Yes, absolutely, let's punish success.

If "success" means amassing the largest possible share of the world's wealth and resources while doing your damndest to give back just as little as you can, then hell yes, let's punish that.

If "success" means considering yourself better or more deserving than your neighbor and looking down on those who don't share your genes, circumstances, values, or whatever else, then hell yes, let's punish that.

If "success" means treating yourself to every luxury you can manage while people in the world go hungry and homeless, and while claiming it's "their own fault," then hell yes, let's punish that.

If "success" means embracing a schoolyard value system that labels some people "winners" and others "losers" and using this to deny people the necessities of a decent life, then hell yes, let's punish that.

If "success" means supporting George Bush while he committed countless crimes and ran this country into the ground just so you could get a few dollars extra back on your tax return, then hell yes, let's punish that.

Punish success? If it's the right-wing American version, throw the book at it.

:thumbsup:

Along with white privilege. Once I heard someone claim people in the ghetto could just sign up for classes and go to college! Just like that!

These people are as delusional as can be.

IIRC, the millionaire class has a lot of self-made millionaires.

Because per capita, there simply isn't a whole lot period. You must be living in a statistical anomaly.

I know one person who started out not only in a "mobile community" but lived in a truck camper in the trailer park, and was so poor the other kids were not allowed to play with him. He's successful now with absolutely no help from parents, family, upbringing, etc. The vast majority of the successful people I know (all but that guy in fact) however started out at least firmly middle-class and had access to not only good nutrition and education, but were expected to attend college, and of course had a rather comfortable safety net if not actual support, family connections, etc.

Furthermore, as much as I value hard work - and I really do - I get sick of the "self made" myth because it's a statistical anomaly and because no one lives in a vacuum. Even my friend who went from being dirt poor to relatively wealthy* understands and appreciates that he is where is not just through his own hard work and determination, but also because he lives in a society which enabled him to succeed through having infrastructure. He's one of the most Liberal people I know.



* this was to denote that despite him being extremely "well off" he is not rich in the sense of what truly is considered rich. So many times I've met people my ex used to call $120,000 "millionaires" - those who made decent money and had insane amounts of debt to look even wealthier, and often thought they were in the elite class of wealth. You've seen the stat that shows a rather large and mathematically impossible number of people think they are in the top 10%? Those people.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/11/07/5075

Can't have private wealth without public services.

...I did the Website for a local CD store that has since gone out of business.

The owners sold it to some guy who knew nothing about running a successful brick-and-mortar music store.

Most of the store employees...including the former owners...stayed on as employeed under the new manager.

Then the new owner pulled a "George W. Bush Arbusto" move.

He opened a third location and gave it to his son, who had no prior business experience, to run.

The son was an arrogant little douche...every one of the old-timers hated this kids guts.

When the store got to the point where it was $50,000 in the hole, the dad pulled the plug and closed that store down.

Over the next couple of years, the normally well-stocked store grew progressively lax, with half-filled bins and some sections of the stoe eliminated completely. Then they stopped taking checks as payment, which drove away some customers. Eventually, they just shut down.

I went to Menlo-Atherton High School...packed to the rafters with little silver spoon shits just cruising through life, high and oblivious, marking time until they went to work in dad's company.

Not ALL of them. A hell of a lot of them, but not all of them.

:patriot:

or farmer's kid to neurosurgeon? Or welfare mom to internationally bestselling fantasy author?

Your punishment wouldn't distinguish between those who rise on their merits and that fantasy villain you seem to believe lurks behind every fat bank account.

Every single wealthy person believes this. Whoopty-doo.

Carnagie was the absolute exception to a generation of Robber barron bastards that came from money to gain more money. Today is no exception. I find it even more ironic that England, which is far more socialist in terms of benefits and entitlements, has statistically greater social mobility than America.

And yeah the wealthy want to foolishly believe that somehow they earned their wealth or deserve it somehow. Just once I would like a rich man to stand up and say "Yeah, I didn't really earn most of this money I inherited most of it and made a lot of it through blatant human misery by investing in companies that export jobs to third world hell holes."

They'd still be rich, and you'd think, given their past, especially liberal in outlook.

If they turned into libertarians after that experience, they'd be even worse.

And off with the head of my neuorsurgeon who -- yes -- is the son of a potato farmer and the first in his family to go to college.

