Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Dolan »

What you're saying about upward mobility is all the more true in the USA, I think, where money are sloshing around in the economy. If you have even some basic education and show a passion for something you can get pretty far in the USA.

Maybe it's anecdotal, I know, but I know people from the USA who are making $10000 (not sure if after taxes) per month, even though they didn't even finish high school. Another guy from the USA started his own small business with the help of his girlfriend's dad, who was a teacher. He made a software platform for testing students and tracking their progress and sold it as a service to different schools. You know, just a guy who learned programming as a hobby, he didn't even have a CS degree.

And yet, we keep hearing this never-ending whining about how the poor can't do anything to improve their standing.

Some people are unable to make the right decisions even when fate lands them a small fortune. That's how my sister is. She was bequeathed a flat by someone who had no children, she sold it and got a pretty penny for it, because it was located in the capital. Then she bought a ramshackle house in the country, in a not-so-great area. She had to invest a lot of money into fixing and furnishing that house and now, after she lived some years there, she wants to sell it, but nobody wants to buy. She used the extra cash from the sold apartment to buy a piece of land in a hilly, green area in another county, quite far from her place. When she bought that plot of land, prices were still high, then when the real estate crisis hit, she lost almost 1/3 of the value of that land. Now she clings to a high asking price, even though nobody wants to buy, just because she is hoping to recover at least as much as she invested. Meantime she has to pay taxes on that land. So, money are basically stuck in an asset that doesn't produce anything and which incurs some yearly costs. I told her "you could have made at least 30% from just accrued interest, if you just kept them in a deposit all these years". And to top it all, she has an economics degree. Image

Some people are just unable to manage their finances and property even when it drops on them from the sky. And leftists want the state to simply land them some extra money via redistribution, because that'll fix everything. So clueless. It's actually people who lack economic education who talk about redistribution, usually. They think the world can work according to their flying unicorns narrative, even though they never managed even 10 people in a team or had a budget of 100k bucks. Let alone manage a country's economy or draw up policies for it.
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Goodspeed »

Anecdotal. Honestly I didn't even read the paragraph after that word, it should be obvious to anyone that anecdotal evidence means exactly nothing here (or anywhere, for that matter). Please try to look at the big picture. It's not that upward mobility is impossible in the US, it's that there is not enough opportunity for it. It's much harder for people born into poverty to succeed in their career than it is for someone born into wealth. It's insufficiently a function of merit, as opposed to means.

You may be making the mistake of only looking only at the upper end of the IQ spectrum. Motivated, highly intelligent people don't need financial means to make it. That's where you'd get your anecdotes. But it is in the bulk of people, the ones with average or lower intelligence, that we notice the biggest difference. They are much less likely to succeed than their rich counterparts. Too much less.
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Nauru Dolan
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

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And you got to this conclusion based on which data?
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Goodspeed »

Reality.

Or by observing American society with the knowledge of how much better it could be. We need not look far for examples.
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Netherlands Goodspeed
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Goodspeed »

If you want numbers, I don't have any. The internet might.
You could watch the Wire, I think it does a great job of illustrating how the system has a tendency to leave people who are born in the wrong place behind. And as one of the best TV shows in history, it's very entertaining, too. Win-win.
Season 4 is specifically about education.
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Norway spanky4ever
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by spanky4ever »

Dolan wrote:And you got to this conclusion based on which data?

cannot help myself, I have to show this Ted talk once more ;) If you are born poor, you should be born in Scandinavia :P the place of the most millionaires per capita, with the least inequality, and the highest social mobility to :shock:
https://youtu.be/A9UmdY0E8hU

true story, and not anecdotal btw :ear:
Harald Eia is educated with a major in sociology, with studies in mathematics, philosophy bachelor, computing. He is a very famous comedian and TV host in Norway.
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Canada Jam
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Jam »


Babies don't contribute anything to society, they just get handouts from mommy and daddy and don't even want to do chores! Then they grow up and get handouts from the government and don't even want to work! Trade one teat for another.

#notyourwomb

I am very serious.
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Norway spanky4ever
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by spanky4ever »

If you have stocks, get out NOW
There is eco down all over the globe. and the sugar rush is going for a downfall.

https://youtu.be/14yjDUt-aJY
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Great Britain Horsemen
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Horsemen »

iwillspankyou wrote:If you have stocks, get out NOW
There is eco down all over the globe. and the sugar rush is going for a downfall.

https://youtu.be/14yjDUt-aJY
If I sell now, how do I know when to buy again?
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Norway spanky4ever
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by spanky4ever »

Horsemen wrote:
iwillspankyou wrote:If you have stocks, get out NOW
There is eco down all over the globe. and the sugar rush is going for a downfall.

https://youtu.be/14yjDUt-aJY
If I sell now, how do I know when to buy again?

that is the big question ;) But looking at the world eco for the few last months, there is concerns that we are in for a downturn. PPL just do not spend that much money these days. So retail is going down almost everywhere in the Western eco. Now, I could be wrong, that stocks is not heading for a showdown, but I would not bet on it. It would be no wonder, if the orangoutang in the White House, managed to crash the eco, once more.. Grow some veggies :devil:
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Great Britain Horsemen
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by Horsemen »

iwillspankyou wrote:
Horsemen wrote:
iwillspankyou wrote:If you have stocks, get out NOW
There is eco down all over the globe. and the sugar rush is going for a downfall.

https://youtu.be/14yjDUt-aJY
If I sell now, how do I know when to buy again?

that is the big question ;) But looking at the world eco for the few last months, there is concerns that we are in for a downturn. PPL just do not spend that much money these days. So retail is going down almost everywhere in the Western eco. Now, I could be wrong, that stocks is not heading for a showdown, but I would not bet on it. It would be no wonder, if the orangoutang in the White House, managed to crash the eco, once more.. Grow some veggies :devil:
I’m taking out some puts, if my account starts tanking I’m blaming you.
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Norway spanky4ever
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Re: Taxing wealthy vs economic growth

Post by spanky4ever »

@Horsemen when Trump says, its the hottest eco in the world, you should be scared imo. Hot is not good when it comes to the economy. Calm, stable and predictable is what business really needs. The companies debt are HUGE now, because of cheap interest rates, for a very long time (9 trillion in the USA alone). It will not take much, for the house of card, to come tumbling down I fear. So, a little slow down in purchasing/retail is bad news. On the other hand, ppl need to spend less on things they throw out next year, cos we really cannot keep up our spending, if we are to have a sustainable ecology.

Redistributing wealth, so ppl have more purchasing power, could help the economy, but not really helping the ecology. It's complicated ;)
Hippocrits are the worst of animals. I love elifants.

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