So if the wealthy really do not want to be taxed

[Tumbulu]

in a way that supports a civil society, do the civil servants (police, fire, maintenance, etc) have the right to simply ignore them or reduce their protections? Shall the police departments stop responding to their calls? Or will they be unable to respond simply because there are not enough of them to do so?

In many countries in the world the richest people cannot travel as they are often held hostage for ransoms. Or they can only go to certain hotels or restaurants. Rich people here can freely go anywhere...do they want this to change?

Can we the 99% tell them in a clear way that our civilization depends on all of us participating in a civil manner? That obligation requires them to pay their share of taxes? Without all of us participating we have no civil society? That we cannot fund it ourselves alone?

I am not advocating threats, but I am suggesting clarity. If they won't pay to keep things civil in our society, we are unable to keep things civil. We do not have schools to educate children properly, libraries for them to go to, playgrounds, roads, police who are not overworked, judges who are subject to corruption, etc.

How do we communicate this reality?

[rfranklin]

1. They don't care...they hire their own "security"

and they are happy with that arrangement. Especially because the masses will receive no undeserved benefit from the expense.

[DCKit]

8. Still, if the roads and bridges fail, they're going to have to travel everywhere in helicopters. nt

[valerief]

2. America is so 20th century--all fracked up and full of asbestos. They're in Dubai now. nt

[saras]

17. That's what drones are for

[unblock]

3. wouldn't it be great if society said "to be rich is to be selfish" instead of

lauding them and admiring them and aspiring to be just like them?

wouldn't it be wonderful if people scorned and sneered at rich people?


SOME rich people MAY have contributed greatly to society in many ways, but ALL rich people are guilty of not sharing enough, one way or another.

[badtoworse]

6. That's a pretty broad brush. What do you consider "rich"?

[unblock]

9. if you're worried about the fine boundary between the rich and the rest, you've missed the point

i'm quite content to leave that a very blurry line.

[badtoworse]

14. I was just curious.

You are condemning anyone that has more than a certain level of assets and I was wondering what that level might be. To me, that smacks of envy.

I don't assign much value to stereotypes, either positive ones or negative ones. Rich people can be very generous and some are. The fact that they might still be rich after sharing does not warrant condemnation.

[unblock]

16. my point is that anyone who comes into a great deal of money most likely gave someone a raw deal.

if a performer makes millions for giving concerts, then i maintain that they either underpaid the roadies or overcharged the patrons, or both.

if a company posts a huge profit, i maintained that they underpaid suppliers, underpaid the government, underpaid the employees, overcharged their customers, or some combination of all of these.


saying i'm envious of the rich makes less sense than you realize. my hope is for a shift in social attitudes so that greed and selfishness is rewarded and that people with the means to help others are encouraged and celebrated for doing so and chided for hoarding instead.

[badtoworse]

18. I could understand envy, but this is just plain ridiculous.

You are saying that no one can offer a product or service that has sufficient intrinsic value to make them wealthy. Talented ball players that fill the stadiums get rich and they make money for the team's owners, plus a lot of other people that work for the team or at the stadium have jobs because people came to see those players. A league MVP is worth a lot more than a marginal player barely hitting .200 and teams compete to sign the best talent (that means they pay big bucks). What's wrong with that? You can draw the same analogy in films, music and in the business world. Highly talented people are worth a lot more in terms of the value of their services than people who are marginal or poor at doing the same thing. They're not entitled to be compensated accordingly? Suppliers can't charge a market price? How would determine the value of goods and services other than by what people are willing to pay for them?

Look at it from the other perspective. Consider a stage hand at a Springsteen concert that filled Giants Stadium and made a pile of money and compare it to a stage hand for some no name group that only made 10% of what the Boss made. Both stagehands do the same work and got paid about the same. The guy at the Springsteen concert got screwed? No way - they both did the same work.

How about patents? Someone has an idea, patents it and makes millions in royalties - who's he screwing?

Rich people should definitely help the less fortunate and many rich people do. You seem to be saying that rich people should share their wealth to the point that they are not rich anymore. If they don't, they should be condemned. That is nonsense. You're implying that striving to obtain the means to live a more comfortable life (in other words a rich life style) is wrong and that we should all just be happy with some meager existence is also nonsense. You can be rich and generous at the same time.

[unblock]

23. that's a rather more extreme view than i hold.

i'm not saying that it's theoretically impossible for someone to actually earn a justifiable greater wealth than others.
i'm just saying that the system we have takes a vastly over-rewards such contributions.

and in your example, no, the the stagehands did not do the same work because any mistake they made mattered more when springsteen was on stage. patents are the very definition of not sharing. inventors deserve something, quite possibly a lot. but patents our current system puts patent holders in a monopolistic position, capable of extracting economically unfair rents. it is argued that that's the reward for generating (or buying) a patent. my point is that giving an unfair edge to a deserving person is still unfair. an inventor should get a just reward for invention, not an outsized and unjust reward.

this is just a simple variant on a common du theme about rich people earning compensation completely out of whack with their actual contribution, such as ceos earning several hundred times what some fellow employees make.

[Tumbulu]

21. If this assault on the middle class continues much longer, then this

will be the case and they will no longer be safe in this country.

I had a distant relative who was a self made millionaire during the depression. She paid over 90% of her income in taxes. She did not exploit anyone- she was a sales rep and fabulous at it. She paid for the roads we drive on around here and for all sorts of things. Making money is not a crime, hoarding it is. Equating greed with good is what got us into this mess in my book.

[Vincardog]

4. Funny the majority of millionaires want to pay more taxes. They do not want to be rich in a poor

country. The GOP refuses to tax the uber rich.

[Tumbulu]

20. This is what I suspect and so how do these people

take back the conversation? How do we stop vilifying each other and get back to civility?

[Vincardog]

24. When a true believer starts to lie (This is usually when their lips start moving) LAUGH at them

[badtoworse]

5. The argument is over what constitutes "fair"

Even on DU, there is a broad spectrum of opinion.

[TBF]

11. Only because we're infested with trolls. nt

[deaniac21]

7. Vote

[TBF]

10. What makes you think he doesn't.

:shrug:

[Nye Bevan]

12. I don't think police protection should depend upon the amount of taxes you pay (nt)

[darth marth]

13. limbaugh actually said he thinks we should all pay NO TAX FOR A YEAR! This is their brilliant mind?

Who the hell do they think is going to pay for the wars, homeland security, TSA, illegal spying and all the bullshit they want?


NO TAX...and just see what happens....that is the rights idea for fixing the deficit.

Which begs the question...does logic no longer have meaning?

[MedleyMisty]

15. Logic has no meaning in a fascist totalitarian system

[sam11111]

19. a bit of history

(graph is from Wikipedia, on page linked here about 90% of the way down)
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States

The Top Tax Rate - ( its history )

As a table it is --


From www.progressinaction.com

[Tumbulu]

22. Thanks for posing this (nt)

[sam11111]

25. any time. PS what does tumbulu mean?

[Tumbulu]

26. it is a name given

to Mandinka (perhaps other people as well in West Africa) babies after a mother has had three of her babies die at or around birth. It translates to something like "stay in my arms do not fly away".

You posted great graphs, thanks so much.