Morality of Wealth Redistribution

[Dad2three]

Nope! As a business consultant with an MBA with a major in economics I came to that conclusion on my own. In researching the issue with other economists and their studies it was determined that my conclusion was correct.Wealth is not a zero sum issue as increased production increases total wealth.The wealth in one second of time can be deemed finite. In the next instant in time it may grow or decrease, depending on the business cycle. I have not suggested our physical resources are infinite, but their VALUE DEFINITELY INCREASES DEPENDING ON HOW WE EXPLOIT THOSE PHYSICAL RESOURCES. In so far as human resources are concerned, that is based on the total production of those human resources plus the improved production of automation. It is ignorant to believe otherwise or listen to the left wing extremist propaganda which tries to convince the sheeple that the rich are taking away part of the wealth they are due.

Got it, AGAIN you'll not argue the posit, but instead go off on a tangent

Wealth is a Zero-Sum Game

Conservative damagogues like Limbaugh have been able to convince the public that the huge incomes of the wealthiest Americans are irrelevant to those who make moderate-to-low incomes. They even suggest that the more money the wealthiest Americans make, the more wealth will trickle down to the lower classes.

If you've swallowed this line of conservative garbage, get ready to vomit. As all conservative economists know, and deny to the public that they know, wealth is a zero-sum game. That is true at both the front end—when income is divided up, and the back end—when it is spent.

The Front End of Zero-Sum: Dividing the Loot

There is only so much corporate income in a given year. The more of that income that is used to pay workers, the less profit the corporation makes. The less profit, the less the stock goes up. The less the stock goes up, the less the CEO and the investors make. It’s as simple as that. Profit equals income minus expenses. No more, no less. Subtract the right side of the equation from the left side and the answer is always zero. Hence the term, “zero-sum.”

So, to the extent a corporation can keep from sharing the wealth with workers—the ones who created the wealth to begin with—investors and executives get a bigger slice of the income pie and become richer.

To understand this aspect of the zero-sum nature of wealth, and the way many people get rich—that is, besides selling-out our workers to Third World countries—consider how Gates, Eisner, and Welch Jr. did it. It’s no mystery, and it isn’t all that hard to do.

Although the following specific details are fictional, the scenario is accurate. Through their emissaries, Mr. Bill Gates (CEO of Micro- soft), met with Michael Eisner (CEO of Walt Disney Corp.), and John Welch Jr. (CEO of General Electric). Their discussion went like this:

Gates: “Gentlemen, you astute, wise, talented, outstanding, and morally principled managers of today—I can sell you something that cost me $10 per unit to produce for $400 each. It’s a little disk with a bunch of zeros and ones on it.”

Eisner and Welch Jr., in unison: “Why in the hell would we be stupid enough to do something like that?”

Gates: “Simple. It will enable your secretaries to produce twice as much work in half the time. In other words, you can fire half your secretaries—those who helped make your organizations successful in the first place. And the secretaries who remain will still work the same hours for the same pay. You will cut your labor costs in half, the stock of your companies will skyrocket and your grateful shareholders will reward your managerial brilliance by making you incredibly, fabulously rich. Not like me, of course, but pretty damn rich.

“Here’s another wrinkle you’ll love. When your companies start growing again, Disney will hire the experienced secretaries that GE fired, and GE will hire the secretaries that Disney fired. Since they are new employees, they’ll start out at base pay, which has hardly budged for the past 20 years—and with no benefits. Times are tough for secretaries these days, you know, with the corporate downsizing and all.

“Oh yes, with Republicans in control of Congress and Clinton ap-pointing conservative judges to the courts, you can work your secretaries’ asses off, and you don’t have to worry about them getting carpal tunnel syndrome and suing you.”

The Zero-sum Nature of economics

Wealth is a Zero-Sum Game

That's why wealth never increases. Oh, wait.......

As all conservative economists know, and deny to the public that they know, wealth is a zero-sum game. That is true at both the front end—when income is divided up, and the back end—when it is spent.

