Redistribution of wealth?

niagra_gent

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I've not bothered to read all 14 pages of this thread, so I'm sorry if I'm treading on the toes of others.

I am from the UK, so a bit of 'socialism' runs in my veins. Surely, the principle behind the redistribution of wealth is that we live in a society and we should take care of each other. Those that have made a great success of life have benefitted from the system and therefore contribute proportionally more than those down on luck. The analysis that those who have all the money are hard-working and, therefore, deserving, and those that have little money are lay-abouts, and, therefore, undeserving is, frankly, very silly.

Similarly, the claims, not just by members here but also by important american politicians, that redistribution of wealth involves 'taking' money from the rich and 'giving' to the poor is also very silly. Surely it just involves those earning significant sums to pay proportionally more in tax than those paying lesser sums. Is there something importantly wrong with me that this makes sense?

Healthcare is another matter in that the UK and the US seem to be totally at odds. In the UK, while the healthcare system is far from perfect, the principle that everyone pays towards the cost of the nation's healthcare in proportion to how much he earns again seems to make sense. This means, as a university student, I don't pay much towards my healthcare at the moment, but when I make a lot more in the future I'll pay more into the system (and I'll be very glad to do so). I'll always be guaranteed access to the system, free of charge at the point of delivery.

I wanted my argument to remain as secular as possible (I am deeply atheist!), but surely this is just a question of how much we believe in being good neighbours; sharing in each other's successes and helping those who are not enjoying success.

PS. On reflection, 'Success' is perhaps a bit malapropos, but I'm sure you know what I meant.
 

rob_just_rob

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It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many people out there who can rhyme off lists of weapon systems and their capabilities. What's the big fascination with this stuff? If you're on LPSG, presumably you shouldn't need to compensate for anything. :lol:

Stop creating imaginary threats, and the "need" for all the shiny new weapons will go away. And then, much of the billions of dollars involved in making weapons can be redirected to health care, schools, roads, levees, and other infrastructure. Those are the jobs that really don't go away.
 
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deleted213967

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I hope this doesnt make me seem awfully dumb and I am also hoping folks won't just criticise me for asking but I am curious to learn more. Can someone explain just why Redistribution of wealth is a bad thing?

Allow me to demonstrate using an LPSG-relevant allegory:

Some people, such as yourself (judging from your gallery, which I took the liberty to peruse) have bigger dicks than others. Some are extremely well-endowed :biggrin1:, while some have micro-penises :mad:.

Redistribution of wealth would mean that in the spirit of fairness, we would have to (safely) graft some of your large penis onto that of a person with a smaller penis.

My allegory sucks :)biggrin1:) because dick size is the purely the result of a genetic accident, whereas wealth is rarely so.



 

Notaguru2

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Let's be clear. Raising taxes on the wealthy doesn't equate to redistribution of wealth. I pay 36% tax; the rich pay 25%. In my eyes, they aren'y doing their share. So, its not redistribution of wealth, it's called fairness.

GOBAMA!
 

davec94

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a flat tax scheme is ridiculous, and anyone who is using that as a reason not to vote Obama shouldn't vote McCain either cause he aint gonna implement one either.
 

davec94

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Let's be clear. Raising taxes on the wealthy doesn't equate to redistribution of wealth. I pay 36% tax; the rich pay 25%. In my eyes, they aren'y doing their share. So, its not redistribution of wealth, it's called fairness.

GOBAMA!

who cares if they do call it redistribution of wealth? its not an evil or unamerican concept.
 

mindseye

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My allegory sucks :)biggrin1:) because dick size is the purely the result of a genetic accident, whereas wealth is rarely so.

Well, it sucks for a different reason: there's no functional difference between a small penis and a large one in the same way that poverty is functionally very different than wealth:

You have a small penis, and this month's rent is two inches you barely have. You can pick up a few inches at work, but ever since Wal-Mart moved into town, a lot of the other shops closed down, and wages are lower than they used to be.

You squeak by from month to month, getting a few pleasing inches at payday but ending up a tiny nub by the next payday. Still, you're managing to get by and you can tell from the showers at the Y that some of your friends are even worse off than you.

Then there's that sudden unexpected expense: say, a major car repair. You don't have enough inches left to cover it. There's a lending institution out there that will lend you a few inches, but once you pay the interest on the loan, you'll end up even smaller than before. And there's not enough left at the end of each payday to cover the interest.

