# Taxing the "rich" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 24, 2011, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209 "2011-07-24T21:14:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 16
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/301 "2011-08-01T18:07:06Z")
The top earners and job creators made one excellent decision: they bought a government. ---
**Author:** ![DragonAsh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DragonAsh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DragonAsh)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/302 "2011-08-01T18:10:33Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Seeing as how the bottom 50% of wealth-holders now have significantly less compared to the top, I guess they are making more and more stupid decisions? So I guess my question is why are people so much stupider today than they were in 1967? > > Or, is it possible that there have been changes to “the system” since then that has led to this increasing disparity? ‘They have less compared to the top’ may or may not be the same as ‘they have less’. Perhaps everyone is relatively better off, but the very top has is even more better off? Secondly - people may be equally stupid now as in 1967 - based on Bush twice and Tea Party popularity I still think the case could be made for ‘stupider’ - but in any event, I suspect that today, the consequences of being stupid ealry in life may be drastic and harder to reverse later in life… ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/303 "2011-08-01T18:18:38Z")
The bottom people are not better off. Wages are stagnant or dropping while profits are skyrocketing. The tax structure favors the rich. They are in the best spot since the Gilded Age. But they want more. The concentration of wealth is beyond belief. The programs for the poor are being slashed viciously. The bills in favor of the rich including tax evading laws are in tact. Unemployment is being slashed in the states the Repubs took over last election. Planned Parenthood will be killed. SS and Medicare are under attack. There is not a whisper about raising revenue. The rich won again. ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/304 "2011-08-01T18:32:51Z")
> [@DragonAsh](#): > > ‘They have less compared to the top’ may or may not be the same as ‘they have less’. Perhaps everyone is relatively better off, but the very top has is even more better off? Dear God, is this thing stuck in a loop??? Someone already raised that objection. And I already addressed it. Since 1967 the bottom 40% has seen a 20% increase in real income while the top 80% has seen a 55% increase. It’s not a rising tide lifting all boats. > [@](#): > > Secondly - people may be equally stupid now as in 1967 - based on Bush twice and Tea Party popularity I still think the case could be made for ‘stupider’ - but in any event, I suspect that today, the consequences of being stupid ealry in life may be drastic and harder to reverse later in life… Possibly - sounds like something “inherent in the system” to me. Myself, I think (part of) the problem is we removed our one means of taxing wealth, thus allowing it to accumulate through generations at levels previously impossible. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/305 "2011-08-01T19:11:43Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Dear God, is this thing stuck in a loop??? Someone already raised that objection. And I already addressed it. Since 1967 the bottom 40% has seen a 20% increase in real income while the top 80% has seen a 55% increase. It’s not a rising tide lifting all boats. The question isn’t how the 20% increase stacks up against the 55% increase, but how it stacks up relative to how good life was for the bottom forty percent back then. Would you rather be an average bottom-forty-percenter then, or now? ---
**Author:** ![quixotic78](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/3ab097/32.png) [@quixotic78](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/quixotic78)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/306 "2011-08-01T19:21:59Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > The question isn’t how the 20% increase stacks up against the 55% increase, but how it stacks up relative to how good life was for the bottom forty percent back then. Would you rather be an average bottom-forty-percenter then, or now? Why is that the question? No one can go back in time, but we can make changes to the government going forward to make that 35% disparity decrease. P.S. I’ve promised myself not to engage with **curlcoat** directly, for the sake of my own sanity, but I wonder how many qualifiers (almost, nearly, just about, etc.) she’s used to talk about her pre- and post-quitting income. Based on my skimming of this thread earlier, I put the over/under at somewhere around a dozen. Having interacted with her before (and seeing that ridiculous “claim”/“observation” distinction she desperately attempted), I’m almost (heh) certain that that’s what she’s going to hang her hat on. “You people are all wrong. I didn’t say my income was exactly the same. Therefore I’m right.