Maybe she isn't as sickeningly greedy and selfish as the people here who fight tooth and nail against paying their fair share.

'off with the head' :eyes: sad

JK Rowling pays her share of UK taxes, and by all reports, is happy to do so.

My point is that SHE got there through meritocracy. Yet the OP would deny that rich people like her exist.

Who's to judge what "merits" each person has? Funny how the "merits" result in financial gain are the only ones ever considered.

There is no "meritocracy." Every single person on Earth merits the basic necessities of a decent life as a fundamental human right. If the "successful" want to enjoy wallowing around in their fortunes, they had better be willing to do their part to repay and support the society that made it possible.

"Repay" until they're exactly level with everyone else?

I'm all for your OP as a play on the RW talk about "punishing success", and there certainly are people who have and are getting rich while actually contributing little, nothing, or even making a negative impact on the world, but I'm beginning to think you begrudge all personal wealth no matter how it's acquired.

A truly progressive tax system with fewer loopholes, and a social support system to raise the standard of living for the poorest among us so that they can have decent food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and access to education and other means to improve their opportunities and the opportunities of their children -- that's good enough for me.

Rich people like her are exceptions, not rules.

When the upper 1% own 60% to 70% of the wealth, which they can pass to their children (not based upon their abilities), then the US (and for damn sure the UK) is ANYTHING but a meritocracy.

"If it is like this" is not the same thing as saying "nothing but this exists"... you do know that, right?

"Punish" in quotes means paying one's share, which is seen as punishment by the sort of people the OP derides.

The OP was talking about those.

Libertarians, who claim taxes on the rich are a "punishment" to them.

But if she did, wouldn't it be worse to complain when you'd been poor once than for those who were always rich and perhaps just don't get it.

All I saw was PUNISH

I think he lives in Monaco now.

His dad scraped together the money to build his first go-kart for him.

Solid lower working class origins, worth millions now purely on his talents and hard work.

And giving. IIRC he gave 10 million cash for tsunami relief.

Such an evil person for being rich.

He deserves to be punished.

Nice melodrama. :eyes:

Having talent that is worth that much to others isn't greed.

You get paid for your talents, I assume.

He got paid for his.

speech to Harvard did you?

I ll try to quote as well as I remember..

" I will not become a tax evader by living outside the UK where I made my fortune. I will stay there and gladly pay my share to the government because without that safety net, even thought it could be better I would have been completely homeless and without resources.
so I see paying my share as patriotic".

No one is denying that some people do make it on their own good idea, plus hard work and a nice bit of luck to get the right break at the right time.

The vast majority of now wealthy folks have schemed and screwed others to get on top and or used inherited fortunes to do so.

My father managed to scramble from blue collar to pretty well off not rich, but decently set up. I busted my ass at 2 3 jobs and got screwed somehow every time I turned around and not all through bad judgement either.

The OP thinks all rich people are evil.

I use JK Rowling as an example that no, not all rich people are evil. Some get there through their talents and hard work. And would you want to punish her for that?

Show a quote that is not from your own mouth. The OP said no such thing at all. You did.
I would say, in fact, that the rhetorical imperialism you show is a perfect example of those who defend injustice, for you can not make the point from your own wealth and savings of ideas, so you must reach into the verbal pockets of others seeking to legitimize your thoughts. That is the problem, with words and with money. Stick to your own, not to that of others, such as Ms Rowling.

You do realize that she pays far greater in taxes in the UK than she would here, right? The OP is proposing that the U.S. tax system be more like the U.K.'s. It's not about punishing anyone, it's about having them contribute their fair share.

That doesn't sound like merely expecting them to contribute their fair share.

"Punish" sounds like retribution to me.

market purists use that phrase and taking it from there, if you expect your sarcasm to be gotten, then follow the OPs.

This is standard Libertarian/Limbaugh line that high taxes on the rich "punish them for their success." OP merely took on that argument.

OK, if they think it is punishment, let them be "punished."

Of course that's when they will supposedly Go Galt.

The author's intent was really quite clear to me. And the semantic argument is really quite silly. I don't care whether the government takes 25% of my income as taxes or if they call it a "retribution". Either way, I'm out the money and I pay it gladly, even though I pay more as a percentage of my income towards all my taxes than most people making 4x or more as much as I do due to the regressive taxes I have to deal with. It's pathetic to see the wealthy in this country complain so much over taxes when so many who are making do with far, far less don't complain at all. It really speaks to their character. All I ask is that the wealthy start paying their fair share. For far too long, they have not, and this country has suffered greatly for it.

