[OT]America. The land of the not-so-free (economy)

Fred puissante at biz.puissante.com
Sat Jan 8 16:48:00 EST 2005


On Sat, 2005-01-08 at 11:52 -0500, Randy Edwards wrote:
>  >  About 4% of Americans have $1M in net worth, only a
>  > fraction of a percent have $2M.
> 
>    This is interesting.  In a previous post I noted that if we kept the estate 
> tax (the so-called death tax), we could fund social security out past the end 
> of the century.
> 
>    The estate tax impacts only people with more than $1M.
> 
>    Thus we can say the administration wants to sacrifice the gov'ts most 
> popular social program, one that benefits tens of millions of people, all to 
> save money for the wealthiest 4% of the population so that those rich people 
> can pass unearned wealth to others.

You make it sound as though it's a bad thing to be "rich".

Unearned Wealth? Somebody had to earn it.

If my estate were worth $2 million, built my decades of my own blood,
sweat, and tears, you mean to tell me I don't have a right to give
*every penny* to my kids? That the government has a right to rob my
family of its wealth that was earned at the sweat of my -- well, brain,
I guess -- to *others* that did nothing for it, to *others* that are
strangers to me? To the big collective where it's not clear at all where
the money goes? Or perhaps it goes to help pay off the government's
interest on the debt it never keeps in check because it wants to keep
Pax Americana going strong?

>    A gov't "for the people" -- which class of people?

Oh, so now it becomes a "class war". I would become "the other" simply
by virtue of having worked hard to earn some wealth. And my kids, who
had to live through my BS&T period with all the attendant sacrifices and
what not now does not get to reap the full rewards?

Keep in mind that I would've *already* been taxed getting that wealth,
and so now yet another tax is levied on already tax income.

Let's do the math:

I pay 40% in taxes on the wealth I build over the many years.

Then I die.

Then estate taxes chop another 50% out of what remains.

That means that a whopping 70% of my blood, sweat, and tears went to the
government, stolen from me and my heirs. 

Now, boys and girls, what is left over from $2 million after the 70%
bite? $600,000.

Now, can someone please tell me why a 70% tax is OK? And what incentives
I would have to create valuable services, goods, etc. *for the
community* knowing that 70% of my efforts will just be ripped away from
me by the end? I may as well not even bother.

Most people in the $2 million level of "wealth" (I still consider that
peanuts -- lets talk when it gets above $100 million) got there because
someone valued their service or ideas that much. Take away the
incentives to "become rich", and what will you have? Far fewer
innovations, far fewer ideas, far fewer products. A decline in
productivity, only to be snatched up by other countries around the
world.

Gee, isn't this happening already? And now you know why. Well, not the
whole story, but still. You just can't win with taxes. The more you tax,
the less incentives there will be to produce and innovate. The less
wealth there will be, and the less there will be to tax anyway.

Some of our bigger cities have been hit by this head-on for some time
now, yet refuse to learn the lesson. And now the whole country is due
for a wake-up call.

It just incenses me to hear about all the cool high-tech consumer items
in Japan that will never reach our shores. Or reach it years later after
they become obsolete in Japan. And not just Japan, but elsewhere in Asia
and even in Europe. I saw the first plasma TVs in England back in 1999
-- you could barely find any here. Here, in the States, everyone has
their collective thumbs up their -- where the sun never shines -- and
just don't get it.

-Fred





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