Hating on the wealthy... (bankrupt, loan, taxable, millionaire)

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by calmdude

. . . . once the economy improves.

F U N N I E S T. Line. In. This. Thread.

At least so far.

Oh wait a second. You were not joking.

Nevermind.

[NinaN]

Poor people hate the rich because the victim mentality means they have to blame someone, they believe life happens to them. Rich people become rich because they believe they are responsible for creating their own situation.

[calmdude]

Originally Posted by Philip T

F U N N I E S T. Line. In. This. Thread.

At least so far.

Oh wait a second. You were not joking.

Nevermind.

Remember, it is not a zero sum game that if BRICs become stronger, US necessarily does not become weaker. On a relative basis, the country gap will narrow. Yes, we will have a slow climb out of this ditch - but I think it will happen. Else, I would move me and my family to say a BRIC nation and stop wasting time here - I dont like to be an immobile helpless deer in headlights.

[markg91359]

Poor people hate the rich because the victim mentality means they have to blame someone, they believe life happens to them. Rich people become rich because they believe they are responsible for creating their own situation.

Talk about simplistic generalizations. I'd like someone to give me some statistics on what percentage of millionaires in this country inherited their wealth and what percentage actually earned it. Than (and only than) you can give me the conservative speech about "rugged individualism" or "self reliance" ok?

No, I don't hate the rich at all. I regard them as a sort of "resource" or national treasure. They have shown they are good at making money. They create jobs through investment and they pay the kind of taxes we need to run a First World Government. Within limits, they should be encouraged. What they shouldn't get is a "free ride" which to me would mean a flat tax. Let them make lots of money. Tax it away at a rate of about 40%. Since that is under 50%, they should always have an incentive to make more--if that's what they want to do.

Oh and let's increase the inheritance tax while we are at it. Its one thing if you made the money through your efforts. Its a completely different one if it was simply handed to you.

[texdav]

Baswcailly its really changeas to who the bottom thinks of as rich and who they hate/envy.Now its in the 100's of thousands range.But all I hear is talk they still want to be just like that in this celebrity society.

[NinaN]

Originally Posted by markg91359

Oh and let's increase the inheritance tax while we are at it. Its one thing if you made the money through your efforts. Its a completely different one if it was simply handed to you.

Yep, work hard, pay taxes on your income and then pay taxes on it again when you pass it on. Double taxation, love that plan!

[NJBest]

What is estate tax right now? I'm open to having it be 50% for anything above $5 million per person.

[markg91359]

Yep, work hard, pay taxes on your income and then pay taxes on it again when you pass it on. Double taxation, love that plan!

The problem you're having is that you want to turn taxation into a moral issue of some sort. I personally don't see very much that is moral or immoral about a taxation system (unless it starves or completely ruins a group). Tax systems exist to raise revenue to run a government. They aren't about wealth redistribution, robbery, or other such purposes.

What the Tea Potty Conservatives have backwards is they want to establish a tax system first and act oblivious to the notion of what are the revenue needs of government. First, you determine by democratic means what a government budget should be and what things need to be funded. Second, you than create a tax system that can pay for that government.

Considering the amount of wealth that that 1% of richest Americans have socked away in the last few years, I seriously doubt raising income taxes to 40% and tinkering with the inheritance tax is going to affect them significantly. On the other hand, it would help us to some degree with the deficit and would allow us to keep paying for defense, social security, medicare, and interest on our debt.

[jtur88]

There are two ways of becoming wealthier. One is to create new wealth and keep some (or all) of it for yourself, and the other is to redistribute in your favor the wealth that already exists.

The definition of Wealth in our current psycho-economy is faulty. We are defining wealth (as in GDP) as the amount of money that circulates, or changes hands. The value of goods and services that are bought and sold. We believe that wealth would increase if we take in each other's washing. If I work for a lawn care company, and your wife has a child care center, how does it create wealth if I cut your grass while you care for my child, instead of me watching my own kid while you cut mow your own lawn? If you work for a convenience food processor, and take your wages and buy a frozen dinner and pop it in the microwave, because you job doesn't allow you time to cook, how have you "created new wealth" that wouldn't have existed if you had stayed home and cooked for yourself?

According to the prevailing theory, every time I hand you a dollar, the national wealth increases by a dollar. How does that work?

Consider another example. There is only one postage stamp in the world known as the British Guiana one-cent magenta, and you bought it at an auction for one million dollars. But I rummage through a trunk and I find another one. If I offer it for sale, the value of each of the two, now no longer unique, falls to $100K. Does that mean that our national wealth has decreased by $800K? To prevent this loss to your asset, you offer me a half a million, to burn my stamp. We just put $800K back into the national wealth, by destroying something of great value. The national wealth is simply what people think it is. The value of anything, including our aggregate GDP, is nothing more than what the marketplace is willing to pay for it. And that is purely imaginary and could evanesce in a moment..

[Retroit]

We can't all be rich, but we can all be poor.