Tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no rich no more

[SkyDekker 1,465]

On 11/16/2019 at 8:59 PM, billvon said:

Let's do the math!  I assume you are OK exempting under-18 and over-65 from this tax.  That leaves 200 million people who will all pay the same amount.  US budget is around 14 trillion.  Divide that by 200 million, carry the 1, move the decimal . . . that's 70K per person that they owe.

So what would happen?  Well, let's assume you can't live most places in the US on less than $20K a year.  May be a little more than that, a little less, but it's in the ballpark.  So you'd have to make at least $90K to live on and stay out of jail for nonpayment of taxes.  So the remaining ~75% of people in that group would be going to jail, because most people don't make $90K a year.

Now, it costs $30K a year to incarcerate all those vile socialist criminals.  That's 4.5 trillion.  Add that to 14 trillion, divide by the remaining patriotic taxpayers - now you are at $370K per person that they would owe.

Could you afford $370K a year in taxes?

That is why you start a trade war, so China will pay for all that.

[kallend 2,027]

At least 70 percent of the “tax gap”— defined as owed but uncollected taxes — comes from underpayment by the top 1 percent.

On average they now are taxed at a lower overall rate than the middle class and still they cheat.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/yes-our-tax-system-needs-reform-lets-start-with-this-first-step/2019/11/17/4d23f8d4-07dd-11ea-924a-28d87132c7ec_story.html?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1

 

[ryoder 1,590]

“We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.”

Edited November 18, 2019 by ryoder

[kallend 2,027]

5 hours ago, ryoder said:

“We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.”

"We have the best government money can buy";  Mark Twain. 

[DJL 235]

19 hours ago, ryoder said:

“We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.”

That pretty accurately touches on the issue at hand.  Raise taxes on the rich and they'll just move the whack-a-mole to a new hole.  If the loss can't be recouped in tax laws then they'll just squeeze it out of the lower tiers of US citizens.  Remember, they're still looking for gross earnings to come out of their managed wealth and those in charge of making the upper tier wealth simply add another dollar to movie theater popcorn or another $100 to a bottle of pills.

[airdvr 210]

On 11/16/2019 at 11:59 PM, billvon said:

Let's do the math!  I assume you are OK exempting under-18 and over-65 from this tax.  That leaves 200 million people who will all pay the same amount.  US budget is around 14 trillion.  Divide that by 200 million, carry the 1, move the decimal . . . that's 70K per person that they owe.

So what would happen?  Well, let's assume you can't live most places in the US on less than $20K a year.  May be a little more than that, a little less, but it's in the ballpark.  So you'd have to make at least $90K to live on and stay out of jail for nonpayment of taxes.  So the remaining ~75% of people in that group would be going to jail, because most people don't make $90K a year.

Now, it costs $30K a year to incarcerate all those vile socialist criminals.  That's 4.5 trillion.  Add that to 14 trillion, divide by the remaining patriotic taxpayers - now you are at $370K per person that they would owe.

Could you afford $370K a year in taxes?

First you need a balanced budget amendment.

[billvon 2,991]

7 hours ago, airdvr said:

First you need a balanced budget amendment.

For that you'd need to completely dump the GOP, and that won't happen any time soon.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

On 11/16/2019 at 10:29 AM, airdvr said:

Must have missed that.

Everyone should pay the same amount of taxes.  Cue the examples of wealthy people paying less..

 

On 11/16/2019 at 12:15 PM, JoeWeber said:

So by that you mean that everyone and all forms of income should be taxed at the same rate regardless of amounts?  That is, on an annual basis, $10,000 is taxed at the same rate as $1 billion be it hourly wages or dividends or capital gains?

Please define "amount". Do you mean rate, specific amount or what?

[Coreece 190]

On 11/18/2019 at 6:49 PM, kallend said:

"We have the best government money can buy";  Mark Twain. 

It was funny the first time. . .

[kallend 2,027]

3 hours ago, Coreece said:

It was funny the first time. . .

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

[airdvr 210]

22 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

 

Please define "amount". Do you mean rate, specific amount or what?

Rate. 10% across the board as an example.

[billvon 2,991]

Just now, airdvr said:

Rate. 10% across the board as an example.

