[rick888]

"Or the problem might be that wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few who are vulnerable to groupthink and consequently triggering financial disasters with their incompetence. DISTRIBUTE MORE OF THE WEALTH."

"distribute more of the wealth" sounds so clean and nice. What you are really doing is taking this money away by force, which is anything but.

Here is a scenario: Let's say you are a senior developer for a company and you make $90,000/year. A new guy joins the company with almost no experience and your boss tells you that he needs to "distribute more of your wealth". You will make $60,000 so he can make $30,000 more. He is putting in much less effort than you. This is okay, right?

Everyone that wants wealth redistribution should be put into the same situation. I think we would have much less people out there interested in taxing the rich to death.

"consequently triggering financial disasters"

What about the people that took out loans they obviously couldn't afford? It's the same with credit card debt. People blame the credit card companies for giving them the loans in the first place, yet they keep putting themselves into more and more debt buying things they don't need. We need more personal responsibility.

[vannevar]

"distribute more of the wealth" sounds so clean and nice. Indeed. Much like 'cut government spending'. My point is that slogan-based solutions are unhelpful.

You sound like someone who takes Ayn Rand seriously as an economist, as opposed to a philosopher. The truth is that most of the wealthy were born into the upper classes of income, and further that wealth tends to create wealth quite apart from the physical or mental effort of the owner. And in all cases, both chance and social institutions that have been built up over centuries contribute disproportionately to becoming wealthy.

So let me give you a counter example: you work very hard in your company as a senior developer. Once day the boss comes and tells you you're fired because he's hired his son to do your job. Now you're on unemployment for months due to an economic downturn, but because there are no income taxes you get no unemployment benefits. To top it off, you lost your health benefits when you lost your job, and now you find you have cancer (33% of us will get it at some point). The good news is, it's curable. The bad news is the treatment is prohibitively expensive, so like all of the losers in society's Randian economic game, we're going to expect you to simply die gracefully in a cardboard box somewhere out of sight. Thanks for playing, though.

[rick888]

"Much like 'cut government spending'."

So..why did you say it in the first place? It's obviously something you believe.

"You sound like someone who takes Ayn Rand seriously as an economist, as opposed to a philosopher. The truth is that most of the wealthy were born into the upper classes of income"

Define wealthy. You are going to the extremes. Wealthy to me might be $100,000/year if I'm living in the mid-west. You also need to back up that statements with some citations/sources.

Here is a list of wealthy people that were born poor: http://www.intelligenius.net/rich-people-who-were-born-poor/ There are countless others that may not have billions, but still live very comfortable lives.

I'm really tired of people that don't want to put the time and effort into becoming successful trying to knock the actual successful people down a notch by saying it was luck or they were born into wealth (that must be the only reason they have money).

I have a quote for you:

"Chance favors only the prepared mind." - Louis Pasteur

I have felt this way for years. There are opportunities all around us every day. If you aren't educated enough to act on it, it will pass you by/you won't even be able to recognize it as an opportunity.

With Internet the being so prevalent, you could easily learn a new skill online, without ever having to pay exorbitant education fees. (MIT has free coursework available). Every city I've lived in has had free Internet access through the library. There are no more excuses. If you aren't physically or mentally incapable, you can succeed if you put in the effort.

"so let me give you a counter example: you work very hard in your company as a senior developer. Once day the boss comes and tells you you're fired because he's hired his son to do your job."

The boss owns the company. If he wants to hire his son, it's his freedom. If I was a senior developer, I probably would have the skills to easily find a job somewhere else. In a few months, when the boss realizes his son can't do the job, it will be too late. If it isn't, I will need a much higher salary to come back.

"Now you're on unemployment for months due to an economic downturn, but because there are no income taxes you get no unemployment benefits."

So when did I say we should have no taxes? You are once again taking things to the extreme to further your point. Sounds like a red herring to me.

"To top it off, you lost your health benefits when you lost your job, and now you find you have cancer (33% of us will get it at some point). The good news is, it's curable. The bad news is the treatment is prohibitively expensive"

Treatment is expensive no matter what. The difference is that either the government pays the cost (IE: the tax payers) pr your insurance company pays for it. My problem with all of the current universal health care advocates is that they propose plans that assume medical care is an infinite resource. There needs to be some way to limit doctor visits or people will be coming into the office many more times than they should (because hey, it's free I'm paying for it). There needs to be overall limits in place and after those limits are hit (maybe a yearly visit limit), you need to pay out of pocket. If we got rid of the insurance companies altogether, the hospitals wouldn't be able to charge $100 for a bottle of aspirin.

