[aragot]

I'm worried about the form of the redistribution. In France, we have small taxes in many places. Just one example: We dealt with copyright issues by creating a tax on storage mediums, from a few cents to 20-40€ depending on the container, the size and the volatility - more than 40 different tax levels (see tables here [1]). Obviously they included the bureaucracy feature, where if you're a company you can send back a form and be reimbursed. I'm confident the same kind of insane level of tax compexity exists in pretty much any country and it implements revenue equality by squashing entrepreneurship at its root. Less innovation, less inequality ;)

So let's go ahead: Which forms of redistribution would do you see? Your comment made me notice that taxes proportional to the number of ads already exist (the VAT) and doesn't help redistributing. We need to take into account the change of scale. Would it be a tax per number of available cars for car-sharing services, then a tax per node in the friend graph for social networks? Sounds insane, but is it what we're bound to implement?

[1] http://www.culturecommunication.gouv.fr/Politiques-ministeri...

[sparkie]

If robots are replacing labor, tax the robots of course!

Might sound silly, but to me, it's the most simple and sane thing we can do to sustain people who are put out of work by automation.

[jdimov]

Re-distribution?? Ex-cuse-me?? These aren't YOUR cookies, you bum! Make your own cookies and THEN worry about re-distribution! When someone else has made the cookies, YOU DON'T GET A SAY in how they are distributed, do you get that?

[aragot]

Whether you like it or not, redistribution is the basis for most of the laws of my country (and certainly yours). It's not up to you or me, it's how the People think. In fact, that's what the OP is about.

It is besides the point to know which side I am. In fact, I've just said tax complexity squashes new enterprises. I've written an article about how an entrepreneur in France loses 70% of his income in tax-and-administrative-burden [1]. So guess whether I enjoy redistribution or not?

[1] http://adrien-ragot.me/why-i-say-70-percent-tax-in-france/

[jdimov]

Just because the majority think they are entitled to the 1%'s wealth, does not make it so.

The French government might as well take 90% of that entrepreneur's wealth and "re-distribute" it to the so-called "People" (I call them "Sheep") and guess what? That one entrepreneur will still be wealthier than any of them and the "People" will still mumble. In other words, NOTHING will change.

[JoeAltmaier]

...except that 45% of the economy just got given back to the people, mitigating the shameful status quo. Now the regular folk run 95% of the economy.

There's no issue of having rich people or not; its ok to be wealthy. Its not about punishing the rich. Its about them hoarding almost the entire pie.

[jdimov]

Not almost. I will hoard THE entire pie and I will not feel ONE bit of shame about it, because it is MY PIE! You are the one who should be ashamed for wanting to steal from my pie just because you are incapable of baking your own.

[terminus]

> because it is MY PIE! Not always. Most "pie" bakers either inherit their "pie" directly in terms of wealth or education or healthy upbringing from parents. The ones you call incapable of baking their own, probably did not have all the advantages that you did.

There's also the aphorism about standing on the shoulder of giants (or indeed standing on tax created infrastructure.) That applies to all "pie" bakers.

[__m]

unless they live in a democracy and make it so, but don't worry, you'll most likely belong to the 99% or sheep as you call them.

[disputin]

If you don't share your cookies, we will revolt and take your cookies, and everything else you have while we're at it.

[jdimov]

And you will still die poor and miserable, because try as you might YOU CAN NOT TAKE this which I have and you don't. You will just never have it and I always will.

[disputin]

Can you explain that to this lot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebelli...

[jacquesm]

Enjoy your cake. While you can.

[ukigumo]

Let's talk about the ingredients you need to make your cookies shall we?

[jdimov]

Yes, let's do that! Here's a wake up call: I don't have access to any ingredients that everyone else doesn't also have access to!

Because it's not the ingredients. It's how I see them and what I do with them. You choose to cry all day long about scarcity and injustice. I choose to rejoice in the abundance and the unlimited opportunities given to me.

This is what makes me wealthy and you poor. Not the government. Not the political system. Not any form of justice or lack thereof. There is ULTIMATE justice in this world, ALWAYS. It is just as it should be.

[ukigumo]

I'm sorry, my previous comment was not an attempt at changing your functionalist, would-be-objectivist and elitist view of the world but just a veiled reference to space cookies because you seem to be high on something. Maybe it's a big white horse, who knows?

If it matters to you I'm not poor, at least according to HMRC it's quite the contrary.

[eli_gottlieb]

So, just to be clear, you are claiming that power and chance are the ultimate justice in this world?

Are you the villain on a cartoon for 12-year-olds?

[EliRivers]

That is incorrect. In the typical modern liberal democracy, the right to vote and other such forms of political expression is not tied to how much wealth one generates.

[jdimov]

No, that's how disgruntled people WANT it to be. Luckily, it isn't and it never will be.

[EliRivers]

I can look around me and see unemployed people voting, and I recall the top tax rate was once 90%. Where do you live?

[consz]

Might makes right. If the rest of the world wants your cookies, then of course they can take it -- you'd either have to give it up or take a bullet to the head.

[jdimov]

This is what you don't get, pal. The rest of the world may be able to get some of my cookies but they will NEVER have access to the COOKIE MACHINE because they are SHEEP. They just don't have it in them! Get it? You know what this means? It means I'll ALWAYS have my cookies and they will ALWAYS starve.

[consz]

Who cares? They can just take your cookies and throw you aside, you yourself are not unique. There's always going to be a bunch of gullible saps willing to work hard that you can tax and take from -- it doesn't matter that they get your cookie machine, just that there's always a cookies to take.