BF2S Forums What's wrong with being rich?

It's a fucking disgrace. Now that one is the true "spreading the wealth around" tax. Progressive income tax - no. Death-tax, oh yeah.

I object to being taxed more than once on the same piece of money.

cpt.fass1 wrote:

There's nothing wrong with being rich, but the problem is what the "rich" does with there money.. It takes the money away from your everyday man, then they have to pull money out of their stocks to support there family. Long story short is when the rich amass most of the money, which isn't by hard work, it's usually by being born into it.

And just where do you get that little jewel of a stat?

And your view of the wealth/poor scenario as an either-or situation is crazy. There is enough money in the overall economy (relative to individuals) that one billionaire earning an extra billion has no impact whatsoever on another person being able to make 100k a year.

Personally, as a college student, I rank about a 5.

If considering my family (me and my parents) we rank about an 8.

mikkel wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

It's a fucking disgrace. Now that one is the true "spreading the wealth around" tax. Progressive income tax - no. Death-tax, oh yeah.

I object to being taxed more than once on the same piece of money.

Unlike other major taxation on money changing hands, I've seen no arguments that even suggest that inheritance tax is anything other than a punishment for saving your money to care for your family when you're gone. Like bureaucratic late fees on your assets. Leeches.

Death tax is a moderate left proposal where it helps to "level the playing field" in a very moderate degree.  Most (90%+) people will never have enough assets when they die to even warrant the tax.  Those that do warrant the tax are usually smart enough to cede most of the wealth to family members in some way long before that time, and any remaining money will be more than enough to "take care of the family".

You really should check out a country with no tax on wealth.  Basically you start to have this class of people that have never worked a day in their lives, are visibly retarded, spoiled out of their minds, and do a whole lot of not much to progress society, but drive around in $150k cars and keep their "investment capital" stored in cash in off-shore banking because they're too stupid to know what to do with that money.  The original "baron" of the family that earned the money doesn't have to really think about who he turns the family biz over to, as the money won't run out this way very soon at moderate interest.

Death Tax = Class Generational Darwinism

The fittest get rich vs. the richest stay fit.

Its a beautiful thing.

Last edited by GorillaTicTacs (2008-10-26 00:55:19)

Bertster7 wrote:

Mint Sauce wrote:

Bertster7 wrote:

I'm not sure where I'd fit in on there. Probably 7+. My disposable income is probably about £200/week (that's after I've paid my rent, bills, insurance, bought fuel, pension payments, student loan repayments etc.).

Nothing wrong with being rich. Also there is nothing wrong with taxing the rich more than the poor. They can afford it, whereas the poor can't and struggle to get by as it is. There is a basic quality of life that people should be entitled to and if the rich have to contribute more than the poor do to help achieve that, then so be it.

So people that have achieved in life should have to pay for the people who haven't? I don't agree, even though I am generalising, you should be able to see my point. Of course, it isn't the fault of the people who were never given the opportunity in the first place, but yeah.

And the mindset that just because you are rich means that you can afford to be taxed more? Well of course you can, but it doesn't make it right. My Father was subject to a tax investigation a couple years back as he was moving money to the Caribbean, so now he is taxed over 50%, fucking ridiculous. He will also be taxed on stocks in American oil company Conoco if he sells them, and he has a substantial amount, it's not right imo.

And my final misguided point is that I think Inheritance Tax is a fucking joke.

The government needs to provide for those who cannot (not will not, but cannot) provide sufficiently for themselves. This needs to be paid for. Who should contribute most? Those who can most easily afford to. Do you disagree? Do you think the poor should be taxed at a higher rate than the rich?

Your opinion on tax seems to be based on what you've heard form your dad who sounds like he's been avoiding tax and is now being penalised for it. Good thing too. All these fucking tax cheats and don't pay their fair share are absolute cunts.

I have to agree in part on inheritance tax. I believe it shouldn't apply to houses, but should to everything else.

No, I think all should be taxed at the same rate. And my Dad hasn't been trying to dodge tax, he filled in a form wrongly and they didn't like it, so they investigated just as he was trying to put money into the Caribbean, unfortunate really.

GorillaTicTacs wrote:

mikkel wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

I object to being taxed more than once on the same piece of money.

Unlike other major taxation on money changing hands, I've seen no arguments that even suggest that inheritance tax is anything other than a punishment for saving your money to care for your family when you're gone. Like bureaucratic late fees on your assets. Leeches.

Death tax is a moderate left proposal where it helps to "level the playing field" in a very moderate degree.  Most (90%+) people will never have enough assets when they die to even warrant the tax.  Those that do warrant the tax are usually smart enough to cede most of the wealth to family members in some way long before that time, and any remaining money will be more than enough to "take care of the family".

You really should check out a country with no tax on wealth.  Basically you start to have this class of people that have never worked a day in their lives, are visibly retarded, spoiled out of their minds, and do a whole lot of not much to progress society, but drive around in $150k cars and keep their "investment capital" stored in cash in off-shore banking because they're too stupid to know what to do with that money.  The original "baron" of the family that earned the money doesn't have to really think about who he turns the family biz over to, as the money won't run out this way very soon at moderate interest.

Death Tax = Class Generational Darwinism

The fittest get rich vs. the richest stay fit.

Its a beautiful thing.

So what you're saying is that re-redistribution of wealth through taxation on taxed assets is okay? That it's not the right of the wealthy to leave their money to their children, regardless of how "retarded" they may be, without having to pay a fee to do so? Apparently we have vividly differing views on how much freedom an individual should have to manage his own assets. I wouldn't call it beauty.

mikkel wrote:

So what you're saying is that re-redistribution of wealth through taxation on taxed assets is okay?

