Morality of Wealth Redistribution

[Ernie S.]

Capitalists also understand that competition drives profits down so they create various types of monopolies to eliminate competition. Government then comes in with laws to restore competition and corporations create new ways to eliminate competition, and it becomes a continuous game.

Yeah. "Government comes in with laws to restore competition." Like with health care, right?

Yep, government comes in when capitalists will furnish the basics of life only for profit and some Americans cannot afford those basics of life. That concept has been a responsibility of governments since the Constitution was ratified.

It is not my (or government's) responsibility to provide you with the basics of life. That is on you. If you can't handle your responsibilities, you are an irresponsible person.

 

[Ernie S.]

You're not very good with math, are you?

Exxon, for example, made only seven cents per gallon of gasoline in 2011. That's a drop in the bucket compared to the nearly 50 cents per gallon that federal, state and local governments rake in on an average gallon of gas pumped in the U.S.​

Here in the real world, where people understand math, 7 cents is less than 50 cents.

Actually, between California state gasoline tax and federal fuel tax, she is paying about 88 cents/gallon. Knowing boedicca, I believe she worded the second part wrong and meant that the gubmint's slice of the pie was much larger than Exxon's.

Which roads and bridges does Exxon pay for?

Did I say they paid for any? Thee people who purchase their product pay for roads and bridges. Do you have a point?

 

[HenryBHough]

Personal responsibility:

A quaint, antiquated concept now displaced by government largess.

After all, it is well known that when people are allowed to vote themselves largess they will and will continue so to do until there is nothing left to steal from others. At which time the will turn on those in government at the time and there will be beheadings.

Are we there yet, Mommy?

 

[dnsmith35]

Capitalists also understand that competition drives profits down so they create various types of monopolies to eliminate competition. Government then comes in with laws to restore competition and corporations create new ways to eliminate competition, and it becomes a continuous game.

Yeah. "Government comes in with laws to restore competition." Like with health care, right?

There was no healthcare competition. Republicans backed the AMA lowering admissions to med schools to increase doctors profits, protected drug companies from foreign competition to increase profits & used mccarran ferguson act to protect insurance companies from interstate competition & allowed insurance price fixing & racketeering free from federal law. Corrupt government protects profits of it's corporate sponsors from competition.

Both parties allied with the AMA for that purpose. Even as a liberal and a democrat I understand the reality that it is not all the GOP doing things against the interests of the average American.

 

[Dad2three]

Actually, between California state gasoline tax and federal fuel tax, she is paying about 88 cents/gallon. Knowing boedicca, I believe she worded the second part wrong and meant that the gubmint's slice of the pie was much larger than Exxon's.

Which roads and bridges does Exxon pay for?

I suspect their huge income tax bill paid for many roads. Are you too stupid to realize that?

Weird, I thought gas taxes (according to conservatives) pay for that? But no, their taxes go to the military to keep stability in the world to keep their oil costs high and profits even higher!

 

[Dad2three]

I'll never understand how left can say it is moral to forcibly take money from one person to give to another.

Called a SOCIETY. Don't like it?

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, American diplomat, statesman, and scientist; letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783:

"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

 

[Dad2three]

What is quite apparent is, dad2three is actually a mindless mechanical repeater who parrots the lies left wing extremist sites tells him to say. We are trying to educate a bunch of cogs and wheels which cannot think. He is a brainless rube.

Says a Klown who believes in myths and fairy tales like Ayn Rands fables. Weird libertarians don't have ONE successful state or nation to EVER point tto that used their crap. (NO the US never did, from day one we used HEAVY protectionists policy)...

 

[alan1]

Capitalists also understand that competition drives profits down so they create various types of monopolies to eliminate competition. Government then comes in with laws to restore competition and corporations create new ways to eliminate competition, and it becomes a continuous game.

[MENTION=35264]regent[/MENTION]
Name a current private sector monopoly.
Or better yet, name a private sector monopoly from each of the last four decades.

There are always number of cases always going on under the Sherman or Clayton Acts. Microsoft got burned, Kodak and AT& T.
Is a business a monopoly until so declared a monopoly by the Court? In our small city the hospital is now in court bit being accused of violating the law. But is being accused different than being found guilty?

It most certainly should be.
Hopefully you will never get accused of rape and think accusation and conviction are the same thing for the innocent man.

 

[Dad2three]

Actually, between California state gasoline tax and federal fuel tax, she is paying about 88 cents/gallon. Knowing boedicca, I believe she worded the second part wrong and meant that the gubmint's slice of the pie was much larger than Exxon's.

Which roads and bridges does Exxon pay for?

Did I say they paid for any? Thee people who purchase their product pay for roads and bridges. Do you have a point?

You don't understand the context of the question. Got it

 

[Dad2three]

Yeah. "Government comes in with laws to restore competition." Like with health care, right?

There was no healthcare competition. Republicans backed the AMA lowering admissions to med schools to increase doctors profits, protected drug companies from foreign competition to increase profits & used mccarran ferguson act to protect insurance companies from interstate competition & allowed insurance price fixing & racketeering free from federal law. Corrupt government protects profits of it's corporate sponsors from competition.

