THE Super Ultra Wealthy Man can see the future, he sees horror ahead

[jem]

1. Right now the death taxes in the US do apply to everyone... its just, as I said, the cronies are only nicked by them or avoid them all together by setting up expensive tax avoidance schemes like trust "flipping". Therefore... death taxes prevent most families for gathering the assets over generations.... thereby leaving most of the assets for the cronies to gather up...
leading to income and wealth inequality. Do you get it now?

2. Taxing those without the assets can never be a intelligent way to to spread the wealth around. I do care what studies you pretend show whatever?
lets review reality. (

Lets say we have 3 brothers in the country and an asset or income base of 100 dollars.
a. has 10 dollars
b. as 15 dollars and
c. has 85 dollars.

can any study or any economist who is not a crushing communist state it makes sense to r tax the hell out of them til they all have close to 5 dollars?
or can any study... not done by a statist drone say that it is fair to take 50 percent away from all of them.... if the goal is equality?

The obvious answer in terms of equality would be to tax the brother C only .

so the next time a crony tells you that taxes should be raised to address inequality....
tell them jem did a study and proved that the only way to fix income inequality would be to tax the guy opening his crony mouth. In short if you want to balance things out you have to tax the .o2% not the 99_%.

But... then you are allowed to say... jem has other studies which show that the United States would be better off if we eliminate the income and death taxes altogether. (let me know if you need that study.)

Did you just ignore what I said? Or was what I said that unclear? Did I not ask you about death taxes applied universally to the 100%, rather than to the 99%?

As to the rest of what you have said, yes, I understand that you want no taxes whatsoever. I want peace on earth and for all men to be brothers. The use of taxation to impact inequality is NOT a leftist/communist idea, don't be silly. It's an idea that's based on sound economics, both theoretical and empirical, and has been studied quite extensively.

 

[Martinghoul]

1. Right now the death taxes in the US do apply to everyone... its just, as I said, the cronies are only nicked by them or avoid them all together by setting up expensive tax avoidance schemes like trust "flipping". Therefore... death taxes prevent most families for gathering the assets over generations.... thereby leaving most of the assets for the cronies to gather up...
leading to income and wealth inequality. Do you get it now?

Yeah, I get it... You're contradicting yourself and you can't see it. Let's just leave it, since we're not likely to resolve this to anyone's satisfaction.

2. Taxing those without the assets can never be a intelligent way to to spread the wealth around. I do care what studies you pretend show whatever?
lets review reality. (

Lets say we have 3 brothers in the country and an asset or income base of 100 dollars.
a. has 10 dollars
b. as 15 dollars and
c. has 85 dollars.

can any study or any economist who is not a crushing communist state it makes sense to r tax the hell out of them til they all have close to 5 dollars?
or can any study... not done by a statist drone say that it is fair to take 50 percent away from all of them.... if the goal is equality?

The obvious answer in terms of equality would be to tax the brother C only .

so the next time a crony tells you that taxes should be raised to address inequality....
tell them jem did a study and proved that the only way to fix income inequality would be to tax the guy opening his crony mouth. In short if you want to balance things out you have to tax the .o2% not the 99_%.

But... then you are allowed to say... jem has other studies which show that the United States would be better off if we eliminate the income and death taxes altogether. (let me know if you need that study.)

And? What is your point here and who is arguing otherwise? Did I ever, at any point in our discussion, suggest that the 99% should be taxed and the 1% should be left alone? In fact, based on your example above, would it not make sense to introduce an inheritance tax of, say, 50% with, say, a 20 dollar threshold? In the next generation, the three families will end up with 10, 15 and 42.5 dollars respectively.

 

[Eurokopek]

I am not at all suggesting that inheritance taxes are going to solve anything. I just think that, in some "moral" way, not being able to pass your accumulated wealth to your descendants is "fair". How is this wealth actually best used and should the distribution of this wealth be made compulsory (i.e. a death tax)? I dunno...