What other kind of "taxation" is there?  That's the very definition of taxes.  Where it gets "re-distrubuted", either to outsourcing conglomerates, military-industrial contractors, war profiteers, or education and health benefits for the less financially gifted seems to be of no consequence to this arguement.

That it's not the right of the wealthy to leave their money to their children, regardless of how "retarded" they may be, without having to pay a fee to do so?

If I have to put up with a trust fund baby in the White House, his daddy sure as shit better pay something back to society.  Jail time would also be adequate. /joke

First, we aren't talking about all their money, just a percent, usually smallish.  It is generally A) Nowhere near enough to put anyone in the poor house. B) If they haven't figured out a way around it already, here's just a few - foundation creation, trust funds, charitable contributions, endowments...whatever.

Apparently we have vividly differing views on how much freedom an individual should have to manage his own assets. I wouldn't call it beauty.

Nobody is taking away anyone's ability to manage their own assets.  However, social engineering has been a government function since the dawn of time, and to advocate that this fact suddenly disappear is outright silly.  What you can do is advocate which direction to pull it in.  The long-term consequences of letting families accumulate wealth with no check is de facto aristocracy, regardless of the actual government that is on the books.  We are seeing this already with the aforementioned asshole in the White House...this is a direct consequence of how not enough has been done to check this.

Everyone should start out as equal as possible, and through personal hard work and responsibility should be allowed to rise as high as his abilities allow.  Of course no system will be perfect in this regard.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

GorillaTicTacs wrote:

"level the playing field"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/195 … t_logo.gif

I'm trying to run a family business here. I wish the government would 'spread the wealth around' somewhere else. They have their paws deep enough into my pockets as it is.

Death tax makes some companies liquidate their assets, and people lose jobs because of it...but we get to see fancy carvings on highway bridges and statuesque fountains for it.

Say I made a game called "Battlefield: America!", with the tag-line Where all men are created equal, then on the day of release when you create your new account you were asked about your race, political party, and family income.  If you were white, you automatically start 4 ranks higher on the ladder, if your family is rich you start 10 ranks higher, and if uber-rich, you are just handed any unlock you want.  Further, during the game, you can only be healed by a medic if you have health insurance and your rate of progression correlates to the cost of your educational background.  Also, there would be only so many points grand total between everyones' accounts on the servers, but we'll raise that cap to correlate to the economic growth rate.

Its a cool game, everyone wants to play.  But how many people would under these conditions?  How would we need to tweak it down before everyone felt they had at least a fighting chance?  Obviously we couldn't flatten out the field completely, and very few would advocate this, but there is a magic threshold number everyone should have in their heads.  This magic number is where you fall politically.

GorillaTicTacs wrote:

mikkel wrote:

It was "re-redistributed", not "redistributed".

Symantics...and your counter-arguement was where?

Absolutely not semantics. That's where the critical difference lies, and since your argument was based off of redistribution of wealth, which is what taxation largely is, and not re-redistribution of wealth, which is taxation on taxed assets, and something principally different, your argument was irrelevant, and nothing that I could reply to.

GorillaTicTacs wrote:

mikkel wrote:

If I take money from you that I don't think you deserve, it's called theft, regardless of the amount. If the government takes money from other people that it doesn't think it deserves, it's taxation? It could be 1% or 50% for all I care, it's still principally wrong. I'm also deliberately ignoring your arguments to defend the taxation by citing how to avoid it. If loopholes act as a positive defence for the taxation, there's something very wrong.

Taxation is theft and is wrong, got it.

If you're going to be this deliberately dishonest in your interpretation, I'm not even going to bother arguing with you.

GorillaTicTacs wrote:

mikkel wrote:

An inheritance tax is by definition a limitation on how you can manage your assets. Citing "social engineering" as a defence of inheritance tax, and saying that repealing this tax is the end of "social engineering" is what is "outright silly", and I'm not even going to bother arguing about that, because the evidence to the contrary is obvious in the context of taxation in general, and there's nothing to argue about it.

Inheritence tax is by no means a limitation, FFS you're dead!  Wouldn't that be a more limiting factor on your asset management?  (tbc, getting laid...)

I see, arbitrarily limiting you to being able to pass on only 85% of your assets to your loved ones is not a limitation.

I'm going to leave you to it, Gorilla. I expected more from you, to be honest.

There's nothing wrong with being rich.  There is something wrong with how the rich run the system at everyone else's expense.

Define 'rich' to me. When is someone rich? Are you rich?

Pug wrote:

Pierre wrote:

Define 'rich' to me. When is someone rich? Are you rich?

check out the op

I did. There is no definition, hence my question. So, how much do you have to earn to be rich?

FEOS wrote:

cpt.fass1 wrote:

There's nothing wrong with being rich, but the problem is what the "rich" does with there money.. It takes the money away from your everyday man, then they have to pull money out of their stocks to support there family. Long story short is when the rich amass most of the money, which isn't by hard work, it's usually by being born into it.

And just where do you get that little jewel of a stat?

And your view of the wealth/poor scenario as an either-or situation is crazy. There is enough money in the overall economy (relative to individuals) that one billionaire earning an extra billion has no impact whatsoever on another person being able to make 100k a year.

I'd look up the other thread, but america isn't the Land of Oppurtnity and one of the hardest places to class jump.. Generally people who are born poor in this country stay poor...

We have no Middle Class because the rich hording their money and out sourceing over seas so they can make a bigger profit..