TEDxHampshireCollege - Chuck Collins -- Taxing the Wealthy

[blakstar101]

Weak argument. Unless a rich person stole their money then they have already contributed to society. The rich did not get their money out of charity from the masses, they got their money because the masses decided to trade them money for goods/services the businesses sold.

[TheGeneralCritic]

@blakstar101 Also a weak argument. The rich should pay according to their ability, not according to their need because their needs- food, roof, etc- have already been taken care of in spades. No tax short of a 99% tax on the rich is in danger of turning a rich man ($10 million+ per year) into a poor man. (>$15,000/year).

[blakstar101]

@TheGeneralCritic You didn't address my argument at all. All you did was tell me that America should operate around a Marxist philosophy. That is your preference.

[TheGeneralCritic]

@blakstar101 I have never been presented with a good argument as to why any person has done anything to earn more than maybe $10 million/year. Not one.

[rashad123us]

@blakstar101 What made the possible is the infrastructure that is funded primarily by taxes. Why should those who earn less pay a greater percentage of their income? The country will ultimately be ruined of this trend is not reversed.

[blakstar101]

@rashad123us That's why I think we should advocate for a flat tax with no deductions except for those who earn below whatever is declared the poverty level, i.e. a 22k annual income.

[rashad123us]

@blakstar101 Flat tax doesn't work. Those who earn significantly less will have less left over because they can not offer as large of a percentage of their annual income. Those who earn significantly more will have much more left after the "flat tax" is paid. The same percentage has more of a burden when you earn less. This would in effect eliminate the middle class as it effects both ends a lot differently. Basically those with less would pay more while those with more would end up paying less

[blakstar101]

@rashad123us It would not "eliminate" the middle class since the middle class earns a lot. You can solve the 'more burden' problem by moving the arbitrary level of poverty to wherever you want. Under that level you get deductions to where you practically pay nothing.

[thesilverjournal]

The wealthy have already payed more to society by creating all of the jobs and products, and all of their hard work that it took for them to get wealthy. Giving the government money to toss away resources isn't the answer to help the economy grow. Keeping the money in the private sector so the money can be used PRODUCTIVELY is how to grow the economy.

[dmoton314]

What happens when job creators aren't able to adequately fill their positions? American grads and job-seekers lose. The staffing company ManpowerGroup, reports that 52% of U.S. employers surveyed say they have difficulty filling positions because of talent shortages (Cappelli, 2010). This disconnect, however you wish to perceive it, is contributing greatly to the increase in inequality these days. The benefits of higher education don't seem to appropriately match their costs.

[thesilverjournal]

@dmoton314 Apparently employers and employees aren't able to match up very well. Many employees think they're above the job or above the pay grade. What to do? Stop giving incentives such as student loans to waste tax payer money and get students to go deep into debt learning unmarketable skills and get rid of entitlements so people must work, even if they don't like the pay because if people can choose to not work and get the same or a little less income, they won't work.

[BenkaiDebussy]

@thesilverjournal Using your logic, millions of people choose not to work during economic downturns. Think about that for a moment. Employers are not having trouble filling low-wage positions, and I have no idea where you got the idea that they are.

Employers, in general, are not hiring simply because there isn't a need for more employees. Consumer demand isn't high enough. You can give employers any incentive imaginable, and they still wouldn't hire; they have no need for extra labor.

[dmoton314]

@thesilverjournal Your line of thinking seems a bit too punitive to be beneficial.We saw what happened when Greece and Ireland were forced to make severe budget cuts, they went into a depression, their GDP fell dramatically,and there was debilitating political unrest. If unions, government, and businesses could work together with poor schools more closely, that would solve unem. and increase the benefits for everyone a lot better than cutting education funding. The same goes for health care.

[thesilverjournal]

@dmoton314 You're line of thinking seems moronic. Going deeper into debt doesn't solve a debt problem.

[dmoton314]

@thesilve My line of thinking doesn't promote going deeper into debt, it simply promotes greater tactfulness and sensibility. For instance, California is making tough cuts in their education programs that will effectively disallow underprivileged youth to attend magnet schools and drastically reduce their opportunities. This will cause crime, unemployment, inequality, and lower tax revenue long run. The COST of budget cutting is too often underestimated. It's not moronic, it's very real.

[thesilverjournal]

@dmoton314 You can try to spin it any "tactful" way you want, but you're promoting going deeper into debt again. Our government has a spending problem and the way to remedy a spending problem is to cut spending. This concept is not that hard.

[dmoton314]

@thesilverjournal I never suggested that we shouldn't cut spending, My last 2 comments expressed that we should be more careful about where and how we choose to make cuts, because the residual monetary and human costs could be offsetting. Cutting education funding, in particular, would lead to even more economic and societal problems down the road. Let's emphasize internships and apprentiships in poor schools for instance. This is how Germany operates, compare our unemployment rates with Germany

[thesilverjournal]

@dmoton314 The only way to make government more "tactful" in how they spend is to give them less money. Whatever they get, they'll find a way to spend.

