Amy Alkon: "How To Tax The Millionaires And Billionaires Away."
posted by Helen at 10:58 AM
Saturday, October 02, 2010
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21 Comments:
There is actually no need for 'income tax' and, indeed, income tax is not lawful on the land known as the United States. G Edward Griffin details all this in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island. It's a book well worth reading. He notes that all that is really necessary is an honest money system.
http://www.freedom-force.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liOXr58H87E
If you want smaller, cheaper, less intrusive government, try behaving in a manner that does not stimulate demands for more government.
none of my actions stimulate the demand for a bigger government.
i even put my own organic waste in my garden (crime, i know) so i don`t need one of those little green garbage boxes.
and g. edward griffin terrifies people by showing them the truth, but not making suggestions as to how to make things better.
You may not, but millions of Americans do.
Capitalism is a good system for producing vast quantities of goods and services. But competition stimulates business people to cut expenses. Dumping hazardous waste, not maintaining company vehicles or other machinery well enough to keep them safe to operate, maintaining unsafe work conditions, and many other familiar behaviors are all stimulated by efforts to remain competitive. Capitalism is a good system for supplying a large diverse society with what it needs, but the very nature of capitalism stimulates the need for government interference.
Dumping hazardous waste, not maintaining company vehicles or other machinery well enough to keep them safe to operate, maintaining unsafe work conditions, and many other familiar behaviors are all stimulated by efforts to remain competitive.
Only in the short term.
In the long term, I'd rather accept slightly lower pay to work at a company where I'm much less likely to die. I don't think I'm the only worker who would choose this same path.
Amy Alkon supports billionaires, although she will never become one by her own efforts, not in a billion years.
I guess she's hoping a man will do it for her, and then she doesn't want taxes taken out of "their" earnings.
Just like lots of other women.
I don't get it. Why is she so strongly in support of billionaires when she has no reference or idea at all what it is like to become one - whether it really took any work or not?
I don't get it. Why is she so strongly in support of billionaires when she has no reference or idea at all what it is like to become one - whether it really took any work or not?
Perhaps because she's smart enough to know what happens to a society when it disincentives the creation of wealth which creates jobs.
Take a look at the Forbes list.
A good third or 40% of the billionaires on the list did nothing to earn the money (inheritance) and do nothing to create jobs. They spend, but so can the middle class if they had more money.
Why not remove the income tax from the producers and take the money away from the parasites?
All you need is 0% income tax and 100% estate tax over a million or so (so the small people can keep their inheritance).
No one would ever go for that. So explain to me why not - if your only goal is to promote producers.
Answer: Because the people who allegedly support the "producer" and "wealth creation" idea are most likely supporting something else.
I don't quite understand what, but they are supporting something else.
And if it just worship of the "rich", no matter how they got there, it is just sick.
Oh look it - I want to wave just like Paris Hilton can. I am like so infatuated with her and want to be just like her. I can only dream, but please don't take my dreams away by making me realize that she's a dumb shit.
Frankly, I want to promote "producers" more than the supposed supporters of producers here.
The producers today are probably not the extremely rich, they are the middle class who are getting their idea and want to realize it. Why not take the burden off them - with a 0% income tax.
Make it up with a national VAT if need be, but more likely a tax on parasites. Heather Mills and Ivanna Trump have to pony up, but a guy trying to grow a business doesn't have to pay ANY income tax.
... and no one wants that among the people who supposedly want what Demonspawn wants. Really, really weird.
The rich supporters of the rich just want to support the maintenance of the rich. In other words: "Pull up the ladder so no one else can climb it".
Why the poorer people (like Amy) who are supporting the "rich" are doing so is beyond my imagination. I guess she thinks that she is like Pretty Woman and her Richard Gere is going to come along. Maybe she watches the movie twice every night.
And yeah, not all rich people earned it or produce jobs.
I've made that remark on most every thread of Helen's dealing with wealth issues: The majority of "wealthy" people did not earn it themselves. Just as a start, remember that every wealthy person has a spouse who is then also wealthy under various laws. But that is just the start, and I am not going to repeat my posts - because they just don't seem to register with the "rich are great, although I'm personally poor" crowd.
Amy Alkon supports billionaires, although she will never become one by her own efforts, not in a billion years.
I guess she's hoping a man will do it for her, and then she doesn't want taxes taken out of "their" earnings.
Just like lots of other women.
I don't get it. Why is she so strongly in support of billionaires when she has no reference or idea at all what it is like to become one - whether it really took any work or not?
