Do rich ppl deserve their money?

[tango]

One thing, as John Kenneth Galbraith observed, wealthy people find ample reasons why they're uniquely qualified to be wealthy.

Well exactly.

And are we gonna fall for that crap?

But strangely, there's a dearth of same in this thread ... very strange ... no real position taken at all ... no well reasoned arguments.

The growing (and festering) gap is so blatant ...

And the current economic fallout is, I believe, a loss of confidence in those who "think they're uniquely qualified" to be ultra rich ... on the labour of the other 95% of us.

... but then it's easy for me to sit back and criticize from the comfort of my (hard earned) pension. In fact, it's my job!

Edited March 27, 2009 by tango

[Muddy]

QUOTE (moderateamericain @ Mar 24 2009, 09:09 AM) *

I can sum up this whole OP. "We need people to help us justify taking something that does not belong to us." Any time things go bad and people get desperate they will look for any excuse to rationalize taking something that has never belonged to them.

A (western) moralist speaks. Theft is wrong!

IMV, fairness or (western) morality does not help much in understanding taxation.

August, Two points of contention with what your saying, I was not arguing against taxation, I'm arguing against wholesale redistribution of wealth, which is what the original topic was about. The only way to take money from people besides trade or taxes is by force. If your going to tell me. Rich people should give X amount of dollars to alleviate poverty and were going to make (Force) them to do it, then I will call anyone who proposes that a thief. If I work 40 hours a week, Earn 2000 dollars, pay 500 in taxes (for argument sake), then I have Earned 1500 dollars. No man should be able to then turn around and take that from me. That is the reward for my work or the creations of my mind.

And that should be the last word! Anyone who argues against this post is willing to commit theft. My Mrs. and I support many charities ,but they are our choices,not anyone elses. This was a very good post.

[GostHacked]

Oh, I see what we're doing. The economy is globally integrated, but you want to look at national statistics. I got it.

Yeah, the poor are getting poorer here. Does it matter?

World statistics show that the truly poor around the globe are actually getting richer. Sure, the rich are getting much more richer, but the poor are getting richer too. Does it matter if the gap grows?

Yes it matters if that gap grows. This means the rich are getting richer at an increased rate, while the poor, getting richer, is a much slower pace, like a snails pace. So the gap widens, and is reflected in the economy and services/good one can buy. Less at the top, more at the bottom. It has always been like this pyramid when it comes to rich and poor. A few rich people control all the poor slobs.

Talk to those poor who are getting richer, get them to tell you how much better life is becaus they are getting richer.

[moderateamericain]

Why are market mechanisms driving down all production factors prices? Because no one really believes that those participating in the economy are making much of a sacrifice.

Yes but you don't encourage participation in the economy by taking MORE money away from people. You provide Incentives. Which is why Corporations get such large tax breaks. If we need to change anything it would be Tax breaks for corporations for going above and beyond. Such as tax breaks for providing Health Care for their employees or paying higher wages then then the standard for whatever industry they are in. This would free up money for R&D and production.

Edited March 27, 2009 by moderateamericain

[GostHacked]

Yes but you don't encourage participation in the economy by taking MORE money away from people. You provide Incentives. Which is why Corporations get such large tax breaks. If we need to change anything it would be Tax breaks for corporations for going above and beyond. Such as tax breaks for providing Health Care for their employees or paying higher wages then then the standard for whatever industry they are in. This would free up money for R&D and production.

Not a bad point. However, companies are in the game to make the profit. Sometimes it is at the expense of the employee. I think moving away from shareholdings, to one or two people having a controlling interest in the comany is key. Corporations are not democracies. They are dictatorships. One person calls the shots and the rest follows. When too many hands are in the pot, then you get a company that can get stagnant. Also with that many hands in the pot, the long term focus of the company can be obscured.

Give those companies a break that actually contribute something to society. If they do give full benefits to the employees, or allow some flex time so people can balance their work life and their home life, then yes give the company a break on the taxes.

Untill we see companies actually looking out for their employees and well being, then tax the hell out of the company.

IBM recently announced they are willing to relocate US employees to another location in order to keep working.

