[darth_skywalker]

>> But then of course Uncle Sam show up, and basically say, “Hey, you know what, you just made a lot money this year. Therefore, you’re rich. Therefore, you’re evil and you’ve got to hand it all over to us.”

The government doesn't tax rich people because they're evil - they tax rich people to provide food, education, and security for society. Progressive taxes are useful because they help fight poverty and allow the very poor to participate in the market (extreme inequality and the resulting poverty is regarded by most economists as a market failure).

This guy mentions the importance of education, but does he realize that K-12 education is payed for by taxes? Unfortunately, inter-generational wealth mobility in the US is quite low, much lower than in most of Europe, where taxes happen to be much more progressive. You could argue that progressive taxes lead to wealth mobility; they provide the funding for education and other services that give poor folks the means to acquire wealth.

[curo]

> inter-generational wealth mobility in the US is quite low, much lower than in most of Europe

I was surprised by this so I looked up a few sources. Not saying it's not true but we must be looking at different sources, here's a chart on "intergenerational earnings elasticity and with only a couple European countries (Italy and UK) slightly above the US:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility#/media/File:Th...

[the_gastropod]

I think you're misreading the graph. The Y axis is immobility. In other words, Italy and the UK have lower mobility than the US. Every other European country on the list has greater mobility.

[darpa_escapee]

You've read the figure incorrectly. Smaller values for Intergenerational Earnings Elasticity represent greater equality of opportunity[1] and correlate with less inequality.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/intergenerational-earnings-e...

[tempestn]

I agree with you. Rather than arguing against progressive taxes in general, I think his point would have been stronger if it had explicitly argued for taxing wealth directly, rather than looking only at income. It's narrowly true that it doesn't make sense to tax someone far more for earning nothing in years 1-9 then $1M in year 10, vs someone earning 100k per year for 10 years. (Although in reality the person earning the lump sum would probably be able to spread that tax burden over multiple years using a corporate structure, etc. But still, the basic point holds.) The logical conclusion though is to look not just at annual income but at overall net worth when determining tax owed.

Of course, there are two major obstacles to that happening. First, income taxes are very convenient, because income is much easier to measure than net worth, and one would have to be careful with net worth taxes to make sure they don't have unintended consequences around illiquid wealth. Second, a lot of powerful rich people would be against it.

[ZoomZoomZoom]

> Progressive taxes are useful because they help fight poverty and allow the very poor to participate in the market (extreme inequality and the resulting poverty is regarded by most economists as a market failure).

That's what taxes are for, but I'm not so sure they have to be Progressive to allow for that.

[LordKano]

I am of the opinion that the government taxes rich people more because there are fewer of them and they are less likely to vote out the politicians who do it.

It's the masses voting bread and circuses for themselves.

Rich people only have the option of leaving but pretty much every place worth living does the same thing.

[lone_haxx0r]

Why do you assume that the only way for people to have food, education and security is through taxation?

Why do you assume that without taxes the system would devolve into poverty and extreme inequality?

The economy is not a linear equation with taxation and poverty as inversely related variables.

[chillwaves]

We have seen what society looks like without a safety net provided by the government. That is the reason why these programs were created in the first place.

[TAForObvReasons]

> K-12 education is payed for by taxes

Many wealthy families send their children to private schools. Even though some states have "school choice" programs that let the budgeted amount from taxes go to the schools, the families still pay the bulk of the price.

We don't know the poster's history, but it's entirely possible he attended private schools his entire life and was blissfully unaware of how the rest of us were educated.

[frankbreetz]

I doubt there is any person in America who is so out of touch he doesn't know about public schools.

[klipklop]

From the sound of it, he didn't grow up rich at all: "I was a latchkey kid. My mom was working multiple jobs and then she was going to school at night. We were raised by a single mother, my brother and I were, in New York City. We were in a part of New York City that isn’t very safe."

[svaha1728]

Parts of New York City that aren’t safe are filled with multimillion dollar brownstones, private schools and opportunity not available in other parts of the world.