Another rich guy trying to persuade average folk that all our problems would be solved if people like him were taxed more. Never mind that the Buffet-rule (minimum 35%) would net $31 Billion over the next 11 years versus $7 Trillion in estimated deficits. (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/74232.html)
Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don't buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, we go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
I can't buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can't buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out.
But you can invest... Your money isn't stuffed under your mattress, is it??
That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
Are they really investments or are they just political favors that over-cost and under-deliver? (See the Department of Education, TARP, Medicare, war, etc.)
So, when does one prove causation? Because by any economic metric, the times when we've been fiscally strong is when the top marginal tax rate was higher than 36% currently. When they lowered it in 2001 from 40% while going to war, it created net zero jobs during the entirety of the Bush administration (and starting leaking jobs en masse during the crisis in 2008).
One could argue that Reagan's administration saw some powerful growth, adding 15 million net jobs; but, again, he maintained a >50% top marginal tax rate average through his tenure.
The Clinton administration growth rate was even more powerful (arguably) than Reagan's, seeing 23 million net jobs during his tenure, and that was when top marginal rates were nearly 40%.
An outlier, and a very powerful one, is when we saw the largest uplift from post-war growth phase to absolute juggernaut boomtime, was during the 50s, when top marginal tax rates were 90%. Somehow, I doubt we'll ever go back to that time (both in growth and taxation), but we can see that the times of growth was when top marginal tax rates were over 40%. Dip below, no room to grow.
* how much (usually as a % GDP) should / does a govt take?
* how does that tax burden get shared out
the first is an issue of services provided by govt, but thesecond is an issue of fairness.
If you want more services you need to pay. As a % of GDP the USA takes about 26-28 % whereas pretty much every other Western country is between 35 and 45%.
My take on that is welfare costs. Full health and pension support for all the USA is going to be expensive, and will probably bring the US in line with Europe
the issue now is fairness - but even taut is really about ability. The easy targets are the middle classes - they have money but rarely enough to take advantage of tax loopholes
but if all the money is now held by the richest 2% then the richest 2 % will pay. The alterntive is no government
we all live by the 1930s maxim - I rob banks because that's where the money is. If the richest people in society have the money, that's where the bank robbers / IRS will go.
I've heard a number of people (Grover Norquist included) make the claim that although the top marginal tax rates were higher, there were a far greater number of tax exemptions available. I have no idea how true this is, and I'm not aware of anyone who's studied the actual income, wealth, and taxes of America's rich over the decades.
While I wholeheartedly agree with the reasoning presented in the talk, I can see why TED chose not to distribute it. It presents a pretty conventional argument for progressive taxation, without bringing any new facts or insight to the table. Historically, there is no evidence of a significant correlation between top tax rates and economic growth. Whether you believe taxes help or hurt the economy is strictly a matter of faith---conservatives hold one opinion unsupported by the facts, liberals another. Unfortunately this talk doesn't shed any additional light on the matter.
Perhaps it is not a very new or well supported argument, but this is not why TED chose not to show it. The TED curator basically admits that he doesn't agree with the idea and that he also finds it too partisan to distribute. I would be worried if it is really being cut because the curator doesn't agree with it. Now as to whether it is partisan or not, this is not the first TED talk that has that "issue", there are TED talks about creationism, atheism, global warming, contraception, etc.
Not to mention that people may reasonably disagree on the definition of "strong economy," and if having a "strong economy" is even a high priority compared to, say, personal liberty or socioeconomic equality.
I don't know about 'strictly a matter of faith'. There is some pretty good evidence that 100% taxation (i.e. 100% of your earnings belong to the state and not to you) doesn't work to well.
I'm not suggesting that there aren't reasonable arguments about what the marginal tax rate curve should look like (flat, curved, etc.) to optimize various economic metrics--just that there are some configurations that we can rule out as unworkable without much real controversy.
I'm sorry but, higher taxes aren't going to solve anything. At the end of the day, our spending will just not stop. We are just adding fuel to the fire.