Why bring her up? Just say you agree that taxes for the rich "punish" them for their "success."

She apparently does not agree with that, and so is irrelevant to the OP point.

and it's impossible to distinguish between the successful who are evil and the JK Rowlings of the world if you only judge them by their wealth.

You are just going to an extreme. The OP's argument has plenty of information there to read that "QUALIFY" the statements.

The OP was a sarchastic post directed at ultra free market libertarian republicans that see all progressive taxation requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share as 'punishment.' Your answer with sarchasm was sort of nonsensical and was percieved as an attempt to defend the wealthy of America who use that excuse of "punishment" to dodge tactics by hurling someone who made a lot of money but sees the value in paying her fair share.

Rather than for the ability to amass huge sums of money.

Her merit, to me, is in her willingness to give back.

"The Single Mother's Manifesto" in which she is perfectly able to speak for herself, and you could learn from her. It is as if you did not read the OP. My problem is with the use of the word 'success' to describe pirates, insider traders, cheats at Goldman Sachs and so forth. Same as calling the cheater Rove a genius instead of a cheater. Gaming the system, defrauding people is not success, it is crime.
The OP is very clear. Now go let Mother Rowling set you straight.

If you simply say, "Let's punish the wealthy", you are casting a big net that will catch both the villains and the JK Rowlings. How will you know which is which? By income? By the size of their houses?

btw, Rowling owns a castle. Does that put her in the leagues of the good guys or the bad guys?

How will you know when you go in to confiscate wealth?

I don't see a distinction between "merited" obscene wealth and "unmerited" obscene wealth. There is no difference whatsoever to me. I don't buy the meritocracy concept, as I've said multiple times now. Excessive wealth is all illegitimate, and I don't care if a one-armed welfare mother of 12 mined coal for 50 years in Antarctica to amass it. Obscene wealth is inherently obscene, by definition. I'm glad Rowling seems to semi-accept this and remains in the UK where she is forced to pay much more than she would here. I'd prefer she pay about 90%, though.

The entire piece is dedicated to the distinguishing of actual success from what is called by that name, but is in reality just crime, fraud and the like. The President used the term 'punish success' in regard to Goldman, currently charged with fraud. The entire point of the OP is that fraud is not success, and to confuse the two is wrong on a highly destructive level to the culture.
You have the nerve to actually place quotation marks around words you are writing, not quoting. That is not honest. You said let's punish the wealthy. The OP said let's stop calling crime stories success stories.

Instead it says "LET'S PUNISH SUCCESS"

nt.

Exceptions aren't the rule. And a few exceptions paying their fair share for the resources they used to get there is no biggie in my book.

Schools, roads, police, pell grants...even the exceptions didn't do it alone.

So how come not everyone becomes a millionaire?

70% of millionaires are first-generation wealthy. They didn't get there because of rich daddies.

http://www.faireconomy.org/press_room/1997/born_on_third_base_sources_of_wealth_of_1997_forbes_400

"So how come not everyone becomes a millionaire?"

You must realize that not everyone is a lucky statistical anomaly, right?


"70% of millionaires are first-generation wealthy. They didn't get there because of rich daddies."

Now...you realize America has the lowest rate of intergenerational mobility among the industrialized nations? In other words, you are perpetrating a myth. Of those 70%, let me know how many of them had families making under $45K a year. They are mostly born on third base, and while not technically "millionaires", they are wealthy enough to attend the nicest schools and have access to the nicest facilities.

My dad was a cook. Mom was a penniless immigrant.

I'm first generation wealthy.

And my parents were poor hippies, and Im a college educated immigrant to civilized mobile country. Yeah, and Im the only person I graduated with in my class that had these "opportunities" too.

So Im not about to form a rule on my own experience of pulling myself out of the lowest quitile, because everytime I go home, I see everyone who was left behind.

There is statistical room to account for your success (and mine). But by no means do such cases make up any significant portion of the population.

The quickest example I could give is myself.

But now it's disregarded because it's a totally unreproducible exception.

I guess I don't exist, do I?

