[joseph brand]

Originally Posted by Eliot Rosewater

Am I the only one who finds this focus on the super-rich possibly irrelevant? Surely the aim should be to ensure a basic minimum standard of living for everyone, rather than just keeping the "top" down? That achieved, is it really a problem if a select few go beyond this minimum by enormous amounts?

The argument might go that taxing the super-rich more rigorously will allow us to help the needier more. But I haven't seen much discussion of that here. In fact, no one has suggested how the extra revenue should be spent to tackle the social problems. Is taxing the super-rich being seen as a good in and of itself?

Didn't they cause this recession?

It certainly wasn't caused by a teacher. Maybe it was some nurse somewhere.

[Icepick]

Originally Posted by joseph brand

Didn't they cause this recession?

It certainly wasn't caused by a teacher. Maybe it was some nurse somewhere.

No, it was the Illuminati.

[bernardamaac.]

Plane and simple why go after the rich when it was foreign bank's that made an investment.When you make an investment and lose your money "Tough Sh^t".Why are we paying for it ? Where's the connolly's and larkin's of this generation ? What we need is hitler before ww2. Like what he did with the versaille treaty. Someone to tell angela murcel to go to hell and we're not paying for there mistake's.

(P.S) All this coming from someone who does'nt pay tax's cant seem to get a first time job and is just waiting for college to start then finish then go murder some german chancellor.

[joseph brand]

Originally Posted by Valmont

All of this is empty when we acknowledge that without a private sector to leech off the public sector would wither and die. So you can talk about 'great inventions' all day -- the only engine keeping the world running is private enterprise. And if we have super rich people as a result, I don't see the problem.

The US has privatised prisons. They're a joke, and not a funny one. Judges get more money (brown envelopes), the more convictions, and the longer the sentence. Truly disgusting, scary stuff. Money breeds sociopaths.

A Judge in the US was convicted in the Kids for cash scandal.

Not to go off on too much of a tangent, here's a table showing the top tax bracket and the national deficit for the US. It's hard to argue with facts, me thinks.

Increasing the tax rate on the rich will not force them out on the street. Worse case scenario, they buy a mid-range yacht. And they say the Syrians have it tough.

[joseph brand]

Originally Posted by RichardAnd

They (they being the most wealthy people on the planet) get away with what they do because they have designed the modern financial markets to favour them. Super rich individuals, I'm talking about billionaires here, have massive political influence and I think it is incredibly naive to believe that they don't use it for their own gain.

Each year, a group of the most wealthy individuals meet in what is known as the bilderberg group. I don't buy into alot of the conspiracy theories attached to this organisation but what I do know is that nothing of what is discussed is ever published and the people at such a meeting are men (and occasionally women) of enormous influence. Money is power and these people have an incredible collection of wealth. Do you think that they won't use their influence to protect their position?

Gentlemen, democracy is an illusion given to the masses to allow them to believe that they control their own lives. I've no doubt that the local TDs are able to get boilers fixed, pot holes filled, speeding tickets torn up and other vacuous favours carried out but when it comes to the really big decisions, the paper work is signed and seals long before it reaches the Dail.

This is why I don't get myself involved in petty bickering between "the left" and "the right". Choose the puppet on the left or choose the puppet on the right, at the end of the day, there's one guy hold the strings of both.

Reminds me of the secret meeting on Jekyll Island, attended by the wealthiest bankers in the world. Their mission? To form the US Federal Reserve.

Wasn't Glenn Beck recently fired from Fox News for reporting on this meeting? I'm no fan of Beck, and was surprised that he dedicated a whole show to The Fed.

I have my pitch-fork ready for when we get ready to attack the Rockefellers and the Rothschilds. Their wealth makes Buffet look like the owner of a little corner shop.


As regards the whole money influencing power problem. Don Regan famously told the President of the United States of America, to 'hurry up', while he was making a speech.

[Valmont]

I'm assuming many of the 'super-rich' and their business interests would be international in nature. They would have residency in countries with low-tax rates or other laws favourable towards allowing them to keep as much of their money as possible. Surely any attempt to 'take on' the super rich would involve international police or tax agencies or cooperation between national revenue services -- what form could this operation take? How do you get around dozens of separate countries sovereign legal procedures?

