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United States43971 Posts
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft".
Regarding double taxation, it's another example of a meaningless facade to hide the real policy. The current conservative tax plan preaches removing the estate tax in the name of eliminating double taxation (for people with >$11m). However the same tax plan is implementing triple taxation on a colossal scale by attacking the state and local tax deductions which will primarily hit the middle classes. Previously if you made $200k and paid $20k in state income tax then you'd only be taxed on the $180k remaining at the Federal level, the new conservative plan is to tax you on both the $180k you have left as real income, and the $20k the state took. Same for local taxes.
As always, it's not about the ideological principle. The party has none.
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On November 12 2017 02:12 Jockmcplop wrote:
One benefit is the motivation to continue working once you have made enough money for the rest of your life. There are some whose labour is extremely valuable (top 0.001%) who need to continue to work to pass on money to the next generation.
This isn't why people become ultra wealthy. That's one reason a bunch of them are only passing on a fraction of their wealth. Giving your money to your family (among the ultra rich) was pretty much always more about not being able to take it with you (though plenty of cultures tried for thousands of years) than the success of progeny.
People like to conflate people who make significant money (like $100k a year) with people who make ~$100k per day...
People wanting to go from 1 billion to 2 billion aren't doing it for anyone but themselves and their insatiable addiction to wealth and power. The very reason someone has any desire to have more than a billion dollars is because they genuinely think there is no one more fit to steward it and that their possession of it is proof they are.
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If it was about ideological principle, they wouldn't be proposing tax cuts that create a deficit at all, much less a deficit in excess of one trillion dollars. But then, it's really all about stealing from the poor and giving to the rich with the one-two punch of cutting taxes on the wealthy and then clamoring to cut welfare because of the crisis that is the national debt.
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On November 12 2017 08:21 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 06:25 Danglars wrote:On November 12 2017 06:08 Kyadytim wrote:
Some reframes that might help people. First off, the Estate Tax is also the Gift Tax. It's applies after approximately $5.5 million in money given away, over and beyond $14,000 a year. While the person giving money away is responsible for paying tax on gifts beyond the $5.5 million lifetime cap, that money is not being taxed twice. The Estate/Gift tax is taxing income the recipient is receiving.
Another reframe that I don't have the knowledge to really argue for. The government is collecting estate tax and higher tax on higher income brackets as reasonable payment for those people receiving a larger proportion of the benefit of the government enforcing property rights. This can start getting into the nature of property rights, though. They're collecting higher tax on higher income brackets even in flat taxes, because percentages work that higher income means more tax paid. The trouble is justifying double and tripling and quadrupling the tax on the same assets (corporate tax rate, capital gains taxes, dividend tax, estate tax). That's what you can find mozoku and Clutz arguing over the last pages (there is no good moral argument for the estate tax, also larger society takes a loss in that scheme), and essentially what you must argue against in any attempted reframe. The problem here is once again a deliberate misrepresenting of facts. Stuff gets taxed when it changes hands from one person to another. Tax on income means the money gets taxed when it moves from your boss to you. Change on consumption means the money gets taxed when it moves from you to a store. Corporate tax means money gets taxed when it moves from someone to the corporation. Dividend Tax means money gets taxed when it moves from the corporation to a person. And estate tax means that the money gets taxed when it moves from a dead man to his descendants. This whole "The same money must not be taxed twice!!!" argument is based on a completely superficial idea of how stuff works. It only works if you only know the world from the position of an employee, and don't think about stuff too hard. In that case, it makes superficial sense that once the money is yours after taxes, it is yours. And since in this worldview there are only three entities, namely you, the state, and strangers, your family obviously counts as an extension of yourself. If you stop to think about the whole thing even slightly, the complete argument makes no sense whatsoever. Also, there is an incredibly good moral argument for an estate tax: Hereditary nobility is a bad thing, and fundamentally doesn't really fit into a democratic worldview where people are seen as being equal. In fact, an estate tax is about the best tax one can imagine in my opinion. The only person who loses something, the heir, never did anything to actually earn the money anyways, and should thus be happy for any amount of free money that he gets. The person that died doesn't lose anything since he is dead. Take this as opposed to taxes on money that people actually earned, like payroll for example. I just don't see an argument that is fine with taxing money that people actually earn, and not fine with taxing money that people just happen to get for doing nothing but being lucky enough to be born into a rich family.