The Front End of Zero-Sum: Dividing the Loot

There is only so much corporate income in a given year. The more of that income that is used to pay workers, the less profit the corporation makes. The less profit, the less the stock goes up. The less the stock goes up, the less the CEO and the investors make. It’s as simple as that. Profit equals income minus expenses. No more, no less. Subtract the right side of the equation from the left side and the answer is always zero. Hence the term, “zero-sum.”

 

[Dad2three]

None of them have even tried.

Mainly because the vast majority of the uber wealthy haven't earned it.

Additionally when wealth translates into power? Concentrating it in to the hands of the very few is a ridiculously bad idea.

Of the most current Forbes 400, which ones haven't earned it?

40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset"


Lucky gene pool winners Walton's, Koch's , Coors, etc...

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.

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

 

[Foxfyre]

There are anti-trust and RICO laws on the books that deal with those who are profiting unethically at the expense of others. Building a better mousetrap that people want, however, and thereby making more money than all the other mousetrap manufacturers combined is NOT unethical. The true free market capitalist understands this. The statist does not.

The one thing I have never gotten any statist to explain to me is how he is entitled to a single penny of what I have earned when he did nothing to help earn it. And that is the very heart and crux of the morality of wealth distribution.

 

[bripat9643]

What???

Can someone here advocating "wealth redistribution" provide moral justification for taking money away from people simply because we think they've accumulated too much?

None of them have even tried.

Mainly because the vast majority of the uber wealthy haven't earned it.

They haven't earned it? Can you explain how they obtained their wealth if not by earning it?

Additionally when wealth translates into power? Concentrating it in to the hands of the very few is a ridiculously bad idea.

That isn't a moral justification, Swallow. That's just you saying you don't like it.

 

[Dad2three]

Come on shitstain, let's compare private ownership of homes and automobiles....that is an economic sign of upward mobility.

FYI...most Europeans don't own a car or a home.

Riding public transportation and living in an apartment is the average European's life.

Really dumbfuk? Owning houses is a sign of upward mobility? lol


How'd that work out for Dubya?

You can say "tax cuts create jobs" but that's just blather. Show me when it has worked and then we'll talk

It's not a secrete. It's not a mystery. The facts from the 60's, the 80's and the 90's, especially, are well known. Indeed, the dynamics are intuitively self-evident. I wouldn't waste my time showing jack to some jackass who denies the facts of economic realty, which he may readily confirm for himself, but for the fact that they don't jive with his mindless, willfully ignorant, zero-sum-gain ideology of tax and oppress.

Carry on. . . .

lol, Right because IF a 'job creator' has more money from paying less taxes, they'll higher someone? NO demand doesn't drive it, lol

Myth #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.

No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation. Recent US history backs this up too.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory



The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.


...However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

 

[bripat9643]

Mainly because the vast majority of the uber wealthy haven't earned it.

Additionally when wealth translates into power? Concentrating it in to the hands of the very few is a ridiculously bad idea.

Of the most current Forbes 400, which ones haven't earned it?

40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset"


Lucky gene pool winners Walton's, Koch's , Coors, etc...

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.

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

The Koch's only inherited a few million. They generated he remaining 99% of their wealth themselves. The Walton heirs may not have earned the wealth they enjoy, but their father did. Is it your position that people are not entitled to give their wealth to whomever they wish?

I also question your 40% figure. How did you come up with that?

 

[Dad2three]

There are anti-trust and RICO laws on the books that deal with those who are profiting unethically at the expense of others. Building a better mousetrap that people want, however, and thereby making more money than all the other mousetrap manufacturers combined is NOT unethical. The true free market capitalist understands this. The statist does not.

The one thing I have never gotten any statist to explain to me is how he is entitled to a single penny of what I have earned when he did nothing to help earn it. And that is the very heart and crux of the morality of wealth distribution.

