Item — HN Reader

This is an idea whose time has come. Look at what happened during the last depression: the top marginal tax rate jumped from around 25% to over 90%. I think a broadly-graduated marginal property tax on non-agricultural properties is also a good idea.

A lot of people made off like bandits during this bubble. A 70% tax rate at income over a million is probably unavoidable. We can't just fleece the average tax payer for generations and leave the top 1%, many of whom profited during this time, undisturbed on their St.Barts vacations.

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I have a hard time understanding your logic behind this. The people who make more money (including those who 'made off like bandits' like you say) were already taxed for their earnings. Are you saying that these people (who profited during the bubble) will keep earning money? Or maybe you're saying that we need higher taxes now so that the next bubble the government will get in on more of the action?

Also, how is the government fleecing the average taxpayer anymore than it is fleecing the rich? Aren't the rich not only taxed more (because they earn more), but taxed at a higher rate?

That's the reason for the heavily-graduated property tax -- to target specifically those who might have profited under the bubble, yet who are not profiting as much now.

I never intimated that "the government is fleecing the average taxpayer more than it is fleecing the rich." (Although Warren Buffet has said just that.) And since we own the government, I find "fleece" to be a strange word. Yes, the rich pay a higher rate on some of their income. And what we're saying here is that there should be even higher rate for income over a million.

This "bugger your neighbor" attitude that prevails in this country is removing every freedom that we teach our children make this country great.

Hell yes. Take more money at the point of a gun, why not? They have more money than you do, the greedy bastards. They don't deserve it. You deserve that money, or you know somebody that does. Go for it!

> This "bugger your neighbor" attitude that prevails in this country is removing every freedom that we teach our children make this country great.

This "defend the wealthy" attitude that prevailed in this country for the last 30 years has nearly ruined this country and served only to further increase the economic inequality between the rich and the poor.

If you think that what makes this country great is that the rich are allowed to walk all over the poor then fuck you. Now give me your wallet you greedy bastard, you can skip the steak so someone else can get some health care.

It's not a defend the wealthy, it's a defend what you earned, and that you should not have your wealth stolen from you by jealous people who wish they had what you had. I'm not wealthy. Income inequality is not by definition bad.

Your self-righteous attitude is disgusting, do you live at a subsistence level funneling all of your extra income to the needy around the world? If not, then how can you demand that others skip their steak to provide health care for someone else.

You are not an island and what price society decides to set for its services is not theft, they are not stealing from you and you do not earn anything outside the platform society provides for you which enables that earning in the first place. Society has a right to take a share of your earnings; so says our constitution.

Extreme income inequality is bad because it's bad for society as a whole and at some point society as a whole becomes more important than the individual.

Your self-centered fuck the rest of the country it's my money attitude is equally disgusting. We aren't talking about the whole world, we're talking about our country, because that's what our social contract obligates us to support with our taxes. I pay my taxes, don't cheat on them, and don't whine about it and call it stealing like a self centered narcissist who thinks his right to property matters more than someone else right to life. It doesn't, not even in the natural world; people would just kill you and take your property by force to survive.

If, as a collective, society decides to limit the maximum wealth an individual is allowed to obtain and funnel it back down to limit the amount of poverty, thus capping both extremes and making life generally better for the vast majority of people, well... I'm good with that as are the vast majority of people.

Inequality is not bad, you have to let people reap rewards for their efforts, up to a point, but not to the point that it damages us all.

you do not earn anything outside the platform society provides for you

What an interesting statement. Sounds to me like you're saying the individual is there to serve the societal structure, instead of the other way around.

As a simplification, I would certainly hate to live in a place where society made decisions for me. I'd much rather live in one where I made decisions for society. In other words the government is made legitimate by the informed consent of the natural legislature -- the people. The people do not exist to serve the government. Individuals exist just fine without governments, but not the other way around.

The entire structure of a democracy is that, at the end of the day, it is the person that is ultimately sovereign. Democracy isn't some club used by the majority to tyrannize the minority. If we were talking about Jim Crow laws, this would be immediately evident -- you can't simply take things from people because a greater number of voters want to. But somehow because we're talking about rich people the message doesn't sink in.

Okay. I allowed myself to get sucked into this. Sorry. I know better. It just seems like you guys are so close, yet I know in my heart you're not going to come to any kind of understanding.