Sally,
Interesting story on that website. I can see that happening again quite soon!
The more a government is able to tax the rich the more powerful it
becomes. And power can be far worse than wealth in its effects. The
three most powerful men in recent history who were each responsible
for killing millions of lives (that is, their own civilians in
addition to killing others in warfare) had less personal wealth than
you or me. It didn't interest Hitler, Stalin or Mao Zedong one little
bit that they had no wealth, so long as they had power.
The very poorest spend all their wealth on food. The wealth is gone
forever. The very richest disperse their wealth in a variety of ways
and it lives on -- taxes (to a degree, often willingly), to craftsmen
and servants, the arts (all the art collections of the world are
initially owed to the rich), scientific research (a very great deal
of the medical research in America -- if not most of it -- is funded
by private foundations), investment in innovation which produces
employment, bequests of land and property to the public (increasingly
of areas of outstanding ecology), etc.
The only one intolerable expenditure of the rich is that they are
able to buy far superior child care and education for their children
and thus privileged entry into adult livelihoods and opportunities.
The rich are able to corrupt politicians and civil servants into a
legal situation where their children can have an entirely different
upbringing from those of the masses who are generally dumbed down so
much by poor nursery and school care that only a few children are
able to break through into the elite.
Long before modern nation-state governments got into health and
welfare and many other functions, they made sure that they were in
control of conditioning the minds of children so as to keep the
masses obedient and subservient. Fortunately, science is now giving
us clear guidance as to optimum child care and education and also,
fortunately, there are signs that schools run by the non-rich are now
being able to peel away from governmental schools.
Keith
At 20:01 15/08/2011, you wrote:
that I'm now receiving. You can sign up by clicking the
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/08/
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