In addition to the very important fact that wealth in the form of capital is a very dangerous thing to shrink. It will mean less production which will result in a generally lower standard of living. It is a falsehood to claim that the wealthy in America had higher tax rates in the past (when deductions in the past are taken into consideration).In 1950, the ultra-wealthy paid 70% of their income in taxes.— Gabriel Zucman (@gabriel_zucman) October 7, 2019
In 2018, for the first time, they paid less than every other social group—23%.
Terrific animation in tomorrow's New York Times. Thanks @DLeonhardt @stuartathompson!https://t.co/3Pckj7HwfW pic.twitter.com/A4abmHpJN1
Phil Magness correctly writes:
-RW
The real issue is net gain or loss from government. Today's "wealthy" are very often net beneficiaries of government. Someone who pays 90% of his income in taxes but gets 2X the money back in the form of favorable legislation, profits from government contracts, various crony deals, and so on is drain on other people.
ReplyDeleteThe well paid intellectual class employed by government and the wealthy insiders want these high tax rates to destroy the outsider competition. (The people who work hard pleasing their fellow man and were able to make more dollars than most people in the process) Those who have a net benefit from government and influence will get every dollar they pay in taxes back with a profit. A high tax rate is thus carries no penalty for them.
The profits on lobbying is huge. There is a lot of margin to consume in paying more taxes to knock out competition.
There needs to be a widespread knowledge of two types of wealthy and rich. Those who got there and stay there through serving their fellow man and those who do it through government. Otherwise people will continue to see wealth inequality as unfair and not understand that the unfairness comes from government and central banks.
Every time they talk about "taxing the rich", the middle and upper middle classes get the shiv.
ReplyDeleteIt’s good that the NYT has comments. But I made the time management mistake of make one of my own comments and replying to another’s. I ended replying to repliers eight times.
ReplyDeleteMy last reply was not posted because they had closed the comment window. Here’s how the other side thinks:
From: RJM
@Alex Zougle The old idea that private companies always can do better than the govt. is a myth.Name one company that could do a better job than the USPS?Same with private prisons they actually do a much worse job than state prisons because they have a need to turn a profit and are willing to gut essential needs of the prison to turn a profit.Our military is the best in the world and it's all govt. run.Too many more examples to list.
My response that was not posted in time to be published:
@RMJ Wow! You are going to use the USPS and the military as examples of good government?
The only reason the USPS is in existence is because the US government has made it illegal to compete against it in the delivery of other than “Extremely Urgent Letters” and parcels. Lysander Spooner tried in 1844 and was shut down with the force of government.
Speaking of force and wasted lives and treasure, the US military is the epitome of waste. How much longer will they be in Afghanistan; another 20 years? How many times do we need to invade Iraq? How many arms should the cronies in the military-industrial-complex sell to the worst regime on the planet – Saudi Arabia?
Another missed opportunity to talk to lefties about the federal reserve.
ReplyDelete