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ibm...d-workers-india

http://www.informationweek.com/news/global...cleID=213000389

The climate is warm, there's no shortage of exotic food, and the cost of living is rock bottom. That's IBM (NYSE: IBM)'s pitch to the laid-off American workers it's offering to place in India. The catch: Wages in the country are pennies-on-the-dollar compared to U.S. salaries.

So companies like IBM should not get tax breaks. Because they are not looking out for the well being of these employees.

[M.Dancer]

Sometimes it is at the expense of the employee.

Profit never comes at the expense of employees. Profit does not belong to the employee.

[M.Dancer]

Corporations are not democracies. They are dictatorships. One person calls the shots and the rest follows. .

Incorrect. Corporations if we must are oligarchies at worst...one person hardly ever calls the shots....the board call the shot and boards often revolt and oust non performing members. On top of that their is governance....

[GostHacked]

Incorrect. Corporations if we must are oligarchies at worst...one person hardly ever calls the shots....the board call the shot and boards often revolt and oust non performing members. On top of that their is governance....

You have a boss, and your boss' boss has a boss. Go up the chain and you get the board of directors, and the CEO. The CEO always has final say regardless. It is a dictatorship more than an oligarchy. But the CEO has a vision and tells the rest of the oligarchy 'do it'.

Well maybe you are right, oligarchy is a fitting term once I look into it more.

Profit never comes at the expense of employees. Profit does not belong to the employee.

And when profit gets smaller, what gets cut first?? That is right, employees. Lay offs, out right cuts and downsizing. Upper management gets cut second, then higher ups. But when cuts need to happen, it is at the bottom where they start.

[M.Dancer]

You have a boss, and your boss' boss has a boss. Go up the chain and you get the board of directors, and the CEO. The CEO always has final say regardless. It is a dictatorship more than an oligarchy. But the CEO has a vision and tells the rest of the oligarchy 'do it'.

Well maybe you are right, oligarchy is a fitting term once I look into it more.

The chairman of the board and the CEO can often be two different people. Never the less, the CEo reports to the board and the board reports to the shareholders.

[M.Dancer]

And when profit gets smaller, what gets cut first?? That is right, employees. Lay offs, out right cuts and downsizing. Upper management gets cut second, then higher ups. But when cuts need to happen, it is at the bottom where they start.

And so? Employees can be laid off even when profits rise. In either case the profits aren't theirs nor are they management's ( who are also employees) ...they belong to the shareholders.

[GostHacked]

And so? Employees can be laid off even when profits rise. In either case the profits aren't theirs nor are they management's ( who are also employees) ...they belong to the shareholders.

So now you understand how profits are made at the expense of employees. Thank you.

[bush_cheney2004]

So now you understand how profits are made at the expense of employees. Thank you.

This doesn't make any sense....employees are compensated with wages and benefits, most of which come from profits (and losses). Employees are free to look for a better deal if they want, or start their own company.

[Muddy]

Employees sell their talents ,abilities or brute strength. Once they are no longer needed there usefulness ceases to exist. The employee is under no obligation to keep them on unless the employee has a contract. A job is not a right.

Not one of my employees goes home thinking about how good or bad business is! Their job stops at the shop door. As it should be!

As an employer and business owner my job never ceases,it even invades my sleep at times. But I am not at the whim of a boss, I make my own luck. I succeed or fail all on my own.

[M.Dancer]

So now you understand how profits are made at the expense of employees. Thank you.

Not at all. Profits are made by selling for more than the cost of operations. You might as well say profits are made at the expense of costs...employees have as much right to profits as my computer..

[benny]

Yes but you don't encourage participation in the economy by taking MORE money away from people. You provide Incentives. Which is why Corporations get such large tax breaks. If we need to change anything it would be Tax breaks for corporations for going above and beyond. Such as tax breaks for providing Health Care for their employees or paying higher wages then then the standard for whatever industry they are in. This would free up money for R&D and production.

By definition, the fundamental role of an economy is to provide incentives for cutbacks and savings not at all to provide incentives for participation and production.