Boy I WISH conservatives could get honest JUST ONCE


In 1980 the top 1% earned 8.5% of total income. In 2007 they earned 23%.

In 1980 the bottom 90% earned 68% of total income. In 2007 they earned 53%.

Summary of Latest Federal Income Tax Data | Tax Foundation

GOV'T POLICY MATTERS !!!

"It is but equity...that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."-Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776


Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent’s sick triumph over us all

Monopoly: It sounds like a very old-fashioned problem. It sounds like an economic issue from the 19th century. Is it still a problem today?

Yes, absolutely, a huge problem. The American economy is more concentrated today than it’s been in more than a century, since the days of the plutocrats. Pretty much every sector of the economy is dominated by a few Goliaths, sometimes a single dominant corporation. And this poses immense economic and political dangers, to growth and the quality of our jobs, and to our democracy itself.

But to really understand what this means, let’s start at the very beginning.


Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent?s sick triumph over us all - Salon.com
Monopoly is back: Barry Lynn on the concentration of American economic power -- and how we can restore fairness

 

[bripat9643]

Really dumbfuk? Owning houses is a sign of upward mobility? lol


How'd that work out for Dubya?

You can say "tax cuts create jobs" but that's just blather. Show me when it has worked and then we'll talk

It's not a secrete. It's not a mystery. The facts from the 60's, the 80's and the 90's, especially, are well known. Indeed, the dynamics are intuitively self-evident. I wouldn't waste my time showing jack to some jackass who denies the facts of economic realty, which he may readily confirm for himself, but for the fact that they don't jive with his mindless, willfully ignorant, zero-sum-gain ideology of tax and oppress.

Carry on. . . .

lol, Right because IF a 'job creator' has more money from paying less taxes, they'll higher someone? NO demand doesn't drive it, lol

Myth #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.

No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation. Recent US history backs this up too.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory



The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.


...However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

Thomas Piketty? ROFL! Sorry, but your source has no credibility whatsoever. He's a communist.

 

[Dad2three]

Of the most current Forbes 400, which ones haven't earned it?

40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset"


Lucky gene pool winners Walton's, Koch's , Coors, etc...

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.

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

The Koch's only inherited a few million. They generated he remaining 99% of their wealth themselves. The Walton heirs may not have earned the wealth they enjoy, but their father did. Is it your position that people are not entitled to give their wealth to whomever they wish?

I also question your 40% figure. How did you come up with that?

The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset from a spouse or family member.”

Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”

Did the Forbes 400 Billionaires Really 'Build That'?



They inherited the predecessor to Koch Industries from their dad.

GOT IT, YOU PREFER THE US BECOME AN ARISTOCRACY OVER A NATION BUILT ON MERIT!

 

[Dad2three]

It's not a secrete. It's not a mystery. The facts from the 60's, the 80's and the 90's, especially, are well known. Indeed, the dynamics are intuitively self-evident. I wouldn't waste my time showing jack to some jackass who denies the facts of economic realty, which he may readily confirm for himself, but for the fact that they don't jive with his mindless, willfully ignorant, zero-sum-gain ideology of tax and oppress.

Carry on. . . .

lol, Right because IF a 'job creator' has more money from paying less taxes, they'll higher someone? NO demand doesn't drive it, lol

Myth #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.

No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation. Recent US history backs this up too.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory



The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.


...However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

Thomas Piketty? ROFL! Sorry, but your source has no credibility whatsoever. He's a communist.

Got it, YOU are a loon...

 

[Contumacious]

It's not a secrete. It's not a mystery. The facts from the 60's, the 80's and the 90's, especially, are well known. Indeed, the dynamics are intuitively self-evident. I wouldn't waste my time showing jack to some jackass who denies the facts of economic realty, which he may readily confirm for himself, but for the fact that they don't jive with his mindless, willfully ignorant, zero-sum-gain ideology of tax and oppress.

Carry on. . . .

lol, Right because IF a 'job creator' has more money from paying less taxes, they'll higher someone? NO demand doesn't drive it, lol

Myth #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.