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/307 "2011-08-01T19:34:06Z")
> [@quixotic78](#): > > Why is that the question? In a general sense, it’s because if things have gotten better for me, then I don’t begrudge the rich getting richer sure as I wouldn’t have been happier if they got poorer or broke even. And if things have gotten _ **worse** _ for me, then I likewise don’t care whether the rich got poorer or broke even. I care about how _ **I’m** _ doing, regardless of how the rich are doing. In a specific sense, it’s an answer to DragonAsh’s reply to Jas09: Jas09 said the poor “are making more and more stupid decisions” and are “much stupider today than they were in 1967”, when it’s entirely possible they’re making more intelligent decisions and are smarter but the rich are doing even better. Jas09 went on to say it’s not a rising tide lifting all boats – when, in fact, it might be, if the poor and the rich are both better off now than then (regardless of whether the rich are, uh, _ **more** _ better off). ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/308 "2011-08-01T21:38:09Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > The question isn’t how the 20% increase stacks up against the 55% increase, but how it stacks up relative to how good life was for the bottom forty percent back then. Would you rather be an average bottom-forty-percenter then, or now? Well, my favorite baseball team was really good in the late 60s, so it’s a tough call… Seriously though, when we’re talking about tax policy it seems to me that income and wealth disparities should be something we consider. Not just whether the bottom quartile can buy a TV and have A/C. Also, it might not have been clear but I was being sarcastic when I said the “people are making more and more stupid decisions”. I think that they are probably making them at about the same rate, but changes to the system have made the benefits of the good decisions much less rewarding than they were in the past. One could also look at income mobility to get a reading of these changes as well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/309 "2011-08-01T21:46:10Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > Also, it might not have been clear but I was being sarcastic when I said the “people are making more and more stupid decisions”. I think that they are probably making them at about the same rate, but changes to the system have made the benefits of the good decisions much less rewarding than they were in the past. Again, what if the benefits of good decisions are just as rewarding for the poor now as they were then – or maybe even a little more so – but are a heck of a lot more rewarding for the rich now? ---
**Author:** ![Jas09](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d07c76/32.png) [@Jas09](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jas09)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2011, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/310 "2011-08-01T22:17:28Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Again, what if the benefits of good decisions are just as rewarding for the poor now as they were then – or maybe even a little more so – but are a heck of a lot more rewarding for the rich now? A hypothesis I am willing to consider. Got any evidence? What I posted showed that real wages were largely stagnant. It was posited that perhaps quality of life is better. I’d like to see some evidence beyond TV ownership rates. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/311 "2011-08-02T00:54:47Z")
> [@Jas09](#): > > A hypothesis I am willing to consider. Got any evidence? Ah, but I’m not the one making the claim. You made the claim – tongue in cheek, but repeatedly – that if the disparity is based on decision-making, then the poor must be making more and more stupid decisions, such that people are much stupider today than they were in 1967. Given the possibility of the alternate hypothesis – that it’s good decision-making by the poor and better decision-making by the rich – it’s on you to provide evidence that it’s bad decision-making by the poor, as you claimed. ---
**Author:** ![emacknight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ec8ea/32.png) [@emacknight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emacknight)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/312 "2011-08-02T01:57:21Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > …if the disparity is based on decision-making, then the poor must be making more and more stupid decisions, such that people are much stupider today than they were in 1967. They don’t have to make more stupid decisions, it’s just that the stupid decisions they make now have heavier consequences. Need an example: ARMs. Need another: getting an ARM without bothering to look up what ARM stands for. Here’s another: getting an ARM with 5% down, borrowing that 5%, for a mortgage that’s more than the house is worth. And one last example: assuming that in 5 years interest rates will be lower, your house value will be higher, and your duel income will have increased. There are four examples of stupid decisions that made a lot of people poor, including people that had been rich. I don’t think any of those options existed in 1967. