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It's not enough that you're doing well, those other people over there are getting richer!I keep getting richer every day/week/year outside market corrections. It's been over a decade since our net worth has gone down.
Now, on the other hand, if you want to steal some of their $ and give it to me, I'll sign up.
Pretty sure it was main Street, all of us, that allowed it to happen.
Nope, not by wall Street anyway
Highly doubt that. He seems to have wanted to leave a legacy / become a legend.
The Fed is just setting the rate consistent with their goals given the changing dynamics in the market for savings/investment. Wealth concentration creates an excess of savings with a dearth of good investments. The natural rate is lower.
You need to show your work. Like them or not I don't think you can claim that Bezos, Zuck, Gates, Buffett, Dell, etc. were given anything. Not sure about Buffett, but the rest of those guys started out in garages/dorm rooms and built from scratch.
The tax code was just as bad back then - so many deductions, etc. that the most paid on the top end was ~35% or so for almost all of those at the top end.
Somebody has a case of the I, me, my's.
Now, on the other hand, if you want to steal some of their $ and give it to me, I'll sign up.
You are giving me exceptions to the rule as proof of what exactly? All those guys are EASILY going to pass on their wealth. Just like all those others that are absurdly wealthy have had their fortunes passed on to them. What work do you want shown exactly?
did not know the question you asked was rhetorical. merely looked up the top rate in history.
I think most if not all of these guys had unique advantages that many other folks do not have. Yes they achieved great financial success where others with the same upbringing didn’t. But it just rubs me the wrong way when you say they weren’t given anything.
I'm not going to argue against these guys success' nor will I say there have been "bad" for America. But if we take Bezos as just one example of what they were "given": Don't you think NOT having to pay State and Local Taxes for years was a massive gift; key driver of their success; and killed off many local businesses in the process - further creating their stranglehold on US Retail? Hell NYC was giving them $3 Billion to relocate. Amazon/Bezos have been given a lot.
Such a great post. And really, this philanthropy is not as common as it really should be. It is the reason I say “raise taxes on the rich”. To move wealth back into use for the greater good.
Not familiar enough with the rest of those guys, but I'll submit that Bill Gates may be the greatest philanthropist of our generation.
You posited that what they created they were actually given. We aren't talking about their children, we're talking about them. They weren't given billions of dollars to turn into more billions. As noted those guys, for the most part, built their ideas into massive enterprises with smarts, hard work, and sleepless nights.
You can quibble about their upbringings, but mostly the gift they were given was being born into a country with the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen.
The country would be significantly better off if we had more Bill Gates' in this country.
And at some point you are confiscating not just wealth but ownership of what he built. Not arguing that some more taxation on the very high end is a bad thing, but there are some lines that you start to cross there.
This is an excellent point. The wealthier someone is, the lower percentage of their income they spend (marginal propensity to consume). And people wonder why rates are low. We should redistribute more of it.
Isn't this part of why the great depression happened? The very few people with money who were not putting it back out there?
So let's take the MFJ top rate today of 37% starting at $621k. I think that is too low as a top rate. I'd like the top marginal rate on income (which obviously the wealthy have lots of ways around) to be closer to 60%. But where should that income number start at? $10mm, $20mm?, or $50mm? I'm not sure, but doing something like that and creating more brackets to get there makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe even lowering some of the middle class areas as part too.
We already do. Straight from the printing press. Taxing these guys just fills in the hole (a bit) that we are digging.
I'd submit that increasing marginal rates on income are probably the least efficient way of taxing the wealthy.So let's take the MFJ top rate today of 37% starting at $621k. I think that is too low as a top rate. I'd like the top marginal rate on income (which obviously the wealthy have lots of ways around) to be closer to 60%. But where should that income number start at? $10mm, $20mm?, or $50mm? I'm not sure, but doing something like that and creating more brackets to get there makes a lot of sense to me. Maybe even lowering some of the middle class areas as part too.
I also like the Estate Tax. Again, there are lots of ways around it. But start it around a lower amount at a lower rate and make it more progressive.
I think both of these both redistribute and make things more efficient.
Hmm, this is interesting - would people be more inclined to support a larger tax on the rich if the "tax" was forced to go non-government charities? I realize a lot of charities have big time issues with their financials so some oversight would be needed and probably just turns in to the same issues government has but it's an intriguing idea (to me at least).
That and that the Federal Reserve, along with central banks globally, could not effectively ease money due to the gold standard
What do you want? A VAT?
If you want to extract money from the wealthy you need to concentrate on assets. A direct wealth tax is unconstitutional (despite what some political folks are saying). Tax rates on pass through income, dividends, and capital gains are where these guys have their money. It generally isn't in salaries.
Bill Gates was making this point the other day when asked about AOC's plan to raise top marginal tax rate to 70%.
Right...you pointing out the exception rather than the general rule does what exactly? For every Gates there are 30 slightly less profiled that are getting the benefit exactly as I described. Is it really controversial to say that our tax code is slanted towards making it really easy to pass one's wealth onto their children or loved one?
I could type something out but this pretty much covers it in depth. He is an economist from Brown that predicted Trump and Brexit. If you are looking for a serious answer.
Is the issue to "fix" or more to use the money from the extremely wealthy to help fund things for the very poor.
I am a fan of taxing those things more too, but that is the type of income that is most portable. I think we cause distortions with how differently some we tax different sources of income.
I'm not sure what your question is. I don't want to take money from the wealthy. I'd like to see the playing field leveled such that wealth can be accumulated by the middle class and not just bankers (and the odd inventor). I'm more interested I'm bringing everyone up than bringing the top down.
Regarding tax policy I think in the case where we have people who have collected such great wealth, in large part because of our system, that it should be taxed at a much more progressive rate than what we have moved to. Additionally, looking at things like estate taxes and capital gains because many of these uber wealthy aren’t pulling down traditional salaries.
Equitable tactics in making money? Let's dispense with the Rockefeller and Carnegies, as labor standards were way different back then.
I don't actually know anything about Gates' labor practices. I was referring to a long, successful career of stifling competition and anti-trust violations. Now, you run along and try your act on people who actually respond to passive-aggresivity, k, bromigo?
You could have noted that. We've been talking about wealth transfers, not government supported rent seeking activities. In that case I agree with you - large corporations have too much sway in this country to use government to stifle competition.
Where does it say i have to start reading the posts of others? Do you realize that, in order to write the flashbacked rambles i put out regularly on these boards that i actually have to read small portions of them?! That's enough for anybody....
