UK Wealth Tax Needed; Rich Not Paying Fair Share

[Seth]

Not sure when 19% comes from the Libertarian times or something it its nearer 25-27% US ~ 38% UK and on average around 40% in the EU as whole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

That tax revenues take up 40 percent of the GDP of Europe is an abomination, and it just goes to prove why socialism doesn't work, and why all of Europe is going down the Socialist shitter.

No government should need 40 percent of the wealth of the nation to operate. That's just pure evil.

[Blind groper]

Why should they pay the same percentage? Why shouldn't they pay the same absolute amount as everyone else? .

Seth

The USA has a debt of almost $ 16 trillion and growing by the minute. There is no way it can be brought under control using the current methods.

Yet if America's corporation and very wealthy are required to pay a decent percentage of their income (say 20% instead of the roughly 10% average they pay now), that debt could be retired in a matter of a few years, as well as giving a decent life to millions of poor people.

I have no sympathy for the very rich on this. When someone has, say, $ 100 million or more, their money ceases to mean anything more than a score on a scoreboard. The very rich cannot spend more money on themselves and their families than they already do, and all that money has no value to them personally. To require such people to pay double the tax will have no impact whatever on their life styles.

Yet to a poor person, an extra $100 may mean all the difference. Why should all those selfish assholes (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104201.htm) with all that money force the nation into increasing debt, and force the poor to live lives of misery, when doubling their tax would solve it all with no cost to their overblown and selfish life styles?

[Seth]

Why should they pay the same percentage? Why shouldn't they pay the same absolute amount as everyone else? .

Seth

The USA has a debt of almost $ 16 trillion and growing by the minute. There is no way it can be brought under control using the current methods.

Sure it can. It's ridiculously easy. Just stop spending. Particularly stop spending on dependent-class largesse and the military.

Yet if America's corporation and very wealthy are required to pay a decent percentage of their income (say 20% instead of the roughly 10% average they pay now), that debt could be retired in a matter of a few years, as well as giving a decent life to millions of poor people.

I'd rather stop making debt first. Getting rid of Obama is the first step in that process.

I have no sympathy for the very rich on this. When someone has, say, $ 100 million or more, their money ceases to mean anything more than a score on a scoreboard. The very rich cannot spend more money on themselves and their families than they already do, and all that money has no value to them personally. To require such people to pay double the tax will have no impact whatever on their life styles.

It's not about lifestyle, it's about fundamental fairness. You have created a strawman argument by referring to only the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, and they don't have enough money even if you took all of it to "retire the debt" that Bush and Obama have burdened our grandchildren with.

Yet to a poor person, an extra $100 may mean all the difference. Why should all those selfish assholes (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 104201.htm) with all that money force the nation into increasing debt, and force the poor to live lives of misery, when doubling their tax would solve it all with no cost to their overblown and selfish life styles?

They're not forcing anyone to do anything, they are being forced to support the idle dependent class while they are, in fact, using their money to create wealth and jobs for poor people. You have this silly idea that they are all sitting on a vault full of gold coins like Scrooge McDuck. That's idiocy. Their money is constantly in circulation, being invested and reinvested in our economy to create jobs and products and wealth that everyone shares in. Without their investment capital, the economy stagnates. Give all that capital to the government on the premise that it'll go to giving the bottom 50 percent of the population that pays next to nothing and you might give them a $100 windfall...ONE TIME. Then all that money will be GONE, and will not have been force multiplied into jobs and businesses and products and wealth. The dependent class would love to strip the ultra-rich of their money, but doing so would not only not solve their problems, it would make them much, much worse.

It's like the parable of the man and the fishing teacher. "Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime."

Your model says "Give everyman a fish, and in so doing kill off all the fish in the ocean, and everyman eats for a day, and then everyone on earth starves to death because there are no more fish."