Another point I would like to make is that in pretty much all countries with socialized medicine, there are long waiting lines for things like cancer treatments. I have many older relatives that live in Canada that have had to come over to the US because they weren't able to get treatments in time.

"so like all of the losers in society's Randian economic game, we're going to expect you to simply die gracefully in a cardboard box somewhere out of sight. Thanks for playing, though."

red herring #2. Your post is filled with them.

[vannevar]

A problem doesn't have to have a single cause; in fact, most real world problems don't. I think it's a good idea to cut spending. I also think it's a good idea to distribute wealth.

And I don't doubt that there are wealthy people who started poor, and who worked hard. But the fact is that most of them started well-off and got richer. And it's also a fact that it is easier to earn a million dollars if you already have a million dollars. So I don't have a Randian moral problem with taxing the rich at a higher rate. (Full disclosure here: I'm pretty loaded.)

I'm sorry I accused you of being a moral absolutist and opposing all income taxes. But you did say

What you are really doing is taking this money away by force...

So you don't mind if they take 35% by force, but 39% is looting?

As for your anecdotal long lines in Canada, I'm guessing that option would look pretty good from your cardboard box, dying slowly of liver failure.

But you've indicated you're immune to bad luck, that you could always find a place willing to hire a good developer even in the middle of major layoffs and even if you need to take time off every day for chemo. Good for you. But what do we do with all the people who don't have your skills, training or work ethic? What do we do with the losers? Let them die in the streets?

What do we do with them?

[rick888]

"A problem doesn't have to have a single cause; in fact, most real world problems don't. I think it's a good idea to cut spending. I also think it's a good idea to distribute wealth."

We are already redistributing wealth through taxes and social programs.

"But the fact is that most of them started well-off and got richer."

Citation?

"And it's also a fact that it is easier to earn a million dollars if you already have a million dollars."

It's also easier when you have the mindset of someone that is successful. Poor parents pass on poor decision making to their kids.

"So you don't mind if they take 35% by force, but 39% is looting?"

When did we ever talk about percentages? I seriously doubt that all of the social programs you are talking about would only be a matter of 3%.

"As for your anecdotal long lines in Canada, I'm guessing that option would look pretty good from your cardboard box, dying slowly of liver failure."

I guess it gives them hope. If the waiting lines are so long that you die before you get care, it doesn't really matter.

"But you've indicated you're immune to bad luck, that you could always find a place willing to hire a good developer even in the middle of major layoffs and even if you need to take time off every day for chemo. Good for you. But what do we do with all the people who don't have your skills, training or work ethic? What do we do with the losers? Let them die in the streets? What do we do with them?"

How do we stop our hospitals from being flooded with people that don't really need care? There needs to be some system in place to force people to only go to the hospitals when they absolutely need it, or the system will eventually collapse. Nobody seems to want to think in the long-term, which is dangerous.

[vannevar]

I'm well aware that we're already redistributing wealth, I'm simply advocating we do more of it by raising taxes on the wealthy.

If you Google 'economic mobility' you'll come up with a lot of citations supporting the idea that most rich people come from families in the upper reaches of the economic spectrum. Here's a particularly good study that got a lot of press a couple of years ago: http://www.economicmobility.org/reports_and_research/other?i... . Keep in mind that I'm not saying no one goes from being poor to rich, only that it's a minority of the wealthy. One reason that it may seem like there are more is that those stories are more compelling and so get more media attention (who wants to hear about the upper middle class doctor's kid who became a millionaire?), and because Republicans focus on those stories in their campaign rhetoric to deflect taxation on the wealthy.

It would be terrible to die waiting for treatment; fortunately that doesn't happen any more often in Canada than it does in the free-market US (where, until the recent health care reform, insurance companies could arbitrarily drop sick patients altogether).

And contrary to whatever ideas you may have about hospital life, they're really not all that pleasant. Most people stay away from them unless absolutely necessary, to the point that a lot of people (heart patients in particular) don't go when in fact they should. No doubt there are some hypochondriacs who waste doctors' time, but they are hardly justification for throwing up our hands at helping the truly sick who greatly outnumber them.

[vannevar]

"So you don't mind if they take 35% by force, but 39% is looting?"

When did we ever talk about percentages? I seriously doubt that all of the social programs you are talking about would only be a matter of 3%.

You're missing the point. You made an argument based on a moral absolute, that when the government takes your money in the form of taxes that it is taking it by force. I picked 35% and 39% because that's basically the difference between the current rate and the rate if the tax cuts had been allowed to expire. If you really believe the government is looting your bank account when you're taxed, I'm not sure why it's morally OK to loot any of it for any reason.