Leeu

I think so. I don't trust the common person with money, I see them gamble, waste, squander, you name it...why would I want them in control of most of the wealth?

The 1% owning 40% of the wealth, if I'm good enough to EARN the right to be the protector of wealth (which is what they are whether anyone thinks so or not) then then I will achieve some wealth from the top 5% or so no longer worthy to hold on to that wealth, and I will buy it, create it, or take over market share etc.

Now the problem becomes 1% cannot account for 40% of the economic activity, I think the progressive tax helps to off-set that fact.

iTaliAN_ICe

That's a sweeping generalization of 99% of the nation...

It would be great if it worked that way, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, lots of people accumulate wealth through inheritance or manipulation of money while contributing absolutely nothing to the economy. I don't consider that "earning" it.

We agree here.

Leeu

US consumer and credit histories show that the US citizen cannot on average, be trusted with money.

And the majority of wealth is earned not "inherited" because in fact after 4 generations inherited wealth is generally exhausted.

These studies are rigorous and you can find the studies on inherited wealth in many texts particularly those concerning the fall of Rome which concerned itself with the demographics of the Roman elite with the rest of the Romans because in actuality (in their society of inherited wealth) the number of wealthy elites were much larger and more proportional to society during the end of Rome than during the middle ages of Rome...etc etc. heh.

Dragon Horse

Actually the initial figure is quite low, if you go to developing countries it is far worse, more like 1% owning 70-80% and often the 1% is an ethnic minority.

iTaliAN_ICe

And this statistic excludes the rich? Have you seen some of the crap they waste money on..?

Okay, but I never said most of it was inherited...

Not entirely sure what you're getting at here, but from what I understand, Rome's fall had little to do with wealth distribution.

Leeu

You don't understand anything about Roman history then; for the longest time historians believed that Rome became disaffected with its constituent parts, the upper class, the landed elite, the lower classes, etc. And that social turmoil, elitist decadence, etc. led to a decline in Roman power and an eventual decentralisation.

Now it is understood that when Rome fell, the Roman citizen had the best life style of any of their ancestors, the wealth was far better distributed than previously thought (because inherited wealth is not an eternal thing) and that Rome was actually at the height of her power.

Why Rome fell is now being understood what is only being developed in theories of Political Science as we speak, involving crisis management, response times to crises, and data collection.

Basically the foundations of "Grand Strategy" which while Grand Strategies are nothing new, understanding them in a global sense is rather recent concept, and since the information age we can look back on such concepts and see how actors against states play variably...

It's really a facinating study.

But either way, a state needs a wealthy elite to safe-guard its assets. It needs the ability to tax the wealthy, or incentivise their spending their wealth when the state needs money.

For instance, in the Revolutionary War it was mostly funded by private money being donated to the government or loaned to the government.

WW2 was financed primarily through direct tax and debt issuance.

Both activate the wealthy elite's wealth for the greater good of the state. But without that wealthy elite the wealth is generally squandered...socialist dictatorships, African nations, there are many examples where the wealth of the elite is plundered and then squandered leaving the state destitute.

Leeu

Bullshit, you are talking about SPECIFICALLY income tax.

There is no way the tax burden generated by capital gains, and dividends falls to the "middle class" most of whom do own stocks have them all protected in tax-free funds from the Government.

rsather139

Hmmm, frankly, I think that there are bigger fish to fry right now. The world's economic structure has always been like this, and its actually getting more distributed as time goes on.

__________________
"It is dangerous to be right on matters where the established authority is wrong."
-Voltaire

Troianii

Those who actually pay their taxes in all legality pay a crapload more. The proposed policies of people like Obama, raising taxes on the rich up 20%, would only encourage cheating on taxes. We need low and fair taxes, low on all levels, evenly distributed on all levels.

Evil73

Yes, the progressive taxes will do great! The taxes will takes money from people who have all things and gives money to people who need some things. Then people who need some things go to the market and buy. And then economy will grows.

On the contrary. If we use flat tax scale.
All money step by step will be concentrated within smal amount of people (rich people who have all and do not buy). Great amount of people will lose their money, they can't go to the market and buy. And then economy will stagnate.