[BenkaiDebussy]

@dmoton314 This problem stems from poor early education, which is due to two primary factors:

1. Public school funding is very low, particularly in poorer districts. Conservatives use low performance to justify more cuts, which completely misses the point. Finland trains teachers far more, pays them more, and has stellar performance.

2. Poverty leads to a childhood where, for many, a quality education simply isn't possible. Millions of children are food insecure, which isn't acceptable.

[dmoton314]

It's interesting to note that state of Georgia is slightly more productive than Austria and grosses more money annually (cia factbook). However, 3x as many Georgians live in poverty (bls.gov), youth unemployment is twice a high in Ga than in Austria, and Ga spends less on education (1.84% vs. 5.74%) and produces poorer math and science literacy. Why is this? If people are lazy, that's one thing, but if our system is poorly engineered, its unfair for too many people...

[BenkaiDebussy]

@dmoton314 Because unemployed people greatly outnumber open positions, laziness doesn't make sense. So it comes down to the second thing you mentioned. The important thing to keep in mind is that, by and large, our system works very well for the wealthiest corporations (see: high profits despite high unemployment), but primarily benefits wealthy individuals. Our nation has seen economic mobility drop for many years, and low mobility benefits no one but those who are already wealthy.

[BenkaiDebussy]

@thesilverjournal The most wealthy Americans are not small business owners. Have you ever been hired by a billionaire?

Countries with the highest standard of living all have robust safety nets and very high (relatively) tax rates concentrated on more wealthy individuals. The US had a top tier income tax rate of over 90% in the 50's. There has never been a time when a country experienced low poverty and a high standard of living by having a very low tax rate and few social services.

[BenkaiDebussy]

@thesilverjournal It's also worth mentioning that the vast majority of wealthy Americans were born into wealthy families. ~60% of Americans in the top wealth quintile were born into the top two quintiles, and when you get up to the 5%, 1%, etc the percent obviously greatly increases.

"all of their hard work that it took for them to get wealthy" simply isn't true of most wealthy people. They didn't have to "get wealthy"; only a minority didn't come from a very privileged background.

[thesilverjournal]

@BenkaiDebussy First of all, their ancestors gained the wealth and or kept the wealth, so in order to do so, they had to earn a profit on their investments and profit is a measure of the resources that are created. Second, they most look to use those resources in a profitable manner if they want to keep what they've inherited. Government on the other hand, does not have a profit motive and as a result, most of the resources that government touches is wasted.

[Graysonhd]

One note/correction... it was farm labor we *experimented* replacing (supplementing is more like it) with convict labor here in Georgia. As our new immigration law decimated the farm labor supply over the summer/fall harvest season of 2011. Our governor loved the plan, put it that way. But the effort was what we like to call an *Epic Fail* nowadays.

[Graysonhd]

This is such a thoughtful talk. From an obviously very thoughtful person. So glad I listened, and shared, this.

[cheezbawl2003]

Man, I now like Oscar Mayer a lot more.

[marypoppins2009]

Why do they get a reduction?..because they are employing people..creating jobs?...Look at what we have now?...all offshore manufacturing! They used their 'breaks'...to go to other countries..and give foreigners jobs???

[donques]

Everyone misunderstands taxes because we also misunderstand the role of money. The idea of high taxation was to spend it (recycle it) on the real economy, over and over again, thus benefiting everyone. The repeal of Glass-Steagall made the financial sector more profitable to investors while at the same time making the participation of the financial sector in the economy destructive rather than productive.

[HarmonixHealing]

THE PROBLEM... IS the maniacal people that run things... spend MOST of the money on WAR & wasteful programs.

THE SOLUTION... is very simple.... create a legal vehicle for the person taxed... to CHOOSE where they want the money to go!!!

[wcuff1209]

Perversity and corruption make further taxing of the wealthy a pointless pacifier, as the core of the system is based in fear, greed and self-interest, thus abuse continues in newly contrived means and leveraging tactics. We Stop in-equality through implementing an actual Equal Money System. When fear of survival is removed and everyone's basic needs are met, life can be supported rather than enslaved and ultimately destroyed.

[MyTemporaryAccount88]

If you look at scientific papers (heritage foundation does NOT count) on income inequality, you'll find lots of things that correlate with it. If you can name one single positive thing that comes from high income inequality, congratulations! You found a scientific study I haven't seen.

... Well, that or you're a fucking psychopath.

[xjlmt]

What kind of society are we building? A society of Teabaggers, greedy s.o.b.s who care only about themselves. 

[redmend]

Anyone else realize the irony of students at a private "college" clapping about someone else paying for their education?