We need to:
• Invest in the future: We need to invent, produce, and export new renewable energy sources. We need to invest in robotic manufacturing because cheap people labor is not sustainable in any country - robotic is where it will go.
• We need to heavily tax imports like many other countries in the world do. And have American made things become competitive - we have sold our souls to Asia.
• Drastically cut bullshit spending. There are billions spent every year on...bullshit.
• Invest further in Entrepreneurship, and start bringing smart people from other countries here.
Those are big 4.
The big problem is our countries expenses vs. income is too high. At the end of the day, a country is a business. And right now, we are a company that is not running well. We need to clean out the board of directors (Congress) and start fresh.
Wait a minute: you say that our expenses versus income is too high, but then also say that higher taxes won't solve anything? Unless you're arguing that higher taxes won't increase government income (which is a totally specious argument that people make all the time, but which isn't backed up in the least by any actual historical analyses), then higher taxes absolutely could solve the deficit problem. Federal tax revenues as a share of overall GDP are historically low right now, and merely letting the Bush tax cuts expire for good would solve almost all of the "deficit crisis." For example see http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/26/are-the-bush-ta... or http://baselinescenario.com/2011/10/03/how-big-is-the-long-t...
So I guess it depends on what problem you want to solve, but if you're worried about the federal deficit, then higher taxes (even in the form of just eliminating the bush tax cuts) will absolutely help to solve that problem.
>>>Drastically cut bullshit spending. There are billions spent every year on...bullshit.
Look, I'm no defender of gov't waste, but you can't blanketly say "bullshit" without specific examples. One's man bullshit -- the two Steves with their "toy computer" -- is another man's gold (Markkula, who saw the promise and invested early). Is NASA bullshit? Is protecting the environment bullshit? GPS satellites? The Coast Guard? Food inspection? I see the news headlines like everyone else trumpeting what look like screwy studies. What we never ever hear is any follow-up that one "stupid" study connected to a non-stupid study that led to a breakthrough. A breakthrough that most likely was just handed over to some private company to exploit for profit without any compensation coming back to taxpayers (this has been the case for decades with private companies taking government-tabulated data and reselling it as for-profit databases). This latter giveaway to private enterprise with original funding by working people is the ultimate bullshit to me.
A business is like a machine whose function is to produce profit. Anything else that it may happen to produce (products, services, jobs, taxes, environmental damage, whatever) is really only a side effect.
So no, a country (or government) is not the same as a business.
So if either political party chooses to start throwing bullshit back and forth on some ideological hot button issue then TED decides that this subject is now off limits?
Don't we want the people at TED to be able to share good arguments concerning precisely the things that are most important and most misunderstood (which hot button political issues are, since people now choose an opinion based on tribalism rather than reason)
So that reasoning is bullshit. I don't want democrats or republicans choosing which topics are now off limits for debate because they are now political. For fucks sake, political topics are the ones that need debate. What else does "political topic" mean other than "this is important to our society and there is disagreement".
So TED talks are "Riveting talks by remarkable people on subjects that have not been deemed off limits by one of the two big political parties in the US".
Nevermind the fact that this clearly has nothing to do with political controversy as described, everyone knows there are talks about evolution, climate change and cosmology. The only difference is that there are likely people at TED who might disagree with this one.
There’s one idea, though, that TED’s organizers recently decided was too controversial to spread: the notion that widening income inequality is a bad thing for America, and that as a result, the rich should pay more in taxes.
I'd suggest it's not too controversial but too pedestrian. Or maybe I'm seeing this through European eyes; ideologically, this topic/argument is mainstream here, even if politicians fail to do much about it.
I think you are seeing this through European eyes. This is the kind of thing that gets you yelled at, threatened and told you're the "kind of [people] ruining america" if you talk about it in the US.
It's not controversial among people who are educated in the subject, but among the general amerian public it's incredibly controversial.
The thing is, even if you ask the rich to pay more in taxes, that doesn't go to poor people. It goes to the government.
If you want poor people to get richer, tax them less (or remove them from tax altogether). Don't re-circulate the money via self-interested politicians to waste.
Inequality is a stupid measure. What matters is absolute poverty. If I have a comfortable standard of living, what do I care if Bill Gates has a million times more money than me?