Read Hayek, and you'll understand.
Also, avoid making assumptions about people you don't know.
I don't believe in marriage, nor do I have any intention of merging funds with or sponging off of my wonderful boyfriend of eight years.
Because I don't cook; I heat; I will admit to letting him chase me out of the kitchen and cook me dinner. I find it very sweet and romantic. He also snaked my toilet for me, which is how you know a man really, really loves you.
He knows I really, really love him, because I was on deadline for my book -- it was due at the publisher on a Monday along with my column -- and he was in the hospital overnight, and I not only refused to leave him, over his protests, I slept beside his bed on his cold, hospital room floor. (They were out of cots.)
Dr. Helen, thanks so much for the link. Surprised to see some unusually irrational and a bit ugly commenters above (in my experience on your blog).
... and no one wants that among the people who supposedly want what Demonspawn wants. Really, really weird.
Actually.....
My #1 preferred solution is a flat income tax with no deductions. The rich will still pay more money, but they'll pay the same percentage. The rate will be whatever the rate needs to be to support the government that the voters want (and when it starts hitting their pocketbook, they'll suddenly want less). If you really want my Absolute answer, it's this with no automatic deductions and tax bills sent quarterly to the IRS.
The other solution I've heard which I also support is, yes, removal of the income tax and switching to a national sales tax. It's a close #2, but I still prefer the idea of flat tax.
Now, as for the rich and job creation? Even Paris Hilton has created jobs (her perfume line, her recording stint, etc.). I know you like to think that the "producers" are the middle/lower class, but how much would they really produce without the working in a job that was created by the rich (or the rich guy's ancestors.. who created it so that said offspring will have a better and easier life)? If they really could have done it on their own, they'd be working their own job, not someone else's.
Because the people who allegedly support the "producer" and "wealth creation" idea are most likely supporting something else.
1) We don't see wealth as a zero-sum game.
2) We want the rich to be treated fairly (read: not as the enemy) because we'd like to be there someday.
3) We appreciate that they are successful. If they made it there themselves, great for them. If they are rich because of inheritance, great for their ancestors.
4) We recognize that the main real difference between the rich and the poor is skill with money and a different emotional involvement with it. If we did as some suggest: Took all the wealth in the US and divided it equally. We know that within a year the rich would be rich again and the poor would be poor again. If you doubt this, look at lottery winners.
I am looking for data to support the claim that most rich did not earn their money. So far, the reports I have found contradict this.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/SavingandDebt/P80541.asp
I am still looking, but could use some help. How do we know that most rich people did not make the money themselves?
Trey
The rich don't need to be "producers", this is a commoner fixation. The MONEY of the rich, is what produces.
The rich don't care about income tax, again, a commoner fixation. EQUITY is how they make their money, income is for workers.
No "fair" income tax will work, it is just SO 19th century.
In fact, NO tax system will work, since nobody will be working. Wrap head around that!
I am serious about that, the strains we are seeing, are the result of machines taking over our work, or "jobs" The "job" is going away, we need to deal with that.
Do you live in a one room shack and send explosive packages to technology professors?
Have you written a manifesto?
Just askin.
Trey
I've worked for two billionaires: Doris Duke and Henry O. Dormann.
Doris Duke inherited everything and was a certifiable one-woman flake festival. She spent $12K to have a ramp built on her Somerville, NJ, estate bedroom window so her dog could enter/exit via the window. I was working for her when she bailed out Imelda Marcos and had her over to the Somerville estate.
Henry O. Dormann might have inherited some bucks for all I know, but the man had a mind like a bear trap and the personality of a chainsaw. Big Republican, he personally knew Nixon, Reagan, and traveled to Iran during the hostage crisis, with the blessing of the State Department. Henry O. Dormann was the reason the National Enquirer made it big rather than going bankrupt (and I can't say that was an achievement we should be pleased with).
Not someone whose shit list you want to be on.
When you die, leave me a billion dollars and I'll spend the rest of my life saying wonderful things about capitalism.
Tether said...
"All you need is 0% income tax and 100% estate tax over a million or so (so the small people can keep their inheritance)."
Guess what -- a family farm on the outskirts of a metropolitan area can easily top that on the appreciated land value alone. So what you are really saying is that you want the inheritors of family farms to have to sell them off to land developers in order to pay the estate tax. Then, of course, you will be the first to complain about the sprawl you helped create: the buyers won't be other farmers (too expensive for them) but developers looking to subdivide and put up a few hundred houses, Walmart, Home Depot, etc.
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