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/313 "2011-08-02T02:19:52Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > They don’t have to make more stupid decisions, it’s just that the stupid decisions they make now have heavier consequences. > > Need an example: ARMs. > Need another: getting an ARM without bothering to look up what ARM stands for. > Here’s another: getting an ARM with 5% down, borrowing that 5%, for a mortgage that’s more than the house is worth. > And one last example: assuming that in 5 years interest rates will be lower, your house value will be higher, and your duel income will have increased. > > There are four examples of stupid decisions that made a lot of people poor, including people that had been rich. I don’t think any of those options existed in 1967. Still, I’m pretty sure you could stupidly take out a loan even back in '67, even without knowing what rate you’d be charged and without actually having any money to put down up front, with or without assuming that you’d be better able to pay five years down the road. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/314 "2011-08-02T02:23:12Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > They don’t have to make more stupid decisions, it’s just that the stupid decisions they make now have heavier consequences. > > Need an example: ARMs. > Need another: getting an ARM without bothering to look up what ARM stands for. > Here’s another: getting an ARM with 5% down, borrowing that 5%, for a mortgage that’s more than the house is worth. > And one last example: assuming that in 5 years interest rates will be lower, your house value will be higher, and your duel income will have increased. > > There are four examples of stupid decisions that made a lot of people poor, including people that had been rich. I don’t think any of those options existed in 1967. Worse than that, they created ARMs. The banks were forced into dropping rates, while making it possible for rates to move up and were terribly forced into lowering lending standards and down payments. The banks must not have dreamed up these qualifications. It was the people who were called night and day by bankers and loan officers who developed the dangerous loans. Your premise is ridiculous. People who could not afford some of the loans ,were called night and day. They were emailed endlessly . All by people who identified themselves as financial experts. What was wrong with these stupid people? They took deals offered to them by experts. I just wish I could understand how they forced the banks to do it. How did they force the banks to lower standards and offer loans worth more than the home? After that, they forced the poor defenseless banks to package the loans and sell them around the world. It is evil how they did that to the poor bankers. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/315 "2011-08-02T03:09:25Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You might be confusing after tax income with disposable income. You might end up with mroe money because you are saving more money by staying home and taking care of the kids or whatever than you would make by working and paying for day care etc. As I said above, since I was working from home, there were not costs that went away when I quit working. > [@](#): > > No its not, but it still obeys the laws of mathematics. You after tax income income rarely goes up when you quit a job. Since you say rarely there, it appears that you agree that it is possible. > [@](#): > > I think you guys might be talking about different things. You seem to be talking about your disposable incoem while Shu is talking about math. If you have mroe money now than before you quit your job, its not likely due to your taxes. I am talking about the fact that I can still pay all of our bills, which did not change after I quit working, and still have what appears to be the same amount of disposable income left. We haven’t changed our lifestyle one bit and actually I travel more now because I can. As for math, as I’ve said several times, I cannot provide numbers because I don’t have any records from before I quit working. > [@](#): > > Think about where you might be saving money now that you quit your job. Its not likely your tax bill is 20K lower now than it used to be. I don’t think it’s 20K lower, but it does appear that it is lower enough that it has not obviously impacted our lives. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > To be fair, you DID at one point claim that you didn’t feel the effects of quitting your job because your taxes got lower. Some people (reasonably) interpreted this to mean that your take home income didn’t go down despite quitting your job BECAUSE OF TAXES. This is HIGHLY unlikely (I cannot think of a scenario where this could be true) because the Obama tax cuts simply weren’t large enough to make up for a 20K drop in income. I imagine I actually said something along the lines that it _appears_ that we haven’t felt any effect of the loss of my income because it dropped our taxes. I don’t think I stated anything as fact, if for no other reason than I rarely if ever do that, but also because I flat don’t know why this is true. All I know is I haven’t worked in four years, our income dropped about $20K as a result, and yet there has been zero noticeable change. We still go on vacation, I still travel around the west, we are still doing home improvements, and for the first time in my life I am visiting Hawai’i. We are not living our same “lifestyle” on credit because I don’t do that, so that isn’t the reason. