What chart are you talking about, exactly? I posted one about GDP growth and yearly deficits. Neither do anything to prove that point. However, simple logic proves that point.
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And, I would like to introduce one caveat: I think sports players should be exempt. They really do work their ***** off and deserve their paydays. (at least up to $10m a year).
This is the reply you asked for. I deleted a lot of your OP so as to make the quote significantly smaller, but I'll respond as if the entire quote is there.
The chart, you are right and I admit I was referring to a previous chart you've posted several times in the past that linked tax rates on the wealthy and economic growth. Im not going to go back through all your posts in the past few years in this political threads to find it, but Im sure you know which chart Im referring to. But yes you are correct, I saw you post more charts, and assumed it was the same one, my mistake.
Second, you say you dont think the tax rate is stifling, so a tax cut of 10% (your number, not mine) would increase the desire to take financial risk significantly. My comments on financial risks were not over a 10% tax cut, they were general comments made about the motion of higher versus lower tax rates on business owners. Your conclusion that tax rates are not currently stifling, and your figure of a 10% tax decrease, are your way of minimizing your view to portray my point as insignificant. The only figure I used directly, was your previous statement of it being fair to tax income over $1million at 90%. You have since rejected that figure (only after you denied saying it and forced me to research your threads and prove you actually did say it), but now seem to imply you agree with it again (by way of your comments about standard of living not increasing significantly above $1m income, and you'd rather see 10 people earn a million than 1 person earn $10m). You play both sides of the fence to make your views seem more reasonable than they truly are, much like your tactic of exaggerations.
As for me not being able to deny that democrats are more centered than republicans, again you argue both sides of the fence to appear artificially reasonable. In one sentence you acknowledge there is no way to define what is centered, and then follow it up by telling me I cant deny democrats are more centered, using a completely vague example as your proof. Democrats, generally speaking, want more regulations and govt authority, republicans want less. Trying to objectify that to any specific degree only leads to showing a bias towards one side or the other. In many situations, I believe in letting the free market decide what is right (like by setting pricing on goods/services). But I also believe that regulations are often necessary to keep personal greed from becoming a society-wide detriment (such as we've seen in the past several years on wall street). Im extremely angry that wall street, and the fed govt, were/are in bed together over the sub-rime mortgage fraud.
Now, on to the reasoning behind your core beliefs, that people dont 'need' to earn more than a million dollars. On a moral level, you have no right to make that claim, and that's coming from someone who does not make very much money. I will never be a millionaire, but I firmly believe in the right to be one, and the driving force the desire to be one has on our economy. When you talk about people not needing more money than that, you are thinking about how many ferrari's they own, how many homes, etc. On a logistical level, even following that line of reasoning, Id argue that those purchases help drive the economy and create jobs for lower income workers. How many factor workers earn a living building parts of their yachts, mansions, and rolex's? How many of those multimillionaires own multiple businesses due to their vast wealth? How many own only one business, but their wealth has allowed them to build that business into a multi-state employer?
You cite large corporations that are 'helpful', like microsoft or apple. At this point, that's the biggest advantage the US economy has world wide, having these types of multinational corporations that dominate their respective global markets. If we had a tax rate that greatly diminished the incentive to take risks that would put income above $1million, how many of those corporations would exist today? The answer is just about the same number, they'd simply exist in a different country. One of the basic premises of a free market system is to fill a void the market place perceives. If we, Americans and our large companies dont do it, some other country's will. Microsoft has a vice-grip lock on computer software globally. This helps the local US economy, and frankly, its helped the technology advance rapidly (increasing the standard of living). There are plenty of downsides to microsoft's almost-monopoly, like stagnation of new development in many ways, but it also has lead to a world-wide standardization at a break-neck pace that has given us a world wide web that, if lft to a bunch of smaller companies to compete against each other, would have taken much longer to fulfill. But I feel Im getting off track now, back to replying to your post more specifically...
Financial risk is 'work'. You see a multimillionaire as not working hard because his hands aren't dirty, his muscles aren't aching, his work hours are easy. But make no mistake, financial risk is work. Its called risk because there is a chance of him losing that money. And its that risk which has given the US economy many positive advantages. US Steel would have never existed if not for one man taking financial risks. Or Standard Oil. Even Ford Motor company. In fact, every large US corporation can trace its roots back to one man, or a group of men, taking financial risks. You may not call that work under your narrow definition of the term, but that's irrelevant. Waht is relevant is its importance to the advancement of our economy. Stifle the desire to take that risk, and you WILL hurt the economy.
Does a middle income family working 2 jobs and raising multiple children 'work' harder? Depends on how you look at it. Clearly those middle income people took less risks earlier in their lives, not attending school, or investing their life savings into a business or idea (or maybe they did but failed). Increased income is the reward for hard work and successful risk taking. If you put a glass ceiling on that reward, you equally apply that glass ceiling to taking risks (and yes, 'working hard'). many societies have tried to apply such a glass ceiling, communist and socialist societies. None have succeeded (if you mention China, I will bring up the fact that its relatively new financial success corresponds with its loosening of its financial restrictions on its society).
Im not calling you an extremist to prove any points, just the opposite. I make points, and use them as examples to point out your extremism. Its true that labeling you as such means little, but my point was not to label you as one, but to show how my examples highlight your biased replies. You say i call you an extremist to keep from having to prove you wrong with logic, yet I always explain, with logic, why Im defining you as an extremist. Every single time.
And no, its not surprising that you admit worker regulations are detrimental to business. Even you are not biased enough to suggest child labor laws somehow increase profits. You have failed to look more reasonable in my eyes by explaining an obvious truth.
Instead of regulating income potential to keep millionaires from buying politicians, imo our regulating power would be better used to simply create laws that prevent it, and punish it when it does occur. When you go down the path of regulating income potential to keep money from corrupting society, that is a direct path to the logic that advocates communism and socialism in degrees that have proven to not work in a globally competitive market.
Lastly, we dont even seem to agree on sports players. If I were a more socialist person, one of the first things I wold regulate income potential on, would be sports stars. Sports stars does very little to help society on an economic level. They are, at their core, entertainers. They produce nothing. Yet their marketing potential creates a situation that inflates their income potential vastly. We dont buy more shoes because Michael Jordan endorses a certain brand. But we are willing to pay more for them. And watching him dribble a basketball certainly produces nothing we can market and sell on a global market to tip the import/export balance in our favor. Yet we, as a society, tie up relatively large sums of money in a relatively small fraction of society, again simply for their marketing potential. But my free market views overrule those views, and at the end of the day I agree that if they or their position in society creates an earning potential, then they deserve those multimillion dollar contracts.
Hope this satisfies your desire to receive a response to your post.