We don't know the names of all the millions of poor sods that didn't make it with them though.

As I said, there is statistical room for exception.

But by in large, in the US and the UK, the chances are high that your same-sex child will earn no more than you do.

Pause for a moment please.

http://www.google.ca/search?q=%22intergenerational+mobility%22+%22united+states%22+comparison&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-ca:IE-SearchBox&ie=&oe=&redir_esc=&ei=nxjPS-bPMo_SsgPc4PGuDg

"Of those 70%, let me know how many of them had families making under $45K a year."

"How many." Not "if any".

The implication was that damn few first-generation millionaires come from families making under $45,000 a year. But nowhere can I find out numbers on what their parents earned.

I merely pointed out that 70% of millionaires are FIRST GENERATION wealthy. They don't come from wealthy families.

And yes, of course it's the exception that anyone becomes a millionaire. That's why they're held up as exceptional -- because they are. Otherwise everyone would be millionaires.

living is still the best predictor of future success or failure economically. Of course there are exceptions but these exceptions get held up as the 'norm' and used to keep us buying into this supply side hell where wealth is not taxed and work is punished all to hell. That's the flip side. The trickle down supply siders rail against 'punishing wealth.' The tax cutting binges for the wealthy the past 30 years have resulted in punishing work. Payroll taxes have bankrolled the tax cuts for the wealthy.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/04/b1579981.html



Meritocrilicious

Are you the type to claim Bill Gates parents were not wealthy? Well, compared to the bottom 4 quintiles, they lived damn well

Statistically unlikely doesn't really mean unreproducible exception.

Moreover even if you had ever been referred to as an unreproducible exception it wouldn't mean you don't exist but rather that your circumstances. I find it amusing that someone would engage in such silly hyperbole and somehow refuse to understand the OP's point.

That's the point. Millionaires, as a group, are exceptions compared with everyone else.

But most of them come from non-wealthy families.

;)

Do most of them come from *real* middle class families making $45 K a year with no substantial wealth besides the equity in their home?

Or are you just saying most come from families with less than 1 million?

In otherwords, are you trying to say the majority of people in the top quintile come from below the fourth quintile? I think you are very mistaken.

That was obvious from your first wealth-apologetics post in the thread.

What are rich libertarians doing on DU anyway?

And a Democrat. And I think progressive taxes are necessary.

You're the one throwing around labels. Rich are evil, and of course there are no real Democrats who are rich.

Black and white thinking is supposed to be a characteristic of the Republican party. Not ours.

So that means you're ready to have your wealth seized when revolution comes?

If so, why not just give it away right now? There are a zillion good charities.

I think you are thinking about Communism.

Name a single western European country where wealth is "seized."

BTW, most "socialists" should realize that a meritocracy cannot exist without enough socialistic institutions providing services to level the playing field, and break down all barriers; institutions that should be funded in such a manner that is does not negate their effect on the society.

Do you consider them "punishment?"

I think the rich aren't taxed enough.

But PUNISHMENT and REVENGE seems to be the operative attitude here against people who've become wealthy -- no matter how they managed to accumulate their wealth.

As if no one could possibly come by it honestly.

Have you never encountered the argument that "Higher taxes for the wealthy is punishment for being successful!"? That's the "punishmant " the OP is talking about. You're on the same page; but you don't even realize it!!

until one is 50 without the baggage of an outside relationship...if male.

and

Make sure that all female kids understand they need to launch early (preferably by marrying that lone 50-year-old millionaire), and bear/or buy surrogate replacement workers(taxpayers) while literally supporting, by EARNED income, those now unemployable 50-year-old millionaires, LOL.

And someone asked me how I got my money I'd say I inherited it. If in 20 years I had parlayed that $5 million into $50 million through investments and you asked me how I got my money I'd probably say it was through my shrewd investments, even though it's highly unlikely I would have achieved them were it not for the $5 million in inherited seed money.

worked a day in their Hamptons and Gucci life.

Don't you know that?

as they eat babies and tie poor widows to railroad tracks.

You just gotta laugh at the stereotyping on DU sometimes.

The fact that I've known several people who have gone from humble or at least average beginnings to do pretty well, after MUCH sacrifice, hard work and risk, I guess means nothing.

Social mobility is, I've heard it say, dead.

And if someone says it on DU...it MUST be true.

