Progressive idea 80% tax - income over $500K doesn't go far enough to fix income inequality

The rich are too Damn rich, and the poor are too Damn poor. What we need is an army of mutant Robin Hoods to track down the pricks that are hoarding all the power and wealth and make some heads roll.

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
So how does taking 80% of what some rich guy has help put money in my pocket?

Is it supposed to trickle down from the government to me? My taxes will go away? My mortgage will get paid? Cars will become more affordable? Food and gas won't be going up week after week?

Connect the dots for me. Don't use hypothetical or promises of government action because those are fairy tales.

Take a dollar from a rich man and increase my quality of life. Go through it from A to B to C so I can see how this action will directly benefit me.

I can show you how it has hurt you....www.truth-out.org...

how much longer are you going to stay in the bent-over position for these people?.....how much income do Americans have to give up to satisfy these people?....how much more wealth from the middle class and poor, needs to be transferred up to these people before you can "connect the dots"?

a reply to: grandmakdw

I find the only fair system is sales tax and abolish income tax. There is nothing wrong with people producing things that others like and receiving money in exchange.

What is wrong is diehard materialism that seems to be the only guidance for many people these days.

So don't "punish" people for producing/working. "Punish" them for excessive materialism and things will work out.
You could adjust sales tax so that a fairer wealth distribution would occur over time. For example:

- Untreated vegetables and fruit in open containers: 0% sales tax
- Processed food in plastic wrapping: 15% sales tax
- Your first house: 20% sales tax
- An additional house (now you have two): 50% sales tax
- A car for 20'000.- US$: 20% sales tax
- A car for 100'000.- US$: 50% sales tax

Details and numbers to be discussed, but you get the idea.

Except for the criminals who are currently getting away without paying any income tax (ask your friendly drug dealer...) this tax system should appeal to anybody who is not completely lazy and thinks that others should work for him.

originally posted by: AlaskanDad
You must have missed the memo; anyone that make under a million a year shall be housed by our private prison industry,
Oops looks like you missed the memo because your income is under the cut off line.
Better luck in your next life!

Back to the OP's point, I really think many long for the FEMA camps, it is a great game reset, but people just do not understand much. I work for Boeing and the CEO of about 150k employees makes.

Salary 2 million
Bonus 4 million
Stock options 7 million

With an average of about 13 million per year, and you know what, I do not have a single problem with that one bit....and I work for the guy. His bonus and stock options means he is making the right decisions, and that means I can keep on having my bonus and salary too. Works for me....

BTW if we wanted to lower his pay to lets say 800k per year to match the average 80k per year there then we could give everyone in the company a 100 dollar a year raise...YEAH!!!!!

I would rather profit off his wisdom and skill and get a 50k bonus instead without really caring what his is at all. This analogy is the same if we attack the upper .01% with an additional 40% or whatevery...it would be like a 100 buck raise per month, and people just do not understand that point.

.01% equals 600 billion in income, to raise their rate to 80% it would generate an additional 300 billion, this would come out to 75 dollars per American per month.

Is this what everyone is debating so hard to get, or do we just have people who don't want to achieve in life and so they do not want to see anyone else achieve either?

Let's just round up all the hyper-rich fat cats and figure out which ones are sociopaths and psychopaths. The ones that are, will have their assets taken and put in the hands of responsible people with a heart.

No one earns a fortune in a vacuum. It takes a village to make a fortune, and so it should benefit the entire village, not a mere handful of greedy sociopaths.

originally posted by: BlueMule
The rich are too Damn rich, and the poor are too Damn poor. What we need is an army of mutant Robin Hoods to track down the pricks that are hoarding all the power and wealth and make some heads roll.

It is not how much you make but how much you need to spend. Looking at the poor, the reason they are poor is because of the cost of living. Before Obama was in office a family could do well, not great, but well on 50k per year. Today 6 years later under his leadership, that number is like 80k and people blame the rich...geez

Let me ask you, how does the income of some guy that makes the average .01% income of 4.4 million affect you personally in anyway compared to the recession that up until Obama the average time in one has been 1.5 years when a new President has come into office, and if you want to talk recession look at Carters, and still Reagan was out of it in 1.5 years.

When you are forced to work 30 hours per week due to Obamacare, when you need to pay 50% more in the cost of food, gas, oil etc how does that 4.4 million guy affect you so much?

originally posted by: BlueMule
Let's just round up all the hyper-rich fat cats and figure out which ones are sociopaths and psychopaths. The ones that are, will have their assets taken and put in the hands of responsible people with a heart.

No one earns a fortune in a vacuum. It takes a village to make a fortune, and so it should benefit the entire village, not a mere handful of greedy sociopaths.

