Why I dont feel sorry for the rich having to pay more taxs

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anarkhos
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22 Aug 2012, 4:53 pm

The bread analogy is a good one. If you force everyone to buy government bread at the point of a gun, then you:

• Preclude any alternative means of feeding oneself. This not only includes currently known methods, but methods which aren't currently known. Maybe I want to make my own bread, or use a tortilla, or eat better quality or less expensive bread.

• Eliminate market forces thus making it impossible to know a) How much bread to make b) What the price should be c) what are the opportunity costs of buying bread for $3 a loaf d) what quality and type of bread to make. Not only are we unable to perform the economic calculation necessary to determine how many resources to dedicate to bread, there are other entrepreneurial functions which are impossible to perform. For example does the government run the bread factory at 100% output and wear it out sooner, or at 80% and make it last longer. This involves not only time preference, but predicting future demands and costs. Bureaucrats do not succeed or fail based on money they personally invested and are wholly unable to perform this task.

• Set the stage for institutional corruption. Regardless of whether the bread-maing is contracted out or is made within the bureaucratic machine (like a massive vertically integrated monopoly), someone is going to benefit from this bread-making privilege and we end up with rent-seekers. There has never been a system of welfare or rationing or public utility without such corruption. Ultimately, the only regulation which matters is the ability to refuse payment. This is true regardless if you're talking about payment via taxes or having to buy from a privileged monopoly or not being allowed to remove your money from a banking institution. No amount of rule-making will remove corruption if we're forced to pay.



JakobVirgil
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22 Aug 2012, 5:07 pm

ruveyn wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:

You are not against all taxes. <-statement whe have already discussed this.
Are the taxes on the wealthy the only ones that are robbery?


Taxes necessary to insure the peace and protect the land are kosher. Taxes which transfer income from the productive to the incompetent are not kosher.

I am perfectly willing to pay for law courts, police forces and sufficient military power to protect the nation. I am not that willing to pay for handouts to the lazy and stupid folks who will not attempt to earn their keep. I am also opposed to taxes which subsidize business firms. Privatizing profits while socializing losses is just plain theft. Let each individual and each firm earn its keep in a sufficiently free market place.

ruveyn


What about business practices that transfer money from the productive to the Lazy and incompetent?


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JakobVirgil
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22 Aug 2012, 5:18 pm

anarkhos wrote:
The bread analogy is a good one.
[blah blah blah here].




It is a perfect analogy. Paying Taxes is uncoerced it is a result of a decision, a implicit contract made when a persons decide to make taxable income. Paying taxes is a cost of doing business in a country if the very rich do not want to do business they don't have to no one has a gun to their heads. They can Galt it up and starve in a valley in Colorado if they want to.

It's not like the very rich made a bunch of money and shock 8O horrors they are ambushed and forced to pay tax. If one does business in a country they should be smart enough that they will have to pay taxes in that country.


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simon_says
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22 Aug 2012, 5:34 pm

Welfare has two forms that I can think of:

SNAP -- foodstamps (normally ~30 billion, now around ~80 billion with economy as it is). 2/3rds goes to poor families with disabled people, kids or the elderly.
TANF -- for poor families with kids (~20 billion / year). There is a five year lifetime limit and you have to work 30-50 hours per week.

What many people don't know is that SNAP is actually pushed for by famers. It's a farming subsidy administered by the Department of Agriculture and would have been shut down if not for agricultural lobbying. They want people to eat who otherwise might not because ultimately it moves their products.

You could entirely eliminate both programs and not put much of a dent in the 1.2 trillion yearlydeficit. And for comparison, under Bush the Republicans passed the Medicare drug expansion, which today is costing $60 billion a year and was not offset with new taxes. But old people might vote more than poor people so maybe it was bribe money well spent.



anarkhos
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22 Aug 2012, 5:50 pm

JakobVirgil wrote:
anarkhos wrote:
The bread analogy is a good one.
[blah blah blah here].




It is a perfect analogy. Paying Taxes is uncoerced it is a result of a decision, a implicit contract made when a persons decide to make taxable income. Paying taxes is a cost of doing business in a country if the very rich do not want to do business they don't have to no one has a gun to their heads. They can Galt it up and starve in a valley in Colorado if they want to.

