Wealth vs. Income

[gounion]

You know why conservatives will fight a wealth tax with their dying breath? I didn't realize this - this is from a tax avoidance website:

Wealth Is More Important Than Income

Because the government is always going after income, wealth is much more important for financial freedom. For example, you could be worth $10,000,000 and not have to pay payroll taxes or income taxes since you can live off your investments.

You could also partake in subsidized healthcare under the Affordable Care Act. Further, your kids could get 100% of their college tuition paid for by universities given they determine grants by income and not by wealth.

The more you work, the more you have to pay in taxes. Instead, work smarter by focusing on building more investment income or equity in a business, especially as corporate taxes are getting cut. You can build wealth up to $11.4 million as an individual or $22.8 million as a married couple before the estate tax kicks in.

From now on, really think about how all your income sources are taxed. Do you really want to work all day for the privilege of paying federal income tax, state income tax, city income tax, Social Security tax, Medicare tax, and so forth? Just like inflation, tax increases will never end.

Can you believe that? You can be a multi-millionaire, and get subsidized health care and your kids can go to college for free! That's why people like Paris Hilton can live off the millions from her grandfather who died before she was born. It's all about growing that generational wealth so that people who never worked a day in their life can live off money of long-dead ancestors.

And the right will pretend that they are hard-working, self-made Americans that shouldn't be taxed.

And this is how people like Joe make their living- telling rich people how not to pay taxes.

And the right will try to keep these realities secret from all of us. They'll pretend the rich are sooooo put-upon and overtaxed, when they aren't.

[ZoWie]

That's the whole point to a wealth tax. Without it, any economic system will accumulate wealth at the top, where it is inherited and generally shielded from taxes by various trusts and legal agreements available to those who can afford to set them up. This is why we say that wealth and income are two different things. Wealth can create a situation that looks like an income, but it's a whole different system with different rules.

It creates an economy that's rigged against the people who make the biggest contributions of time and sweat to maintain it. The old labor movement understood this, and it was able to rectify the situation and create relative prosperity in the "land of opportunity." That's been gone for a long time, hence the argument in favor of taxing wealth at a very low rate to supplement the inordinate burden currently being placed on income.

Were we to do this, in a couple of generations people would start wondering how we could ever have lived the way we live right now. The current Gilded Age would feel as alien as the first one did.

[gounion]

That's the whole point to a wealth tax. Without it, any economic system will accumulate wealth at the top, where it is inherited and generally shielded from taxes by various trusts and legal agreements available to those who can afford to set them up. This is why we say that wealth and income are two different things. Wealth can create a situation that looks like an income, but it's a whole different system with different rules.

It creates an economy that's rigged against the people who make the biggest contributions of time and sweat to maintain it. The old labor movement understood this, and it was able to rectify the situation and create relative prosperity in the "land of opportunity." That's been gone for a long time, hence the argument in favor of taxing wealth at a very low rate to supplement the inordinate burden currently being placed on income.

Were we to do this, in a couple of generations people would start wondering how we could ever have lived the way we live right now. The current Gilded Age would feel as alien as the first one did.

Exactly. This is why I'm guessing our conservatives - Joe, BDD and Glenn - won't want to join this conversation. They don't like the truth coming out.

[Libertas]

Did I read correctly (bet I did) just taxing Bezos alone a 4.2% wealth tax would pay for ALL college education in this country per year?

Yeah, great idea not to do that, dont finance the next scientist that resolves the pandemic or cancer, etc.

Cons are so fucking DUMB it is AMAZING!

[JoeMemphis]

That's the whole point to a wealth tax. Without it, any economic system will accumulate wealth at the top, where it is inherited and generally shielded from taxes by various trusts and legal agreements available to those who can afford to set them up. This is why we say that wealth and income are two different things. Wealth can create a situation that looks like an income, but it's a whole different system with different rules.

It creates an economy that's rigged against the people who make the biggest contributions of time and sweat to maintain it. The old labor movement understood this, and it was able to rectify the situation and create relative prosperity in the "land of opportunity." That's been gone for a long time, hence the argument in favor of taxing wealth at a very low rate to supplement the inordinate burden currently being placed on income.

Were we to do this, in a couple of generations people would start wondering how we could ever have lived the way we live right now. The current Gilded Age would feel as alien as the first one did.

There’s some myths about the estate tax and the accumulation of wealth.