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Then I’m at a loss. I can’t think of any other type of savings that would have that large an impact on a household budget. Perhaps she is just making shit up. Why is it that the fall back assumption to something that a person cannot explain has to be that someone is making shit up? 😕 > [@DragonAsh](#): > > Stop making shit up, would you please? > > I said nothing about whether or not poor people are lazy. I said people are poor because they make stupid decisions, and don’t figure it out until the window has closed. Please read what I said again - all I did was say that **gonzomax** _claimed_ you said poor people are lazy. I did not say that you said that, nor do I think you said that. ---
**Author:** ![curlcoat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea5d25/32.png) [@curlcoat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curlcoat)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/316 "2011-08-02T03:14:37Z")
> [@quixotic78](#): > > P.S. I’ve promised myself not to engage with **curlcoat** directly, for the sake of my own sanity, but I wonder how many qualifiers (almost, nearly, just about, etc.) she’s used to talk about her pre- and post-quitting income. Based on my skimming of this thread earlier, I put the over/under at somewhere around a dozen. Having interacted with her before (and seeing that ridiculous “claim”/“observation” distinction she desperately attempted), I’m almost (heh) certain that that’s what she’s going to hang her hat on. “You people are all wrong. I didn’t say my income was exactly the same. Therefore I’m right.” And if I spoke in absolutes, you would demands cites I couldn’t give. Just because you want to live in a black and white world doesn’t mean I have to. Idiot. > [@emacknight](#): > > They don’t have to make more stupid decisions, it’s just that the stupid decisions they make now have heavier consequences. > > Need an example: ARMs. > Need another: getting an ARM without bothering to look up what ARM stands for. > Here’s another: getting an ARM with 5% down, borrowing that 5%, for a mortgage that’s more than the house is worth. > And one last example: assuming that in 5 years interest rates will be lower, your house value will be higher, and your duel income will have increased. > > There are four examples of stupid decisions that made a lot of people poor, including people that had been rich. I don’t think any of those options existed in 1967. I’m thinking that almost all of the decisions folks make these days have a good chance of making them poor - how many people do you know who bought more house than they could really afford and/or had kids sooner than they really should have and/or have a ton of credit card debt? Seems like there are far too many people out there just one layoff from disaster. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/317 "2011-08-02T03:15:29Z")
I know a company that put all their employee retirements in Madoff’s hands. The stupid people working there, lost their retirements and 40!Ks. He bilked billions out of the “smart decision makers” on top. The decision was made by the powerful owners ,sho just don’t screw up. Madoff hosed hundreds of wealthy people. Don’t buy the meme that the rich are somehow special and extra smart. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/318 "2011-08-02T03:24:45Z")
[How dumb rich people go broke.](http://www.slate.com/id/2118391/) Here is a Slate article showing how the rich an=re no different than the rest . They just have more money and resources. I saw an interview with a lotto winner. She explained the change in life was just bank and credit card statements with more zeros. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/319 "2011-08-02T06:25:26Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > What share of taxes did they pay, and do they pay? That depends strongly on two things - the share of income they have, and the incremental tax rate on that income. Crying about the rich paying a lot of taxes without admitting that they make a lot of income is dishonest. > [@](#): > > Well, let me first come at it another way. > > The analogy I considered mentioning above is another fairly well-known phenomenon which also leaves me cold: that, all else being equal, gold medalists tend to be happier than silver medalists, and silver medalists tend to be less happy than bronze medalists. It’s counterintuitive, but the idea is that silver medalists typically think in terms of how close they came to getting gold, while bronze medalists think in terms of how close they came to getting nothing. > > The problem, again, is that I know that, and so hope and expect to skip straight to the more sensible approach of valuing a silver medal more than a bronze one. To me, the whole point of bringing that counterintuitive result into the