Is America Coddling the Super-Rich?

[apeiron]

That was $293B/10 years, $29.3B/yr against a $1600B deficit per year. So the question was relevant: then what?

If you are talking about equitable tax policies, go after the 50% owned by the 5%. If you are talking about dealing with the vast borrowing against tomorrow's earnings, then I agree that even soaking the rich is just going to be tinkering at the edges.

 

[drankin]

This is just a political diversion from the REAL problems we have with gov't spending.

 

[Proton Soup]

Here is a good clip from 60 minutes. We need to have a competitive corporate tax rate to bring companies back to the USA. And yes that includes those who never really left except for a small office in Zug Switzerland.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7360932n&tag=contentBody;storyMediaBox

There is one commercial near the start of the video. Go get a snack.

corporate taxes will go up in europe when the US pulls out of NATO and stops giving military welfare to the EU. then, europe will have its own aircraft carriers, can bomb libya on its own dime, and US corporate tax rates will be more competitive.

 

[russ_watters]

Some arguments backed by relevant facts from the Tax Policy Center...

That's a pretty common argument, with commonly cited facts. It argues that since the rich are making more than they used to, they should pay more. And since the "everyone else" aren't, they shouldn't. Fine. Are they? Those facts would seem to me to be critical to reaching the conclusion -- in fact, the conclusion kinda implies something about that, doesn't it...?

So before we look up the facts, let's agree on the logic: if the "everyone else" is paying the same or less taxes than they were before and the rich were paying a lot more, then the recommended correction has already happened, right...?

 

[russ_watters]

Also, a simple mathematical truth, just as food for thought: if government services in $ per capita were held constant, while gdp per capita rose, tax revenue per capita - andthe thus rates -- could drop.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Agree 1000%.

The answer to everything is jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs and more jobs.

It’s when things starts going backward you run into a 'destructive spiral' = less revenues + more outflow = nervous market = lesser jobs = lesser revenues + further outflow, etc, etc.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

corporate taxes will go up in europe when the US pulls out of NATO and stops giving military welfare to the EU. then, europe will have its own aircraft carriers, can bomb libya on its own dime, and US corporate tax rates will be more competitive.

That’s some really deep thoughts you’ve got there PS...

 

[WhoWee]

In an effort to get back on topic - Buffet plans to give his fortune away and has encouraged other wealthy people to contribute 50% of their holdings to charity as well.

Given this point - why are we surprised the most accomplished M&A player in the history of the world proclaims he should pay more in taxes? We should also note his acts of charity have created a major tax credit (some may call it a loophole) for him and he derives the majority of his income from capital gains.

 

[mheslep]

... mheslep thought that the explanation for this is because U.S. "yields considerably better medical outcomes" and that this "is a fact".

My point is that if you spend between 100% and 50% more on healthcare then all the other countries in OECD, and if what mheslep say is true (that you do better), one would not expect U.S. to be behind when it comes life expectancy, right?

If one corrects for auto accidents, homicides, life style and the like, US life expectancy is at or close to the highest in the world.

Please, check the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_systems#Cross-country_comparisons" again. U.S. is not best at Life expectancy, Infant mortality, Physicians per 1000 people, Nurses per 1000 people. You are only best when it comes to costs...

But okay, let’s say this is "noisy & biased", how about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WHO%27s_ranking_of_health_care_systems" ? Of 190 countries, U.S. has the highest expenditure per capita, but you’re only ranked as 37 compared to other health systems around the world.

Why continue to go down this road? It amounts to a mountain of confirmation bias. It has already been pointed out that, yes, US medical care is expensive, and that there are metrics drawn directly from medical outcome data in peer reviewed literature showing the outcomes are about the best in the world. These metrics give one a good idea of you or your family's chances of a good outcome should you actually need medical treatment. Yet you go looking to Wikipedia for a non peer reviewed 'ranking', which as it turns out is based not directly on medical outcomes at all but again on life expectancy, financial 'fairness', etc.