Do you think sociopaths and psychopaths start at the .01% level? hehe Lets round them all up, maybe 30 million....

originally posted by: jimmyx

originally posted by: thisguyrighthere
So how does taking 80% of what some rich guy has help put money in my pocket?
Is it supposed to trickle down from the government to me? My taxes will go away? My mortgage will get paid? Cars will become more affordable? Food and gas won't be going up week after week?

Connect the dots for me. Don't use hypothetical or promises of government action because those are fairy tales.
Take a dollar from a rich man and increase my quality of life. Go through it from A to B to C so I can see how this action will directly benefit me.

I can show you how it has hurt you....www.truth-out.org...
how much longer are you going to stay in the bent-over position for these people?.....how much income do Americans have to give up to satisfy these people?....how much more wealth from the middle class and poor, needs to be transferred up to these people before you can "connect the dots"?

Look at my post about the CEO of Boeing...lowering his 13 million per year to 800k gives Boeing employees 100 bucks per year raise....

I need the dots connected too...

originally posted by: SacredLore
- Untreated vegetables and fruit in open containers: 0% sales tax

What the upper middle class eats

- Processed food in plastic wrapping: 15% sales tax

What the poor eat....


A flat tax of 1% to 10% on EVERYONE would work, and a increased fed sales tax of 8% on EVERYTHING not labeled as "staple food" would work too.

It is linear... you buy a 10k car and you pay roughly 1500 in sales tax, the rich guy pays 15,000 in sales tax on his 100k car. Just as the billionaire pays 100 million and the guy that makes 10,000 pays 100 bucks.

originally posted by: Tarzan the apeman.
a reply to: grandmakdw I personally don't think the money is going to trickle down to any body Once Uncle Scam gets his greedy little fingers on it. It will be game over man. Hate to ask this ..............How does one do a post on here? Is there a post button?

If you are fairly new here you need to do several things before posting. First read at least the first 2-3 pages of posts before replying. In those pages you get insight into the real point the poster is trying to make.

My point was really that this is a horrible idea. I agree that the elite overclass of politicians that rule us and use taxes as their personal checkbook will only use taxes to make themselves, their friends, their family, their contributors rich and richer while sociopathic-ly telling "the people" how much they really "care" about them.

Secondly find the appropriate forum to post your new thread in. Then find the button that will create a new thread and go for it.

originally posted by: BlueMule
The rich are too Damn rich, and the poor are too Damn poor. What we need is an army of mutant Robin Hoods to track down the pricks that are hoarding all the power and wealth and make some heads roll.

You do realize that Robin Hood took from the government who was taxing the people too much and returned the money to the tax payers, don't you?

originally posted by: SacredLore
a reply to: grandmakdw

I find the only fair system is sales tax and abolish income tax. There is nothing wrong with people producing things that others like and receiving money in exchange.

I actually agree with you. I suggest you go back and read my posts in this thread. I was being sarcastic with the OP.

originally posted by: BlueMule
Let's just round up all the hyper-rich fat cats and figure out which ones are sociopaths and psychopaths. The ones that are, will have their assets taken and put in the hands of responsible people with a heart.

No one earns a fortune in a vacuum. It takes a village to make a fortune, and so it should benefit the entire village, not a mere handful of greedy sociopaths.

My earlier point was that it is the elite overclass of politicians that use tax money for themselves, their circle and contributors that are the sociopaths and psychopaths (read my earlier posts). They should be summarily drummed out of office by the "the people" they pretend to represent. Don't need to round them up, we just need to wake up and fire them by voting every politician who has held the same office more than 6 years consecutively out on their *&*%.

Woo Hoo! Lets go relive Woodrow Wilson's mistakes. Yessir! It's not like the nation hasn't seen 90% taxing on wealth before. Did that go well? Well.....people know their history, right?

At least we aren't playing stupid games anymore. They are outright and honest about saying it is the fact high income exists AT ALL that they can't stand. Jealousy of accomplishment is how I'd term it, but others really believe they have the right, contrary to everything our nation DOES stand for here, to dictate how successful an individual American can ever become. Not TOO successful...and of course, this, according to some, is the duty of the State to regulate, monitor and ultimately control.

Da Comrade! Da! It's feeling a lot like 1918 around here.

originally posted by: BlueMule
Let's just round up all the hyper-rich fat cats and figure out which ones are sociopaths and psychopaths. The ones that are, will have their assets taken and put in the hands of responsible people with a heart.

No one earns a fortune in a vacuum. It takes a village to make a fortune, and so it should benefit the entire village, not a mere handful of greedy sociopaths.

You are looking in the wrong direction for the sociopaths/psychopaths.

They are by definition, people who are outwardly quite charming, frequently charismatic, they appear to genuinely care about others and their faces and body language are often those of deeply caring and selfless individuals. While.... really not caring at all about others, only themselves and what they want and what they think they need and deserve, and will do nearly anything to get what they want, if not anything to get what they want.

