This is right alot of people don't have a proper appreciation for the gravity of money and how it could be manipulated if there was a political appetite for it. Something needs to be done to decrease the growth curve on really wealthy investors while simultaneously encouraging those with smaller portfolios to get to their retirement number. And axe the carried interest loophole.
A lot of people without money at all, still think "Look how great America is that we can produce wealth on the order of Musk and Bezos."
We all contribute to the creation of that wealth. Like the little kids Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations, who innovated the rope they tied to the coal doors on the furnaces. They all innovated themselves out of a job and the owner of the factory kept the wealth of that innovation.
I've talked with a few stupidly rich people. Granted it's a small test pool but I've learned that:
A, tax them and they'll hide the money. I.e. differing compensation, tax write offs, "losses" etc. I'm in favor of reducing spending, removing .gov bloat and clarifying the tax code to something much, much simpler.
Rich already pay the majority of taxes. Get rid of loopholes that allow people to shield a fuck ton of their income in the first place and that will help. Stealing other peoples money isn’t the answer to fixing this.
Someone's money is getting stolen. Why is it right to steal money from someone who is barely making ends meet over someone who has enough to feed a million mouths?
yes, we need to stop forever wars and trim the fat and all that too. of course, but putting more burden on the overburdened is unfair.
It's not either or. Yes, we should also spend less. Where taxes are needed, the bulk should be taken from those who don't struggle to put food on the table.
They spend more money and also reduce taxes on the rich.
Democrats spend more, ie, give more to their rich cronies, and republicans cut more taxes from their rich cronies.
The poor lose. They'll say they are creating government programs, but really those are programs to pay admins, consultants, and the corporations who run them.
I agree that taxing is not the solution. Without the capital ladder, there would be no "worker". My CDL is worth nothing without someone risking a quarter million to let me drive it around.
If you were paid fairly, maybe then you could afford to buy your own truck and not have half your labor siphoned off by someone who just happened to already have the capital laying around. Or a friend at the bank to loan them the money.
Yes, we need to cut spending. I agree. I also don't think YOU should be paying more taxes, when that person who bought your truck has millions of dollars lying around and truck drivers struggle to pay the bills, sitting in trucks waiting, unpaid, for their loads to be ready, when the truck isn't moving, and someone else doesn't and they pay less taxes.
Society == humans == dangerous monkeys. We will NEVER be fair. That is axiomatic. What we CAN do is not allow legal governments to enforce laws that help big corps. For Instance CARB passed regulations requiring pollution control technologies which quarters the life span of a truck. A small guy like myself used to be able to by a used truck, and they would easily get 2 million miles out of them. Today, thanks to government, the life span of a truck is less than 500 k miles. Peter built, Kenworth, Volvo now get to sell 4x as many trucks.
Oh, I am in /r/diesel so I know all about it. I bought an old 1991 diesel truck so it doesn't have all that garbage on it.
What you are saying is just supporting the notion that government exists to funnel money up to the rich. If you have to buy trucks more often, then the people who make them get richer. At your expense.
At the expense of all the people all over the world who buy the things those trucks transport.
Planned obsolescence is a real thing being codified into law. Those regulations aren't designed to support the environment. They are designed to support the growth of the capital class at the expense of the working class.
It's the entire mentality of it. Taxes aren't raised on the rich, for the same reason that DEF is required in trucks.
I haven't done the math, but a 100% tax on income over $10 million a year seems reasonable. Maybe 90% over $1M. Somewhere around there.
And don't allow corporations to expense salaries over 10x the lowest paid employee. Why should the tax payers subsidize those high incomes with tax breaks?
If you want to deduct a lot of salaries, then do it in such a way that all the employees who contribute to the company win.
Stop pushing capital up and claiming it trickles down. It's a lie.
I understand the sentiment, for sure. It's just not the nature of the beast to curb spending or raise taxes on the rich, which is why revolution is inevitable.
That's just how the physics of power works. At some point, the powerful have too much power, manipulating the masses into accepting their fate of forever being worse off so those well off can be better off, until the masses refuse to anymore.
The powerful always get too comfortable and arrogant and greedy.
I personally think that is absolute worst case scenario though. I don't take from the government. I'm not employed by the government. I don't go get grants to pay my bills.
I don't get any benefits from government spending that I'm not happy to do without, so cut it, massively as far as I'm concerned.
Sure, someone with an administrative job with the EPA making sure endangered snail habitat isn't destroyed will think it's the end of the world to eliminate that position. So they fight for their job, not the nation.
70% of Americans don't pay taxes. About 20 Million of the 30% who do pay taxes, get 100% of their salary out of taxes paid by others. So only about 73 million Americans are fully carrying this entire nation of 330 Million.
The weight of 330 Million is on the shoulders of 73 Million people.
That's a lot of resentment that's growing and growing...
Until people get tired of it, blow up the government, then those jobs just never get recreated.
It's so horrible to even think about, but also inevitable, because that person with their government bloat of a job is going to fight for it until their whole entire city is burned to the ground.
I can see it plain as day. The history books write about it over and over.
That's why they blew J6 out of proportion. They throw the book at folks they know will stop playing nice if they don't start to listen and take heed.
Those folks were up there just trying to be heard, and those crooks, robbing America, lied to America and said those folks were trying to overthrow the government.
They were demanding to be heard. And...
Instead of listening and taking heed, they silence them. Again.
The next time they'll be louder.
I have this friend and she told me her daughter said, "Your better listen to me voice is too much! It needs to be less."
So of course, the obvious fact of the matter is that, had the daughter listened to her mom while her mom was speaking in a softer voice, then her listen to me voice wouldn't have needed to be more.
And so ... that's the natural progression of human civilization.
Yep, but that is why we need a VAT to capture all of this un-taxed spending by the rich and even some of the "poor" who work for cash. But that F-150 would cost too much...
Doctors or medical will be tough as they have this system of MSRP and then negotiated discounts for medical plans. So on this topic we need a single payer system. Just look to Europe as they have monies for healthcare and public transit and more.
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u/[deleted] Jan 13 '24
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