Inequality of wealth means inequality of power. High levels of inequality mean a small number of people have vastly disproportionate power to shape society in their own interest, at the expense of the majority. Now whether or not you think that is a problem depends on whether you care about things like self determination, democracy and social justice.
You'd think, but as it turns out, inequality has strong negative effects to the point that even the rich in an inequal country do worse than the more poor in a more equal country.
Your position is correct, but nonetheless fails to account for human nature. It's all fine and dandy to have a system where, through 100% morally justified means, 1% holds all assets. Then you get an uprising of the other 99% and the whole country/system falls on its face. Morally, I don't agree with income redistribution for the sake of egalitarianism either; but pragmatically, one cannot but acknowledge its importance for the stability of a social system. And in the end, that trumps dogmatism.
You may not care, and I certainly wouldn't care, but the desire for absolute socioeconomic equality is extremely common. There's a word for it: "egalitarianism." Egalitarianism is a fundamental principle behind many political systems, from socialism to modern American liberalism.
Because he has million times more power than you, power over things you hold near and dear. It is fortunate that Gates/Buffett are using their influence for good but not everyone is doing the same.
The issue is that a very small number of very wealthy people are holding onto a very large amount of money. Any money that isn't being used to buy, sell, or invest in something is effectively just taken right out of the economy. Everyone is poorer because this money is "gone" from the system. All this wealth is locked away as a number in a computer.
You, as an individual, may not care. Unfortunately, historical evidence and social science evidence suggests that (bearing in mind that you as an individual may not care) when income inequality grows too great, other parts of society begin to suffer and eventually break down. This even affects things like the average health outcomes for the people living in the unequal the society.
There's a strong correlation that indicates that poorer health outcomes, higher crime, poorer standard of living all go hand in hand with greater income inequality.
Again, you may not care, for your own sake, but the country is a fair bit larger than you, and this problem does affect us all, whether we care or not.
It reads like an "Reader's respond" column on the op-ed page in a local newspaper. The guy makes utterly standard and conventional arguments and then rests on an appeal to his authority as an whiz-bang investor.
Hardly too hot for TED, more likely to set people to snoozing.
The idea of "tax the rich" is hardly needs or worth spreading - you can't open a newspaper or turn on the TV without seeing another extremely well paid TV pundit preaching it to you. It's not new, not original, not revealing and not illuminating. It's something you can read in any speech of any left-wing politician. I'm glad TED refuses to become a platform for election-campaign speeches and resists hijacking its platform for opportunist political purposes - be it left wing or right wing or any other wing politics. There are more appropriate forums for that.
I can't believe my eyes actually. As I was opening this comments page, I thought that majority will represent vastly different opinion here. But since that's not the case, I decided to speak up.
Nick Hanauer cannot be more wrong. Taxing rich people means punishing someone for his success. There is no argument that could justify such Robin Hood's behaviour. In fact that's what was (or is) happening in the communism. So regression at it's finest. I think that someone hasn't had his history homework done.
The things is that the root of the problem is somewhere else. If you think about evolution for a second. Weaker species are removed, stronger survive. It leads to creating better and better species. On the other hand, if we helped weaker species to survive as well, then not only this natural filter is effectively stopped, but also ironically, the situation is even worse for the stronger ones. That would inevitably make the whole ecosystem poor.
To wrap it up, if God (or some other kind of Force) decided to help poor species, we, humans, would never exist. Why don't you just support the idea, that put you into existence?
> Taxing rich people means punishing someone for his success.
Why is taxing seen as punitive? Is it punitive when we tax middle class people? It's just a mechanism to collect funds for things that are better done with public money than private money. Since the rich stand to gain more from many of the investments, they should pay more. All those companies that make physical widgets? They have to be shipped, largely via roads. Their business and their continued success relies on well constructed roads, of course they should pay for them in the proportion that they use them.
> There is no argument that could justify such Robin Hood's behaviour. In fact that's what was (or is) happening in the communism. So regression at it's finest. I think that someone hasn't had his history homework done.
