Topic: Why do higher taxes on the rich historically correlate to higher economic growth - page 3. (Read 7827 times)

Never?  Really?  So you would have taxpayers pay $1T to save someone's life?  100 lives later, and you've increase the national debt to 7 times what it is now, forever indebting your descendents to live a life of slavery in vain attempt to pay off said debt?  And somehow, that is ok with you?

Individual instances do not add much, but unpaid healthcare costs as a whole are a huge burden on society.  The general attitude seems to be that every life is priceless, and everyone should be forced, via taxes or increased healthcare costs, to pay these priceless prices, but I think that is an inappropriate way to look at it.  There are other concerns at play, such as opportunity cost and quality of life.  Some procedures or series of procedures or ongoing health care can cost millions of dollars.  Most people won't make more than a million dollars (present value) in their lifetime.  And how many lives could be saved in third-world countries with the money spent on one procedure here in the US?  Is it appropriate for us to deem the lives of our countrymen that much more valuable than the lives of other people around the world?

If government is forcing us to "help" people in the way that they deem appropriate, then we have less funds available to help people the way we see fit, which, in some cases, might include saving a hundred lives of people in a third world country instead of one life in the US.  Why does the government get to make such a judgement call on an issue of morality like this?

never

But you are missing the point. With todays level of technology that sum is so marginal that it doesn't affect society more than random fluctuations in the market.
It truly is negligible.

I think you need to answer this question:

How much is a person's life worth?  If you could use $5 of taxpayer (or people who pay for healthcare) money to do it, would you?  $10?  $1,000?  $1M?  $1B?  $1T?

At what point is the drain on society as a whole too much to bear to save a single life?

Because you can take more from people who are doing better without them removing your insides.

Moreover, these people now gain working experience and pull society to a higher overall level of productivity.

Wrong, you think if your boss is making 50k a month profit, and he gave 4k extra in taxes, it will hurt your paycheck? Probably not.

The more money you tax, the more government jobs can be made, which in turn makes more jobs because those government workers are standing in line at walmart in turn making walmart hire more people, which in turn makes more tax revenue for the government as each get paid and taxed, then taxed when they spend their pay.

Well, the problem is that you say these things standing on the shoulders of society.
A lot of people that you don't care about helped the world get to this place.
Most charities are there to help wealthy people get rid of their guilt and are actually artrociously inefficient.

In our current society noone has to die because they are a burden. There is enough room to take care of these people.

The point is also that the world economy turned for the better when we started to take care of people as an integral part of society.
As i said before, we are social animals so once you start this kind of stratification there is no end.
Paris Hilton would propably shit on your head whenever she felt like because, you know, she is clearly the better human because she is in a better position than you. What would be her motivation to not put a bullet in your sorry head for not being as successfull in society as her?
So you have to realise that there are even greater assholes than you and they would think the same way about you as you about the people you want to leave for dead.

Fortunately this is not how most people think and actually most people realize we need each other. Economy is highly connected.
But what's even more crucial is that genetics are highly connected.
The whole pure genes/perfect human thing is a myth.
In our daily life we as a species completely fail at judging people on this level of connectedness altho it plays a major role in social dynamics.

If you want to look at humanity strictly as a tool for creating an economy then you can swap them out like light bulbs. But that is a groce oversimplification as the economy has a lot of symbiotic caracteristics that can only happen in these highly connected meshes of social relations.
A single idea from a disabled person can start a whole industry.

So the very least i can say is that things are not so simple that you can just say "let them die".
Of course you can have your opinion but i'm just telling you that it is not a healthy one for society.
What do you think will happen to the mental health of people that are for some reason near to the survival barrier? They will live under constant stress and think about their survival all the time. These people will have a much harder time participating in society because of the angst that may not have any food the next day.

'let them die' is just a very crude and uneducated opinion.

Income tax != savings tax.

And I have no idea what you were trying to say with your second paragraph.

Because I don't think the state has any business issuing money, or supplying money or even have information on the amount of money I own. The system I am proposing would even work with bitcoin, see the colored coins concept.

To be honest I'm not fond of the idea of tying it to the accumulated wealth (not income, but it is affected), I find the system where only consumption is taxed by the amount over time as of demising returns much more beautiful.

And why shouldn't savings be taxed?

Because savings shouldn't be taxed, at least not on an individual basis. This happens with inflation or demurrage, or in case of bitcoin: NONE!

I don't understand... how would you tax people on sales based on income levels?  That doesn't make any sense... why not just tax them based on income levels to begin with?

I don't see how society depends on taking care of EVERYONE.  Please elaborate.

You misunderstand me.

I do not believe individuals should be FORCED to help other individuals.  I believe they should do it out of the kindness of their heart.  I make donations to local organizations and give to individuals to help them out.  Especially if a family member or friend needs some help, I give it to them.  I make donations to charities that help people in other countries too.

But I do NOT believe in using tax dollars to "help" people.  It should be voluntary.  And yes, some people need to die off to avoid being too much of a burden on the people.  I'm not trying to be an asshole, that's just reality.

Let me ask you this - how much is it worth paying, out of taxpayer dollars, to save a person's life?  $5?  $10?  $1,000?  $1M?  $100M?  Think about it...

Again I suggested taxing wealthy people higher than the middle class and a negative tax for the poor. The extent could be governed by either by the amount of total consumption (including employing people and what is now usually written of as "investment") or the accumulative wealth (just add).
And only because rich people consume less of their total wealth doesn't mean they aren't still the biggest consumers per person, either way they would still pay the highest taxes in absolute value. And wealth can only be expressed by consumption, if not it's just money.

The reason why I am so argumentative about this is that is a simple system which allows for a reduction of bureaucracy otherwise not archive able.