First, if you speak to people who actually do estate planning, they will tell you that few estates are lost due to the estate tax. High net worth individuals actually plan how their estate will fund estate taxes upon their death. Personally, I don’t have an issue with a reasonable estate tax. IMO it’s reasonable to tax the appreciation in value on assets transferred upon death. In exchange, the beneficiaries get the step up in tax basis. That’s fair.

The second myth is the whole accumulation of generational wealth. The way our estate laws work in this country, wealth is dissipated with each successive generation. The families of people who would have been on the fortune 400 list 100 years ago don’t make the list today. I scanned the Fortune 400 list for 2021 and I didn’t see a Getty,Hilton,Vanderbilt,Rockefeller on the list. The families may stay on the list for a generation but by the time you get to the 3rd and 4th generation, that money, that wealth has churned. It’s disbursed back into the economy. I don’t worry about this country turning into a country with a bunch fiefdoms with dukes and earls.

A wealth tax in a pipe dream IMO. It’s an administrative nightmare and will do nothing but driven wealth and investment overseas.

[gounion]

There’s some myths about the estate tax and the accumulation of wealth.

First, if you speak to people who actually do estate planning, they will tell you that few estates are lost due to the estate tax. High net worth individuals actually plan how their estate will fund estate taxes upon their death. Personally, I don’t have an issue with a reasonable estate tax. IMO it’s reasonable to tax the appreciation in value on assets transferred upon death. In exchange, the beneficiaries get the step up in tax basis. That’s fair.

The second myth is the whole accumulation of generational wealth. The way our estate laws work in this country, wealth is dissipated with each successive generation. The families of people who would have been on the fortune 400 list 100 years ago don’t make the list today. I scanned the Fortune 400 list for 2021 and I didn’t see a Getty,Hilton,Vanderbilt,Rockefeller on the list. The families may stay on the list for a generation but by the time you get to the 3rd and 4th generation, that money, that wealth has churned. It’s disbursed back into the economy. I don’t worry about this country turning into a country with a bunch fiefdoms with dukes and earls.

A wealth tax in a pipe dream IMO. It’s an administrative nightmare and will do nothing but driven wealth and investment overseas.

How many Waltons on that list?

Sorry you’re covering for them again. While they may not be on the richest list, they are still all so damned rich they’ll never have to earn anything on their own. The right wants to pretend all rich people earn their riches through hard work. My grandpa used to say “if someone tells. You they got rich through hard work, ask them whose!”

[ZoWie]

We've already driven a lot of our assets overseas. That's one of the dodges that business entities have access to and individuals don't.

It's true that families, by spreading out, can also spread out inherited wealth. As you say, though, the process takes generations.

We need to tip the scale back towards the worth of the individual, which is supposedly guaranteed in the nation's founding documents. Supposedly. After all, when legal push came to shove, a slave was 6/10ths of a human, or was it 3/5ths? It was something like that.

Time to put the money back where our collective national rhetoric says it should be. Work should reward the worker first and the employer second, and the employer's legally amorphous employer way down the line somewhere. Right now we have it all backwards, and it got worse when Ronnie did the bidding of his puppet masters and turned the bull loose.

[JoeMemphis]

We've already driven a lot of our assets overseas. That's one of the dodges that business entities have access to and individuals don't.

It's true that families, by spreading out, can also spread out inherited wealth. As you say, though, the process takes generations.

We need to tip the scale back towards the worth of the individual, which is supposedly guaranteed in the nation's founding documents. Supposedly. After all, when legal push came to shove, a slave was 6/10ths of a human, or was it 3/5ths? It was something like that.

Time to put the money back where our collective national rhetoric says it should be. Work should reward the worker first and the employer second, and the employer's legally amorphous employer way down the line somewhere. Right now we have it all backwards, and it got worse when Ronnie did the bidding of his puppet masters and turned the bull loose.

With all due respect, I’m not sure that is what the founders intended and I’m not sure that works in this country. I tend to shy away from most anything that starts with “collective national” rhetoric. We are a free country with individual rights and liberties. I’m not willing to sacrifice that in the interest of being a part of some “national collective”.

[ZoWie]

OK drop the "collective," if it sounds too communist, because I really meant something closer to "commonly agreed upon."

You know exactly which rhetoric I'm talking about. It's all up in lighted boxes in the National Archives. It says stuff about individuals being free and equal under the laws of God and humans, very 18th-century Enlightenment stuff, visionary for its time.