...The report indicates – clearly – the attributes of a good health system in relation to the elements of the performance measure, given below.
...
WHO has chosen to use the measure of disability- adjusted life expectancy (DALE). This has the advantage of being directly comparable to life expectancy and is readily compared across populations. The report provides estimates for all countries of disability- adjusted life
...
Distribution of Financing: There are good and bad ways to raise the resources for a health system, but they are more or less good primarily as they affect how fairly the financial burden is shared. Fair financing, as the name suggests, is only concerned with distribution...

http://www.who.int/whr/2000/media_centre/press_release/en/index.html

 

[mheslep]

WSJ Editorial board took Buffet apart today
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...0.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsSecondo The double tax oversight. Buffet's income is taxed twice, first his companies pay business tax and then he pays the cap-gains/dividend tax on what's left. So the government really takes ~45% of Buffet's adjusted gross income stream. On the other hand his famous secretary pays tax once, on income.

o Middle-class bait-and-switch. First, Democrats are pushing for a tax increase on $200k/$250k and up, not just on Buffet's friends making millions annually. Second, and as https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3452865&postcount=8":

Mr. Buffett says it's only "fair" to raise his taxes, but he's lending his credibility to raising taxes on millions of middle-class earners for whom a few extra thousand dollars in after-tax income is a big deal. Unlike Mr. Buffett, those middle-class earners aren't rich and may earn $250,000 for only a few years of their working lives. How is that fair?

o Charity loophole

For billionaires like Mr. Buffett, the single most important deduction in the tax code is for charitable giving. Middle-class earners can't give nearly as much money away to reduce their overall tax burden. Yet we don't hear Mr. Buffett calling for the elimination of that deduction in the name of fairness.

 

[apeiron]

Also, a simple mathematical truth, just as food for thought: if government services in $ per capita were held constant, while gdp per capita rose, tax revenue per capita - andthe thus rates -- could drop.

The only question of interest here is what degree of wealth inequality is optimal for a society?

So what gini coefficient correlates with some mix of happiness, stability, innovation?

I'd vote for the political system which can deliver that.

 

[Proton Soup]

That’s some really deep thoughts you’ve got there PS...

where are you getting your energy from sweden?

 

[DevilsAvocado]

where are you getting your energy from sweden?

You better ask http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agip" ... but we do start our JAS 39 Gripen from Sicily... and that works fine!

 

[Physics-Learner]

Agree 1000%.

The answer to everything is jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs jobs and more jobs.

It’s when things starts going backward you run into a 'destructive spiral' = less revenues + more outflow = nervous market = lesser jobs = lesser revenues + further outflow, etc, etc.

not jobs, quality of life.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

not jobs, quality of life.

Yeah, I know what you mean, but without money there can’t be much quality, right?

And hopefully you find a job that really interest you, and then you could smile both on the way to the bank and your new job!

 

[WhoWee]

What does health care spending have to do with Warren Buffet's desire to entice other Billionaires to give their money away?

It just occurred to me that if capital gains rates increase drastically for the super-wealthy - structuring charitable donations the way Buffet has done will be the tax reduction program of choice. Maybe he wants the rates to increase in order to force donations?

 

[Physics-Learner]

i am probably older than most of the posters, but when i was a kid, most mothers did not work.

when i refer to quality of life, i am talking about many things. spendable income is one thing. but if you have to work twice as many hours as you once did, it is hardly worth it.

if most of our govt was deleted, most of our taxes would be deleted, and a couple might end up only needing to work 20 hours a week for each of them, giving them much more free time to enjoy one another as well as raise their kids.

it won't be long before the majority of the work force has never heard of a single wage earning family.

 

[Physics-Learner]

your psychological health would be better. your physiological health would be better. our health care costs would decrease a lot, etc. etc.

jobs and taxes are the 2 concepts that get discussed at every election. been happening since jesus was a boy. they haven't solved it yet, nor are they gonna.

it only takes a small step for people to see the light - they need to open their eyes, and take their heads out of the sand.

 

[russ_watters]

Eh... government bias issues...?

Just for clarity, what I mean by that is that some statistics are gathered and disseminated by doctors and others are gathered and disseminated by governments. Perhaps you believe Castro when he says his country's life expectancy and infant mortality are better than the US's. I don't.