Both parties allied with the AMA for that purpose. Even as a liberal and a democrat I understand the reality that it is not all the GOP doing things against the interests of the average American.

"Even as a liberal and a democrat "

lol, You made me choke on my snapple

 

[sealybobo]

What's your opinion on the morality of taking money from those who earned it and giving it to people who haven't? Not talking about people who cannot earn their own money but rather those who choose not to. And can you recommend any books or writings on the subject?

Seems to me basic self worth is at least in part a reflection on your independence. Or at least contributing something, your own labor or time to your family or community. This country does not like freeloaders, and while there is a certain amount of leeway in tough times like we're in now, at some point opinions change.

So are we morally right to redistribute somebody else's wealth or deny people support in an effort to incentivize them to be more productive members of society?

There is a such thing as being too rich for Democracy so at some point we came up with cutting the mega rich's fortunes in half upon their death's. That way their kids still get half a fortune and the government/people get their half.

Article: How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy? | OpEdNews

But the rich have fought back and they got rid of the death tax. I don't know where it stands now but with our debt we could use half of Bill Gates fortune when he dies.

Or that guy who owns the Clippers. We should get half of the $2 billion he got from the sale of the Clippers. And he probably already paid $1 billion in taxes so his kids can have half a billion the state gets the rest.

Please don't cry for them. They'll be just fine. And if they don't pay then the poor and middle class have to pay. That's not right, fair and it doesn't work.

 

[bripat9643]

What's your opinion on the morality of taking money from those who earned it and giving it to people who haven't? Not talking about people who cannot earn their own money but rather those who choose not to. And can you recommend any books or writings on the subject?

Seems to me basic self worth is at least in part a reflection on your independence. Or at least contributing something, your own labor or time to your family or community. This country does not like freeloaders, and while there is a certain amount of leeway in tough times like we're in now, at some point opinions change.

So are we morally right to redistribute somebody else's wealth or deny people support in an effort to incentivize them to be more productive members of society?

There is a such thing as being too rich for Democracy so at some point we came up with cutting the mega rich's fortunes in half upon their death's. That way their kids still get half a fortune and the government/people get their half.

Article: How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy? | OpEdNews

But the rich have fought back and they got rid of the death tax. I don't know where it stands now but with our debt we could use half of Bill Gates fortune when he dies.

Or that guy who owns the Clippers. We should get half of the $2 billion he got from the sale of the Clippers. And he probably already paid $1 billion in taxes so his kids can have half a billion the state gets the rest.

Please don't cry for them. They'll be just fine. And if they don't pay then the poor and middle class have to pay. That's not right, fair and it doesn't work.

That's a good reason to abolish democracy, not to loot the wealthy.

Note that you haven't posted a single reason why the government should be entitled to a single cent of Bill Gates' fortune.

What is "fair" about taking half of everything someone spent all his life earning?

 

[bripat9643]

Capitalists also understand that competition drives profits down so they create various types of monopolies to eliminate competition. Government then comes in with laws to restore competition and corporations create new ways to eliminate competition, and it becomes a continuous game.

[MENTION=35264]regent[/MENTION]
Name a current private sector monopoly.
Or better yet, name a private sector monopoly from each of the last four decades.

There are always number of cases always going on under the Sherman or Clayton Acts. Microsoft got burned, Kodak and AT& T.

Corporations file antitrust lawsuits against their competitors because it's easier than producing a better product. It has nothing to do with any inherent merits of the case.

Is a business a monopoly until so declared a monopoly by the Court? In our small city the hospital is now in court bit being accused of violating the law. But is being accused different than being found guilty?

The only monopolies in this country are government protected. They are creations of the government. So as long as competitors are free to enter a market, there is no monopoly.

 

[bripat9643]

I'll never understand how left can say it is moral to forcibly take money from one person to give to another.

Called a SOCIETY. Don't like it?

No, it's called government. Society and government are two separate things.

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, American diplomat, statesman, and scientist; letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783:

"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

Appeal to authority. I've already explained that it's a logical fallacy.

 

[dblack]

Here's something I don't think most 'redistributers' really think about. Unless the rich person in question has acquired their wealth via theft or fraud (in which case they should be locked up), they got their wealth because people wanted them to have it. What we're really saying when we claim wealth needs redistributing is that all the people that gave the wealthy their money are "doing it wrong", and their decisions need to be overridden by the state.

 

[bripat9643]

Which roads and bridges does Exxon pay for?

I suspect their huge income tax bill paid for many roads. Are you too stupid to realize that?

Weird, I thought gas taxes (according to conservatives) pay for that? But no, their taxes go to the military to keep stability in the world to keep their oil costs high and profits even higher!

Your theory that only oil companies need the military and stability in the world more than anyone else is absurd on its face.

 

[bripat9643]

Here's something I don't think most 'redistributers' really think about. Unless the rich person in question has acquired their wealth via theft or fraud (in which case they should be locked up), they got their wealth because people wanted them to have it. What we're really saying when we claim wealth needs redistributing is that all the people that gave the wealthy their money are "doing it wrong", and their decisions need to be overridden by the state.