It is about a system which encourages, cannot help but cause massive disparity of wealth, and social power.

The rich are as trapped in this system as the poor, given their social situation they act as they must. The capitalists must lay off workers or by and bye he will no longer be a capitalist. It is a fucked up system that brings out the worst in people. Greedy people do not make capitalism bad, capitalism encourages and rewards greedy behavior.

As for the John Galts out there, contrary to your overestimations of yourself, you will not be missed.

They can still afford the taxes.

can distinguish 'punishment' from being a part of society. The more you get, the more you should give.


Or do you really believe that people should be taxed differently depending on their personal story?

Must they be punished?

Patriotism, not punishment.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article7096786.ece

Nobody who has ever experienced the reality of poverty could say “it’s not the money, it’s the message”. When your flat has been broken into, and you cannot afford a locksmith, it is the money. When you are two pence short of a tin of baked beans, and your child is hungry, it is the money. When you find yourself contemplating shoplifting to get nappies, it is the money. If Mr Cameron’s only practical advice to women living in poverty, the sole carers of their children, is “get married, and we’ll give you £150”, he reveals himself to be completely ignorant of their true situation.

---

But wait, some will say. Given that you have long since left single parenthood for marriage and a nuclear family; given that you are now so far from a life dependent on benefits that Private Eye habitually refers to you as Rowlinginnit, why do you care? Surely, nowadays, you are a natural Tory voter?

---

I chose to remain a domiciled taxpayer for a couple of reasons. The main one was that I wanted my children to grow up where I grew up, to have proper roots in a culture as old and magnificent as Britain’s; to be citizens, with everything that implies, of a real country, not free-floating ex-pats, living in the limbo of some tax haven and associating only with the children of similarly greedy tax exiles.

A second reason, however, was that I am indebted to the British welfare state; the very one that Mr Cameron would like to replace with charity handouts. When my life hit rock bottom, that safety net, threadbare though it had become under John Major’s Government, was there to break the fall. I cannot help feeling, therefore, that it would have been contemptible to scarper for the West Indies at the first sniff of a seven-figure royalty cheque. This, if you like, is my notion of patriotism. On the available evidence, I suspect that it is Lord Ashcroft’s idea of being a mug.

up from poverty!

(she stayed on the dole to finish her book.)

Not once did I say raising taxes to 39& is an injustice. All I see here is "Punish the successful" in the OP. I see references to useless rich people who got it only because they had rich daddies.

There's no allowance for reality here: and the reality is that 70% of millionaires did not get it from their rich daddies. They are first generation wealthy who, yes, had good fortune shine upon them. But ability and work and thrift also had something to do with it too. I see no balance here; people can only think about punishment and retaliation.

playing on the right-wing rhetoric that progressive taxation IS a punishment of the successful. That you want to see the OP's phrase as meaning something more/worse is your problem.

Also, look at the stats Oregone posted in #98. 70% of millionaires didn't have millionaire parents. But I bet 90% of that 70% had mid/high-six-figure parents. Social mobility, except for a very few, is pretty much limited to "one step above" per generation. But the cultural narrative of Horatio Alger/American Dream/"you, too, can make $5000 a week!" gets people believing THEY are destined for wealth. So they are easily persuaded to vote against progressive taxation, even though it is in their current, and probably lifelong, economic best interest, because they're just so sure that someday they'll be millionaires and golly, they don't want to pay 39% in taxes!

don't think it's now okay to not pay taxes or to pay so little because they "earned it". As long as they don't begrudge helping others who aren't as fortunate as them. As long as they see that they don't need hideous wealth while others go hungry and/or homeless.

But they STILL need to give back.

If someone can afford to buy himself a megamansion with a master bedroom closet big enough to store his fleet of state-of-the-art Ferraris, then he can also damned well contribute to making life just a bit easier for the less fortunate.

:shrug:

which helped her get to where she is.

I assume your irony meter is broken.

A $65 seat at an NHL play off game.

( Old Country Buffet ).

Only time in my life I've ever been; I took my little brother to one a couple of years ago.

(not holding my breath)

Stop no bid contracts
Stop revolving lobbyist -politician door
Start enforcing all laws equally regardless of wealth
Tax all income sources fairly- especially bonus and other "reward" income
Eliminate corporate tax loopholes

Just a start.