The Soviets discovered just how that happens when they raped the rich and killed them during the Russian Revolution. They had their orgy of envy-based violence and killing, and then all the wealth of the aristocrat class, along with the aristocrat class (read: investor class) was gone and they had nothing. They had no food because no one would work to grow food without being either paid to do so or enslaved and forced to do so. They had no factories because they destroyed them in their envious orgy of violence. They couldn't get capital investment to build new factories because no one else on the planet trusted that they would get a return on their investment and knew that they would have their wealth expropriated by the Central Committee if they dared invest.

Inflation was rampant, people were starving to death, and the Soviet government faced crisis after crisis because they quickly discovered that without a profit motive, people are only motivated to do the least possible amount of work necessary to qualify for the promised government largess to support them.

Every socialist and communist country since then has tried to reinvent the wheel and discovered exactly the same thing, to the detriment of the people who end up in forced labor merely to keep people alive.

Without the rewards attendant upon the investment of capital in creating products, jobs and infrastructure, investors are far better off just sitting on their money and not investing it in a climate where their profits will be taxed or taken away from them. That's EXACTLY what's happened to the economy of the planet, not just the US economy. Credit dried up as people and companies began defaulting on loans and venture capital stepped out of the markets and is just now beginning to reenter. The economy sucks because those who have capital to invest have decided (wisely) to sit on their capital, live their desired lifestyle off their principle, and wait out the recession and the socialist regimes that want to tax away their wealth.

I said back when Obama was elected that the way to take him down was for investors to simply stop investing and sit on their principle because if they aren't generating income, they can't be taxed on it and they can deny the Obamanation the money it needs to fund it's socialist programs. It's working.

Unless the economy and legal system are conducive to return on investment, investors will just keep their money and still live comfortably, and everyone else will suffer. Someday the socialists might figure that out and figure out that the only way to induce them to invest is to promise not to take everything they have in an orgy of class-based envy and jealousy.

And if you think you can "wealth tax" them out of their capital, you're wrong because money flows away from taxation just like water flows down hill, and the minute you try, all that wealth will be quickly (with the tap of a computer keyboard today) move to places with lower, more congenial taxes...like Switzerland...where it will be safe until the socialist redistributionists have been destroyed by the raging proletarian class angry that the false promises of socialism have not been fulfilled.

There's nothing quite as dangerous as poor people who have been promised largess from the government that they don't receive.

[Blind groper]

Seth

I am not suggesting a Soviet model. Simply a fairer system of taxation, in which wealthy people pay the same percentage of taxes as the poor.

I agree that the American economy could recover if expenditure was reduced. But the best way to do that is to cut military spending. The Iraq war is estimated to cost the American taxpayer, when all costs are accounted for, a total of $US 3 trillion.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Three-Trillio ... 0393067017
Cut out that sort of nonsense, and reduce the armed forces to a level needed for defense, but a level too low to permit any more stupid overseas military adventures, and the economy will recover. What do you think are the chances of politicians becoming that sensible?

[Seth]

Seth

I am not suggesting a Soviet model. Simply a fairer system of taxation, in which wealthy people pay the same percentage of taxes as the poor.

Well, that would be ZERO taxes then. The poor don't pay taxes, that's the point, they consume other people's tax money. As I said, the bottom 50 percent pay less than three percent of the taxes, while the top 10 percent pay more than 40 percent. How is that not paying "their fair share?" You don't want a fair share, you just want more of what they have earned because they have more than you do. That's greed, envy and jealousy at work, not "fairness." You happen to want to use "percentage" of income as a convenient way to steal other people's money merely because they have more of it. You fail to explain how this is either "fair" or in the least bit moral, you just assume, like all good Marxists, that because they can afford to support you, they should be compelled to do so.

Fact is that it's the upper middle class and the wealthy of this country that already support the dependent class completely, but that's never enough for fuckwit socialists who think that the only "fairness" in society is when everyone is equally poor.

Fuck that. Down that path lies Soviet Russia and people starving everywhere with infrastructure crumbling around them. Didn't you get the memo? Socialism DOES NOT WORK, it just sucks the productive class dry, kills off innovation and economic prosperity and hammers everyone into the stinking proletarian muck so that whats "fair" is that everyone gets to suffer in proletarian equality of misery.