The other flip of the coin is, is it "fair" in some "moral" way to decide for the deceased that his idea to pass all the wealth to the descendants was wrong?

Besides, making a moral judgment in this particular case is rather authoritarian imo. If in general case with taxes we (may) argue that redistribution makes the society function better, then given the relatively small amounts involved in inheritance taxes, I cannot see the benefit for the poor other than "make the jellies less jelly and make those rich bastard kids work harder". Hence, this cannot possibly be a matter of collective interest, and cannot be decided by anyone other than by the individual involved. Another consideration is that the minority of the taxed will be far less happy than the wide circle of beneficiaries happy with their extra 1000 pounds per head per annum that they will blow off on stupid stuff.

And? What is your point here and who is arguing otherwise? Did I ever, at any point in our discussion, suggest that the 99% should be taxed and the 1% should be left alone? In fact, based on your example above, would it not make sense to introduce an inheritance tax of, say, 50% with, say, a 20 dollar threshold? In the next generation, the three families will end up with 10, 15 and 42.5 dollars respectively.

Who gets the 10?

What threshold would you set in a today's society then? How do you tax illiquids? Make the family fire-sell assets if one random day a brick falls on the head of the widowed family chief? Would that work in societies like Turkey where most wealth is concentrated in privately held companies and any tax would lead to dilution of ownership and possibly other nasty consequences?

 

[jem]

how can we be talking about the fairness of income taxes and death taxes when money is created by private parties and printed at will by them.

The thought process should be thus:
Its unequal and probably unconstitutional enough that govt pays private parties interest and commissions on the money it could create for free... but ok... they private bankers got themselves the license to print money... I can live with that....

but income taxes and death taxes when the govt has the sovereign right to print the money without paying interest on it? That makes no sense at all... it turns it into a hideously unequal system for sucking the productivity and savings out of the work of the people.

 

[jem]

I did not contradict myself at all. you are just being dense on that issue. you know damn well what I was saying the whole time.

regarding your proposal... sure in an academic sense, assuming your tax scheme has no loopholes for cronies, it is better at creating an equal distribution... but
how does stealing a persons property ever make something more fair... especially when the govt or the private bankers can just print it?

you can boost the lower income earners without stealing from those who earn money.

Yeah, I get it... You're contradicting yourself and you can't see it. Let's just leave it, since we're not likely to resolve this to anyone's satisfaction.

And? What is your point here and who is arguing otherwise? Did I ever, at any point in our discussion, suggest that the 99% should be taxed and the 1% should be left alone? In fact, based on your example above, would it not make sense to introduce an inheritance tax of, say, 50% with, say, a 20 dollar threshold? In the next generation, the three families will end up with 10, 15 and 42.5 dollars respectively.

 

[volpunter]

sounds like just another individual who just criticizes others without supplying thoughts that actually address the problem. "Wealth and Income inequality today have not been at such extremes since before World War I". Sorry but I fail to see how your banking rant has anything to do with this.

What I think -- or what anybody else thinks -- is not particularly important or even useful unless those thoughts can be translated into actions that help to solve whatever problem one is thinking about. Rants do not qualify.

In this particular case, rants about the Fed and banks and government and taxes and so on and so on and so on are not only masturbatory but pointless, at least in terms of changing anything. If one wants to understand why we are where we are, he must first understand just what the functions of banks et al are with regard to the organization of a society. To get at that, one must then consider just why and how societies are organized to begin with, and for that one must go back further than a few decades. Most people would likely find this boring since there is so little interest in history these days, but those who find it engaging and work their way forward will reach an understanding of why we are where we are that they won't find on YouTube.

One can chew, for example, on the notion that until the Industrial Revolution in England -- which was, interestingly, coincident with the Declaration of Independence and the American Revolution -- the organization of societies had not changed substantially since the days of the Roman Empire. Most will wonder what the hell that has to do with anything. But some will pursue this line of thought to see where it leads, at least until the late 1960s and early 70s, which is when everything began to turn sour for the middle and lower classes.