No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation. Recent US history backs this up too.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory



The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.


...However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

Thomas Piketty? ROFL! Sorry, but your source has no credibility whatsoever. He's a communist.

How can you come here to oppose wealth redistribution while the supporting the distribution of over 100 BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBillion dollars to the Jewish State in order to finance the Palestinian Holocaust?


How can you come here and oppose wealth redistribution while supporting the foreign policy conducted by the prostitutes inside the DC beltway?

How can you come here to oppose wealth redistribution while supporting US involvement in the middle east which have forced the motherfuckers to create such doozies as the TSA.

. .

 

[Dad2three]

None of them have even tried.

Mainly because the vast majority of the uber wealthy haven't earned it.

Additionally when wealth translates into power? Concentrating it in to the hands of the very few is a ridiculously bad idea.

Thank you, seriously, for actually addressing the topic. This helps us to get somewhere.

For what it's worth, I agree with you - to an extent. I'm not sure it's a 'vast majority', or even a majority, but certainly some (too many, in any case) of the uber wealthy aren't honestly earning the wealth they acquire. And government should put a stop to it. That's one of the most important functions of government.

But simply assuming that everyone making a lot of money is cheating doesn't really make a lot of sense. Even if we ignore the basic injustice of guilty-until-proven-innocent thinking, it's just not smart. People who are earning lots of money honestly are providing us with things we want and need. We want those people to have lots of economic power because they're doing good things with it.

If progressives want to do something about economic corruption, they'll find ready allies among libertarians and conservatives by going after collusion and fraud. Wouldn't that make more sense than indulging a stereotype that throws the baby out with the bathwater?

What? Oh, you mean the Boston Tea Party.

Yeah, the Boston Tea Party. Everyone nowadays says it was a rebellion against taxation. But if you go back and read the actual writings of that moment, it was a very clearly a rebellion against the British East India company. Americans were terrified of the British East India Company.

Because it was a monopoly. They controlled the tea traffic.

And people were afraid that they would leverage that monopoly to take over all kinds of other commerce here in America.

I wrote about that in the Wall Street Journal when our modern-day Tea Party movement was getting going, and pointed this out. But the response I would hear was that the British East India Company was a government monopoly, that it had been granted by the state—which is true enough. And so the argument then is that, since monopolies are created by government, so we don’t have to worry about the private sector, if we just hack down government, then we won’t have a problem.

Yeah, if you hack down government, then you’ll have government re-emerge, only the new government will be privately run.

What do you mean?

Well, let’s look at the corporation Amazon. Amazon now essentially governs business within the book industry. Amazon has so much power that it virtually gets to tell really big companies like Hachette, the French publisher, what to do. You’re gonna sell this book at this price. You’re gonna sell that book at that price. That means Amazon pretty much has the power to determine how many copies of a book a publisher might sell. That’s not citizens trading with one another in an open market setting those prices, that’s a giant corporation setting those prices. Which means what we are witnessing in the U.S. book industry, I think, is a form of top-down government.

. . . Then a corporation becomes government.


Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent?s sick triumph over us all - Salon.com

 

[Dad2three]

lol, Right because IF a 'job creator' has more money from paying less taxes, they'll higher someone? NO demand doesn't drive it, lol

Myth #3: Lower taxes are the best way to grow the economy.

No one likes paying higher taxes. But do lower taxes actually spur economic growth? Bruce Bartlett, an economist in the Reagan administration, has compared tax rates in various rich countries in 1979 to each country's growth rate since then. His conclusion? There's virtually no correlation. Recent US history backs this up too.

Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory



The conclusion?

Lowering the tax rates on the wealthy and top earners in America do not appear to have any impact on the nation’s economic growth.


...However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution


Non-Partisan Congressional Tax Report Debunks Core Conservative Economic Theory-GOP Suppresses Study - Forbes

Thomas Piketty? ROFL! Sorry, but your source has no credibility whatsoever. He's a communist.