I agree that the American economy could recover if expenditure was reduced. But the best way to do that is to cut military spending. The Iraq war is estimated to cost the American taxpayer, when all costs are accounted for, a total of $US 3 trillion.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Three-Trillio ... 0393067017
Cut out that sort of nonsense, and reduce the armed forces to a level needed for defense, but a level too low to permit any more stupid overseas military adventures, and the economy will recover. What do you think are the chances of politicians becoming that sensible?

I'm all for that, so long as we have lots of aircraft and stand-off cruise missiles with nuclear warheads so that when asswipes like the Iranians or the North Koreans step out of line we can bomb them back to the stone age and turn their cities into glowing glass for the next 90,000 years.

We should never commit ground troops outside of the US, we should just bomb the ever living shit out of anybody who fucks with us, destroy their cities and infrastructure, sink their shipping, blow up their aircraft (civilian and military), their dams, their power plants, their water systems, their factories and their roads and railways, just like we did to Germany and Japan. Blow them the hell up and then dare them to fuck with us again. And for fuck's sake, don't commit to rebuilding them, just let them slide into chaos, anarchy and death, where they won't be a threat to the rest of the world anymore.

And if they stick their heads up out of their holes, we bomb them again, perhaps from orbit, using kinetic weapons and neutron bombs to wipe out their populace so that the area can be eventually repopulated with people who will leave us the fuck alone.

[Blind groper]

Hmmm

Seth,
You think the difference between us is socialist versus capitalist. If your most recent post is an accurate indicator, the difference is that I am empathetic, and concerned about other people's welfare, while you are callous and uncaring. Is this an accurate assessment?

One of the marks of a primitive, backward society, like the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea, is a total lack of concern for anyone except family and tribe. One of the marks of an advanced, civilised and progressive society is that its members are concerned about everyone.

I consider all people to be deserving, and all people should have the opportunity to receive the benefits of the 21st century advanced technology and high standard of living. You seem to divide people into the deserving rich and the undeserving poor. That is a horribly ignorant, uneducated, and callous viewpoint. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who try very hard, but cannot get beyond a point of relative poverty, due to circumstance or simply lack of talent, no matter how hard they try. Sometimes it is simple bad luck.

Your comments about bombing the 'living shit' out of anyone who fucks with you......

Did you even consider that the leaders of a nation, who may be utter fuckwits like Dubbya, are one thing, and the ordinary people something else? Perhaps the ordinary people did not do anything to deserve being bombed.

[MrJonno]

Not sure when 19% comes from the Libertarian times or something it its nearer 25-27% US ~ 38% UK and on average around 40% in the EU as whole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... age_of_GDP

That tax revenues take up 40 percent of the GDP of Europe is an abomination, and it just goes to prove why socialism doesn't work, and why all of Europe is going down the Socialist shitter.

No government should need 40 percent of the wealth of the nation to operate. That's just pure evil.

Hmm taxes set by a democratically elected government evil nah but tax evasion is treason through

[Seth]

Hmmm

Seth,
You think the difference between us is socialist versus capitalist. If your most recent post is an accurate indicator, the difference is that I am empathetic, and concerned about other people's welfare, while you are callous and uncaring. Is this an accurate assessment?

Not in the least. You are "empathic" with other people's money, which makes you something less than altruistic and charitable. You fail to explain why you believe that you, or "poor people" are entitled to take from others what they have worked for without their consent. I have not said that everyone who is not rich is undeserving of assistance from those who have more, I merely state that no one can take from another what that person has labored for without his consent or demand assistance by force as a right that others are obligated respect.

That's the principle of socialism that is the most evil and pernicious; that others must be forced to labor on your behalf in order to satisfy your needs which you claim as a obligation of the collective to fulfill.

One of the marks of a primitive, backward society, like the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea, is a total lack of concern for anyone except family and tribe. One of the marks of an advanced, civilised and progressive society is that its members are concerned about everyone.

