far as I can see.

Unless you call partying (Paris Hilton), meddling in politics (Koch brothers), manipulating financial markets, running Ponzi schemes, and selling junk as solid investments (Blankfein, Madoff, and most of Wall Street) "hard work".

Jobs and Gates were/are obsessive/compulsives who would do what they do matter what. Both contributed far less than what they actually produced in and of themselves, rather they took credit for the hard work of others far down the food chain.

And the rich actually provide very few jobs, since most of them got rich by increasing efficiency, defined as getting more work out of fewer people, thus producing a net reduction in jobs, not an increase, and pocketing the savings rather than reducing the prices of whatever.

If every billionaire in the world dropped dead this instant, I assure you that progress wouldn't stop and the world wouldn't end. They are not uniquely irreplaceable people.

reply to post by Xtrozero


It is society's right to do so, as much as it is society's right to say you can't burn down the neighborhood because you want a park there instead.

A society has every right to place a limit on behaviors that harm it, and excessive wealth accumulation is demonstrably harmful to society.

A billion is a more than reasonable cap.

I and most other people have no desire to be a billionaire: I have no need for more than what I can actually use. It is not envy of the wealth, but rather a recognition that too much in too few hands is dangerous and harmful to the society in which I live.

Most of your arguments against the concept are strawman arguments and don't address anything I've posted with validity.

Capping wealth at a billion dollars harms no one, any damage is strictly to the ego.

Originally posted by apacheman

The rich do NOT "work very hard": they hire other people to do that at very low wages, for the most part.

Lol, you just do not know. Maybe old money allows some rich to just live some fabulous life style, but then we can't tax old money can we. The rich work 80 plus hours a week... that is why they are rich... geez. They are focus and motivated never stopping...

Unless you call partying (Paris Hilton), meddling in politics (Koch brothers), manipulating financial markets, running Ponzi schemes, and selling junk as solid investments (Blankfein, Madoff, and most of Wall Street) "hard work".

So we have a few stinkers.. how about the other few million?

I swear people have some Hollywood image of the evil rich guy in their heads and predicate their ideals based on that... if it wasn't so sad it would be funny.

They are not uniquely irreplaceable people.

If you killed all future billionaires too would the world still be the same? Is a person poor because of billionaires or is he poor because of personal choices?

reply to post by apacheman


isn't it then, society's right to say that you cannot have any redistributed wealth if you are unemployed, have more than 1 child, won't work nights, spend more thant xx amount on a "luxury" item, are white or black or orange or green, believe in christ, god or the great gazoo?

If I amass a billion dollars and the public forces me to redistribute it, I will, on my terms.

I'm going to give it away to those who I feel truly need it. You know charity. I won't see my hard earned money get handed out to some xbox playing slacker who isn't willing to work at mcdonalds to support himself

reply to post by apacheman

You are assuming that all progress stems from the super-wealthy, something completely unsupported by facts.

No. I am not assuming ALL progress stems from the super-wealthy, but a whole lot of it does.

Capping wealth wouldn't stop progress, and wouldn't limit the price of anything to a billion, that's arrant nonsense.

It you capped the amount of wealth any person would have to a billion dollars, anything over that amount becomes unbuyable by an individual. So no, it wouldn't limit the price, it would just make it completely unattainable to any individual.

Capping wealth is necessary and inevitable if we wish to make social progress.

Social progress. We don't need social progress. We need a social medium. A return to affordable, workable conditions that have been proven to work when regulated efficiently. Until someone comes up with a plan that will work towards "social progress" without limiting individual freedom to choose, they can keep it.


reply to post by ldyserenity


Fair enough. I can agree with those sentiments. However, one man's definition of "justice" is a slap on the wrist, while another man's definition is the death penalty. The ranges of how things get done may differ vastly from person to person.


reply to post by apacheman

It is society's right to do so, as much as it is society's right to say you can't burn down the neighborhood because you want a park there instead.

A society has every right to place a limit on behaviors that harm it, and excessive wealth accumulation is demonstrably harmful to society.

Society this, society that. Society rights. What happened to individual rights? Those are the principles this country was founded on, not society rights. I'm supposed to have the freedom to work outside the norms of society if I choose to do so, not be confined to the rules which society places on me just because they don't agree with my views.

As was said, there are plenty of countries that practice these policies, but America is not one of them.

Originally posted by apacheman
reply to post by Xtrozero

 

It is society's right to do so, as much as it is society's right to say you can't burn down the neighborhood because you want a park there instead.

A society has every right to place a limit on behaviors that harm it, and excessive wealth accumulation is demonstrably harmful to society.

A billion is a more than reasonable cap.

I and most other people have no desire to be a billionaire: I have no need for more than what I can actually use. It is not envy of the wealth, but rather a recognition that too much in too few hands is dangerous and harmful to the society in which I live.

Most of your arguments against the concept are strawman arguments and don't address anything I've posted with validity.

Capping wealth at a billion dollars harms no one, any damage is strictly to the ego.

It is kind of like burning books... we protect one we dislike so that another doesn't get burned.

Today we cap it at 1 billion then we cap it at 100 million then 1 million the 100,000 see where this goes?

Plus, please tell me what negative effects a billionaire has on society that a bloated government wasting trillions does not have. If we tax the rich more and cap their wealth that is not enough, so we take the somewhat rich and find it is still not enough then we do something like, let's say, anyone who makes more than 250k is rich and we tax all them too. In the end the Government can waste trillions faster than million/billionaires can pay it off.

It is not how much you make it is how much you spend and our Government cannot make enough even if they taxed EVERYONE in America more. The rich is not where our focus should be, and is just a propaganda ploy by Obama's reelection agenda to take the heat off of his failures.

Yep blame the rich...geez

Hey I got a great idea...

Lets cap at 1 billion, so when I build my company up over many years and I hit that billion I just close the doors tear down the buildings, sell everything for scrap and go retire to some island to live out my days...

The 10,000+ employees that once worked for me can go find another place to work.

reply to post by Xtrozero


In case you've been blinded in both eyes, and are deaf, I'll spell it out for you:

Billionaires buy our governments, foment our wars, and fund terrorism.

Capping wealth will have zero adverse effects and many good ones.

Capping wealth doesn't limit anyone's choices in any demonstrably real way.

As I've pointed out before, alluding to an eventual ten-dollar cap on wealth is a strawman argument.

Who cares if Obama is re-elected? Certainly not me: I didn't vote for him in the first place, and his behavior and results in office are about what I expected.

Yet another strawman argument.

reply to post by Xtrozero


Nope, you just retire and the company goes on.

You've taken your just share and have no need of more, so go enjoy it. If, god forbid, your wealth drops to a mere $900,000,000.00, why then you can jump back in and earn some more to top it off again.

What's wrong with that?

Originally posted by apacheman

In case you've been blinded in both eyes, and are deaf, I'll spell it out for you:

Billionaires buy our governments, foment our wars, and fund terrorism.

Men in power don't need a lot of money to manipulate. So should we dictate to the rest of the world to cap all?

Capping wealth will have zero adverse effects and many good ones.

Really? The Soviet Union capped wealth, an what a dreary place that was for ALL.