When they lie even the best body language/verbal tone/lie detector specialists unable to detect it and they appear to be telling the truth and so others tend to believe the lies and fall for their charisma. When caught they appear remorseful with their body language, verbal tones etc, but really feel absolutely no remorse at all and will keep doing what they want only more carefully next time.

This description of what constitutes a sociopath/psychopath neatly fits the vast majority of elected federal officials - elite ruling overclass in the US today.

I think I have a new meme for ya'll

Elite political overclass
love it!

a reply to: AlaskanDad

Asking someone how much money they make while they are using a service, or shopping in your store is considered unprofessional. I didn't start the arguments with all the cliche introductions that are found mostly on here. No I used my logic against, what I assumed was their reasoning behind their, actions to show my support for the poor. Then they replied. Each one had a different approach to my concerns regarding rich people. And then they revealed what they did. Not what they made. After my years as cab driver I don't judge people by their salaries. I judge them by their character.


As for their "limos and personal drivers...." they take taxis all the time. That was until the uber app took away 70 % of my business away. People fell for that materialistic look of arriving in a Chrysler 300, or that new audi A7. #.... some charged less than our meter rates to get attention. But they also became greedy B's.

Mom and pop businesses. I love this argument now. I used to be just like you wondering what the f happened to those stores. Then a combination of that south park episode of wal mart coming to their town, and learning a little bit more on the logistics behind modern money mechanics, and trying hard to get Ron Paul elected.... it hit me. Some answers you just can't help but to accept them the way they unfolded.

We just had a pizzeria open near my house. It was called wise pies pizzeria. There were signs. There were wavers.... and then the day that I finally had time to stop by? Gone.... it just had its grand opening at the beginning of April and the sign has been torn down. The shop is empty. And all the roadside signs were gone.

I have seen so many different mom and pop shops come and go. Game stores, thrift stores, comic stores.... the ones who survive are the dungeons and dragons type mom and pop shops actually survive.

Why? Demand. When people get used to how something is done in their community they can't live without it.

What is lowes known for? What id wal mart known for? What is pizza hut known for? What is safelite known for? What is geico known for?

It is not their ad campaigns. It is the level of satisfaction their customers "FEEL" like they get from them.


Simply put would you pick up a jar of peanut butter from the store.... or go to the organic place where they have a machine that makes peanut butter right before your eyes that stinks up the place, and takes longer to sit and wait to finally pick it up and put it in yhe cart?


As for your articles.... I am fighting against the fcc wuth the latest petition. I have a t mobile service which is a competitor. I have century link internet. Everything is cheaper. Comcast doesn't want to pay for our connections to information that proves to be harmful. It isn't illegal yet so they literally are trying to pull wool over our eyes. But once people see what happens when they do this. Via the websites in protest by shutting down their own sites. People will fight against it.

I learned a lot in my life... maybe you should live the life I did.

originally posted by: GiulXainx
a reply to: Greven

You have to give something to get something..... you have to take something to replace something else. Think about it this way. Rich people get the flat tax rate. They suddenly have buying power. They invest in say.... Samsung. ... or toyota.... or king scoopers. That money they spend in investments helps a company to pay their bills and their people..... suddenly they can afford better health care options for employees. Give raises higher than a nickel. Let them explore different options with their R&D teams. And ultimately.... LOWER THE PRICES OF THEIR GOODS.


The rich the rich the rich the rich the rich the rich the rich the rich THE RICH. Is all I hear coming from you. It seems like Rich is the new bad word of the 21st century. The new insult is "the rich." The new scapegoat is "the rich." It is no longer gatecrashing... its The rich.

The stock market is nothing like 30 years ago because no one wants to make a bet anymore. The rich people are constantly paying special interest prices for a brighter future. Meanwhile the old me saw rich people as these stuck up individuals who laugh at us poor people. And dangle a little disco ball above our houses and say "dance suckah!"

But then.... I drove a cab for a few years. And finally spoke with the two a hokes behind the uber app 7 months before it went live on the app stores. Met with a producer for energy efficient "grow lights." Met 7 different investors who constantly went back and forth to western union in lone tree. And even met three heavt tippers who I never got to know. My tip was 2,000.

All of these people I talked to were very powerfull people. And I always wanted to punch them in the face.

I argued with these a h's while I drove them to their destination until finally.... like I said... came to a new conclusion. Each and every RICH person I met was interested in furthering their companies. But because of the whole circus show that we forced the irs yo impose on the rich they can't do ANYTHING.

Companies are dying. It is not just microsoft wanting to sell tge xbox division. It is not just Sony killing the vaio and reverting back to lcd zcreens. It is not just TESLA trying to fight new york and new jersy over some stupid dealership clause. It is not only amd struggling to keep up with demand for litecoin rigs. It isn't just wal mart that has suddenly started getting into organic products. It isn't just farmers growing nothing but corn anymore.