The fallacy you construct here is the presumption that rich people are totally unconcerned with anyone but themselves. This is patently not true. As I've stated before, the wealth of the rich is not hoarded away under their mattresses, it's used to generate more wealth, which means its circulated in the economy where it builds businesses and products and provides meaningful and profitable employment for those who are willing to work. It also provides unlimited opportunity for those who have the drive to excel in the marketplace to fund good ideas which create even more wealth, products and jobs.

I consider all people to be deserving, and all people should have the opportunity to receive the benefits of the 21st century advanced technology and high standard of living. You seem to divide people into the deserving rich and the undeserving poor. That is a horribly ignorant, uneducated, and callous viewpoint. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who try very hard, but cannot get beyond a point of relative poverty, due to circumstance or simply lack of talent, no matter how hard they try. Sometimes it is simple bad luck.

There's a difference between the "deserving poor" who are poor and in need through no fault of their own and who are intent on improving their lot in life if given a hand up and the idle dependent class who expect others to labor on their behalf and claim the labor of others as their due. I make that distinction quite clearly. You choose to construct strawmen of your own to try to claim that this distinction does not exist and that I do not acknowledge it.

If you are in need, you may always come to me and humbly and politely ASK for my assistance, and I'm quite likely to do what I can to help. If you come to my door with a gun (even through the proxy of the tax collector) and DEMAND that I hand over the fruits of my labor to you in the amount you feel is your due, I will shoot you dead on the spot as a thief.

Socialists are not concerned with "the poor," they are concerned with "social justice" which is a code phrase for "if you have more than I do, I'm justified in taking it away from you by force because it's not fair for you to be better off than me, even if you worked harder than I did to get there."

All people are NOT deserving of the fruits of MY (or anyone else's) labor. They may be deserving of ordinary human respect, but that does not mean that others must take on the obligation of providing for them if they are unwilling (not unable) to provide for themselves. Others may CHOOSE to provide for them out of a sense of altruism, charity or rational self-interest, but no one has a right to demand that others support them in the style to which they would like to become accustomed. If they need help, and are deserving of it, then they must humble themselves and ask politely, not act like a street-corner thug demanding my wallet at the point of a knife.

My response to robbery, no matter who it's perpetrated by, is to use whatever force is required to prevent the crime.

But this does not mean that I, or "the rich" are uncaring, it means we are discriminating about who deserves our assistance and who does not.

Your comments about bombing the 'living shit' out of anyone who fucks with you......

Did you even consider that the leaders of a nation, who may be utter fuckwits like Dubbya, are one thing, and the ordinary people something else? Perhaps the ordinary people did not do anything to deserve being bombed.

Then they'd better get their leaders under control using whatever force is necessary, or suffer the consequences. The "ordinary people" of Germany and Japan deserved everything they got because they failed to control their leaders and maintain the peace. The people of Iran had damned well better control their leaders before we have to do it for them. If they don't, they will suffer the consequences of standing by while their leaders threaten the rest of the world, and justifiably so.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

[Rum]

I shudder when I read your nonsense sometimes Seth. You are so steeped in the American idea of personal wealth and commercialism that you can't seem to see that there is room for other ways of thinking about how the world is managed for us all collectively.

[MrJonno]

Nah libertarianism is just a parasitical cancer on society, goes on about people stealing their money but they somehow think they have a god given right to even live or work in a country.

You want to live and work in a country you pay rent (ie taxes) , don't want to live and work in a country time to find that island. And like any other form of rent you don't get to choose what that rent is only whether you want to stay around to pay it

[Seth]

I shudder when I read your nonsense sometimes Seth. You are so steeped in the American idea of personal wealth and commercialism that you can't seem to see that there is room for other ways of thinking about how the world is managed for us all collectively.

I have no problem with managing things collectively and I'm happy to pay my share of the benefits of government that I consume. I am not, however, willing to be FORCED to labor on behalf of those who choose to be parasites on the system. If I drive on a public road, I expect to pay for that privilege. If I use a public water system, I expect to pay for that use. If I require medical care, I expect to pay for it myself.