Of course, in practice, it was always trumped, pun intended, by economics. You know, like an entire section of the new nation being completely reliant on the North Atlantic slave trade, one of history's greatest atrocities, perhaps the very greatest. The adaptation to that required some of history's most vicious racism, including a Supreme Court decision that some people were more equal than others. It also never got around to equal taxation sacrifice for equal protection.

But you know that. You choose to sling buzzwords rather than acknowledge that right now equality under the law means equality for people (mostly white) who can afford lawyers and accountants. You seem to believe that if the poor and disadvantaged people would only go to college and learn law and accounting, they'd be equal too. Class privilege and/or exploitation don't exist in your philosophy. They do in mine.

[Bludogdem]

How many Waltons on that list?

Sorry you’re covering for them again. While they may not be on the richest list, they are still all so damned rich they’ll never have to earn anything on their own. The right wants to pretend all rich people earn their riches through hard work. My grandpa used to say “if someone tells. You they got rich through hard work, ask them whose!”

The Walton’s are first generation. Original owners. They belong on the list.

“ Their continued control reflects unusual prescience on the part of Sam Walton, who started preparing for succession in 1953, when he passed 80 per cent of the family business to his four children: Alice, Rob, Jim and John. That minimized estate taxes and helped the family retain control even as the company grew into the world’s largest retailer.”

https://financialpost.com/news/retail-m ... on-fortune

[JoeMemphis]

OK drop the "collective," if it sounds too communist, because I really meant something closer to "commonly agreed upon."

You know exactly which rhetoric I'm talking about. It's all up in lighted boxes in the National Archives. It says stuff about individuals being free and equal under the laws of God and humans, very 18th-century Enlightenment stuff, visionary for its time.

Of course, in practice, it was always trumped, pun intended, by economics. You know, like an entire section of the new nation being completely reliant on the North Atlantic slave trade, one of history's greatest atrocities, perhaps the very greatest. The adaptation to that required some of history's most vicious racism, including a Supreme Court decision that some people were more equal than others. It also never got around to equal taxation sacrifice for equal protection.

But you know that. You choose to sling buzzwords rather than acknowledge that right now equality under the law means equality for people (mostly white) who can afford lawyers and accountants. You seem to believe that if the poor and disadvantaged people would only go to college and learn law and accounting, they'd be equal too. Class privilege and/or exploitation don't exist in your philosophy. They do in mine.

I didn’t know that individual rights was a buzzword. Equality under the law is the ideal. I can’t snap my fingers and make everything equal. Neither can you or anyone else. I do think that the best way to help the poor and disadvantaged is to give them the skills and education that allows them to compete in the economy of the future. Without those skill sets they will remain poor and disadvantaged no matter what anyone does to the tax code. Exploitation happens to the weak and/or uneducated. If the are going to combat exploitation of the weak and uneducated/unskilled education is a good place to start.

[gounion]

The Walton’s are first generation. Original owners. They belong on the list.

“ Their continued control reflects unusual prescience on the part of Sam Walton, who started preparing for succession in 1953, when he passed 80 per cent of the family business to his four children: Alice, Rob, Jim and John. That minimized estate taxes and helped the family retain control even as the company grew into the world’s largest retailer.”

https://financialpost.com/news/retail-m ... on-fortune

Only one or two of the Waltons ever had anything to do with running the business. So, no, SECOND generation.

Now, I guess you need education on basic terminology. Sam Walton started the business. That makes him FIRST generation. The SECOND generation are his children. They profit even though most of them have done nothing in the business.

[gounion]

I didn’t know that individual rights was a buzzword. Equality under the law is the ideal. I can’t snap my fingers and make everything equal. Neither can you or anyone else. I do think that the best way to help the poor and disadvantaged is to give them the skills and education that allows them to compete in the economy of the future. Without those skill sets they will remain poor and disadvantaged no matter what anyone does to the tax code. Exploitation happens to the weak and/or uneducated. If the are going to combat exploitation of the weak and uneducated/unskilled education is a good place to start.

You don't want a COLLECTIVE?

Man, your folk's hypocrisy is astonishing even today.

A collective? Let's talk a CORPORATION. THAT'S a collective! The corporation is even a person under our laws, with Constitutional rights!

There's NOTHING more collectivist than THAT.

So, let's talk about your fantasy, where you blame the poor for their plight. We found out during the COVID crisis the ESSENTIAL workers weren't the managers and engineers, they were the workers at the bottom.

