new_morning_blank_slate wrote: >--- In [email protected], Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>History shows that not to be true at all. Most are just greedy >> >> >bastards > > >>who care little about their fellow humanity. People like Bill Gates >> >> >are > > >>a rare exception >> >> > >Well 280 billion annually in american philanthropy sort of deflates >your thesis. (Or are you concerned about the miserliness of Europeans >-- who have lower levels of philanthropy?) > >Sure I would love to see american philanthropy at a trillion or 10 >trillion a year. European and Asian philanthropy matching such. It can > happen. It requires a change of ethos. A softening of world >consciousness if you will. Its "progressively" happening. > >What will stop such in its tracks is confisgatory tax rates of 95-100% > > >>You still don't get that a progressive tax means people won't try to >>earn another dime if they are going to pay more in taxes. >> >> > >I get it. And I think you You are dead wrong. Many such people will >spend every waking hour on how to shelter income. Very unproductive >for society to have many of its better minds engaged in such. > > Thanks for proving my point. Anyone who would spend their time doing that is mentally imbalanced. They are more in need of a psychiatrist than a financial adviser. You must have missed my point about Gates being like Hurley on "Lost." Hurley in the series is the unlikely young kid who happened to win the lottery and worth millions. Since he knew he was no expert on money he has financial manager taking care of his investments. In a flashback episode they show him meeting with the manager and learning of companies he didn't know he owned.
If anything they need a serious course in meditation as they are too attached to their wealth. >And if I finally get your plan (let see if I do), it will lead to a >such surge of conspicuous consuption and a drop in savings and >investment -- two things that are huge drags on the economy. > >So let me see if I get your plan. If one's ESTATE were to reach 12 >mil, you would then tax marginal INCOME at 100% rates. If this is >true, then when net worth is 11,900 or so, rational (and irrational >alike) people will spend 100% of their income and save and invest >nothing. Being forced to spend everything, against their, long-honed >spirit to save and invest, they will spend their money primarily on >conspicuous consumption and toys. How this mitigates greed in society >at large is beyond me. > >But I probably have misunderstood your plan. I can't imagine anyone >with a straight face suggesting something so destructive to the >economy and a savings/investment ethos -- which is at the core of >productivity (the basis for wage increases for all) -- and to wildly >inflame greed, shallow values, consumerism, class jealousy and crass >materialism. > > > Why when taxes went up under the Clinton administration did the economy improve? That disproves your point. I've already mentioned this isn't my idea, it was floated years ago and I think I first heard it around the 1980 elections which was back when I was reading a lot of the published economists. So which million are you working on your third, second, first or even your first 100K? :) While you're at it here are the tax rates from 1954 (during the Eisenhower Administration) which I believe were in effect up until the Reagan administration which implemented "voodoo economics" or the fallacy of the "trickle down theory" which I guess means "piss on the poor." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_of_1954 We see there was a 91% tax on people earning over 200K a year. Adjusted for inflation that would be somewhere over $1 million a year today. Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson were advocates of a progressive income tax. I am a fan of Thom Hartmann's show who has written on the subject of progressive taxes. At this moment the news is mentioning Warren Buffet giving away 85% of his wealth. Buffet has been goading the masses for years about the unfairness of the tax code and their lack of doing something about it. Someone once said: "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one." :) ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/UlWolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