Please, if you think the only options are state-socialism and laissez-faire capitalism then it's you who hasn't done their homework. Reading Atlas Shrugged doesn't count.
This is all boilerplate American-libertarian thinking. You don't understand evolution beyond "survival of the fittest", so don't use it to justify your arguments. Cancer is very successful at reproducing, it sucks up resources and bullies around the "weaker" cells, that doesn't mean it's a positive thing or something that will lead to long-term system-wide prosperity.
First, if you want to talk Darwinism you need to get your terms right.
"It's not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin.
By (incorrectly) calling someone who isn't rich "weak" you're placing your personal judgements on them, because that's not at all what Darwin was talking about.
<tangent>
I do find it interesting that you consider taxing people "punishment". Does that mean you consider government, or at least funding of the government, a form a punishment?</tangent>
What if the current system is rigged (by loopholes and allowances for swiss banking) so that the rich can avoid paying what the rest of the population does? Wouldn't that mean the "weaker" species were the ones actually being punished? So by raising the effective rate on the rich wouldn't you simply be restoring order to the system?
It's not about punishing success, it's about realizing that the market is not perfect at distributing wealth, and that wealth is not created in a vacuum.
To the first point, are bankers, the founders of instagram, athletes, and movie stars really contributing so much to the world that they are worth hundreds of doctors, or thousands of teachers?
To the second, would you be successful if it weren't for those doctors, teachers, garbage men, police officers, mail carriers, etc.?
Are you saying we should let the poor die off? Sure natural selection could help create "better" human beings. I really do agree. However, I don't agree on your choice of selection pressure. The economic system as it stands also creates a lot of negatives. Pollution and generally screwing people over are some obvious examples. These do not make healthier smarter people. I hate seeing economics compared to evolution, and I'm not sure you understand either.
The case for a progressive tax scheme is that it, may reduce one incentive for the most financially successful monkeys to plunder the less financially successful monkeys, including those monkeys who may be just as smart; but, maybe got started later.
To those of you who are pretending that you've done it all on your own without nobody's help and get your hands off of mine it's all mine mine mine! You're deluding yourself.
I can understand why TED don't want to touch his talk. It would be interesting to note how consistent TED are in this respect.
What is odd to me is the parocial yardstick that the TED curator is reportedly using to judge what's controversial. "We already have Melinda Gates on contraception"
With whom other than the socially conservative wing of the US Republican party is birth control "controversial"? A few thousand people in Vatican City, some other religious leaders of their ilk, and a scattering of anti-colonialist thinkers.
I would have thought TED would have taken a more cosmopolitan view of what counts as controversy.
His point is 100% right, but his argument is inappropriate for wide distribution. He's not sharing the results of a scientific study, he's not sharing a personal growthful experience, he's stating his perspective and inviting others to agree with him.
It's persuasive but that's because I already agree with him. I'd like to see it backed with real data so it could be persuasive to all. Then it would be more of an "idea worth spreading" rather than "a really good idea".
He would have done so much better to shop his Gardens of Democracy book around. That at least presents some new ideas that aren't talked about enough. Like vannevar, I fully agree with Nick but the talk is completely pointless.
I don't have a big problem with income inequality, compared to wealth inequality (averaged over a long time). Consumption taxes and "death tax" (or at least a strong social convention toward donating assets in excess of a certain level, rather than heirs inheriting them) would go a long way. Income inequality is largely due to differences in economic contribution, and encouraging people at the far right of the power curve to do more (and be more numerous) produces positive externalities.
The main quick fixes to the tax code which I'd like to see are immediately taxing carry as income, getting rid of deductions for employer health insurance and mortgage interest, and a national sales tax or VAT (ie consumption tax), ideally highly progressive or exempting the first 50k/yr or something. Then, look at lowering income tax rates to something like 25% flat and setting lt capital gains and dividends at slightly less (20%) or the same as income but indexed for inflation. Get rid of the AMT, and maybe lower corporate rates to try to get firms to repatriate more and avoid abusive tax structuring like the double Irish sandwich and such.