You take out the loan anyway, and decide to cut back on something really important in order to afford the interest. You skip a few meals and turn down the heat in the house. The car is fixed, and the inches you save on groceries and heating will take care of the bank loan.

Except that now that you're underfed in a cold house, your health takes a hit, and your changes of getting ill and missing time from work increase. Worse yet, you may end up hospitalized and saddled with an expense that your penis won't cover. For the lucky poor, these unexpected expenses are spaced out enough that they can recover from one before the other begins. If you're one of the unlucky poor, for whom lightning strikes twice in a short period of time, there's not really anything you can do.

You lose their home and gather under a bridge or in an alley with other guys who've lost their dicks. You try to find a job, but when you don't have a stable address or phone number, it's hard for potential employers to contact you (and they're leery of hiring someone who's homeless!)

On the way back from an unsuccessful job interview, you see Donald Trump in a television on a shop window. Trump's penis is seventeen miles long; he's on his third wife, and they barely ever speak to each other. He just spent two-thousand feet -- more than you've ever had in your lifetime -- getting the letter "T" carved into his boat and inlaid with gold and emeralds. What a waste, you think, as you spot a McDonald's bag someone had thrown out. Maybe there are a few fries left in the bottom.

Some of your new-found buddies have taken to begging for inches on the street, and the well-hung people who walk by (with their inches-to-spare dragging on the ground) sneer at them and say they'll only spend it on alcohol. Others, fearful of the cold winter ahead, turn to more desperate measures, breaking into cars and homes to search for jewelry, stereos and other things they can pawn for inches so they might be able to find a warm place to stay.

...Well, I've forced the analogy a bit too far, but showing compassion for the poor is way different than showing compassion for the not-so-well hung.
 

kabutops74

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The super wealthy will always support who they believe will win. This guarantees them influence with the White House. Warren Buffet is shrewd, but not a fool. He will use his influence to try to disuade Obama from his socialist program. I hope Buffet will be successful at this, but I am not counting on it. Farakhan will have the greater influence in the coming years.

Dude, I know politics breeds cynicism real quick, but I really hope you're kidding. At 75, Louis Farrakhan is 3 years older than John McCain, and whatever base of support he might still have is lightyears more out of touch. The Nation of Islam has and will continue to be about as important politically as Vegas stage show. But feel free to correct me if you see a reunion tour of the Million man march... you might see some of my cousins.

Obama didn't outpolitical the Clintons by being a raving socialist, and I'm not seeing how anything he proposes promises to be more "socialist" than the last 2 months of frenzied reaching into the nation's banking system. Call me biased, but moral hazards of lazy poor people are hardly worse than those of firms convinced they're "too big to fail," or worse, cajoled into thinking as much. So far as I can tell, we're well past bitterly clinging to the unerring wisdom of market capitalism, especially since I failed to hear much whining about "redistribution" when the when the "tax rebate" checks flowed out in 2001.

Let's face it: modern economies, or at least ours, live and die on consumer spending, and when that's tacked with excessive income inequality, you end up in weird situations ... like a President consistently encouraging consumers to consume regardless. (moral hazard, anyone?) Put another way, it's hard to get all those benefits of an Ownership Society when too many can't afford to own anything.

And as for things getting worse under Obama, since I am honestly a little worried about the dangers another of a single-party trifecta this decade, the Democrats at least already have living memory of what they risk if they go too fringe -- 1993/4. Between that and a healthy dose of gun-toting Mountain West folks in their caucus, I just don't see a landslide of coastal leftism coming with an Obama administration.
 
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deleted213967

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Well, it sucks for a different reason: there's no functional difference between a small penis and a large one in the same way that poverty is functionally very different than wealth:

...

...Well, I've forced the analogy a bit too far, but showing compassion for the poor is way different than showing compassion for the not-so-well hung.

We're in violent agreement then. You've indeed pushed my economic success-dick endowment analogy too far.

Perhaps I won't use humor next time, as it offends some stern members.

How about the A student being forced to lower her grade to an A- and an A- college so that the C- student can pass?

...and I am not talking about the A students who cheated their way to the grade or just got extremely lucky and guessed the answers right.
 
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deleted213967

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Why? Is "grade" a finite resource?

Vote for Karl Marx, Babar or Endora if you so wish. It is your right. Now if I may (or not), I have a ballot to complete and mail.