My aunt was a custodian. She cleaned dirty toilets. And guess what, we need a bunch of them. Now, since she was in a union job, she made a living wage, health benefits, and even a nice but small pension so that she was able to raise two boys in relative comfort and retired comfortably.

But YOU would call someone like her "weak and disadvantaged". She had no education.

But how long does a company last without their toilets cleaned? And what happens when everyone in America has a college degree and only does professional employment?

What we need is a system where the people that are ESSENTIAL workers to keep our society working, gets a living wage and benefits.

Then everyone does better. I can tell you that car dealers and such LOVES union workers, because THEY can afford to buy a new car! So when you raise everyone's standard of living, the society and everyone in it profits.

So explain to me why you think my aunt, being "weak and disadvantaged", didn't deserve a living wage.

[Bludogdem]

Only one or two of the Waltons ever had anything to do with running the business. So, no, SECOND generation.

Now, I guess you need education on basic terminology. Sam Walton started the business. That makes him FIRST generation. The SECOND generation are his children. They profit even though most of them have done nothing in the business.

Walmart was founded 1962. The kids owned 80%. Founders. First generation.

[Libertas]

Has the poster admitted who they are yet? Is it against the rules to have socks here?

[sam lefthand]

Has the poster admitted who they are yet? Is it against the rules to have socks here?

I'm unaware of there being any board rules Libertas.



There used to be rules, but then the board crashed and the rules were lost.

[Bludogdem]

I'm unaware of there being any board rules Libertas.



There used to be rules, but then the board crashed and the rules were lost.

Actually read the rules a couple of times. Figured it would a good idea. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in violation of any. Was surprised at how some people simply paid no attention to some of them.

[Drak]

Actually read the rules a couple of times. Figured it would a good idea. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in violation of any. Was surprised at how some people simply paid no attention to some of them.

On the old board sock accounts were considered against the rules. No one kicked you off last time though. You left on your own, with your tail between your legs when you were exposed. It's a really weird, childish game to keep coming back under different accounts though. It also makes you not at all credible.

[Libertas]

On the old board sock accounts were considered against the rules. No one kicked you off last time though. You left on your own, with your tail between your legs when you were exposed. It's a really weird, childish game to keep coming back under different accounts though. It also makes you not at all credible.

It does however sound like typical behavour for a con.

[Bludogdem]

“A collective and a cooperative are slightly different legal entities. A collective is an overarching term for any group of legal entities working together because of some shared goal or interest. A cooperative, on the other hand, is a collective specifically formed for mutual benefit, generally of an economic type, such as making money or saving money by working together.
Collectives do not, of necessity, have to be focused on economic benefit and can instead be focused on political power, for example. A cooperative can theoretically include other elements of benefit, such as social or cultural benefit in addition to economic benefit, but most often the economic benefit is the key underlying point of a cooperative and the unifying factor.
A cooperative or a collective will involve members working together to achieve their goal without a clear necessary managerial structure, meaning that each individual or entity within collectives could likely be considered on equal status and footing as all the others. This understanding of a collective also applies to a cooperative in that those individuals who are working within a cooperative are all likely on the same footing, particularly as the individuals working within a cooperative are also likely the individuals who are benefiting from the purpose of the cooperative.
Collectives and cooperatives are fundamentally controlled and owned jointly and democratically, which is part of the factors that distinguish collectives from other business organizations and entities. However, a cooperative is still technically considered a business organization.”

https://business.laws.com/business-activity/collective

A corporation is not a collective.

[Bludogdem]

That's the whole point to a wealth tax. Without it, any economic system will accumulate wealth at the top, where it is inherited and generally shielded from taxes by various trusts and legal agreements available to those who can afford to set them up. This is why we say that wealth and income are two different things. Wealth can create a situation that looks like an income, but it's a whole different system with different rules.

It creates an economy that's rigged against the people who make the biggest contributions of time and sweat to maintain it. The old labor movement understood this, and it was able to rectify the situation and create relative prosperity in the "land of opportunity." That's been gone for a long time, hence the argument in favor of taxing wealth at a very low rate to supplement the inordinate burden currently being placed on income.

Were we to do this, in a couple of generations people would start wondering how we could ever have lived the way we live right now. The current Gilded Age would feel as alien as the first one did.

The wealth tax isn’t going to happen. It’ll take an amendment which makes it highly unlikely.