A more transparent tax code, even if revenue neutral, would boost economic activity. A more transparent tax code, taxing things with negative externalities and not discouraging positive externalities, raising more income while cutting expenditures greatly, would be even better.
Not that there is much chance of any of this happening.
I think it's pretty ridiculous TED would not post this video. They really shouldn't be censoring things like this unless someone is just completely making things up in their talk in which case they did a poor job of picking their speaker.
[+] [-] webXL|14 years ago|reply
Another reason this idea is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the median American, but we don't buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, we go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
I can't buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can't buy any new clothes or cars or enjoy any meals out.
But you can invest... Your money isn't stuffed under your mattress, is it??
That's why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
Are they really investments or are they just political favors that over-cost and under-deliver? (See the Department of Education, TARP, Medicare, war, etc.)
[+] [-] muhfuhkuh|14 years ago|reply
One could argue that Reagan's administration saw some powerful growth, adding 15 million net jobs; but, again, he maintained a >50% top marginal tax rate average through his tenure.
The Clinton administration growth rate was even more powerful (arguably) than Reagan's, seeing 23 million net jobs during his tenure, and that was when top marginal rates were nearly 40%.
An outlier, and a very powerful one, is when we saw the largest uplift from post-war growth phase to absolute juggernaut boomtime, was during the 50s, when top marginal tax rates were 90%. Somehow, I doubt we'll ever go back to that time (both in growth and taxation), but we can see that the times of growth was when top marginal tax rates were over 40%. Dip below, no room to grow.
IMHO (with evidence), of course.
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|14 years ago|reply
* how much (usually as a % GDP) should / does a govt take?
* how does that tax burden get shared out
the first is an issue of services provided by govt, but thesecond is an issue of fairness.
If you want more services you need to pay. As a % of GDP the USA takes about 26-28 % whereas pretty much every other Western country is between 35 and 45%.
My take on that is welfare costs. Full health and pension support for all the USA is going to be expensive, and will probably bring the US in line with Europe
the issue now is fairness - but even taut is really about ability. The easy targets are the middle classes - they have money but rarely enough to take advantage of tax loopholes
but if all the money is now held by the richest 2% then the richest 2 % will pay. The alterntive is no government
we all live by the 1930s maxim - I rob banks because that's where the money is. If the richest people in society have the money, that's where the bank robbers / IRS will go.
Fair has little to do with it
[+] [-] wdr1|14 years ago|reply
Why would you average a tax rate over various year? Seems a deceptive thing to do.
[+] [-] georgieporgie|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vannevar|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dalai|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gwright|14 years ago|reply
I'm not suggesting that there aren't reasonable arguments about what the marginal tax rate curve should look like (flat, curved, etc.) to optimize various economic metrics--just that there are some configurations that we can rule out as unworkable without much real controversy.
[+] [-] mtjl79|14 years ago|reply
We need to:
• Invest in the future: We need to invent, produce, and export new renewable energy sources. We need to invest in robotic manufacturing because cheap people labor is not sustainable in any country - robotic is where it will go.
• We need to heavily tax imports like many other countries in the world do. And have American made things become competitive - we have sold our souls to Asia.
• Drastically cut bullshit spending. There are billions spent every year on...bullshit.
• Invest further in Entrepreneurship, and start bringing smart people from other countries here.
Those are big 4.
The big problem is our countries expenses vs. income is too high. At the end of the day, a country is a business. And right now, we are a company that is not running well. We need to clean out the board of directors (Congress) and start fresh.
[+] [-] akeefer|14 years ago|reply
So I guess it depends on what problem you want to solve, but if you're worried about the federal deficit, then higher taxes (even in the form of just eliminating the bush tax cuts) will absolutely help to solve that problem.
