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Taking $25k from someone with $100k in savings would have a HUGE impact on their lifestyle, in two areas: 1) his retirement would take a huge hit (compare $75k compounded over time vs. $100k) and 2) his ability to handle financial emergencies.
Again, the billionaire with $2.0B vs $1.5B wouldn't notice any difference in lifestyle, retirement, financial health, his estate, heirs, etc.
Strictly your opinion. There's no evidence that says at a certain point, additional wealth no longer adds to someone's lifestyle.
After 10 pages of comments, one trend is clear: those with a conservative bent who are opposed to a wealth tax largely do so for philosophical or political reasons. But this is the economics forum. The question here is: at what point does excess wealth at the top begin to hurt the economy, and would redistribution of some of that wealth benefit the economy?
It is obvious that excessive accumulation of wealth must hurt the overall economy because it will curtail demand. 50,000 average workers who are well paid will go out and buy one car each, resulting in a demand for 50,000 cars. If the working class are suffering from stagnant low wages, they can't afford to buy new cars. The wealthy class, even with a 10-car garage, is not going to buy 50,000 cars. So demand suffers... GM announces the layoff of workers, which they just did.
Economically there must be an optimum wealth distribution that balances capital investment and demand. It's an ecosystem. The big fish can't survive unless the little fish are thriving. Otherwise the big fish don't get fed.
Buffet has it figured out but Schultz and Bloomberg have not: the careful redistribution of some income and wealth from the top not only benefits the lower classes, it ultimately benefits the rich as well as demand for the products they produce increases.
I thought you might like the opportunity to explain what you meant, as well as how you were able to divine what my "concept of war" was, without any input from me, but oh well. Carry on with your drive-by postings.
I thought you might like the opportunity to explain what you meant, as well as how you were able to divine what my "concept of war" was, without any input from me, but oh well. Carry on with your drive-by postings.
Exactly, and I don't think there's any problem with that nor would most people. I actually wish that a republican candidate would just come out and say, look, if you make under $30K income, there are NO federal taxes, period, because we seriously don't need those people to be paying into the system, then end up needing federal assistance anyway and the money is just bouncing back and forth pointlessly. I also think, since it's already the case that the bottom 47% pay no federal income taxes, that it wouldn't even effect anything at all to come out and say that. The republicans get accused of being just for "more tax cuts on the rich," but that's extremely laughable and tongue-in-cheek because you can't CUT taxes on people who don't PAY taxes! Durrr. So why not just make it obvious that you, as a politician, are NOT trying to screw the poor, come out and make it completely clear and obvious, if you make under this threshold, so you're part of the working poor, NO TAXES for you at the federal level.
With the IRS tax code that our legislature has given us, they have already said as much. Nearly half of us do not pay income taxes.
From my perspective, it is only the talking heads on TV and websites that are claiming that somehow the poor are being taxed.
After 10 pages of comments, one trend is clear: those with a conservative bent who are opposed to a wealth tax largely do so for philosophical or political reasons. But this is the economics forum. The question here is: at what point does excess wealth at the top begin to hurt the economy, and would redistribution of some of that wealth benefit the economy?
It is obvious that excessive accumulation of wealth must hurt the overall economy because it will curtail demand. 50,000 average workers who are well paid will go out and buy one car each, resulting in a demand for 50,000 cars. If the working class are suffering from stagnant low wages, they can't afford to buy new cars. The wealthy class, even with a 10-car garage, is not going to buy 50,000 cars. So demand suffers... GM announces the layoff of workers, which they just did.
Economically there must be an optimum wealth distribution that balances capital investment and demand. It's an ecosystem. The big fish can't survive unless the little fish are thriving. Otherwise the big fish don't get fed.
Buffet has it figured out but Schultz and Bloomberg have not: the careful redistribution of some income and wealth from the top not only benefits the lower classes, it ultimately benefits the rich as well as demand for the products they produce increases.
You are making a number of very silly mistakes within your logical flow chiefly among them.
1). The notion that wealth taxes would only be levied against billionaires is silly. In reality your side wants to punish every person in America who makes a good living or better.