[moderateamericain]

By definition, the fundamental role of an economy is to provide incentives for cutbacks and savings not at all to provide incentives for participation and production.

Thats correct, Which is why I stated we have to make it lucrative for companies to 1. Hire and pay more, 2. Provide working health care benefits. The best way within are system is to provide tax cuts to offset the cost. If you wanna see Universal health care? Make having health care for companies much cheaper then not.

[benny]

Thats correct, Which is why I stated we have to make it lucrative for companies to 1. Hire and pay more, 2. Provide working health care benefits. The best way within are system is to provide tax cuts to offset the cost. If you wanna see Universal health care? Make having health care for companies much cheaper then not.

I guess that in Canada we have more leisure than in the USA to go back to basics. I think that relatively to companies, we only have to capture all their economic rents. Economic rent is the difference between what a factor of production is paid and how much it would need to be paid to remain in its current use. Economic rents are the only kind of income that is undeserved. In more simple words, we only have to tax away from them 100% of the value of all the natural resources they used.

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

Edited March 27, 2009 by benny

[GostHacked]

In the end, yes rich people that earn their money do deserve it.

[benny]

In the end, yes rich people that earn their money do deserve it.

"Earn" is too vague of a verb to conclude that.

[WIP]

To be fair about libertarians, I think we have to say that they want the society to look like the one that would have existed if minimal government would have always been the only form of government.

Until fairly recently, I would have described myself as a libertarian, and I have to say now that after observing the steady erosion of government services and regulation in the U.S. over the last 25 years (and more recent attempts to import this management philosophy to Canada), that the most prominent self-proclaimed mouthpieces for libertarianism are almost certainly employed by the super-wealthy and the religious right to weaken the political structures for two goals:

1. churches and religious institutions once again become the only sources of services for the poor and needy. Faith-based initiatives (that are still being carried out by the Obama Administration) funnel government money into the hands of the religious authorities. The incentive for starting this policy by the Bush Administration was that the Catholic Church and other churches have figured out from their loss of influence in Western Europe, that people start to drift away from institutional religion when they are not in need of a church as an economic safety net.

In tandem with privatizing social services is the policy of gutting public education, in favour of charter schooling and direct subsidies that will go in large numbers to churches that can offer cheaper private schooling. Having the churches once again in charge of educating our children is the grand goal of the high priests, since they will once again be able to mold and shape the worldviews of future generations to suit their needs and goals -- dark ages here we come!

2. the over-exaggeration of selfish values of personal achievement is being used to instill a fatalistic philosophy that people end up where they belong, regardless of their outcomes, and the failures have only themselves to blame for their lack of success, since they had every opportunity to achieve that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Rush Limbaugh and other "self-made" millionaires and billionaires did -- which is complete bullshit, but I'm trying to deal with that fallacy elsewhere. If most people mired in poverty-stricken ghettos believe they are personal failures and make no attempt to petition for relief, then the filthy rich have a vast docile, impoverished class of people who will work cheaply and do not even have to worry about the civil unrest that usually accompanies a society that goes through a rapid deterioration of living standards.

Since most libertarians are secular materialists (the Ron Paul evangelical libertarians seem to be a minority), it has perplexed me over the last 2 or 3 years that I could not get any of the leading libertarian bloggers to reconsider the merits of advocating continued shrinking of government when there are clear examples of religious and corporate despots stepping in to fill the void for their own purposes. Besides being rigid idealogues, I have to wonder how many are advocating anarcho-capitalism because the message appeals to an educated audience that consider themselves liberal freethinkers, and would otherwise want nothing to do with religious and corporate tyrants.

[GostHacked]

"Earn" is too vague of a verb to conclude that.

Why?

[benny]

Until fairly recently, I would have described myself as a libertarian, and I have to say now that after observing the steady erosion of government services and regulation in the U.S. over the last 25 years (and more recent attempts to import this management philosophy to Canada), that the most prominent self-proclaimed mouthpieces for libertarianism are almost certainly employed by the super-wealthy and the religious right to weaken the political structures for two goals:

1. churches and religious institutions once again become the only sources of services for the poor and needy. Faith-based initiatives (that are still being carried out by the Obama Administration) funnel government money into the hands of the religious authorities. The incentive for starting this policy by the Bush Administration was that the Catholic Church and other churches have figured out from their loss of influence in Western Europe, that people start to drift away from institutional religion when they are not in need of a church as an economic safety net.