How can you come here to oppose wealth redistribution while the supporting the distribution of over 100 BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBillion dollars to the Jewish State in order to finance the Palestinian Holocaust?


How can you come here and oppose wealth redistribution while supporting the foreign policy conducted by the prostitutes inside the DC beltway?

How can you come here to oppose wealth redistribution while supporting US involvement in the middle east which have forced the motherfuckers to create such doozies as the TSA.

. .

SOMALIA!!!

Grow up and grow a brain


I never meant to say that the conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.

John Stuart Mill, in a letter to the Conservative MP, John Pakington

 

[Dad2three]

The rise of the heirs on the Forbes list signals a larger worry, however. America may not be able to create new wealth the way it has for the past 20 years. All of the forces that drove billionaire creation – strong economic growth, a 20-year-bull market, huge technological change and investment – are weakening. We will still create new billionaires, with the occasional Zuckerbergs keeping the flame alive.

Yet preserved family wealth may well start eclipsing earned new wealth. It’s possible that we could be heading into a period like the 1930s, 40s and 50s, when most of the large wealth in America came from one of two places – .oil and trust funds

I hope I’m wrong.

Are We Entering the Age of Inherited Wealth? - The Wealth Report - WSJ

 

[bripat9643]

40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset"


Lucky gene pool winners Walton's, Koch's , Coors, etc...

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.

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

The Koch's only inherited a few million. They generated he remaining 99% of their wealth themselves. The Walton heirs may not have earned the wealth they enjoy, but their father did. Is it your position that people are not entitled to give their wealth to whomever they wish?

I also question your 40% figure. How did you come up with that?

The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset from a spouse or family member.”

The phrase "a sizeable asset" id do vague and nebulous that it's meaningless. If a man inherits $10,000, he has inherited a "sizable asset." If he builds that $10,000 into a $10 billion dollar fortune, the "sizeable asset" is an insignificant contribution to his fortune.

Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”

It doesn't tell you how much total wealth was inherited and how much was created. The last time I looked at the list, the number of self-made men was far higher than 70%.

 

[Dad2three]

The Koch's only inherited a few million. They generated he remaining 99% of their wealth themselves. The Walton heirs may not have earned the wealth they enjoy, but their father did. Is it your position that people are not entitled to give their wealth to whomever they wish?

I also question your 40% figure. How did you come up with that?

The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset from a spouse or family member.”

The phrase "a sizeable asset" id do vague and nebulous that it's meaningless. If a man inherits $10,000, he has inherited a "sizable asset." If he builds that $10,000 into a $10 billion dollar fortune, the "sizeable asset" is an insignificant contribution to his fortune.

Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”

It doesn't tell you how much total wealth was inherited and how much was created. The last time I looked at the list, the number of self-made men was far higher than 70%.

Got it, You can't be honest/ I'm shocked, Shocked I tell you!


"Our merchants and master-manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people." - Adam Smith, notable anti-capitalist

 

[Dad2three]

The Koch's only inherited a few million. They generated he remaining 99% of their wealth themselves. The Walton heirs may not have earned the wealth they enjoy, but their father did. Is it your position that people are not entitled to give their wealth to whomever they wish?

I also question your 40% figure. How did you come up with that?

The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset from a spouse or family member.”

The phrase "a sizeable asset" id do vague and nebulous that it's meaningless. If a man inherits $10,000, he has inherited a "sizable asset." If he builds that $10,000 into a $10 billion dollar fortune, the "sizeable asset" is an insignificant contribution to his fortune.

Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”

It doesn't tell you how much total wealth was inherited and how much was created. The last time I looked at the list, the number of self-made men was far higher than 70%.

Example- Romney 'self made' of course he was born on 3rd base right?