[+] [-] mikecane|14 years ago|reply
Look, I'm no defender of gov't waste, but you can't blanketly say "bullshit" without specific examples. One's man bullshit -- the two Steves with their "toy computer" -- is another man's gold (Markkula, who saw the promise and invested early). Is NASA bullshit? Is protecting the environment bullshit? GPS satellites? The Coast Guard? Food inspection? I see the news headlines like everyone else trumpeting what look like screwy studies. What we never ever hear is any follow-up that one "stupid" study connected to a non-stupid study that led to a breakthrough. A breakthrough that most likely was just handed over to some private company to exploit for profit without any compensation coming back to taxpayers (this has been the case for decades with private companies taking government-tabulated data and reselling it as for-profit databases). This latter giveaway to private enterprise with original funding by working people is the ultimate bullshit to me.
[+] [-] usefulcat|14 years ago|reply
So no, a country (or government) is not the same as a business.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|14 years ago|reply
No, it's not. It needs to manage its finances responsibly, but that is quite different from being a profit-generating business.
[+] [-] rayiner|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lancewiggs|14 years ago|reply
I feel he blew his chance to get the message out. I also feel that most TED watchers already know this argument.
[+] [-] brudgers|14 years ago|reply
http://www.ted.com/talks/niall_ferguson_the_6_killer_apps_of...
Wonderfully, it is part of the "Rethinking Poverty" Theme:
http://www.ted.com/themes/rethinking_poverty.html
[+] [-] freshhawk|14 years ago|reply
Don't we want the people at TED to be able to share good arguments concerning precisely the things that are most important and most misunderstood (which hot button political issues are, since people now choose an opinion based on tribalism rather than reason)
So that reasoning is bullshit. I don't want democrats or republicans choosing which topics are now off limits for debate because they are now political. For fucks sake, political topics are the ones that need debate. What else does "political topic" mean other than "this is important to our society and there is disagreement".
So TED talks are "Riveting talks by remarkable people on subjects that have not been deemed off limits by one of the two big political parties in the US".
Nevermind the fact that this clearly has nothing to do with political controversy as described, everyone knows there are talks about evolution, climate change and cosmology. The only difference is that there are likely people at TED who might disagree with this one.
[+] [-] petercooper|14 years ago|reply
I'd suggest it's not too controversial but too pedestrian. Or maybe I'm seeing this through European eyes; ideologically, this topic/argument is mainstream here, even if politicians fail to do much about it.
[+] [-] freshhawk|14 years ago|reply
It's not controversial among people who are educated in the subject, but among the general amerian public it's incredibly controversial.
[+] [-] gadders|14 years ago|reply
If you want poor people to get richer, tax them less (or remove them from tax altogether). Don't re-circulate the money via self-interested politicians to waste.
[+] [-] gadders|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon1385|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jules|14 years ago|reply
TED talk about it: http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_wilkinson.html
[+] [-] roel_v|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baddox|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chime|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] matwood|14 years ago|reply
Because people by their nature are jealous. Many people even hate when their friends do better than them for some reason.
[+] [-] wvenable|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ClHans|14 years ago|reply
There's a strong correlation that indicates that poorer health outcomes, higher crime, poorer standard of living all go hand in hand with greater income inequality.
Again, you may not care, for your own sake, but the country is a fair bit larger than you, and this problem does affect us all, whether we care or not.
[+] [-] njharman|14 years ago|reply
Income equality is not about solving all problems. It's just trying to rectify one of the most egregious ones.
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JackFr|14 years ago|reply
Hardly too hot for TED, more likely to set people to snoozing.
[+] [-] tommorris|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gilpo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jakubmal|14 years ago|reply
Nick Hanauer cannot be more wrong. Taxing rich people means punishing someone for his success. There is no argument that could justify such Robin Hood's behaviour. In fact that's what was (or is) happening in the communism. So regression at it's finest. I think that someone hasn't had his history homework done. The things is that the root of the problem is somewhere else. If you think about evolution for a second. Weaker species are removed, stronger survive. It leads to creating better and better species. On the other hand, if we helped weaker species to survive as well, then not only this natural filter is effectively stopped, but also ironically, the situation is even worse for the stronger ones. That would inevitably make the whole ecosystem poor.
To wrap it up, if God (or some other kind of Force) decided to help poor species, we, humans, would never exist. Why don't you just support the idea, that put you into existence?