We're now in the decline of the American Empire where the top folks squeeze all they can out of the Rubes.......

Happens over and over and over........

including capital gains as income.

And while I'm at it, if there's no inheritance tax (estate tax) on the richest fraction of the top one percent, why should there be tax on the poor schmuck who's lucky enough to win a big lottery. We can't even treat the lucky poor as we do the rich who were lucky by birth. IMO, they've both won the lottery, and they should be taxed equally. Call it a luck tax.

Progressive taxation isn't punishment. It's contributing toward society.

Punishment implies punitive action -- which I assume means confiscation of some kind.

would be nice if we could go back to progressive taxation.

How the money is made is another subject, but there are certainly people who make fortunes, even on their own, in ways that should be regulated more or even illegal. You might consider that punishment, depending on how you made your fortune. I admire and see the benefit to society of people who create fortunes through their hard work, ideas, creativity - people who earn their money - and then give back proportionally, for the common good and for others to have opportunities to succeed. However, I believe in fairness, and have no respect for fortunes made under the philosophy of "never give a sucker an even break". And, with the dominance of lobbyists, that is too often the case.

Its a play on the RW phrase "punish success", which is code for any taxation of the wealthy.

Its the RW that considers taxation, above a flat level, as "punative". The OP is merely playing on that idiocy.

I don't think it's wrong or "punishing" to expect the most successful to pay back the society that gave them the opportunities they had.

Whether the wealth is self earned or inherited is beside the point. Either way, the person in question had the good fortune to live in this great country where wealth is possible, and I don't think anyone is punishing them by expecting them to financially acknowledge that.

There was a time I made pretty good money. Not wealthy, mind you, but a very comfortable income. I paid more in federal income taxes than I ever earned in my days as a military officer. That didn't bother me in the least. When circumstances (like living here) allow you to do well, you give back. There's nothing complicated or socialist about it. It's patriotic, and it's appropriate.

I don't see "eat the rich" anywhere in the OP. All he/she did was call out the RW on their Ayn Rand bullshit.

I'm all for progressive taxation but the devil is in the details. Who would you tax at what percentage for what income (or other asset)?

Hell I'll even go first - with the bonus of a MUCH simpler tax code......

1) All income taxed equally regardless of source or nature. IOW capital gains, interest, salaries, inheritances (of any size) tips, gifts, provided housing/cars, business profits etc should be taxed at the same rate.

2) No deductions or exemptions of any kind. I prefer owning a house to renting an apartment. I don't need a mortgage deduction to make that call. If you want kids don't ask for a handout for having them either. Differential tax rates for bigger families are out

3) Rates on annual income would be something like (adjustable based on spending needs - don't have time or data to see what budget impact would be, but based on GDP (14.5T) and Fed budget (3.4T) should be close.

< 18,000 - no tax
to 45,000 - 10%
to 75,000 - 20%
to 125,000 - 30%
to 250,000 - 40%
Above 250,000 - 50%

Nothing too punitive. Allows subsistence income without taxes. Progresses in simple and meaningful manner. Easy to audit and calculate.

How would yours differ and why?

The military and police give us a safe playing field from threats foreign and domestic respectively. Infrastructure allows the transport of goods and workers, and the power to produce. Regulation of airwaves and subsequent technologies allows the seamless flow of marketing to the masses. Taxes are the logical cost of getting rich, talk of "punishment" is a distraction.

Taxes don't need to be so burdensome that we worry about the "worthy rich" being punished with the "unworthy rich". This notion bothers me as much as dividing the "worthy poor" from the "unworthy poor" when giving assistance. If the top 1% paid their fair share, that point would be moot, not because of handouts, but from the improved economy that would ensue.

or more to the point, rich people, should pay their fair share, which means a higher percentage than the less fortunate.

Conducting a policy of punishing the rich, is always counterproductive and hurts the society more than it helps, including those (maybe especially those) who

National governments need to institute policies that work for everyone. The more successful and equitable countries have already done so. The pattern is pretty well established -- the US needs to catch up in some areas.

....so you can give most of it to the government. No thanks, I'll hang to as much of what I earn as I can.

I think I know better how to spend it than the government.

Raise the capital gains tax
Raise the estate tax
Institute a bank bonus tax...

You get where I'm goin' with this?

...as long as the tax is progressive.