This enture Fn country is eating itself alive. And you think China's ghost cities isn't going to happen here.


Seriously I will uphold the flat tax rate argument because you only think they are about staying rich when it is so much more than that. Take the PS4 vs XB1 for example here. PS4 finally came to be due to the fact that 5 chairmen gave up their bonuses to make the ps4 happen. "The rich" is the ps4. Then you have the xb1 come out with the worst news for console gamers. A drm system that utilizes a camera to ensure copyright claims. The xb1 is me 3 years ago attacking tge rich people by arguing with them in my cabs. Which console is the popular choice?

The rich suddenly have buying power? They've ALWAYS had buying power. That's basically the definition of being rich... tons of disposable income. They, instead, choose to save and invest much more of their income. Even if they were somehow more able to invest due to lower taxes, more people investing in a company does not translate to the people at the low end getting. The taxes on the rich were the lowest they had been in 2005 since the beginning of Federal income taxation, only a few years later in George W Bush's term did we have a massive crash that screwed over everybody. Trickle down economics is a baldfaced lie, one created by Arthur Laffer (the bogus Laffer curve) and promoted by the extremely wealthy Dick Cheney (who introduced it to Ronald Reagan).

Facts don't lie: the richest 1% of the U.S. population had seen over 225% growth in their income between 1979 and 2005, while the poorest 20% had seen 6% growth. The reason companies die is because the people who buy things no longer have the money to do so. The rich don't buy all that much - through luck, hard work, and/or family, they have enough money that they don't have to spend 100% of it to survive. If you want to grow the economy and save businesses, you don't help the group that spends the least percentage of their income - you help the group that spends the most: the poor to middle class.

These people you talked to may have cared about their companies and believed in their products, but that doesn't change that businesses have record amounts of money in the bank that they could distribute to their lowly employees. In many more equal countries, I recall the gap between the CEOs and the average workers being about 3,500% of income. In the U.S., the gap is around 35,000%. To your point about literally taking from a CEO to give to the workers... if you gave each of those employees a few hundred dollars by taking it ONLY from the CEO (there are other people than the CEO that make a lot of money, you know) - nearly 100% of that would be spent. Spending drives the economy. If you gave it back to the CEO, nowhere near 100% of that would be spent. Which is better for the economy?

originally posted by: beezzer

originally posted by: BlueMule
The rich are too Damn rich, and the poor are too Damn poor. What we need is an army of mutant Robin Hoods to track down the pricks that are hoarding all the power and wealth and make some heads roll.

You do realize that Robin Hood took from the government who was taxing the people too much and returned the money to the tax payers, don't you?

Oh shut up Mr smartypants nit-picker.

The Robin Hood 'archetype' would mutate to adapt to our circumstances.

Bottom line is the people with power are shirking their responsibilities, so they need to have their power taken away. I would like a non-violent solution, such as weeding out the powerful sociopaths and psyhopaths by using some sort of cutting edge tests.

originally posted by: SacredLore
a reply to: grandmakdw
I find the only fair system is sales tax and abolish income tax. There is nothing wrong with people producing things that others like and receiving money in exchange.

Sales tax disproportionally impacts the poorest of people even worse than a flat income tax. Remember, the richest of people don't spend anywhere near 100% of their income. They save and invest and accumulate wealth. The poorest of people spend 100% (and more with assistance/charity) of their income on surviving. Imagine 100 poor people in the Midwest that need their cars to get to work and survive - they have to spend $24,000 now to buy $20,000 cars. The lowest income quintile caps out at around the pre-tax cost of the car for an entire year of pay and so they probably won't eat or have basic utilities for awhile. That's $400,000 in tax revenue. The one rich guy who buys a $100,000 car for $150,000 contributes $50,000 in tax revenue, but the lower limit of the top 1% is closer to three times the cost of that car with taxes.

I want to reemphasize this: spending drives the economy and leads to economic growth. Without economic growth, a capitalist system will eventually collapse. This is why recessions are devastating - little or sometimes negative growth.

a reply to: Greven

Rich rich rich rich rich rich rich. I am seriously considering just the word rich to be slander for something undesirable. Just before F and right after B. Rich should be the new addition for the fcc to censor.

Rich people eventually fall for a money pit. Blah blah blah 1 percent of income for living. Blah blah blah dick Cheney.

Blah blah blah blah how you eat a whale is ONE BITE AT A TIME.

All of money in the world ends up in someone elses pocket eventually. They can't stave off spending it for ever. Even thpugh the 1 percent is the richest, even they have different marks on their records. Some are vile, some are hopeful. Skme are wishfull, and some are arrogant.

The problem I see is that temptation factor missing. A lot od great ideas have been placed in a ziplock bag or tupperware case left to rot. If only there was a temptation to spend it on something they believed in, instead of studying the outcomes.