[JoeMemphis]

Actually read the rules a couple of times. Figured it would a good idea. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in violation of any. Was surprised at how some people simply paid no attention to some of them.

It’s kinda like the pirate code. They aren’t rules. They are more like guidelines. Rarely followed.

[gounion]

“A collective and a cooperative are slightly different legal entities. A collective is an overarching term for any group of legal entities working together because of some shared goal or interest. A cooperative, on the other hand, is a collective specifically formed for mutual benefit, generally of an economic type, such as making money or saving money by working together.
Collectives do not, of necessity, have to be focused on economic benefit and can instead be focused on political power, for example. A cooperative can theoretically include other elements of benefit, such as social or cultural benefit in addition to economic benefit, but most often the economic benefit is the key underlying point of a cooperative and the unifying factor.
A cooperative or a collective will involve members working together to achieve their goal without a clear necessary managerial structure, meaning that each individual or entity within collectives could likely be considered on equal status and footing as all the others. This understanding of a collective also applies to a cooperative in that those individuals who are working within a cooperative are all likely on the same footing, particularly as the individuals working within a cooperative are also likely the individuals who are benefiting from the purpose of the cooperative.
Collectives and cooperatives are fundamentally controlled and owned jointly and democratically, which is part of the factors that distinguish collectives from other business organizations and entities. However, a cooperative is still technically considered a business organization.”

https://business.laws.com/business-activity/collective

A corporation is not a collective.

It's quite close in reality. That's what I'm talking about, not the legal definition. It isn't a democratic organization, and everyone has to adhere to the demands of the corporation.

I remember a few years after I left, I went back and visited my old boss, who was a really good guy, who had no problems with unions, felt they were important. But they had ordered him to go to the old former soviet satellite nations to find companies that they could outsource tooling work to. He told me he was quitting. He said, "I'm an American, and I want to keep the jobs here, including my own. But if I don't do it, they'll fire me and find someone that will."

He put his country first. A corporation won't do that. A corporation isn't democratic in any true sense of the word. The votes at shareholder meetings are a farce, about as democratic as the votes Putin won when he was elected.

But it's people doing something as a collective group, ditching their individuality for the organization which is far more important than any of the people involved. The corporation has far more rights than any of the people in it.

So don't you guys give me your "collectivism" bullshit - I don't buy it for a second.

[gounion]

On the old board sock accounts were considered against the rules. No one kicked you off last time though. You left on your own, with your tail between your legs when you were exposed. It's a really weird, childish game to keep coming back under different accounts though. It also makes you not at all credible.

Well, Jessep wasn't a sock per se. The old account, Greengrass, was never banned or even admonished. He/they (Jessep said GG had been a group of people, but looking at the posting style, I don't believe it.) just seemed to get tired of always getting their ass handed to them in debates. They couldn't defend conservatism.

So, Jessep came here pretending to be a middle-of-the-road kinda guy, who was obviously a conservative pretending to be moderate. He was uncovered when you started looking at the posting. Both of them claimed to be a big shot in Humphrey's campaign. The old "I was a liberal before I saw the light".

So, this time he decides to take it a bit farther, and he's a "Blue Dog Democrat". But the first red flag was when he couldn't describe in his own words what that meant. That was when we knew it's all a facade.

So, to me, fine, I'm here to debate conservatives anyway. It's boring when it's an echo chamber. But I see no reason that you should pretend to be something you're not. And we see more proof every day of his political views. He's not smart enough to cover them up.

[gounion]

I didn’t know that individual rights was a buzzword. Equality under the law is the ideal. I can’t snap my fingers and make everything equal. Neither can you or anyone else. I do think that the best way to help the poor and disadvantaged is to give them the skills and education that allows them to compete in the economy of the future. Without those skill sets they will remain poor and disadvantaged no matter what anyone does to the tax code. Exploitation happens to the weak and/or uneducated. If the are going to combat exploitation of the weak and uneducated/unskilled education is a good place to start.

Still wondering how we have a society with 100% college-educated workforce that demands high-paying skilled jobs. It reminds me of Lake Woebegone, where all the children are "above average"!

What Joe is really saying is that these people who don't go to college or have high skill sets deserve their plight, where businesses and corporations exploit them.

Nope, the ANSWER is unionization, and laws that support union rights, so people can easily organize and negotiate.

Because Joe's bullshit about us just needed a world where everyone is above average is just bullshit.