It's not like the very rich made a bunch of money and shock 8O horrors they are ambushed and forced to pay tax. If one does business in a country they should be smart enough that they will have to pay taxes in that country.


Deciding to have an income? WTF? That's like saying deciding to eat.

As fo the very rich deciding not to do business in a country that has high taxes, that's a decision more and more are making. The punitive taxes being proposed in France right now will have that exact effect.

The implicit assumption you're making is that when two people decide to voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, you deserve some of that. I don't understand your sense of entitlement, nor your willful economic ignorance.



anarkhos
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22 Aug 2012, 5:54 pm

simon_says wrote:
You could entirely eliminate both programs and not put much of a dent in the 1.2 trillion yearlydeficit. And for comparison, under Bush the Republicans passed the Medicare drug expansion, which today is costing $60 billion a year and was not offset with new taxes. But old people might vote more than poor people so maybe it was bribe money well spent.


That 'bribe' argument would only make sense of Bush actively campaigned on this policy. In fact, this was a backroom deal (the same with Obamacare), crafted by medical industry lobbyists.

Bush won his first term by being Mr. humble foreign policy. Same with Obama. They're both liars and pretty much interchangeable in terms of policy.



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22 Aug 2012, 6:09 pm

anarkhos wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:
anarkhos wrote:
The bread analogy is a good one.
[blah blah blah here].




It is a perfect analogy. Paying Taxes is uncoerced it is a result of a decision, a implicit contract made when a persons decide to make taxable income. Paying taxes is a cost of doing business in a country if the very rich do not want to do business they don't have to no one has a gun to their heads. They can Galt it up and starve in a valley in Colorado if they want to.

It's not like the very rich made a bunch of money and shock 8O horrors they are ambushed and forced to pay tax. If one does business in a country they should be smart enough that they will have to pay taxes in that country.


Deciding to have an income? WTF? That's like saying deciding to eat.

As fo the very rich deciding not to do business in a country that has high taxes, that's a decision more and more are making. The punitive taxes being proposed in France right now will have that exact effect.

The implicit assumption you're making is that when two people decide to voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, you deserve some of that. I don't understand your sense of entitlement, nor your willful economic ignorance.


He didnt imply they are going to cut him a personal check. He's suggesting that if they want to do business in a nation with a first world infrastructure that they should be prepared to pay taxes. THey can always go start up a business in Somalia if they don't like it but there will always be someone willing to make money in a large economy. They did it when the top rate was 90% and they'd do it at 38%. Buffet invested and profited when capital gains were at 35% same as he does now at 15%.

Ayn Rand was wrong for one simple reason. Business men are adversarial and not a collective hive mind. Some would slip out of John Galt's village to make a buck while the others were sleeping.

Quote:
That 'bribe' argument would only make sense of Bush actively campaigned on this policy. In fact, this was a backroom deal (the same with Obamacare), crafted by medical industry lobbyists.

Bush won his first term by being Mr. humble foreign policy. Same with Obama. They're both liars and pretty much interchangeable in terms of policy.


He passed it in 2003 and touted it as a success for his 2004 re-election campaign.

http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives. ... icare.html
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-R ... 3.aspx?p=1

You think politicians don't want votes?



ruveyn
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22 Aug 2012, 6:22 pm

JakobVirgil wrote:

What about business practices that transfer money from the productive to the Lazy and incompetent?


If it is done voluntarily by all parties involved then I have no objection. Transfers by government action are ultimately enforced by arms or the threat to use arms. Government is force.

I do not let my personal sense of "fair play:" become a criterion for the entire society. My version of "fair play" governs my behavior and only my behavior. I am not God so I will not impose my notions of Right on other folks.

ruveyn



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23 Aug 2012, 7:52 am

anarkhos wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:
anarkhos wrote:
The bread analogy is a good one.
[blah blah blah here].




It is a perfect analogy. Paying Taxes is uncoerced it is a result of a decision, a implicit contract made when a persons decide to make taxable income. Paying taxes is a cost of doing business in a country if the very rich do not want to do business they don't have to no one has a gun to their heads. They can Galt it up and starve in a valley in Colorado if they want to.

It's not like the very rich made a bunch of money and shock 8O horrors they are ambushed and forced to pay tax. If one does business in a country they should be smart enough that they will have to pay taxes in that country.