[+] [-] elemenohpee|14 years ago|reply
Why is taxing seen as punitive? Is it punitive when we tax middle class people? It's just a mechanism to collect funds for things that are better done with public money than private money. Since the rich stand to gain more from many of the investments, they should pay more. All those companies that make physical widgets? They have to be shipped, largely via roads. Their business and their continued success relies on well constructed roads, of course they should pay for them in the proportion that they use them.
> There is no argument that could justify such Robin Hood's behaviour. In fact that's what was (or is) happening in the communism. So regression at it's finest. I think that someone hasn't had his history homework done.
Please, if you think the only options are state-socialism and laissez-faire capitalism then it's you who hasn't done their homework. Reading Atlas Shrugged doesn't count.
This is all boilerplate American-libertarian thinking. You don't understand evolution beyond "survival of the fittest", so don't use it to justify your arguments. Cancer is very successful at reproducing, it sucks up resources and bullies around the "weaker" cells, that doesn't mean it's a positive thing or something that will lead to long-term system-wide prosperity.
[+] [-] mccon104|14 years ago|reply
"It's not the strongest who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin.
By (incorrectly) calling someone who isn't rich "weak" you're placing your personal judgements on them, because that's not at all what Darwin was talking about.
<tangent> I do find it interesting that you consider taxing people "punishment". Does that mean you consider government, or at least funding of the government, a form a punishment?</tangent>
What if the current system is rigged (by loopholes and allowances for swiss banking) so that the rich can avoid paying what the rest of the population does? Wouldn't that mean the "weaker" species were the ones actually being punished? So by raising the effective rate on the rich wouldn't you simply be restoring order to the system?
[+] [-] ChrisLTD|14 years ago|reply
To the first point, are bankers, the founders of instagram, athletes, and movie stars really contributing so much to the world that they are worth hundreds of doctors, or thousands of teachers?
To the second, would you be successful if it weren't for those doctors, teachers, garbage men, police officers, mail carriers, etc.?
[+] [-] Robot_Overlord|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anon808|14 years ago|reply
How about taxing all people at the same rate, regardless of how they earn their income? I think that's what the bigger discussion is about.
[+] [-] cullen|14 years ago|reply
To those of you who are pretending that you've done it all on your own without nobody's help and get your hands off of mine it's all mine mine mine! You're deluding yourself.
I can understand why TED don't want to touch his talk. It would be interesting to note how consistent TED are in this respect.
[+] [-] msabalau|14 years ago|reply
With whom other than the socially conservative wing of the US Republican party is birth control "controversial"? A few thousand people in Vatican City, some other religious leaders of their ilk, and a scattering of anti-colonialist thinkers.
I would have thought TED would have taken a more cosmopolitan view of what counts as controversy.
[+] [-] JackDanger|14 years ago|reply
It's persuasive but that's because I already agree with him. I'd like to see it backed with real data so it could be persuasive to all. Then it would be more of an "idea worth spreading" rather than "a really good idea".
[+] [-] saraid216|14 years ago|reply
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gardens-Democracy-Citizenship-Gove...
[+] [-] rdl|14 years ago|reply
The main quick fixes to the tax code which I'd like to see are immediately taxing carry as income, getting rid of deductions for employer health insurance and mortgage interest, and a national sales tax or VAT (ie consumption tax), ideally highly progressive or exempting the first 50k/yr or something. Then, look at lowering income tax rates to something like 25% flat and setting lt capital gains and dividends at slightly less (20%) or the same as income but indexed for inflation. Get rid of the AMT, and maybe lower corporate rates to try to get firms to repatriate more and avoid abusive tax structuring like the double Irish sandwich and such.
A more transparent tax code, even if revenue neutral, would boost economic activity. A more transparent tax code, taxing things with negative externalities and not discouraging positive externalities, raising more income while cutting expenditures greatly, would be even better.
Not that there is much chance of any of this happening.
[+] [-] andr3w321|14 years ago|reply
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101628527
I think it's pretty ridiculous TED would not post this video. They really shouldn't be censoring things like this unless someone is just completely making things up in their talk in which case they did a poor job of picking their speaker.
[+] [-] mikecane|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gte910h|14 years ago|reply