“Stuff gets taxed when it changes hands” must be the stupidest argument on morality I’ve ever heard. It’s like you assume the status quo is an argument for the morality or efficiency of the status quo.
“Slaves get owned,” “countries get conquered and made into colonies,” “civilians get killed.” Yeah, sorry, but I don’t think governments get to have jack shit by virtue of having persuaded somebody at some point in history that this is the way things are gonna be. Ridiculous way to start anything on this subject and an open admission that you have zero interest in engaging.
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On November 12 2017 07:31 Nevuk wrote:Show nested quote +Embattled Alabama Senate Republican candidate Roy Moore once cast the lone vote in favor of a man accused of raping a four-year-old boy.
In 2015, Roy Moore was performing his second stint as a justice sitting on the Alabama Supreme Court–Moore was previously removed from office for ignoring a federal court order mandating the removal of a Ten Commandments monument from the state judicial building.
The Alabama Supreme Court had the opportunity to hear the case of one Eric Lemont Higdon, a man accused and convicted of two sodomy charges due to sexual assault against a four-year-old at Mama’s Place Christian Academy in Clay, Alabama.
One of those convictions was first-degree sodomy of a child less than 12 years old. The other conviction was first-degree sodomy by forcible compulsion. Essentially, the first conviction was for statutory rape; the second for forcible rape.
Higdon’s conviction on the forcible rape charge was eventually overturned on appeal. The state, by way of prosecutor Luther Strange, appealed that decision and the Alabama Supreme Court took the case up for review.
Eight of the nine justices on the panel found that the appeals court had erred. Their legal logic was such that a 17-year-old’s sexual assault of a four-year-old was enough to produce in the mind of the four-year-old, an “implied threat of serious physical injury.” The decision was reversed and remanded and Higdon’s conviction was reinstated.
Roy Moore dissented from that opinion. He wrote:
Because there was no evidence in this case of an implied threat of serious physical injury…or of an implied threat of death, Higdon cannot be convicted of sodomy in the first degree “by forcible compulsion.”
lawnewz.comNothing new, but a pleasant reminder Show nested quote +A former colleague of GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore said Saturday that it was "common knowledge" that the Alabama Republican dated high school girls when he worked in the Etowah County District Attorney's Office in the 1980s.
In a statement to CNN, Teresa Jones, who served as deputy district attorney for Etowah County, Ala., from 1982 until 1985, said that multiple people thought it was unusual that Moore dated high school girls, but that no one ever raised the matter with him.
"It was common knowledge that Roy Moore dated high school girls, everyone we knew thought it was weird," Jones told CNN. "We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall ... but you really wouldn't say anything to someone like that."
Moore, now 70, served as the assistant district attorney for Etowah County from 1977 until 1982.
Jones's comments come two days after an explosive Washington Post report detailed allegations that Moore pursued sexual and romantic relationships with teenage girls when he was in his early 30s.
One of Moore's accusers, Leigh Corfman, told the Post that the former Alabama Supreme Court justice initiated a sexual encounter with her in 1979, when she was just 14 and he was 32.
Moore has vehemently denied Corfman's allegation. But in an interview on Sean Hannity's radio program on Friday, he did not rule out that he dated girls in their late teens when he was in his 30s, saying that he did not remember doing so.
On Saturday, in his first public appearance since The Washington Post report was published, Moore said that the allegations were politically motivated, and that he had never engaged in any sort of sexual misconduct.
Still, the allegations have prompted condemnation from many Republican lawmakers and officials, who have called on Moore to step aside in Alabama's special Senate election if the accounts are true. thehill.com
I mean you can’t blame the Alabamans, they have to vote for a pedophile.
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The moral argument for an estate tax is that the natural process of redistributing wealth is super violent. Massive wealth disparity historically leads to instability and violence. If people want to go back to that system, I guess we can do that.
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I would be all for having good relations with Russia if they were into having good relations with the West.
They have a very bad way of showing it if they are interested so why should we?
(and no LL, i'm not interested in your answer)
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modern day presidential at work again
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....
This is a level of passive-aggressiveness I haven't seen since elementary school.
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something something little rocket man?
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I don't recall a time he ever tried to be buddy buddy with NK though.