2). Your notion that some sort of government managed demand side inspired redistribution of wealth is automatically better than an orientation that leans a little to the supply side is suspect. Sure those nearer the bottom spend. But those nearer top spend as well, invest and save. Those monies saved tend to end up in bonds, notes, bills, and accounts that percolate through the economy. The monies invested tend to end up in productivity enhancing areas like tech, pharma, medicine broadly, finance etc.
Maybe it's beyond the scope of this forum but demand side redistributions tend to do several things.
1). Create or further bloat and embolden bureaucracies.
2). Penalize and dishearten the successful - those who have invested in themselves through education, risk taking, raw brain power, sheer hard-work, long term goal directed behavior etc.
3). Reward the less successful and unsuccessful.
4). The yield of all of that over time leads to lower standards of living for almost everyone. Take a look at any of the sizeable economies across Europe........in terms of local money buying power (only legit. means to compare incomes across borders) poverty line income in The US is not far below median income in England, France, Italy, Spain etc.
5). As a bonus your side continually miscasts Lord Keynes thinking. Simplifying greatly Keynes believed at times disruptors like famine, war, recession, banking shocks etc. caused private sector spending to slow. He was right of course but his prescription was not for the .gov't to give money to the poor so they could buy towels, underwear, cigarettes, beer and socks but better for the .gov't to spend, even deficit spend, on big ticket items like dams, airports, shipping, war goods etc. as means to stimulate with the notion that the poor would be rewarded as part of all that.
Keynes did write about insufficient demand for sure (he liked the term disequilibrium) but he simply did not support the notion of a fat welfare state, socialism nor consistently high government spending. Keynes was in fact a strong supporter of the individual/individualism.
I wish people on the right and left would stop distorting Keynes.
BTW - 1, 2, 3, and much of 4 are not close to original thoughts out of my head. Each was expressly and lengthily discussed and espoused by Karl Marx.
Marx believed high and progressive income taxes were the best way to break the spirit of the bourgeoisie/capitalist class - in other words anyone who had made something of his/her own life.
Finally, your implication that conservatives allow their politics to influence their thoughts on economics but liberals don't is just astonishing, sitting at the intersection of dishonesty and stupidity.
ETA - Keynes circa 1922.....
“How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement?
After 10 pages of comments, one trend is clear: those with a conservative bent who are opposed to a wealth tax largely do so for philosophical or political reasons. But this is the economics forum. The question here is: at what point does excess wealth at the top begin to hurt the economy, and would redistribution of some of that wealth benefit the economy?
It is obvious that excessive accumulation of wealth must hurt the overall economy because it will curtail demand. 50,000 average workers who are well paid will go out and buy one car each, resulting in a demand for 50,000 cars. If the working class are suffering from stagnant low wages, they can't afford to buy new cars. The wealthy class, even with a 10-car garage, is not going to buy 50,000 cars. So demand suffers... GM announces the layoff of workers, which they just did.
Economically there must be an optimum wealth distribution that balances capital investment and demand. It's an ecosystem. The big fish can't survive unless the little fish are thriving. Otherwise the big fish don't get fed.
Buffet has it figured out but Schultz and Bloomberg have not: the careful redistribution of some income and wealth from the top not only benefits the lower classes, it ultimately benefits the rich as well as demand for the products they produce increases.
Spot on. A consumer driven economy only thrives as long as there are actual CONSUMERS. Crazy concept, isn't it? But erode enough of the wealth of the 90% leaving them with only enough money to cover the bare necessities, interest payments, and debt payoff, and that leaves little to be spent on produced goods outside of those few necessities. That's not helping the broader economy, really. It's also a big reason so many retailers have or are going out of business. All of the most vibrant economies in the world are that way because they have a strong and large middle class. You know a country that has sharp class distinctions with a few at the top and a lot of poor people at the bottom? South Africa. Not the safest country (almost all homes have barred windows and hardcore security) and it's economy isn't exactly setting the world on fire. That's where we've been heading and that's certainly not something to strive for.
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