Quoth Shodan:
Quite the contrary. They pay most of the taxes because they have most of the money. A less exploitative system would see the money more uniformly distributed, with, therefore, a much larger proportion of people who could afford to pay taxes.
This thread reminds me of this Bob the Angry Flower comic.
My opinion:
[ul]
[li]After a time of economic dislocation, the country both recovers and improves because so many of its worst, most destructive people are gone.[/li]
[li]The rich die when they run out of food or their spaceship/hidden underground bunker/whatever breaks down, since they’ve left behind everyone who can actually do anything useful. They are parasites who have just exiled themselves from their hosts.[/li][/ul]
Learning about atlas shrugged should never be called enlightenment.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t the US tax code continue to tax citizens long after they’ve left?
Yeah, but enforcement issues will have to be worked out. President Obama (who earns $400,000/year) will be gone, leaving the issue to Vice-President Biden (who has to scrape by with a mere $230,700).
[quote=“Der_Trihs, post:42, topic:591304”]
[ul]
[li]After a time of economic dislocation, the country both recovers and improves because so many of its worst, most destructive people are gone.[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
This is wrongheaded, at best. Just as many poor and middle-class people are stupid, venial, and mean–they just don’t currently have the funds to actualize those things due to structural factors. The new rich class that WILL emerge in such a scenario as the OP posits will have approximately the same douchebag quotient as the old one did.
You guys really took a funny concept and nictpicked it to death by focusing too heavily on the physical dollar leaving the planet.
If Bill Gates withdrew all his savings, burned it along with his mansion and all his possessions, then stopped earning any income, what would happen? The point being that we lose his contributions, his physical possessions, and his tax contributions. And the wealth isn’t simply transferred to his kids or confiscated to the government coffers.
Right off the bat we should note that the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation would suddenly have a lot less money. But I’m sure that could easily be absorbed by the government, along with all the other charitable contributions the rich make, if they make any at all.
Obviously the rich are easily replaceable since they only got rich because of luck, not sure how the country would deal with a sudden loss of all those lucky people.
Something else that’s funny is the average/median wage in the US is going drop pretty fast, but on the plus side the Gini coefficient would finally be where people want it to be. And all those evil overpaid CEOs would be replaced with honest hard working Americans that hare happy to earn what the rest of their employees earn.
Sounds like a good job for the 12million the government plans to hire. Now we’ve gotten rid of those pesky rich people and solved the unemployment problem!
So we’re assuming that they are somehow able to convert all of their belongings to money at a fair value? (A big assumption but if that’s part of the premise so be it.) That would have to include land and houses, right? Who would be able to buy them at fair value? It seems like it would have to be wealthy foreigners, right? Since none of us peons could afford their mansions.
So we’d have a bunch of wealthy foreigners, along with their money, moving here and taking the place of these formerly rich space communists. What does that add to the equation?
Blame the OP. He said “so that they can fly around the galaxy with roomfuls of money”, something sufficiently absurd on its face that it deserves mockery.
How dare you speak ill of the working class, why do you hate America? Besides, those poor and middle-class douchebags are only that way because the rich people made them do it. Without rich people (ie bankers and CEOs) making poor people (ie everyone else) do stupid things, everything will be roses.
Aren’t you familiar with the gilded age? It will be the exact opposite. Imagine a feudal system if the king and his court up and left, destroying the castle on their way out. Or the US south during slavery, if all the masters torched their plantations, salted the soil, and road off into the sunset.
Or like Zimbabwe…
Yes, it deserves mockery, lots of it, but not nitpicking. You might as well point out how heavy all that money would be and the difficulty of breaking gravity. Or how hard it would be to coordinate such a massive conspiracy given the resources required to build a space ship of this size. Or of the challenges associated with getting the permits to store that much rocket fuel, not to mention the zoning requirements. Although now that I think of it, the US currently has a bunch of surplus space shuttles and a giant budget deficit.
I doubt it, or they’d probably be richer. Our society rewards psychopathic behavior in business. Luck and predatory amorality are the two most important paths to wealth.
There’s a fair amount of overlap, I’ve found.
This exactly! Whatever the reason might be, what would happen if the top 2% were suddenly unable to financially contribute to the economy?
It sounds like the popular consensus is that there would be a period of economic turmoil and then a new group of people will take their place.
So does that mean that there is no end to the “class war?” There will always be a top 2% in possession of the vast majority of America’s wealth? Is there ever a scenario in which the top 20% controls the same amount of wealth that the top 2% currently does?
Sure; if the government taxes the that 2% more heavily and puts the money back into the general populace.
Oh crap, if we lose our entertainers, how will we know which African country has the worst famine? Which animals are being abused? How will I know what to feel bad about?
Well, technically if you remove the top 2% (or everyone making more than $250k), the remaining group of people earning $220k-249k will be the “top 2%,” will probably still represent 80% of the wealth, but will now face the full wrath of Der Trihs who will no doubt want to increase their taxes to make up for the lost revenue.
And no, there will never be an end to class war because there is always someone to be jealous of.
That’s not contrary, it’s saying the same thing.
2% pays 40% of the income tax. Now they don’t. How are you going to make up the difference, while somebody produces the assets or gets the experience/education to get to the point where they can produce the 40% again?
We aren’t talking about evenly distributing anything. All the rich people are gone, and they took all their wealth with them. So their wealth isn’t around to redistribute.
All you’ve got to redistribute is a shortfall of 40% plus a lesser amount in lost capital gains. And a lot fewer people to tax to recover the funds to cover all those Treasury bills that we need to redeem to cover Social Security.
You are quite correct that we will have to raise taxes substantially on those who are paying a lot less right now. If that strikes you as equitable, well, it sounds a lot like a flat tax system to me.
Regards,
Shodan
yeah, excellent point. Who would teach us how the banana is evidence of the existence of God? Who would be able to both make a snuff film about Jesus and also teach us all how to negotiate with a spouse during trying times in a marriage?