(1)Deciding to have an income? WTF? That's like saying deciding to eat.

As fo the very rich deciding not to do business in a country that has high taxes, that's a decision more and more are making. The punitive taxes being proposed in France right now will have that exact effect.

(2)The implicit assumption you're making is that when two people decide to voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, you deserve some of that. I don't understand your sense of entitlement, nor your willful economic ignorance.


(1) Making it exactly like buying expensive bread thank you for conceding my point.

(2)Why don't you assign beliefs and motives to yourself. When you assign them to me you are in the danger of making straw men. It comes off a bit desperate and stupid.


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We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots??

http://jakobvirgil.blogspot.com/


visagrunt
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23 Aug 2012, 1:43 pm

anarkhos wrote:
Deciding to have an income? WTF? That's like saying deciding to eat.


Not if you possess private wealth. There is nothing to stop someone from living on capital.

Quote:
As fo the very rich deciding not to do business in a country that has high taxes, that's a decision more and more are making. The punitive taxes being proposed in France right now will have that exact effect.


Nonsense--utter nonsense.

The rich have been trying to evade taxes since taxes began, to be sure. But there are only a limited number of places in the world that you can put your money. Sticking it in a bank account in the Cayman's is all well and good--but it doesn't actually grow unless that money is invested in turn--and there are precious few investment opportunities in tax havens.

US consumers don't exist outside the United States--so if you are going to sell goods and services to US consumers, you have to do business in the United States--either on the ground or through export trade. You can manufacture your applicances in Korea, but unless you can put that fridge on a boat, ship it to the west coast and then put it on a train, you are not going to sell it at the FutureShop in Little Rock.

And while you can choose to absent yourself from your country of nationality (not that that would do you any good as an American citizen), you still have to have somewhere else to go and live, and you have to content yourself with never establishing factual residence in any jurisdiction in which tax liability could accrue.

Quote:
The implicit assumption you're making is that when two people decide to voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, you deserve some of that. I don't understand your sense of entitlement, nor your willful economic ignorance.


Because those two people are trading in a marketplace that they are not responsible for creating. It is a sine qua non of their ability to do business with each other that government exists to well order that marketplace, and to ensure that the rawest of economic material--human labour--is available to create wealth. In an anarchy, commerce is the first thing to die.

If there is wilful ignorance it is among those who refuse to look beyon the instant transaction.


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24 Aug 2012, 3:56 pm

anarkhos wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:
anarkhos wrote:
The bread analogy is a good one.
[blah blah blah here].




It is a perfect analogy. Paying Taxes is uncoerced it is a result of a decision, a implicit contract made when a persons decide to make taxable income. Paying taxes is a cost of doing business in a country if the very rich do not want to do business they don't have to no one has a gun to their heads. They can Galt it up and starve in a valley in Colorado if they want to.

It's not like the very rich made a bunch of money and shock 8O horrors they are ambushed and forced to pay tax. If one does business in a country they should be smart enough that they will have to pay taxes in that country.


Deciding to have an income? WTF? That's like saying deciding to eat.

As fo the very rich deciding not to do business in a country that has high taxes, that's a decision more and more are making. The punitive taxes being proposed in France right now will have that exact effect.

The implicit assumption you're making is that when two people decide to voluntarily trade for mutual benefit, you deserve some of that. I don't understand your sense of entitlement, nor your willful economic ignorance.


If you don't agree with my silly opinions regarding who deserves what you are ignorant of economics! Pfffftttt... Typical libertarian style of non-argument... So the 95%+ of economists who are not devotees of Ayn Rand or Austrian School ideology are just ignorant? Yup. :roll:



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24 Aug 2012, 4:06 pm

ruveyn wrote:
JakobVirgil wrote:

What about business practices that transfer money from the productive to the Lazy and incompetent?


If it is done voluntarily by all parties involved then I have no objection. Transfers by government action are ultimately enforced by arms or the threat to use arms. Government is force.

I do not let my personal sense of "fair play:" become a criterion for the entire society. My version of "fair play" governs my behavior and only my behavior. I am not God so I will not impose my notions of Right on other folks.

ruveyn

Define "voluntary" and prove that such a thing as "free will" actually exists. Also, while you're at it, define "force".