Most importantly, on whose behalf will this crack-down be? I'm hearing plenty of talk about going after them and why, but for whom, specifically? How could the spoils be divvied out among many different countries? These issues seem insurmountable to me, and only a supra-national body with incredible power could possibly overcome them effectively. Of those you supporting an assault on the super-rich and their assets, how could it be done? Is it even practical? Where do you start?

[Laminations]

Originally Posted by Valmont

I'm assuming many of the 'super-rich' and their business interests would be international in nature. They would have residency in countries with low-tax rates or other laws favourable towards allowing them to keep as much of their money as possible. Surely any attempt to 'take on' the super rich would involve international police or tax agencies or cooperation between national revenue services -- what form could this operation take? How do you get around dozens of separate countries sovereign legal procedures?

Most importantly, on whose behalf will this crack-down be? I'm hearing plenty of talk about going after them and why, but for whom, specifically? How could the spoils be divvied out among many different countries? These issues seem insurmountable to me, and only a supra-national body with incredible power could possibly overcome them effectively. Of those you supporting an assault on the super-rich and their assets, how could it be done? Is it even practical? Where do you start?

So having failed so far to defend the super-rich on economic or ideological grounds you resort to the practicalities of it. At least you've moved off the question of why should we do it and onto how could we do it - a more constructive approach. While you are correct in pointing out it would be extremely difficult, that is not a good enough reason not to consider ways in which it could be done.

As for whose behalf this would be done? The citizens. General equity. To reduce the burden on working class (tax paying) individuals. Again it would be difficult to work out but for a race that has probed the far reaches of space, has identified the particle that gives all things matter and has uncovered much of the workings of the most complex known thing in the universe (the human brain) I think if we put our minds to it (if there was a will to do it) we'd find a way.

Very interesting thread Denerick. Some great contributions by Channel Zero and Duggys Housemate too.

[Valmont]

Originally Posted by Laminations

As for whose behalf this would be done? The citizens. General equity. To reduce the burden on working class (tax paying) individuals.

So you want an international effort to go after the 'super-rich' in the name of the citizens and general equity. I remain entirely unconvinced that this is little more than wildly generalised left-wing drum-banging.

[Laminations]

Originally Posted by Valmont

So you want an international effort to go after the 'super-rich' in the name of the citizens and general equity. I remain entirely unconvinced that this is little more than wildly generalised left-wing drum-banging.

Who is you? Just as I've been told by libertarians we don't all speak with one voice. Just because you disagree with my personal wishes to see more equity doesn't mean you've dispelled all argument to properly tax the super-rich.

By general equity I don't mean some communist idea of total equality of resources. I refer to it in the sense of fairness, in terms of contributing fair shares. You also ignored the next sentence, to reduce the burden on productive working classes

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by Valmont

So you want an international effort to go after the 'super-rich' in the name of the citizens and general equity. I remain entirely unconvinced that this is little more than wildly generalised left-wing drum-banging.

1. Do you think it is a problem that vast, unimaginable wealth is lying idle in tax havens?

2. Don't you think the social and moral consequences of revolution outweigh the benefits of your ideal 'economic liberty'. Hayek argued that without full economic liberty we would resort to totalitarianism of a left or right hue. I disagree pasionatelly with this. In your ideal economic entity you would have full economic 'liberty', thus provoking mass unrest, thus leading to revolution, thus leading to chaos and tragedy.

3. 'Generalised left wing drum banging' aside, don't you think it is outrageous that an American billionaire can purchase a new fleet of yachts at his convenience whilst millions of children in the third world die of malnutrition? That is the long and short of it. Libertarianism will make the lives of most people an abject misery and those who defend it are defending an indefensible moral position.

[Laminations]

The full economic liberty espoused by some libertarians hinges on the state protecting property rights. It hinges on the hope that with minimal public services, a modestly paid police force will defend the miserly wealth of multi-billionaires.

