But having that in a house isn't the same as having it as a yearly income. Having it in a house wouldn't put someone in the top tax bracket. Having it as a yearly income would.
Here's a term for those making $250k. HENRYs - High Earner Not Rich Yet. Interesting article I read on CNN. http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/24/magazines/fortune/tully_henrys.fortune/index.htm
Good job at completely ignoring the substance of my post. I never said that there was not income disparity (not that striving to succeed is a bad thing). I said that due to the middle class playing the market online, I am not sure that a stock transaction tax is a good idea. In 1964 the stock market may have been the wealthy man's Vegas, but it is far from that today. That is why a stock transaction tax made more sense in 1964 than it does today. You should probably read my post and think about what I am really saying before spitting out a crapload of graphs and charts to refute something that wasn't even my point.
This ignores the question of what they sacrificed to be in the position to make that kind of money. If I am taxed as an attorney at a rate that makes my take home equivalent to what it would have been had I never gone to law school, what incentive is there to make the sacrifices to go to law school?
Who gets to decide how much is too much? You? Me? Also, it isn't a gimmie situation. The people making that money are earning it. All this time I thought that America was about working hard and enjoying the fruits of your labor. Silly me.
When you said that, do you not imply that people making $30k a year don't? If both work hard, why do you think one makes more than the other?
I guess I should have directed my question at you. Do you think the people who make $30k a year do not work hard? If they work hard, why can't they enjoy lives as well?
They can, but not by bringing someone else down. I make a little over $30k/yr, and life isn't so bad. I certainly don't understand why my mother should get taxed more in order for me to get more back than I paid in last year. It seems really unfair to me, considering I know what kind of work she had to get there. I'm not jealous of the people making $250,000. I'm damn lucky to have a job I enjoy, and I hope one day I can make more money, and live a more comfortable life, but if it never happens, that is ok too.
I read glynch's original post and I didn't care much either way. I'm a small time stock market value investor that really doesn't trade that much. I think that day traders usually pay more stupid tax than the government could ever take from them, and this will discourage that, and hurt discount brokers more than anyone else. But since the thread has moved to a discussion on taxes in general, I want to make a point. The more progressive an income tax system is, though it does equal out income disparities some by discouraging some productivity, it doesn't do as well for revenue. The Laffer curve is real, even if it is hard to predict. The peak of the Laffer curve is different for different societies. Traditionally in the US, it's been between 25 and 30%, though now that we've been conditioned to bigger government and higher taxes, it might be somewhat higher. In more communal Northern European countries, which have had fewer property rights protections and more governmental security blankets for a long-time, it's closer to 40%. In Ireland, it might be 15%, I don't know. Specifically, though, a wealthy person can choose to lower his or her income and standard of living voluntarily in response to taxation. That may or may not be wise, but it is possible, and it happens in enough numbers to see a measurable effect. If you raise taxes on the wealthy by 4%, you might not see many of them leave or work less, but if you did by 15%, you certainly would. Middle class and especially poor people don't have that luxury. In fact, for someone who's barely scraping by, raising taxes necessarily would have the opposite effect. If I need $12000 to survive, I make $12000, and the government takes $1000, unless they give me back $1000 worth of necessities, I'd have to make up the $1000 somehow. For most of the poor, that's more work. Raising taxes or taking away payments to the poor could theoretically increase productivity some. I think that's immoral, but it could work. People talk about European welfare states and how progressive their taxes are, but the middle class is also taxed much higher in most of those countries, whether through income tax or increasingly commonly, Value-added taxes, and other less-transparent taxes. I went through that entire ramble to get to this point: When we pay for our outlandish spending of the past decade and even more outlandish current spending, and if we go the route, the spending for universal Pre-K, universal healthcare, universal community service, etc., the middle-class will pay for it. The 40% of people who don't pay taxes now will shrink to a much smaller percentage. Those who pay 10-20% of their income in taxes will see their tax bill go up a lot. Taxes on the rich will be raised in the name of fairness, but the increased revenue will come from working-class families.
Who said anything about bringing someone else down? Do you think some of these people are going to suffer if they only have 2 houses instead of 3, 4? I don't know how hard you work compared to your mom so I can't comment on that. I do know many who work very hard and can't make ends meet. For someone to work very hard and make $250k is not wrong but when you have people making 10, 20, 50 times another person, I start seeing something wrong in that concept. They used to make the argument that those high paying guys create jobs for the rest of us. That is not so true any more now, is it? They do just as well to lose jobs for the rest of us!
My son and I both work and I believe that we both work very hard. Both of our jobs are important to our respective companies. I make a lot more money than he does. Is that fair? You're darn right it's fair. I have been in the workforce for 30+ years and he has been in the workforce around 4 years.
There is nothing wrong with making more than someone else in my opinion. Somebody decided that was their value. If you don't walmart to make billions, help by not shopping at walmart. If you don't want to help make Bill Gates richer, don't buy Microsoft products. If you are hard working enough, and you are moderately intelligent, you will make a living in this country. You may not live the life you want, but you will be able to eat, and have a roof over your head.
And if your salary will still be more than his even if you pay the 3% more this year than last year. Nobody is saying that everyone needs to make the same salary.
There is nothing wrong to make more money if they earn it. The trouble is the environment we are in. We all want to pay less. The big guys like Walmart can sell for less because they squeeze the little guys, their producers. I say we creat the enviroment that Walmart succeed in, we should earn that. Bill Gates has us all by the balls. He is another example of a benificiary of the society/ economy we create. Sometimes it's true. Sometimes I feel for the people who work so hard for so little.
Not as much as he used to, but at least he's a nice guy. For that matter so was Sam Walton. What I really want is a special 95% tax rate for Mark Cuban.