Sweet redistributed dreams!


 

fxc1100

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We're in violent agreement then. You've indeed pushed my economic success-dick endowment analogy too far.

Perhaps I won't use humor next time, as it offends some stern members.

How about the A student being forced to lower her grade to an A- and an A- college so that the C- student can pass?

...and I am not talking about the A students who cheated their way to the grade or just got extremely lucky and guessed the answers right.

That is actually the worse analogy I've seen someone equate to taxes. I see what you are trying to do but it's misleading and unrepresentative of the true tax model your trying to explain.

Here is a better representation of the model that is currently in place(trickle down economics) and why people want to change it:

We have a room with 5 people in it. The total value of all the money in the room is $10. 00. The money is apportioned as in the table below.
Total Value $10. 00
Jim $4. 00 40%
Susan $3. 00 30%
Tom $2. 00 20%
Amy $1. 00 10%
Bill $0. 00 0%

Sam enters the room and says that he has $10. 00 that he wants to give to Jim. This makes everyone else unhappy of course and everyone says that they will beat Jim up if he takes the money. Sam then proposes a solution. He\ says that if everyone allows him to give Jim $6. 00 he will give $1. 00 to everyone else in the room. This sounds pretty good to everyone so they agree to let Jim receive the money. So, after Jim gets the money and everyone gets a dollar this is what the monetary breakdown of the room looks like:
Total Value $20. 00
Jim $10.00 50%
Susan $4.00 20%
Tom $3.00 15%
Amy $2.00 10%
Bill $1. 00 5%

As you can see, due to inflation most of the other people in the room either lost value or saw no real gain. As you can also see the size of the "economy" did in fact grow as the theory of "Trickle-Down" proposes, but the growth only benefited one person, Jim, and arguably Bill. Even though the economy grew overall most of the people in the room saw a loss of value. This is because the value of money is relative. It's relative to many factors, but one is how much money is in the system. If you have 1 dollar out of 10 then its worth more than 1 dollar out of 1,000. How wealthy you are in terms of dollars is not measured by the number of dollars you have, it is measured by the share of dollars that you have out of the total number of dollars in the system.



What Obama plans to do is just readjust the current tax system. In no way is this socialism, nor will it decrease the motivation of business owners to work because they are going to get taxed(despite republicans bark there is actual no evidence to back the claim).
 
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deleted15807

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How wealthy you are in terms of dollars is not measured by the number of dollars you have, it is measured by the share of dollars that you have out of the total number of dollars in the system.


Very nice explanation and it's hard to get that point across. It's the 'share' of the total that people are starting to understand, thank God, that is missing, the income inequality.
 

mindseye

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Vote for Karl Marx, Babar or Endora if you so wish. It is your right. Now if I may (or not), I have a ballot to complete and mail.

Sweet redistributed dreams!


I'll take that as a 'no'. I'm happy to redistribute my dreams, by the way: need one?
 

Blocko

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Really? A CEO asked for a handout? or a major corporation asked for a handout. Please get your facts correct.

The statement that I was posting related to whether or not the individuals holding the position as a CEO of any company, not necessarily a banking institution as you are assuming, ever asked for a handout in order to gain the position that they hold.

The answer is no. I do not believe that you will find a single CEO of a fortune 200 Company who has ever been on welfare or been provided government assistance or benefited from "spreading the wealth"

Your inability to read the question and statement, then respond in an accurate and informed manner would lead me to assume that this is why you support this measure.

Well, what you say seems reasonable until you realize that most CEOs receive some of their compensation as mechanisms related to the value of shares in the company (usually options, sometimes target bonuses). Therefore if the welfare (or handouts) help the price of the company, they directly provide income to the CEO. Therefore, the CEO has a profit incentive (and possibly a moral hazard) to seek corporate welfare.

The key to understanding the market is that the invisible hand doesn't exist. Someone somewhere doesn't have scruples (no matter what their class) and is willing to make money through means that seem devoid or principle. CEOs aren't more or less exempt from this than the small percentage of poor people who commit welfare fraud.
 

Freddie53

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Originally Posted by Domisoldo

We're in violent agreement then. You've indeed pushed my economic success-dick endowment analogy too far.

Perhaps I won't use humor next time, as it offends some stern members.

How about the A student being forced to lower her grade to an A- and an A- college so that the C- student can pass?

