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by anewaccountname
6311 days ago
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BS. Money's marginal value goes down the more you have--your 1st house is worth more to you than your Nth super car. After around 500k net worth, money is more about status and ranking than anything else--something that happens to be preserved under a graduated tax. The only other thing it is good for is perhaps real estate closer to a waterfront, a fancy downtown, etc.; under a graduated income tax that stays pretty much the same because there isn't as much money to be spent on it. Most of the value is in the land, not the construction. |
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Sure, I'll agree that the percent of your net income that is spent on necessities is continually decreased as your income increases. This is definitely true.
I'll go one step further and say that taxes probably don't largely effect human behavior. If I have worked hard enough to earn $250k/year, it's due to some intrinsic motivation, not the benefits of that salary in the US tax code.
However, if America was built on encouraging the masses to converge on an average income, then it wouldn't be America at all. This country stands above the rest because of its tremendous wealth. It's built on incentives of self-interest. It's the ability to create unbound wealth that attracts the most brilliant minds to this country, and everybody else reaps the benefits. We should be encouraging these people to work, not take a vacation because added tax pressures are further reducing the value of their work.
This is particular relevant to the entrepreneurial crowd of Hacker News; entrepreneurs are, after all, responsible for 0.2% of the country's input and 17% of its output.