More to the point, the US is a world leader (by which I mean one of the 'worst') in 1-day old infant mortality. Does that mean our neonatal care is among the worst in the world? No, actually, it means just the opposite: we try very hard and are very good at taking care of sick infants and as a result, we don't just write off babies who die in their first day as stillbirths as is common in other places. Discussion of these issues is not difficult to find online:

Life expectancy at birth is a particularly limited measure of health-care performance across nations, because it generally fails to account for such important variables as lifestyle, culture, income level, and educational achievement. Life expectancy at older ages, such as at 65, gives a clearer picture — though it does not eliminate the confounding distortion of non-medical factors — and using that measure, the apparent life expectancy gap between the U.S. and other comparable nations narrows. In fact, if one goes further out on the age curve to age 80 and over, one finds that the U.S. probably leads the developed world in life expectancy...

study published earlier this month in Demography finds that at age 55 and beyond, Americans are sicker by far than the English, yet older Americans don’t die earlier than their British counterparts: Death rates were equivalent for 55-to-64-year-olds, and beyond age 65, Americans had a slightly greater probability of survival. Why is this so? Perhaps because the U.S. health-care system diagnoses and treats illnesses (particular among the elderly) more aggressively than does the National Health Service — though, of course, all that extra screening and more intensive treatment costs more money.

http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/253314/debunking-richard-cohen-how-does-us-health-care-system-stack-thomas-p-mill#

I mean, c'mon - we all know the 'lazy, fat American' stereotype, right? So if we live unhealthy-er lifestyles, we should die a lot sooner, right? The logic here is not very difficult.

Look, I’m not pointing any fingers here, I’m just saying that you have the most expensive healthcare in the world, and that maybe you can do something about it.

Since I believe that in general you get what you pay for, I don't really want to "do something about it!"

 

[russ_watters]

o Middle-class bait-and-switch. First, Democrats are pushing for a tax increase on $200k/$250k and up, not just on Buffet's friends making millions annually. Second, and as https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3452865&postcount=8":

To expand on this, Buffett starts with the billionaires, and by the end moves down to the millionaires, but he's mostly discussing capital gains taxes in this op-ed and I've never heard anyone ever suggest a progressive capital gains tax and he isn't explicit about it here. So it appears to me that what he really wants - and I know what is more commonly wanted - is a flat increase in the capital gains tax. That affects virtually everyone, not just the super or moderately rich.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

your psychological health would be better. your physiological health would be better.

I need a doctor... I see double…

 

[russ_watters]

The only question of interest here is what degree of wealth inequality is optimal for a society?

So what gini coefficient correlates with some mix of happiness, stability, innovation?

I'd vote for the political system which can deliver that.

That's an interesting question. My answer is that a government purported to allow people the freedom to pursue happiness on their own should not actively seek to cap/limit that pursuit. So IMO, your question has no answer.

Moreover, I would not be inclined to accept - without evidence - that gini coefficient actually does correlate with happiness, stability, and innovation. Logically, it wouldn't make sense for it to: Perfect equality doesn't help anyone if everyone is starving to death equally. And on the other end, if one person is eating bread while another is eating caviar, both are still better off than the guys starving to death in the other country!

 

[WhoWee]

That's an interesting question. My answer is that a government purported to allow people the freedom to pursue happiness on their own should not actively seek to cap/limit that pursuit. So IMO, your question has no answer.

Moreover, I would not be inclined to accept - without evidence - that gini coefficient actually does correlate with happiness, stability, and innovation. Logically, it wouldn't make sense for it to: Perfect equality doesn't help anyone if everyone is starving to death equally. And on the other end, if one person is eating bread while another is eating caviar, both are still better off than the guys starving to death in the other country!

The question that comes to my mind is this - why is more better at the minimum safety net/welfare level? Too many benefits might make life too comfortable and actually be a disincentive to be productive.

Likewise, on the other end of the spectrum, (apparently) when an individual is as successful as Buffet - perhaps boredom, guilt, or a realization that you can't spend it all - triggers a need to give it all away?