...and I am not talking about the A students who cheated their way to the grade or just got extremely lucky and guessed the answers right.


Why? Is "grade" a finite resource?
Amazing the logic of some people. Of course grade in an infinite source inless the teacher decided to quantify it as finite in whch it is the teacher not the studnet's fault to see their letter lowered.

I am a retired teacher, I never lowered anyone's grade to help others. I did this though.

There is a 20 point test. That means that I should count off 5 points per question. But the grades are low so I count of only four. What how this kind of help does not increase the A's, does not take away anyone's grade and some are helped that need it


Not Curved Curved

0 100 100
-1 95 96
-2 90 92
-3 85 88
-4 80 84
-5 75 80
-6 70 76
-7 65 72
-8 60 68

-10 55 64
-11 50 60

-12 46 56

If as is in my state the mandated grading scale is 90-100 A; 80-89 B; 70-79 C; 60-69 D; and 59 and below F, see what happens with this kind of curve? No one is hurt and some are helped.

Missing just one or two is still an A on this scale. It isn't until mising four or five does it matter on the B's So this kind of "curve is NOT going to inflate the A's and B;s.

It might reduce the number of F's significan'tly. What is actually does is allow 50 to be a D.

Are the two scales equal. NO. Are they fair. That depends on the test and the students. Review test that has been reviewed and reviewed it isn't not only equal but not fair. Bit if it is brand new material, the student who this is rteally true new information is at a handicap with the student whose parnets have already taught this information at home.

on the first test student A makes a 90 on basic math skills Studnet B makes a 65. After intensive review Student A makes a 90 showing no new learning, but student B has moved to a 100 on the last skills test.

So what is equal. Student A gets a 90 A and Studnet B gets an 83 B for a final grade.

Or would it be fair since this is a skills comprehensive skills test to just give each studnet the highest score they made on the four basic skills tests they took over the two weeks. That would mean Student A get a 90 A and Student B gets a 100 A. but what about that 65?

What about ti? If we are being truly fair the grade should reflect what the studnet knows know after the unit is over.

I use the analogy to show that it is impossible to always show what is equal and what is fair.

Mimimum wage earner only has to pay $200 a month for universal health care.

His boss pays $1000 a month for his health care. Both have identically the same coverage.

So which is fair and which is equal and can both be true at the same time. I doubt it.

The minimumg wage guy is paying exactly 20 percent of his income on universal health care. His boss is also paying exactly 20 per cent of his wage on universal health care. He makes five times as much as the minimum hour wage worker.

Or should the minimum wage guy have to pay 20 pecent )$200) of what he makes to get universal health care while his boss also pays $200 which for him is only 4 per cent of his income.

There is no way to successfully reconcile this difference to both guys when we talk about what is fair

Shold the wealthy help make it possible so that both the rich guy and the poor guy pay the same per cent as each other or should they pay the same amount of money or as some have tried to do cut it somewhere in the middle?

Any one claiming to have a scientific law of what is equal fair and right about how to proceed about this is talking foolishness if they speak as if there is some scientific law of nature that presumes what is always as in always correct.

My political belief is that we have to cut it in the middle to some degree. Having the rich paying only 5 percent of their income for health care and to poor guy paying 20 % so that they both are paying $200 a month doesn't seem fair.

Neither does making the richer guy pay $1000 for heath care while the poor guy gets by with only $200 a month seem fair either.

There has to be a meeting some where. Since there aere so many more of the minimum wage guys as as their are bosses it isn't as simple as adding the two togeter and cut it down the middle.

That is why sales tax is not fair. The poor person has to (shall we say) spend a total of 10 percent of his income on necesssities, meaning 10 pecent sales tax on his income. but the rich guy squrills away most of his income in the bank which makes even more money for him. So he only pays 2 percent of his income as sales income tax. That is very unfair to the poor people.

It isn't about spreading the wealth. It is about providing some decency in incomes we pay our citizens in the richest nation in the world. If the very rich pay slightly more than the poor in taxes, the tradeoff is immeasurable. With all the people getting basic services, opportunities to health care, education advancement, crime will go down. Welfare payments will go down and guess what the rich people's tax burden will decline as well.

Discuss it all you want, but true or false, correct, fair, adequate, best for the nation are all political terms that are used at will to camouflage what may be the real stories underneath.