04-10-2003, 08:04 PM
"Because as we work harder, and harder to earn the extra income, an ever increasing percentage goes to the government."
Try not to switch it up too much. I don't think that a stock trader works harder than a contruction worker, plumber or teacher. They work differently, and market theory determines the value of what they produce, not some ethical idea of how hard one works.
If you're defending hard work, there need to be serious changes in our reward system; letting the market handle it rewards scarcity, not difficulty.
Therein lies the difficulty, eh? People who need more money than they have to survive spend 100% of what they earn, maybe even more. They are not wrong to do so, and they cannot be ethically expected to abandon either themselves or their dependents to save money. Why not tax them less, allowing them to meet their necessities, and perhaps even save some up either for the future or for investment?
People who earn far more than they need tend to spend their money... earning more money. That's capitalism for you. Why not tax them at a higher rate? The cycle of investment produces a large quantity of money, and it's hard to see how someone is disadvantaged by their own choice to pursue more wealth. If it wasn't worth it to them, they wouldn't do it; I have yet to see anyone for whom this was the deal breaker in earning more wealth.
Yet if we switched to consumption taxes, we would be taxing the first group at a much higher real rate than the second.
Why on earth would that be a good idea? It certainly isn't ethics, taxing those who need money more than those who don't. It doesn't seem to be fairness, taxing those who have little more than those who have much. To me, it seems to be little more than rewarding greed at the expense of people struggling to get by.
Jester
Try not to switch it up too much. I don't think that a stock trader works harder than a contruction worker, plumber or teacher. They work differently, and market theory determines the value of what they produce, not some ethical idea of how hard one works.
If you're defending hard work, there need to be serious changes in our reward system; letting the market handle it rewards scarcity, not difficulty.
Therein lies the difficulty, eh? People who need more money than they have to survive spend 100% of what they earn, maybe even more. They are not wrong to do so, and they cannot be ethically expected to abandon either themselves or their dependents to save money. Why not tax them less, allowing them to meet their necessities, and perhaps even save some up either for the future or for investment?
People who earn far more than they need tend to spend their money... earning more money. That's capitalism for you. Why not tax them at a higher rate? The cycle of investment produces a large quantity of money, and it's hard to see how someone is disadvantaged by their own choice to pursue more wealth. If it wasn't worth it to them, they wouldn't do it; I have yet to see anyone for whom this was the deal breaker in earning more wealth.
Yet if we switched to consumption taxes, we would be taxing the first group at a much higher real rate than the second.
Why on earth would that be a good idea? It certainly isn't ethics, taxing those who need money more than those who don't. It doesn't seem to be fairness, taxing those who have little more than those who have much. To me, it seems to be little more than rewarding greed at the expense of people struggling to get by.
Jester