The tax burden needs to be shifted back upward. Being rich in America today is an incredible privilege.

who come onto DU to make us look like a wild-eyed, pitchfork-waving, French Revolutionary mob ready to guillotine everyone who enjoys even a modicum of success. Then the Tea Partiers can point to DU and say: "See? They're out to take your money!"

and confirms rightwingers worst fears, that's for sure. Not to mention it's not remotely realistic.

What a pathetically small political universe you live in.

I suppose this dude is a TP too...

of letting the rich skate so all the benefits could trickle down and lift everyone. It hasn't worked and it's time to return to a progressive tax system. The wealth disparity has grown steadily since these binges of tax cuts for the wealthy have continued for almost 30 years.

I mean, besides the politicians, the police, the judges, the armed forces.

Word.

Some of us feel that success should mean so much more, and shouldn't include any reference to wealth at all.

"the poor" and "the rich" don't have agendas, speaking points, and lawyers. Poverty and Wealth are emergent properties of economic systems, not entities with motives and desires.

Alas, reading between the lines though aren't really trolls but frustrated people, sometimes expressing frustration, but as often expressing it as vindictively as possible, and god help you if you disagree with them because the worst of them will most certainly come after you with pitchforks.

Wealth is not the cause of poverty, ironically, and vice versa. That the very first and worst notion they have. Poverty is also about more than lack of access to money, by the way, but don't tell them that, they're all Experts in Everything(tm) they can put a trademark on the back of and sound vaguely brilliant and self-justified.

I come here to discuss, not to join a group of bombastic opinions or fight villagers with torches. I think other people just come here for catharsis, so sometimes we gotta make room and let them rant.

When all we want to succeed in is being ruthless, that needs to be punished.

The wealth of places like Exxon and BofA aren't being taxed. I'm sure they believe themselves to be successful, and I would classify the nature of the way they practice business as a failure.

Can the affluent afford to pay a greater share? I believe they can, and they should.

:yourock:

The thing way too many libertarian dorks don't want to factor in is the social investment in infrastructure that made it possible for them to work hard and be fortunate enough to get rich. A great example is the interstate highway system and McDonald's (actually, most franchises could be used). McDonald's could not exist without the interstate, at least in the successful form it has now. Mr. Kroc's billions only became possible because all americans invested in a social benefit. It isn't punishment to expect the same level of investment from today's population to create the opportunities for tomorrow's entrepreneurs.

BTW - anyone that wants to try and say that everyone benefits equally from the interstates is plain misinformed. Go look at the traffic--a significant portion any time you want to look will be semi trucks hauling cargo, and putting a hugely disportionate amount of damage on the roads that cost a lot more than they'd need to if they were built solely for automobile traffic. Our highway system is very much a massive subsidy to business. That works for me, because it is a sound investment. What doesn't work for me is hearing some jerks say that they don't want to pay taxes on the millions they earned because it is punishing them.

Why do they do that? :shrug:

Where is it written that "progressives" are above the "I've-got-mine" attitude?

While it's already been said here, and, as trite as it may be, there is still much to the adage: To whom much is given, much is expected. It's not a question of "fairness" or "right." It's a question of basic human decency and morality. If I have more than my share of the basics of survival (let alone creature comforts), then yes, I do have some responsibility to help those who do not.

It's just when progressives generalize all the evil in the world to people who have any amount of money more than they do that it gets to be unbalanced.

Yes, everybody can and should do more with what they have, but to make it a point of law to redistibute wealth or create opportunity to fit quotas instead of merit means that the real causes of poverty, lack of access to education, jobs, adequate housing, transportation and healthcare are not really being addressed at the root level, and root level is not that some people have more money than others.

when you see wealth and success taken to such extreme ends, it's no wonder that the anger is there.

Bottom line: People can do whatever they want with their money. But if they have any kind of conscience, social or otherwise, they should feel compelled to give something back. Note I did not say, "obligated."

And I think money lies at the "root level" of a lot of society's ills.

My partner and I give about 25,000 a year to ASO's here in Dallas (AIDS services organizations), plus another 10,000 to the Food Pantry, not to mention participating in virtually every non-faith based call to support within our community.

Before my current partner I lived with an MSSW social worker and tagged along to MHMR, dozens of half-way houses, emergency (psych ER) calls, Community Council of Greater Dallas, and all the standard stuff I do anyway.