 

[Agit8r]

both moral and patriotic:

"legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise."
-- Thomas Jefferson; from letter to James Madison, (Oct. 28, 1785)


"The great object should be to combat the evil: 1. By establishing a political equality among all; 2. By witholding unnecessary opportunities from a few to increase the inequality of property by an immoderate, and especially an unmerited, accumulation of riches; 3. By the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort; 4. By abstaining from measures which operate differently on different interests, and particularly such as favor one interest at the expense of another; 5. By making one party a check on the other so far as the existence of parties cannot be prevented nor their views accommodated. If this is not the language of reason, it is that of republicanism."
-- James Madison; from 'Parties' (1792)

 

[dblack]

Mainly because the vast majority of the uber wealthy haven't earned it.

Additionally when wealth translates into power? Concentrating it in to the hands of the very few is a ridiculously bad idea.

Thank you, seriously, for actually addressing the topic. This helps us to get somewhere.

For what it's worth, I agree with you - to an extent. I'm not sure it's a 'vast majority', or even a majority, but certainly some (too many, in any case) of the uber wealthy aren't honestly earning the wealth they acquire. And government should put a stop to it. That's one of the most important functions of government.

But simply assuming that everyone making a lot of money is cheating doesn't really make a lot of sense. Even if we ignore the basic injustice of guilty-until-proven-innocent thinking, it's just not smart. People who are earning lots of money honestly are providing us with things we want and need. We want those people to have lots of economic power because they're doing good things with it.

If progressives want to do something about economic corruption, they'll find ready allies among libertarians and conservatives by going after collusion and fraud. Wouldn't that make more sense than indulging a stereotype that throws the baby out with the bathwater?

What? Oh, you mean the Boston Tea Party.

Yeah, the Boston Tea Party. Everyone nowadays says it was a rebellion against taxation. But if you go back and read the actual writings of that moment, it was a very clearly a rebellion against the British East India company. Americans were terrified of the British East India Company.

Because it was a monopoly. They controlled the tea traffic.

And people were afraid that they would leverage that monopoly to take over all kinds of other commerce here in America.

I wrote about that in the Wall Street Journal when our modern-day Tea Party movement was getting going, and pointed this out. But the response I would hear was that the British East India Company was a government monopoly, that it had been granted by the state—which is true enough. And so the argument then is that, since monopolies are created by government, so we don’t have to worry about the private sector, if we just hack down government, then we won’t have a problem.

Yeah, if you hack down government, then you’ll have government re-emerge, only the new government will be privately run.

What do you mean?

Well, let’s look at the corporation Amazon. Amazon now essentially governs business within the book industry. Amazon has so much power that it virtually gets to tell really big companies like Hachette, the French publisher, what to do. You’re gonna sell this book at this price. You’re gonna sell that book at that price. That means Amazon pretty much has the power to determine how many copies of a book a publisher might sell. That’s not citizens trading with one another in an open market setting those prices, that’s a giant corporation setting those prices. Which means what we are witnessing in the U.S. book industry, I think, is a form of top-down government.

. . . Then a corporation becomes government.


Free markets killed capitalism: Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Wal-Mart, Amazon and the 1 percent?s sick triumph over us all - Salon.com

What in the hell are you talking about? You have the singular ability to quote my posts, but respond with completely unrelated nonsense. Are you actually reading what I'm posting?

 

[bripat9643]

The report, from the left-leaning United for a Fair Economy, says that 40 percent of the Forbes 400 richest Americans inherited a “sizeable asset from a spouse or family member.”

The phrase "a sizeable asset" id do vague and nebulous that it's meaningless. If a man inherits $10,000, he has inherited a "sizable asset." If he builds that $10,000 into a $10 billion dollar fortune, the "sizeable asset" is an insignificant contribution to his fortune.

Forbes says that 30 percent of the Forbes 400 members inherited their wealth and the remaining 70 percent are entirely “self-made.”

It doesn't tell you how much total wealth was inherited and how much was created. The last time I looked at the list, the number of self-made men was far higher than 70%.

Example- Romney 'self made' of course he was born on 3rd base right?

The bottom line is that Romney did not inherit any of his wealth.