Right, right - unlike all the rich folks hiding their money under the mattress.
Actually, it is exactly the same. You want people to act against their own self-interest, just because you want them to.
I assume you have a job. Have you ever declined a pay increase? Why not? Wouldn’t that little extra benefit some homeless person more than you?
Regards,
Shodan
The problem is that the OP isn’t particularly coherent. It speaks of the bonus issue in general terms, and of “soaking the rich”, but the only concrete measure purposed is returning to the “the older higher rates” - hardly a true “soaking” excercise.
Do you own more than 1 pair of shoes? You only have 1 pair of feet so owning more than 1 pair when poor children in Africa have none is inexcusable.
Also, most shoes are made by children in southeast Asia sweatshops. So to add insult to injury, you’re also exploiting those child laborers.
How do you suppose we should tax you to rectify this injustice? An annual property tax on all shoes after the 1st pair?
It could be because American Corps pay a lot less than 15 %. Then we give property tax exemptions to industries that put a factory up. They do not come close to paying their share.
If you are familiar with Mazlow, you know he says people do not really work for money. There are a lot of reasons people work. Money is just one and not often the biggest. How often do you sit around work fixating on your paycheck. Most of your time is spent doing tasks , making delivery dates and trying to find ways to make it better.
The problem with soaking the rich is that it’s wrong to take other people’s money/possessions just because they have them.
They wish. They gave it to Madoff instead - or maybe bought stock at inflated prices, or perhaps mortgage backed securities.
Though it might have escaped you, our problem today is lack of demand, not lack of investment, and rich people don’t do much to increase demand.
You might try reading Thaler. People act against their own best interests all the time. People are not perfect economic models, and assuming they are leads to disasters like the one we just saw.
But that is not why we have taxes. We have taxes because society needs to do things - build roads, defend itself, care for those without, etc. If we tax based on the equal pain principle, the rich can give more and feel it less than the poor.
I am not familiar with Mazlow, but while I don’t fixate on my paycheck, I would be doing something else if they didn’t pay me.
Why have you people taken to resorting to such bizarre examples? An accountant is going to know the doctor’s books - why spend 10 hours on it? Or a week as Joe escalated it to? You might as well say let’s ban golf, or the “education seminars” in ski resorts that my step brother goes to for his continuing education.
Cash 4 Clunkers debates exhibited the same behavior. Someone, I think it was Sam, was going on about how useless it would be because people would buy new cars that only got 1 mpg better than the old. Not how it turned out, and people wouldn’t even get money for such a small increase. It’s like if someone was against the Iraq War because Saddam might have unleashed the djinns on us.
Did you work less hard before your last raise? Work a lot harder after it? The issue isn’t paid or not paid, but I’m involved in a lot of professional activities, volunteer run, where people work really hard for nothing except a few dinners.
[data point]If I think it will get me a raise, yes I will work harder. My company did not give any raises this year (not even cost-of-living), and that took away some of my enthusiasm for doing my very best work.
Of course you would get paid. But once you are working ,you work for a lot of other reasons, many which are more important than money. The idea that an exec wouldn’t get out of bed for less than a million a month is absurd.
Is this true if you got a raise and it was above everyone else’s? Below? Did lots of people get raises this year or nobody?
Back in the time of high inflation some people got demotivated by 6% raises.
I didn’t get a raise either this year - no one in my company did - and it hasn’t hurt my motivation at all. Being allowed to work on stuff that I like counts for a lot more than money.
Anyhow, I think the research shows that relative position is far more important than absolute compensation - which is one of the reasons for the CEO salary explosion.
Any exec claiming this had better not expect a whole lot of work for someone making $3K a month, if they were being honest. How odd that the same people who say execs need this much money to work usually say that the great unwashed are greedy to want minimum wage.
According to you. And it’s wrong, according to me, to just stand by and watch while the wealthy exploit the rest of the country just to become even wealthier. It’s wrong, according to me, to to hold the bank accounts of the rich so sacred we let the country fall apart. To hold the wealthy up as demigods to whom all of society must if necessary be sacrificed if the alternative will so much as cut into their profit margin, much less require them to make sacrifices like the rest of us.
What kind of tortured logic is that? Working against their own self-interests? A doctor who thinks first about his bank account and second about his patients, I could care less about his self-interest.
So now if I earn a raise (which wouldn’t get me near to what a doctor makes) and I don’t donate it to a homeless shelter, I’m just as much of an asshole as a doctor who ignores patients in favor of his wallet?
And guess what, if my taxes went up, I wouldn’t take time off every week to go to H & R Block to hunt for deductions … I’d just deal with it.
My wife and I are considering asking for a small pay decrease (this actually helps your argument). We’re above the AMT line, but not by much. So, it might actually make sense for us to drop our salaries a bit.
We would take home more, the government would end up with less.
Yes.
But don’t feel bad if you don’t recognize your own hypocrisy. Happens to all of us from time to time.
But many middle class (not rich people) don’t just “deal with it.”
They also get creative with tax avoidance … such as shifting funds into Health Savings accounts (cafeteria plans) or getting aggressive and claiming a home office deduction or charity donations. Even everyday people don’t just sit back and do NOTHING different in the face of tax increases and just say to themselves, “I’ll just be a obedient patriot and pay Uncle Sam the highest taxes possible to help my fellow countryman.”
That is utterly bananas. I’m not even sure you were reading the same words I wrote. We’re talking about me accepting something I earned (and guess what, when I earn more, I tend to donate more to charity, just like all those perfect little Randians do) as opposed to someone not doing what they are paid to do because they’re busy trying to think of a way to screw the government so he can buy another set of golf clubs.
Yeah, I see the similarities in those two moral conundrums.
What are you talking about? A salaried hospital staff doctor or a private practice?
If a private clinic doctor doesn’t see patients, he doesn’t get paid. There is no concept of “not doing what they are paid to do.”
And what about doctors who don’t see patients but do research, or write books, or going back to school to study a different line of work such as law? All those “doctors” that are NOT seeing patients are also evil as well?