It gave me a different perspective on the largely poverty-line people I met, and not always a completely charitable POV. I know for a fact that people self-destruct, or can't or won't take advantage of opportunity, or having done so, don't have bigger dreams for themselves, much less for their children.

Some of that is social conditioning from living without opportunity, and some of that is just that people are not all the same regardless of their background. Nonetheless to say that being poor is a sign of human failure as ridiculous as saying that having wealth is a sign of human failure.

There are sharks in the oceans. They eat people. Wealth is an emergent property of our economic system, but the misuse of wealth is an emergent property of our lack of a value system as a people. And also of our desire to preserve our own gene lines, but mostly a lack of principle. If we want more Kennedy families serving the public, we need more civics and more liberal studies in our public schools, and required in our private schools. Those kids will grow up with different expectations and different values than the Reagan generation which happily gave up civics in favor of readin, writin' and cipherin', and happily reduced the collegiate humanitarian core in favor of more readin', writin' and cipherin'.

The argument needs to be framed in terms of values. As I said upthread, anyone who is a success story deserves to the lauded for that success. But with that success comes some kind of social obligation -- as the Kennedys are well-aware of, as opposed to the Reagan-era wealth-at-all-costs, he-who-has-the-most-toys-wins mindset.

"generalize all the evil in the world to people who have any amount of money more than they do"

:thumbsup:

when trying to reasonable and fair and evenhanded is greeted with scorn and derision.

It's not a straw man when anyone can easily see it in the tenor of many of the posts upthread.

I don't think you are thinking about context with regard to this discussion at all. The Strawman is a construct based on an exaggeration of your oppositions weakest argument. Your strawman seems to be even weaker as you seem obsessed with the tone of the upthread posts when it is absolutely clear that the chief arguer in opposition upthread was not grasping what the OP was actually referring to.

You aren't even on topic. Arguing about arguing is just stupid, unless that's the topic of the OP.

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but rather than say "Hey, I'm greedy and proud of it!" they try to point to others and say why it's good to be greedy.

Every time I see one of these posts on DU I think it's just as bad of us to generalize and demonize in the name of venting as it is for assholes on the other side to rub it in our faces.

Success comes in degrees, and yes, for 99.9 percent of people who view themselves as "successful", whether they are comfortable, millionaires or billionaires, ask and they will tell you, and believe, that they've earned it or otherwise have a right to it.

The world is not a community. Money is not the same thing as leveling access to resources, such as food, shelter and healthcare.

There are complete entitled assholes who have money, no denying it, but to paint everyone who looks at themselves as successful (and by implication, other people as less successful, or as you put it "losers") is dishonest. We always assume that everyone would end up in the same place with money given the same opportunities, but that is just flat out a bad assumption.

There are ugly poor people who make just as ugly rich people, which just informs me that ugliness has more to do with personal character than with the abundance or lack of money. If we're worrying about babies starving in Africa, much less our inner cities and demonizing people who accumulate wealth as bad world citizens, you forget that just redistributing wealth and even just opportunity still won't solve any of the causes of people starving in Africa, or in the inner cities.

I do agree with you that people who engage the political system to preserve their wealth at the expense of preserving America are horrible people. But when you punish THOSE people, you cast a very wide net based only on some idea of income, and not who you voted for or why. Yes, wealthy don't pay taxes proportionate to their net worth, but net effective tax means that they almost always do pay scale for their "simple income", and pay less for investments and holdings. If you had to clear 40% of your invested income every year, you'd have to sell a bunch of your holdings to do so, and those companies faced with giant sell-offs every year would be forced to do giant layoffs. So the government typically taxes less for capital gains than for regular income and if you add the two together you end up with what appears to be an unfair net effective tax.

I do believe in paying fair taxes. I do not believe in paying punitive taxes because people believe the world is inherently unfair and want to take it out on a particular group of people.

When said self made millionaires were poor what was keeping them afloat?
What prevented the wealthiest people of the time from dominating the business world to the degree where your self made millionaire friend would have had no chance to make it in the first place?
What prevented the wages from getting so low in this country that self made millionaire would have been stuck working every free hour they had?Lets not forget how much worse it would have been for their poor parents while they were growing up.

I'm guessing that without the higher taxation of the wealthiest,without public programs,and without worker protections these self made millionaires would have been out of luck.