The looters don't even try to justify their robbery. They proceed as if it's an axiom of nature that they have the right to take what you've earned.

 

[Dad2three]

What's your opinion on the morality of taking money from those who earned it and giving it to people who haven't? Not talking about people who cannot earn their own money but rather those who choose not to. And can you recommend any books or writings on the subject?

Seems to me basic self worth is at least in part a reflection on your independence. Or at least contributing something, your own labor or time to your family or community. This country does not like freeloaders, and while there is a certain amount of leeway in tough times like we're in now, at some point opinions change.

So are we morally right to redistribute somebody else's wealth or deny people support in an effort to incentivize them to be more productive members of society?

There is a such thing as being too rich for Democracy so at some point we came up with cutting the mega rich's fortunes in half upon their death's. That way their kids still get half a fortune and the government/people get their half.

Article: How Rich is Too Rich For Democracy? | OpEdNews

But the rich have fought back and they got rid of the death tax. I don't know where it stands now but with our debt we could use half of Bill Gates fortune when he dies.

Or that guy who owns the Clippers. We should get half of the $2 billion he got from the sale of the Clippers. And he probably already paid $1 billion in taxes so his kids can have half a billion the state gets the rest.

Please don't cry for them. They'll be just fine. And if they don't pay then the poor and middle class have to pay. That's not right, fair and it doesn't work.

That's a good reason to abolish democracy, not to loot the wealthy.

Note that you haven't posted a single reason why the government should be entitled to a single cent of Bill Gates' fortune.

What is "fair" of taking half of everything someone spent all his life earning?

Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and other fellow travelers
If there was one thing the Revolutionary generation agreed on — and those guys who dress up like them at Tea Party conventions most definitely do not — it was the incompatibility of democracy and inherited wealth.



With Thomas Jefferson taking the lead in the Virginia legislature in 1777, every Revolutionary state government abolished the laws of primogeniture and entail that had served to perpetuate the concentration of inherited property. Jefferson cited Adam Smith, the hero of free market capitalists everywhere, as the source of his conviction that (as Smith wrote, and Jefferson closely echoed in his own words), "A power to dispose of estates for ever is manifestly absurd. The earth and the fulness of it belongs to every generation, and the preceding one can have no right to bind it up from posterity. Such extension of property is quite unnatural." Smith said: "There is no point more difficult to account for than the right we conceive men to have to dispose of their goods after death."

The states left no doubt that in taking this step they were giving expression to a basic and widely shared philosophical belief that equality of citizenship was impossible in a nation where inequality of wealth remained the rule.

Stephen Budiansky's Liberal Curmudgeon Blog: Adam Smith, Thomas Jefferson, and other fellow travelers



George Washington, nine months before his inauguration as the first president, predicted that America "will be the most favorable country of any kind in the world for persons of industry and frugality, possessed of moderate capital, to inhabit." And, he continued, "it will not be less advantageous to the happiness of the lowest class of people, because of the equal distribution of property."






John Adams, feared "monopolies of land" would destroy the nation and that a business aristocracy born of inequality would manipulate voters, creating "a system of subordination to all... The capricious will of one or a very few" dominating the rest. Unless constrained, Adams wrote, "the rich and the proud" would wield economic and political power that "will destroy all the equality and liberty, with the consent and acclamations of the people themselves."




James Madison, the Constitution's main author, described inequality as an evil, saying government should prevent "an immoderate, and especially unmerited, accumulation of riches." He favored "the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort."


http://www.newsweek.com/2014/02/07/why-thomas-jefferson-favored-profit-sharing-245454.html

 

[Dad2three]

I'll never understand how left can say it is moral to forcibly take money from one person to give to another.

Called a SOCIETY. Don't like it?

No, it's called government. Society and government are two separate things.

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, American diplomat, statesman, and scientist; letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783:

"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

Appeal to authority. I've already explained that it's a logical fallacy.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.


Transcript of the Constitution of the United States - Official Text



union
noun \ˈyün-yən\

: an organization of workers formed to protect the rights and interests of its members

: an act of joining two or more things together

US SOCIETY


Libertarians are frauds and parasites but unfortunately have been successful in hiding their dangerous disease under war hating, and freedom loving.

 

[Dad2three]

Here's something I don't think most 'redistributers' really think about. Unless the rich person in question has acquired their wealth via theft or fraud (in which case they should be locked up), they got their wealth because people wanted them to have it. What we're really saying when we claim wealth needs redistributing is that all the people that gave the wealthy their money are "doing it wrong", and their decisions need to be overridden by the state.

80% of the population owns 5% of the wealth.

Who Rules America: Wealth, Income, and Power

The middle class has been eviscerated.


"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." - Louis D. Brandeis


The problem with the conservative movement in America is that it is based on bigotry, hatred, and, greed. Above all, greed. Money is their god. They worship money and the holders of it and despise those who don't have it.