In tandem with privatizing social services is the policy of gutting public education, in favour of charter schooling and direct subsidies that will go in large numbers to churches that can offer cheaper private schooling. Having the churches once again in charge of educating our children is the grand goal of the high priests, since they will once again be able to mold and shape the worldviews of future generations to suit their needs and goals -- dark ages here we come!

2. the over-exaggeration of selfish values of personal achievement is being used to instill a fatalistic philosophy that people end up where they belong, regardless of their outcomes, and the failures have only themselves to blame for their lack of success, since they had every opportunity to achieve that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Rush Limbaugh and other "self-made" millionaires and billionaires did -- which is complete bullshit, but I'm trying to deal with that fallacy elsewhere. If most people mired in poverty-stricken ghettos believe they are personal failures and make no attempt to petition for relief, then the filthy rich have a vast docile, impoverished class of people who will work cheaply and do not even have to worry about the civil unrest that usually accompanies a society that goes through a rapid deterioration of living standards.

Since most libertarians are secular materialists (the Ron Paul evangelical libertarians seem to be a minority), it has perplexed me over the last 2 or 3 years that I could not get any of the leading libertarian bloggers to reconsider the merits of advocating continued shrinking of government when there are clear examples of religious and corporate despots stepping in to fill the void for their own purposes. Besides being rigid idealogues, I have to wonder how many are advocating anarcho-capitalism because the message appeals to an educated audience that consider themselves liberal freethinkers, and would otherwise want nothing to do with religious and corporate tyrants.

Libertarians like Charles Murray (of the American Enterprise Institute), following the path opened by Milton Friedman, wants to see welfare programs replaced by social dividends or a negative income tax. Give the money to the people, Murray argues in his 2006 book, In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State. His plan would give a $10,000 yearly grant to all Americans, once 21, who are not in jail. By doing so, non-workers will be seen for what they are: people wisely living out of a fair compensation for having traded away their direct access to natural resources.

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogator...00603270732.asp

[moderateamericain]

Why?

Because in order for his premise to have any legs it operates under the assumption that no wealth is gained through honest means.

[WIP]

I pay taxes, in fact im in the highest tax bracket. I don't quite see what your point is here? That I should be thankful that I have the services that I'm already chipping in for? Besides what does this have to do with redistribution of wealth which I'm arguing against.

The main point was to fish for your economic philosophy since your post that caught my attention could have been interpreted as satire, and a screen name of "moderate" doesn't shed any further light on what direction we should be going in. Also, I may have been listening to too much Limbaugh this week and got so sick of his rags-to-riches stories and other "achievers" that he fauns over, that I just had to get it out there that no one can claim that they did it all by themselves and owe nothing to the general welfare of the society.

Anyway, about your income bracket. Myself, I'm still at the 2nd level of our four-tiered income tax scheme, now, if you are already in the highest U.S. income tax category, you are paying the same income tax rate as Rush Limbaugh....and that does not seem fair to me unless you are also earning 50 million per year. Add to that the fact that payroll taxes like Social Security premiums have a cutoff at $100,000 according to what I've been told...so as Americans worry about whether Social Security will be there when they retire, Limbaugh, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, George Soros etc. also do not contribute anything extra on their millions of dollars of income after they make their first hundred thou.

But while we are on it. How do you think creation of roads, and tools, and other things that make our lives better came about? Somebody thought "Hey I could make a pile of money by inventing this." So now you are telling me the product of the minds of others who created something that you could not should be taken from them?

Yes, somebody who invents a new technology may have received a great personal reward, but who pays for the roads, police, fire departments, public schools, etc. after they are built? Keep in mind, I have talked to anarcho-capitalist libertarians who do not believe in any common services, including roads, bridges and police, and would privatize everything and abolish government in favour of anarchy.