light is to destroy it. I’m quite aware that happiness is relative to current position, not absolute position, and relative to those in a similar position. I think few people stiffed for a raise cheer up because the janitor makes less than they do. When we did salary administration the message was always considered important. It was better to give someone nothing than to give a raise so small it could be considered an insult. Kind of like when you get really bad service in a restaurant, tipping a penny is a stronger message than tipping nothing. > [@](#): > > In other words, a lot is hanging on the “even if he is a bit more productive” angle. Shouldn’t I feel even worse about him getting the raise if he’s a bit _ **less** _ productive than the rest of us? Shouldn’t I therefore feel better about him getting the raise if he’s not just a bit, but a _ **lot** _ more productive than the rest of us? > > If I were exactly as productive as him – or more so, even – you can bet I’d ask why he got the raise and I didn’t: not because of the admittedly similar-looking relative-to-other-people Septimus was just talking up, but because of something on the _ **other** _ side of that fine line. I’d want, for a start, to know why his significantly similar performance is being rewarded differently than mine. Really? Remember, being a bit less productive is a far cry from being not productive at all - and the message you are getting is that you aren’t being productive. It isn’t a winner take all situation. If it were, there would be no incentive for practically anyone to do anything but the bare minimum to keep the job, and even less to stay. And no, people less productive than me getting raises bothers me not at all. A Wally getting a raise is something else again. > [@](#): > > See, that’s absolutist talk I can get behind. And I’d feel better, in that situation, if my salary weren’t constant but _ **increasing** _ – and preferably, by enough to more than offset said degradation. If it is, I’d be happy regardless of how the super-rich are faring. And if not, I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t feel better upon hearing that quality of life has gone down for the rich; why would I? First of all, raising the tax rate back to that of the '90s would affect the quality of life of the rich little if any. Second, the reason to do it is not punishment, but because the money could be used to keep the unemployed from losing their homes, for fixing our crumbling infrastructure, or even to pay down the debt from the wars they seemed to support right up to the point of paying for them. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [August 2, 2011, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209/320 "2011-08-02T12:38:03Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > That depends strongly on two things - the share of income they have, and the incremental tax rate on that income. Crying about the rich paying a lot of taxes without admitting that they make a lot of income is dishonest. Which, if either, outweighs the other? Do they pay a disproportionate amount of taxes relative to income, or vice versa, or is it about even, or what? > [@](#): > > I’m quite aware that happiness is relative to current position, not absolute position, and relative to those in a similar position. I’m not. I’ve heard it plenty of times; I just don’t happen to believe it. My happiness seems absolutist rather than relative, as sure as I don’t cheer up because the janitor makes less than I do. > [@](#): > > I think few people stiffed for a raise cheer up because the janitor makes less than they do. So why should they feel worse upon hearing the rich make _ **more?** _ > [@](#): > > When we did salary administration the message was always considered important. It was better to give someone nothing than to give a raise so small it could be considered an insult. Kind of like when you get really bad service in a restaurant, tipping a penny is a stronger message than tipping nothing. So – give the poor nothing, to avoid insulting 'em with something small? How odd. > [@](#): > > Really? Remember, being a bit less productive is a far cry from being not productive at all - and the message you are getting is that you aren’t being productive. It isn’t a winner take all situation. If it were, there would be no incentive for practically anyone to do anything but the bare minimum to keep the job, and even less to stay. Well, forget raises to focus on promotions for a moment. Often there’s only one to go around, right? Winner take all? Maybe it goes to someone a little more qualified? > [@](#): > > First of all, raising the tax rate back to that of the '90s would affect the quality of life of the rich little if any. Second, the reason to do it is not punishment, but because the money could be used to keep the unemployed from losing their homes, for fixing our crumbling infrastructure, or even to pay down the debt from the wars they seemed to support right up to the point of paying for them. Shouldn’t we all pay in for stuff like that? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209.md?page=15) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/taxing-the-rich/590209.md?page=17)