What I do not agree to is paying for YOUR use of the highways, water systems or medical care facilities. That's YOUR obligation, not mine. If you choose not to work and pay your own way, then you can starve to death in a ditch or die a painful death from cancer for all I care. I have no obligation to you. I don't know you and have not accepted financial responsibility for your well-being. You may not impose those obligations on me without my consent and you may not enslave me to your interests.

On the other hand, if you are a victim of circumstances BEYOND YOUR CONTROL and you need assistance, upon being politely asked for help, I will render what assistance I can voluntarily, because I'm a rational adult with a well-formed personality, something that the dependent class socialist leeches on society are not.

[Seth]

Nah libertarianism is just a parasitical cancer on society, goes on about people stealing their money but they somehow think they have a god given right to even live or work in a country.

You want to live and work in a country you pay rent (ie taxes) , don't want to live and work in a country time to find that island. And like any other form of rent you don't get to choose what that rent is only whether you want to stay around to pay it

I'm happy to pay MY OWN RENT. I'm not going to pay YOUR RENT just because you are a greedy, lazy socialist fuck. Go get a job and create some wealth or wither away and die. It's your choice.

But none of you socialist fucks are going to steal what is mine, what I have labored for, to suit your needs or desire for "fairness" in life. Life is not fair. Get used to it.

Adapt or die.

[Rum]

I shudder when I read your nonsense sometimes Seth. You are so steeped in the American idea of personal wealth and commercialism that you can't seem to see that there is room for other ways of thinking about how the world is managed for us all collectively.

I have no problem with managing things collectively and I'm happy to pay my share of the benefits of government that I consume. I am not, however, willing to be FORCED to labor on behalf of those who choose to be parasites on the system. If I drive on a public road, I expect to pay for that privilege. If I use a public water system, I expect to pay for that use. If I require medical care, I expect to pay for it myself.

What I do not agree to is paying for YOUR use of the highways, water systems or medical care facilities. That's YOUR obligation, not mine. If you choose not to work and pay your own way, then you can starve to death in a ditch or die a painful death from cancer for all I care. I have no obligation to you. I don't know you and have not accepted financial responsibility for your well-being. You may not impose those obligations on me without my consent and you may not enslave me to your interests.

On the other hand, if you are a victim of circumstances BEYOND YOUR CONTROL and you need assistance, upon being politely asked for help, I will render what assistance I can voluntarily, because I'm a rational adult with a well-formed personality, something that the dependent class socialist leeches on society are not.

Where I wonder does the 'beyond your control' bit kick in? When you fall sick, have an accident or slip a disk or are born with a disability? What about when the banks get greedy and spread dry rot in the foundations of your life and bingo - you are suddenly poor people? Or when a corporation moves its business to the Philippines to save on labour costs and your job and your neighbour's disappears and you don't have the education, background or knowledge to do much about it.?

There are lazy rich people and lazy poor people. There are the undeserving rich as well as the undeserving poor. People are creatures of their circumstances and while it is right to identify and get the lazy ones off their backsides, I would rather have a net that catches everyone than one that risks the most vulnerable falling through the gaps.

[MrJonno]

I'm happy to pay MY OWN RENT. I'm not going to pay YOUR RENT just because you are a greedy, lazy socialist fuck. Go get a job and create some wealth or wither away and die. It's your choice.

But none of you socialist fucks are going to steal what is mine, what I have labored for, to suit your needs or desire for "fairness" in life. Life is not fair. Get used to it.

Adapt or die.

As I said you are happy to pay what you think is a fair rent but you don't get to decide what a fair rent rent, the people do which you are just one very small part

[Pappa]

One of the marks of a primitive, backward society, like the stone age tribes of Papua New Guinea, is a total lack of concern for anyone except family and tribe. One of the marks of an advanced, civilised and progressive society is that its members are concerned about everyone.

I don't think you can back up those generalisations with facts.