If you take libertarianism to the logical extreme, it ends with anarchy. Stopping short of this puts libertarians in the uncomfortable position of explaining how they decide which public services to keep, and which to privatize or abolish, since they follow a general principle that government can't run anything properly. Why not privatize police and the military? Imagine all of the inefficiencies of government that could be eliminated if you did away with the Defense Dept. and replaced all of the armed services with private military contractors like Blackwater!

We have a thing called laws, If you do not like are laws, run for government office, get elected, and propose legislation to have them changed.

Yes, change the laws! Now how is that campaign finance reform thing coming along? The recent economic meltdown is good example of what can go wrong when payed lobbyists are financing the only two political parties in the system. Phil and Wendy Gramm engineered the repeal of banking reforms brought in after the 1929 collapse, and a so called securities reform bill that made it impossible to regulate the hidden derivative contracts market -- and all of this occurred with the collusion of Republican and Democratic politicians, since they were signed into law during the Clinton Administration. Many of President Obama's financial advisers, such as Larry Summers, were strong advocates of banking deregulation and a hands off attitude towards derivatives. Where does Larry Summers stand now, since he is back in the Whitehouse? It seems that unless he makes the mistake of agreeing to an interview by John Stewart, we'll never know! Democratic and Republican are essentially just slightly different flavours of the same ice cream....similar to what we have with Liberal and Conservative!

Basically your saying is we should hold rich people to a different standard then we do the poor. Why? If a poor person is bad with money we coddle them and provide services to subsidize there living, But if a Rich person is bad with money we demand there heads. Seems like a double standard to me. Just because Donald trumps COMPANY lost money, does not mean its 100 percent because of him. There is a whole list of Directors and Management teams who are feeding him the information

But, if a person on welfare is wasting money to feed addictions to booze, cigarettes and illegal drugs, the cry goes out that they are wasting our money. When a hedge fund manager places bets with capital provided by commercial banks, pension funds and insurance companies, they are also wasting someone else's money. They are richly rewarded when their risk pays off, and face little or no hazard if they bet wrong, since they are gambling with other people's money. Now that Trump's casinos once again have filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, it has to be asked 'how does he get the largest, most prestigious banks in the world to front him the money for his real estate and investment schemes?' An average person has to jump through hoops just to get a mortgage on a house, and yet guys like Trump can get millions of dollars on a handshake even though his companies declare bankruptcy every time their profit margins dip! The answer is that neither side is playing with their own money, and they are still able to stay in charge of their respective companies after they have taken shareholders to the cleaners.

Right now, many of the more radical, progressive Democrats are once again getting a little disillusioned about the surprising degree of continuity between a new Democratic administration and the previous Republican one. So far, the war policy doesn't look a whole lot different than what John McCain was advocating -- the drug war policy is going to continue on in the same direction it has since Richard Nixon -- and banking and investment reform......time will tell if the Obama Administration is really intending to challenge Wall Street's power, or just tweaking the dials a little to eliminate some of the gross excesses of the last eight years.

[WIP]

Libertarians like Charles Murray (of the American Enterprise Institute), following the path opened by Milton Friedman, wants to see welfare programs replaced by social dividends or a negative income tax. Give the money to the people, Murray argues in his 2006 book, In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State. His plan would give a $10,000 yearly grant to all Americans, once 21, who are not in jail. By doing so, non-workers will be seen for what they are: people wisely living out of a fair compensation for having traded away their direct access to natural resources.

http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogator...00603270732.asp

Well first of all, that article is from three years ago, long before the current market meltdown, so Murray's scheme to turn everyone into investors (similar to the Bush plan to privatize social security) would have found even more suckers preyed upon by bankers and hedge fund managers that have gambled away billions on the latest market bubbles.

That scheme still doesn't honestly deal with the problem that not all members of society are able-bodied or of sound mind to be capable of being in the workforce or working at the kind of jobs that provide a decent level of income to be independent and self-supporting. So what do you do with them? Charles Murray says give them $10,000 a year......that won't go very far in this day and age.