We already have a 15% across the board flat tax for Social Security and Medicare.   (Employer pays half, employee pays half.)  So you'd need to put it at 30-35%.  The effect this would have would be to cripple the lowest income earners (reduce their income by 22%) and benefit the highest earners (increase their income by 7%.)  That seems like a very bad idea.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

41 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Rate. 10% across the board as an example.

Thank you for the example. I knew, obviously, that your amount was actually a rate and that the rate was equal for all. Standard issue conservative meme economic nonsense. You're fucked, you see? Now argue that it should be 20 or 30% for all and the lowest earners will suffer even more. Clearly you don't grasp at all how the economy works.  But fuck all of that. Try answering my other question: what is rich?

[airdvr 210]

Not suggesting that 10% is the correct number.  Just the concept.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

30 minutes ago, airdvr said:

Not suggesting that 10% is the correct number.  Just the concept.

The concept is a race to vast wealth inequality. But, you are still yet to define what is "rich" as stated in the OP. 

[airdvr 210]

5 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

The concept is a race to vast wealth inequality. But, you are still yet to define what is "rich" as stated in the OP. 

Rich is too subjective.  Depends on your point of view.

[mbohu 77]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

Rich is too subjective.  Depends on your point of view.

Here is an image of the difference between the median net worth of all Americans ($97,300; and remember: "median" means half of all Americans have LESS!) and that of a billionaire. The Billionaire is on the right in red, the rest are on the left in blue. In case you cannot make out the blue bar, it is one pixel high (versus 10,277 pixels for the red bar)

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by mbohu
edited for spelling

[mbohu 77]

Of course, the picture above only represents the "poorest" billionaire. I didn't want to make everyone scroll too much by making the red bar up to 110 times as high as it is above.

[JoeWeber 2,720]

1 hour ago, airdvr said:

Rich is too subjective.  Depends on your point of view.

Rich was your word: "Tax the rich, feed the poor, 'til there are no rich no more". It was also central in meaning to your point, not subjective.  Maybe it would be best if you agreed it was a crap post and we'll drop it.

[billvon 2,991]

2 hours ago, airdvr said:

Not suggesting that 10% is the correct number.  Just the concept.

Again, we already have that.  Expanding it would cripple the poor and benefit only the rich.  It would also hammer the economy - because the lower middle class (who would see much of the harm) would have less money to spend at Target and Wal-Mart.   Definitely not a good idea.

[jakee 1,489]

8 hours ago, airdvr said:

Not suggesting that 10% is the correct number.  Just the concept.

How can you push the concept if you don't know the number?

 

That is not a flippant one liner, by the way. It's a very, very serious question.

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

6 hours ago, JoeWeber said:

Maybe it would be best if you agreed it was a crap post and we'll drop it.

Hi Joe,

You beat me to it.  Damn time zone differences. 

Jerry Baumchen

[kallend 2,027]

8 hours ago, mbohu said:

Here is an image of the difference between the median net worth of all Americans ($97,300; and remember: "median" means half of all Americans have LESS!) and that of a billionaire. The Billionaire is on the right in red, the rest are on the left in blue. In case you cannot make out the blue bar, it is one pixel high (versus 10,277 pixels for the red bar)

 

Something I came to appreciate in 39 years of teaching American college freshpersons in science and engineering is that once you go much past 1,000 most people simply don't have any concept of the magnitude of numbers.  A $billion, , a $trillion, $22 trillion, Avogadro's constant, all much the same to most of them.

[JerryBaumchen 1,363]

16 minutes ago, kallend said:

 in 39 years of teaching American college freshpersons in science and engineering is that once you go much past 1,000 most people simply don't have any concept of the magnitude of numbers. 

Hi John,

Hopefully, they did by the time that they graduated.

Jerry Baumchen

PS)  Goes along with understanding why a slide rule works.

[ryoder 1,590]

30 minutes ago, kallend said:

Something I came to appreciate in 39 years of teaching American college freshpersons in science and engineering is that once you go much past 1,000 most people simply don't have any concept of the magnitude of numbers.  A $billion, , a $trillion, $22 trillion, Avogadro's constant, all much the same to most of them.

“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."