Or perhaps, it's the cumulative effect of multiple disincentives to produce that is de-stabilizing the economy - welfare and extended unemployment on one end and regulations and tax policy uncertainty on the other?

 

[russ_watters]

That's a pretty common argument, with commonly cited facts. It argues that since the rich are making more than they used to, they should pay more. And since the "everyone else" aren't, they shouldn't. Fine. Are they? Those facts would seem to me to be critical to reaching the conclusion -- in fact, the conclusion kinda implies something about that, doesn't it...?

So before we look up the facts, let's agree on the logic: if the "everyone else" is paying the same or less taxes than they were before and the rich were paying a lot more, then the recommended correction has already happened, right...?

Ok, Russ, I'll bite: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2010/02/11/173127/narrow-tax-burden/

According to the second graph, the tax burden on the middle 20% rose a little from 1960 to 1980, and since have dropped by a small amount. At the same time, rates for the top .1% have [inconsistently] dropped. Since it was pointed out to us previously that incomes for the "everyone else" have been pretty stagnant, we can say:

1. Recently, virtually all of the economic gains have gone to higher income earners.
2. Virtually all of the dollar value increases in taxes - all of the additional tax revenue to the government - has been for/provided by those higher income earners.

On the flip side:

3. For the "everyone else", incomes have stagnated and...
4. Taxes haven't changed.

It doesn't look to me like the problem typically proposed by the left actually exists as they have characterized it.

 

[edward]

Buffet mentions capital gains because it is important. Hedge fund managers are a good exapmle because they pay 15 % capital gains tax even on bonuses.

Every one else pays the going rate on bonuses.

Can't find the link I want so this one will have to do.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/forum/2011/04/true-cost-25-hedge-fund-billionaires

 

[Hells]

I've posted this before. Warren Buffet seems to have a political agenda as he doesn't mention the $Billions his company, Berkshire Hathaway, pays in taxes - in addition to his personal taxes. It's unusual for a business owner (someone who built the company from the ground up - not a hired hand) not to consider all of the taxes they pay.

He got his wealth from investing into other companies - companies from whose share price the corporate tax was already deducted when he bought them!

Those who derive their main income from investment can't claim they are being taxed by the corporate tax!

 

[apeiron]

That's an interesting question. My answer is that a government purported to allow people the freedom to pursue happiness on their own should not actively seek to cap/limit that pursuit. So IMO, your question has no answer.

Moreover, I would not be inclined to accept - without evidence - that gini coefficient actually does correlate with happiness, stability, and innovation. Logically, it wouldn't make sense for it to: Perfect equality doesn't help anyone if everyone is starving to death equally. And on the other end, if one person is eating bread while another is eating caviar, both are still better off than the guys starving to death in the other country!

There is plenty of research bearing on such correlations. I cited The Spirit Level evidence in this thread - https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=3457208&postcount=2 - where Ivan has started a discussion on exactly this issue.

My short reply is that happiness is not individual but social for most people. And all systems must be shaped by constraints. That is a basic scientific fact.

So your analysis is too simplistic even to bother arguing against. The question begins with considering the optimal balance of individual (or local) freedoms and social (or global) cconstraints.

The fact that you introduce the strawman of "perfect equality" shows that you don't actually find this question "interesting" enough to risk questioning your all too familiar by now worldview.

 

[Tosh5457]

The richest of the riches is saying how they pay low taxes and the taxes need to be increased, and there are still people here trying to prove he's not right...

 

[edward]

The richest of the riches is saying how they pay low taxes and the taxes need to be increased, and there are still people here trying to prove he's not right...

Apparently there are a few here who think Buffet must have some sinister ulterior motive. The man has pledged half of his fortune to charity. That is enough to convince me that he is sincere.

 

[mheslep]

Apparently there are a few here who think Buffet must have some sinister ulterior motive. The man has pledged half of his fortune to charity. That is enough to convince me that he is sincere.

Most US billionaires behave similarly with their fortunes, Gates, Koch, etc. Are you similarly convinced about all their motives?