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No one is advocating that they spend it all. That is never going to happen, nor should it, but at least bring it to 1950's standards and eliminate the shelters that do not create velocity. Investing in your own business is a shelter, but it creates velocity so not all shelters are bad. Furthermore, enforce tax laws. Prison is a big deterrent for the mansion crowd.
The government is an awful conduit to putting money to work. The more money flows through the government, the bigger the government payroll. We need LESS, not more people dependent on government paychecks.
You ignore the MOST likely result of raising taxes on the wealthy. Most of them are very smart with their money (or have smart people managing it). Raising tax rates are unlikely to do what you think it will do. They will simply get creative and find new ways to avoid paying taxes.
A better plan is to radically simplify the tax code so the loopholes are few and far between.
I never said income tax. You popped up an income tax chart. What you have to compare is capital gain taxes. Most very wealthy don't pay any or very little in income tax. They receive most of their money from capital gains which is taxed at 15%. Now compare that to the income taxes of the countries on your little chart and then put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Whoa there big boy! Depends on your definition of wealthy. If you have a $500k W-2, you will pay a huge income tax.... regardless of what you do.
And you did reference corporations.... so my chart is relevant.
Tax the wealthy and give them tax breaks for jobs created not money earned. If they hoard it or send it over seas to create a job there they get taxed even more. If they use it to create a job here, they get a tax cut. Its time to stop rewarding the most wealthy for their bad behavior. Just making money is not patriotic, but using your wealth and investing in America is. Wall Street is not loyal to America they are loyal to their own back pocket. You people who vote for this are not their friends or ever going to be one of them. You are only their lackey.
The problem with the economy is the velocity of money or in our case the lack of velocity.
Good opener. I agree strongly with that.
I would add that our efforts to 'speed up' the velocity of money through policy are killing the middle class, for the benefit of the ultra-wealthy.
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The Fed is trying a grand experiment that is not working. The tarp stimulus was supposed to put a lot of money into the economy thereby creating velocity. Two problems. The banks are holding on to the money. Corporations are holding on to the money and the very wealthy are holding on to the money. The tarp and stimulus money has not been put into circulation. It has not "trickled down". The second problem is that if it is put into circulation all at once it could lead to massive inflation.
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Simple solution. Tax the rich use the money to pay for infrastructure repairs which will increase transactions thereby increaseing velocity. Reducing social programs actually decreases velocity as that money is usually spent very quickly thereby increasing velocity.
A key part of the issue, in my view, is that most people don't acknowledge that so much of these gains came unfairly (forced redistribution from the majority) to begin with. With just "taxing the wealthy", you are not distinguishing between people who got rich off the taxpayer, and the people who got rich through more equitable means.
anytime you raise taxes, be they income taxes, property taxes, capital gains taxes, you hurt the economy, especially if you tax the "rich". for instance a friend of mine has three houses he rents out to people. every time the state raises property taxes, he passes that cost onto his renters in the form of higher rents. if you raise capital gains taxes you reduce investments in capital projects, like expanding businesses, investing in the stock markets, etc.
as for tax exempt foundations, and the owners of said foundation not being able to touch the money, rubbish. you can set up a tax free foundation, and take a salary from the foundation, or have the foundation pay your living expenses, if you set yourself up to run the foundation. and while the tax benefits of the foundation are small, the real advantage is that you get to protect your assets in many different ways.
ok then, show me every time taxes were raised the economy boomed, without a bubble pushing that economic boom, because i know you are going to point to the clinton years when we had the dotcom bubble as proof that raising taxes can be good for the economy. on the other hand i can point out many times when taxes were lowered that the economy took off.
ok then, show me every time taxes were raised the economy boomed, without a bubble pushing that economic boom, because i know you are going to point to the clinton years when we had the dotcom bubble as proof that raising taxes can be good for the economy.
you made the claim. the burden is on you to prove it, not on me to disprove it.
for the record i think that there is a "magic number" that represents the optimal taxation rate, the ideal balance between government and private sector spending. This rate would always be changing based on economic conditions and government policy, and there is no economic model that could ever accurately predict it. the number only exists in theory, it is essentially 'unknowable'.
the only two things i'm sure of is that it is not 100%, and it is not 0%. 0% would mean we had no government, which would not be conducive to economic growth. 100% would mean we had no private sector, which is also not conducive to economic growth.
But to say that "always lower" is "always good" is to me, a big mistake, especially when you ignore the redistributive nature of our monetary policy.
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