 

[volpunter]

You guys still argue about Death Taxes and zero taxes? Lol, good luck, I hope you leave in the end fulfilled and enriched by this super discussion. I find it idiotic to even consider such. Even Hong Kong raises 15% income tax and various other taxes to maintain the status quo and they have one of the most efficient government and bureaucracies in the world. What a dumb start to want to reform the current system rather than acknowledging that a broad middle-class segment is suffering from a lack of opportunities and lack of advancement and trying to solve that problem first. Am out of here...I hope you all have fun arguing about evil central banks, and fat governments (as if that is the core problem, Germany affords itself a bloated government and the economy there is doing fantastically well, during and after the EU crisis). Do't let your tin foil hats become permanent parts of your head and brain....adios...

 

[eurusdzn]

I was told it would trickle down.
No joke.

 

[dbphoenix]

sounds like just another individual who just criticizes others without supplying thoughts that actually address the problem. "Wealth and Income inequality today have not been at such extremes since before World War I". Sorry but I fail to see how your banking rant has anything to do with this.

No rants here, much less about banking, and no mention was made of WWI.

Thoughts were "supplied" but you have to work through them, if you want to gain some understanding. If you prefer something that's tied up with a bow, you'll have forgotten it by the time you log off.

But thank you for playing and please accept this copy of our home game.

 

[Martinghoul]

The other flip of the coin is, is it "fair" in some "moral" way to decide for the deceased that his idea to pass all the wealth to the descendants was wrong?

May I refer you to what some would consider the authority on all things "moral" and "fair"? Specifically, the God of the Bible. For instance, Ecclesiastes 5:15 (among others):
-"As he had come naked from his mother's womb, so will he return as he came."
It seems to me that, if you're a good Christian, your God has sorta decided for you.

Besides, making a moral judgment in this particular case is rather authoritarian imo. If in general case with taxes we (may) argue that redistribution makes the society function better, then given the relatively small amounts involved in inheritance taxes, I cannot see the benefit for the poor other than "make the jellies less jelly and make those rich bastard kids work harder". Hence, this cannot possibly be a matter of collective interest, and cannot be decided by anyone other than by the individual involved. Another consideration is that the minority of the taxed will be far less happy than the wide circle of beneficiaries happy with their extra 1000 pounds per head per annum that they will blow off on stupid stuff.

Well, is such a moral judgement more authoritarian than something like the draft, where citizens could be asked to die if society perceives this to be in its best interest? As to the benefits and collective interest, I dunno if I agree with you. Firstly, the minority of the taxed wouldn't care, since they'd be dead. Secondly, you could claim that without taking at least some of the money away from the "rich bastard kids" the phrase "all men are created equal" rings a bit hollow. Thirdly, can't the arguments against a hereditary monarchy that at least some of the Founding Fathers (e.g. Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine) embraced be applied to dynastic wealth? Finally, isn't it rather authoritarian of you to accuse people of blowing money on "stupid stuff"?

To be sure, I am not at all trying to say that your points aren't valid. Maybe you're right and this tax is fundamentally unenforceable and inefficient, no matter what.

Who gets the 10?

What threshold would you set in a today's society then? How do you tax illiquids? Make the family fire-sell assets if one random day a brick falls on the head of the widowed family chief? Would that work in societies like Turkey where most wealth is concentrated in privately held companies and any tax would lead to dilution of ownership and possibly other nasty consequences?

Not sure which 10 you're referring to here... For the threshold, it's a matter of judgement, so I dunno, maybe use average household wealth? As to illiquids, I am sure some arrangement can be worked out (e.g. the family has a tax liability on its balance sheet). As to Turkey, I am not really sure why you'd consider dilution of ownership to be necessarily nasty. However, if you could argue that the preservation of dynastic wealth is beneficial (e.g. it's about the preservation of control over the family biz), you'd probably want to scrap the idea of inheritance taxes altogether.