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Trump somehow made Kim Jong Un look like some sort of evil mastermind.
Of course, really would be nice to find out who gave them those fancy engines for their new ICBMs...
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Possibly a top 5 Trump-while-president tweet. Prob below CNN/WWE though.
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On November 12 2017 10:14 Introvert wrote:Possibly a top 5 Trump-while-president tweet. Prob below CNN/WWE though.
Covfefe and stealth firing of Reince Priebus were among my favorites.
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As long as you don't criticize Trump's wealth.
Pretty hilarious.
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On November 12 2017 10:04 NeoIllusions wrote:
something something little rocket man?
Yeah, pretty sure Trump was belittling Kim's personal features via Twitter first so he's looking just a little bit silly here. And if Trump isn't old, what the hell is old these days?
Maybe its the dementia kicking in. Not the first president to have the disease but probably the first to have an incompetent cabinet and underfunded political infrastructure.
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On November 12 2017 08:49 KwarK wrote:
In case anyone thought that I was, I'm not arguing for a 100% estate tax, nor for a government monopoly on investment. My argument throughout has been that while capitalism works extremely well for distributing resources the argument "I got this, therefore I earned this" is invalid and circular, generally being coupled with "I earned this, therefore I should get it". The economic system isn't in the business of telling you what you deserve. This all started off with "taxation is theft".
I'd have a lot more sympathy for this if you ever actually responded to my point why this isn't true. Instead, you repeatedly avoided it, told me I didn't understand your argument (even though my argument is a positive one on its own and relies zero on anything you've said), and kept changing the topic to different examples of perceived unfairness. See post below.
Post
If it helps, I'll phrase it in a different way. Taxation on its own is not theft--if there's a high tax rate, I can choose not to work. Fine. However, if I agree to trade x units of my time for y units of money, then an armed mob later on decides I should have gotten y - e units of money for my x units of work already performed (i.e. a wealth tax), it deprives me of the opportunity to have simply worked x - d units of time for y - e money on the first place (assuming a progressive tax code). That d units of time is labor I did for society that I can't go back in time and get back. Morally, it's no different than if the armed mob simply made me work for d units of time for them right now--labor without pay is labor without pay, regardless of whether it happened in the present or in the past.
I never said anything about double taxation, though I don't think you were directing that at me.
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On November 12 2017 06:50 ChristianS wrote:
Where the hell did Kwark advocate 100% capital gains tax? It really looks like you're off in a room by yourself fighting arguments nobody made. Kwark favors free market capitalism, generally
Mozoku isn't saying that Kwark explicitly is advocating a 100% capital gains tax.
On November 12 2017 06:32 mozoku wrote:
The only way to eliminate "leeching" (other than forced labor) would be to tax returns on investments by 100% (else some degree of leeching would obviously exist).
What he seems to be arguing is that a 100% capital gains tax is the only way to disincentivize the formation of an "absentee landlord" class that purely sustains its livelihood off of ownership of the means of production.
I have no idea how he logically reached that conclusion, as he hasn't explained how you go from A->B, but he isn't exactly putting words in Kwark's mouth. He just took Kwark's premise to some extreme logical conclusion without explaining to anyone the intervening steps.
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On November 12 2017 11:06 TheYango wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 06:50 ChristianS wrote:
Where the hell did Kwark advocate 100% capital gains tax? It really looks like you're off in a room by yourself fighting arguments nobody made. Kwark favors free market capitalism, generally Mozoku isn't saying that Kwark explicitly is advocating a 100% capital gains tax. Show nested quote +On November 12 2017 06:32 mozoku wrote:
The only way to eliminate "leeching" (other than forced labor) would be to tax returns on investments by 100% (else some degree of leeching would obviously exist). What he seems to be arguing is that a 100% capital gains tax is the only way to disincentivize the formation of an "absentee landlord" class that purely sustains its livelihood off of ownership of the means of production. I have no idea how he logically reached that conclusion, as he hasn't explained how you go from A->B, but he isn't exactly putting words in Kwark's mouth. He just took Kwark's premise to some extreme logical conclusion without explaining to anyone the intervening steps.
Anything other than 100% capital gains tax would allow leeching with a sufficiently high principal. Granted, I was confused on what KwarK's point on that one was, and imo it's unclear if he was trying to make a moral or economic one. I took it as economic.
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EPT