[Sesquipedalian101]

The flaws with the arguments presented:

3. "Death Tax" is more accurate than "inheritance tax." If the goal is truly to "give back" to those who made success possible, as a beneficiary of, say, the Public Library System, would you rather give money specifically to the PLS or to the Fed Govt's General Fund? To have a "give back" system, you would mandate bequests to "501Cx" entities in place of taxation. At the very least you would make charity giving a tax credit not just a deduction.

[lambrettist2007]

@Sesquipedalian101 Our society and our government institutions are not a charity. Progessive taxation built this great country. Massive tax-cutting and massive war spending is destroying it.

[ashwinbhat123]

@lambrettist2007 The tax structure is already progressive, the wealthier you are the higher the tax rates, what liberals are demanding is that this be increased even further which is ridiculous.

[lambrettist2007]

@ashwinbhat123 Then why do the wealthiest people have lower tax rates than a working person? The tax structure of the country was truly progressive even under good Republican leadership like Eisenhower. The estate tax is to prevent the formation of a landed gentry, an aristocracy, whatever you want to call it. It is to prevent an over-concentration of wealth in just a few families, something the USA is now approaching for the first time since before the Great Depression.

[ashwinbhat123]

@lambrettist2007 The wealthiest do not have lower tax rates, look at the IRS income table when u file taxes, the higher the income the higher the taxes.

[YaHuWaHservant]

@ashwinbhat123 The more you make the more you are taxed, not to mention the expenditures for highering people such as paychecks, government mandates, etc. If there is a rich guy out there thinking he does not pay enough in taxes, which is only possible if he played with his accounting/investing to pay less taxes, then he could write the IRS a bigger check. Ron Paul for instance gave back 140,000 of his yearly income to pay down the deficit and signed away his Congressional Pension.

[lambrettist2007]

@ashwinbhat123 The wealthiest do not use these tables as they do not work for salary or wages. Most of their income comes from investments which are taxed at a flat rate of 15%. The GOP wants to eliminate that tax! Warren Buffet pays a rate of only 18%. In the days of Eisenhower, a conservative Republican, mind you, he would have been taxed at 91% just like Rockefeller was (still leaving him the richest man in the world).

[Sesquipedalian101]

The flaws with the arguments presented:

2. Having a zero-rate estate tax in no way precludes the "rich" from making charitable bequests from their estates. Many of them already do this; more of the moderately wealthy probably would do this if they could be sure of not damaging their family. In a society where most people work half a year "for the government" and where the "rich" work 3/4 time or more, where is the equity in taking a "second dip" at death?

[Sesquipedalian101]

The flaws with the arguments presented:

1. All of the social services discussed as having benefited the wealthy and enabled their success -- *were* paid for by those same people *as* they became wealthy. The wealthy already pay 90+% of the taxes collected in this country (income tax + sales taxes + property taxes + excise taxes + Business Taxes + Cap Gains taxes + et cetera); thus, they paid for those enabling services in the course of gathering their wealth. This is *double* taxation.

[DimmedDiamond]

@Sesquipedalian101 Burden. Income tax, sales tax, etc. is burdened on the majority. A $100 is worth more to the majority than it is to the few who have accumulated millions to billions of wealth. That $100 is needed for food, education, transportation, sales tax, what have you. It's needed more, and circulated more quickly. Those in the higher income bracket have already met their needs and live in excess. That extra $100 is not needed or put back into circulation as it is in lower tax bracket.

[DimmedDiamond]

@Sesquipedalian101 Income tax, sales tax, etc. is burdened on the majority. $1000 is valued more to the majority than it is to the few who have accumulated millions to billions of wealth. That $1000 is required for food, education, transportation, sales tax, what have you. It's required more, and circulated more quickly. Those in the higher income bracket have already met their needs and live in excess. That extra $1000 is not needed or put back into circulation as it is in lower tax bracket.

[deneicy]

...You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."-- Elizabeth Warren

[deneicy]

"I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No! From Elizabeth Warren: "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for..."

[masluxx]

If, in a society no man is an island is true and no man can accumulate wealth with out a society is true. Then no man that accumulated wealth is an island must be true. Yet I have heard countless stores from people giving testament of how they did it 'all by them selves'. When these stories are told what I hear is "they are ungrateful to: society, business partners, family, government and anyone else in their lives that helped them on their way.” I hear a tail of a egocentric ingrate

[StudentOfObjectivism]

'My family was out front campaigning for the regulatory industry to hold back market entrants and entrench a monopoly... but I prefer to say that he was doing it for the consumer... because altruism is my unquestionable premise'

[WarVideo]

All taxation is theft and this guy is advocating theft. Equality is arbitrary and it means death and stagnation. What we need is the inequality of constant activity of the free market.

[Xiku]

@WarVideo If you think all taxation is theft, how do you propose to fund countries and your beloved wars?... the things I read on youtube.

[loonatic7]

Yeah that was great. If I were a millionaire I would support him. Alas, I am not a millionaire. Far from it in fact.

[dewfish]

cool.