[Valmont]

Originally Posted by Denerick

Hayek argued that without full economic liberty we would resort to totalitarianism of a left or right hue. I disagree pasionatelly with this.

Yet here you are arguing for the establishment of some supremely powerful pan-global tax authority.

Originally Posted by Denerick

'Generalised left wing drum banging' aside, don't you think it is outrageous that an American billionaire can purchase a new fleet of yachts at his convenience whilst millions of children in the third world die of malnutrition? That is the long and short of it. Libertarianism will make the lives of most people an abject misery and those who defend it are defending an indefensible moral position.

Which all rests on the assumption that the wealth in the world is of a fixed quantity -- I've asked you to support that assertion quite a few times now to no avail!

[Denerick]

Originally Posted by Valmont

Yet here you are arguing for the establishment of some supremely powerful pan-global tax authority.

'Supremely powerful?'

Eventually I'd like to see a global government. They managed it in Star Trek and eventually drifted into a multi planetery federation

I'd start at the regional level first. The EU could do more to crack down on tax evasion if it really wanted to, as could the Americans, but there isn't the political will there. As China and India rise, they too will be forced to meet their international obligations, one of which is to clamp down on trans national tax evasion. A boycott and shaming campaign organised by all the advanced states in Europe, the Americas and Asia would quickly destroy most of the security these quasi criminal tax havens enjoy. An earnest and proper campaign. But as I said, there isn't the political will for it.

And by the way; was that really your rebuttal? Government's are a fact of life, NOBODY wants to live in a 'Libertarian ideal'. To most people it would be a form of hell. If you'd recognise that you'd quickly understand why so many people are openly hostile your ideology.

Which all rests on the assumption that the wealth in the world is of a fixed quantity -- I've asked you to support that assertion quite a few times now to no avail!

I'm not sure what you're getting at. We shouldn't tax people so much that further work destroys the incentive to work. But Its morally abhorrent that a contender for the US Presidency paid only 15% of his income in tax last year.

I pay more than for Christ's sake.

[Permabear]

Originally Posted by Denerick

1. Do you think it is a problem that vast, unimaginable wealth is lying idle in tax havens?

I think it's a problem that you think this wealth is "lying idle." Can you back that up? If I have money in investment funds run out of the Cayman Islands, is my money "lying idle"?

I disagree pasionatelly with this. In your ideal economic entity you would have full economic 'liberty', thus provoking mass unrest, thus leading to revolution, thus leading to chaos and tragedy.

In the Economic Freedom of the World index, the freest countries (Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and Switzerland) aren't exactly plagued by revolution, chaos, and tragedy. Check out the least economically free countries (Libya, Cuba, Zimbabwe, and North Korea) for sake of comparison.

'Generalised left wing drum banging' aside, don't you think it is outrageous that an American billionaire can purchase a new fleet of yachts at his convenience whilst millions of children in the third world die of malnutrition?

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen famously observed that no substantial famine has ever occurred in a liberal democracy. Millions of children in the Third World die of malnutrition not because of the yacht-purchasing habits of Western billionaires, but because they live under tin-pot socialist governments whose Dear Leaders use their economies as personal ATMs while people starve. Again, the root cause comes down to lack of economic freedom.

Libertarianism will make the lives of most people an abject misery and those who defend it are defending an indefensible moral position.

Can you point to the many cases in which increasing economic freedom has plunged the majority of the population into "abject misery"?

[Permabear]

Originally Posted by Denerick

But Its morally abhorrent that a contender for the US Presidency paid only 15% of his income in tax last year.

Eager as ever to bash Romney, you don't tell us whether it's also morally abhorrent that President Obama paid only 20.5% of his income in federal tax? (source: New York Times). Is there a huge moral distinction to be made between a tax rate of 15.4 percent and one of 20.5 percent?

Humorously, the same NYT article notes that half of Mr. Obama's income comes from book sales. While Obama's campaign manager is quick to criticize Romney for earning "hundreds of millions as a corporate buyout specialist," he isn't as quick to note that the Dear Leader derives half his income from his own cult-of-personality propaganda.