Why shouldn't the super rich be allowed to stay super rich?

1. GET RID OF THE FED.

2. GET RID OF THE IRS.

3. Install a TRUE FLAT TAX.... ONE per person "deduction" per year, and NO other deductions, exemptions, credits, etc. etc. etc. EVERYONE pays the SAME percentage.

I'm a devotee of Milton Friedman... so SUE me!

Republican from before she was born... and PROUD of it.

I can understand a rich person saying that. But if that was the way it was the rich would get richer and the poor would have no chance of catching up. There is only so much you can do with money.

People don't need 10 TV's, 10 cars etc...but if they have the money for them then thats what they get.

They buy more and more leaveing les and less for the poor people once they have saved up some money.

Take for example housing... 20 years ago a family could buy a house to live in and pay off, but since all the rich people have been buying investment properties the price of houses and land has gone through the roof...leaving the not so rich people with not much of a chance to buy a house in their lifetime.

I'm nt talking about bludgers...I'm talking about hard working people on minimum wage. Not everyone has a business handed down to them, or is born with the brains of an engineer, but people still work hard in the best job they can get, just get half the pay of someone else working equally as hard that was born smarter.

I'm not saying they should be taxed and extra percentage, I'm not saying they shouldn't...but the fact is they are and they still stay rich, and if the poorer people were taxed more they probably be in poverty

Ok. Here's the problem, at what point however - does wealth concentration become a problem.

In a normal economy , say the richest 10% had 20% of the income - they are twice as wealthy on average , as the "average" income earner.

Say the upper 20% is 50% of that 20%, again perhaps 10 times more wealthy than the "average" worker.

So it goes up like a curve, where the very richest citizens have the most wealth.

In the case of most countries, when your wealth concentration goes over 60%-70% you have serious economic problems, over 90% and it's likely whatever country is a 3rd world country like Argentina or Hungary.

In the US, it's approaching 60% , which is to say that 6 of every 10 dollars in the US is in the hands of , not the upper 10%, but the upper 1%, of the upper 1%.

Approximately 10 trillion dollars of US "wealth" out of about 16 trillion on GDP is held by less than 40,000 individuals.

http://www.lcurve.org/

The concept of - say - tax cuts for small businesses - is a laudible idea - but we're broke - and we need to come to terms with that - before the Chinese (our new BFF for lending us cash) just say - f*ck it - pay us our money and let us drown in our own debt or crash our currency because we think about doing something they don't like.

Presumably the very wealthy are off funding some venerable project, or scientist out to change the world.....what if they're not.

If that just sits in an account somewhere - earning 5% and not being put to effective investment use, you have a problem.

Worse, is the concept of externalities - if you propose taxation - to what extent does that revenue simply "vanish" or get invested in offshore interests - such as investment in China, or some other nation.

That's the problem, at the moment, the "money" is sitting on the fence - under the mattress. After the Bush administration left office, how many people do you think decided - screw this Obama guy - and simply took their money off the table and will be damned if they see it "redistributed".

So effectively the very wealthy - who hold no particular loyalty to the US per se, have taken a sizeable chunk of the US GDP and have sequestered it away, - because they can.

The problem is - nobody want's to pay for the bills we've got - whether it was the Cold War 30 years ago, the War on Terrorism, the bailout of the banks, or anything we've spent money on over the last 50 years, (6-7 out of every 10 government dollars has been spent on military items).

At the end of the day - the US is really pinning it's hopes on the fairly large middle class to create that wealth - and that's the REALLY ugly secret about high wealth - super-rich people.

Wealth creation doesn't occur with the very-rich - they traditionally DO NOT reinvest it or whatever - it's usually up to the middle-class to innovate and create wealth through productivity or the creation of new industries or businesses - almost to a man - any business owner - Sergi Brin, Bill Gates/Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Andrew Carnegie - came from very modest backgrounds and built economic corporate dynasties for themselves.

This is not to say all rich people are dead-beats - quite the contrary - the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment or Gates Foundation, ALL have major philanthropic endeavours, but how many of them would seek to "create" the next successive industry.

Do we see Bill Gates funding Ubuntu research. Do we see Exxon doing serious research into Fusion or hyper-batteries? Not likely, they fund efforts far and away from their own interests.

It depends on what "super rich" is. What about the owners of the federal reserve (rothschilds, rockefellers etc.)?, why do they have the power over the U.S. that they do? since america borrows every dime from them, we are constantly in debt to them, and their agenda IS america's agenda. kinda like we have a royal family. I think a straight tax would be best, same percentage for everyone. But this can only work with small government (government keeps order via police,fire, emt) and also taking back power of money supply from international business men.

why do people assume that rich people have worked really hard for everything and that poor people are lazy? not you, but some of these answerers...

maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way, but I have 2 college degrees (from a REALLY good school) and before I had my baby I was working retail making $8 an hour with those degrees. they wouldn't give me more than that. I asked for a $0.25 raise and they refused. and I tried to get jobs, I applied for 60+ within a span of 2 months. maybe it's the economy? who can we blame for that? grr. lol.

but then I turn on the TV and see stupid people like paris hilton and brody jenner who are SO STUPID and are way more well off than I'll ever be. so ultimately, I think those people should spread the wealth around a little bit. they get things 'handed to them,' why shouldn't poor people?

I think there should be a stupid tax. people who are rich and stupid should be taxed. problem solved?

eta: I agree with 'mum of an angel.' the problem is peoples' morals -- I don't think it's moral really to buy 3 bmw's and 2 escalades while people in the US are having a hard time EATING. I donate what I can to a lot of charities even though I'm not well off but it seems a lot of rich people just get caught up in buying this and this and this and that. I don't know if you ever watched michael moore's 'sicko' but he makes a very valid point when interviewing a UK doctor (which essentially is a government job because of universal health care). the doctor says that he makes 100K a year and has a nice house, a nice car, and a nice tv. he said that if he had more money he'd be able to afford 3 nice cars and a bigger house and a bigger tv, but that he doesn't NEED those things. he lives very comfortably and doesn't need to make more and that's why he agreed with UHC (what the movie was ultimately about, but still, the point is valid).

when you've got people like oprah who are making billions of dollars and donating millions of that billions to various charities, I don't have a problem with that. it's very noble and I think it's human duty (to help those less fortunate). but when I see people like my dentist who wanted to charge me $2000 to get a procedure done that only costs $500 and that dentist is taking away $250K a year, I don't agree with that. it is his money (it's MY money technically) and he can do what he wants with it but a lot of people like that that I have come across are just dishonest and don't give a flying fig if their neighbor is dying. such as my old retailer boss who, instead of paying his best employee (me) more than $8 an hour he went and bought his kid a brand new car (a prius -- at least he's being eco-friendly) and brand new amps and speakers ($5k, literally) and a brand new guitar ($2K). I'm just a bitter ex-employee, I guess, lol.

but I do think that this attitude has a lot to do with our society today -- the 'mind your own business' mentality, and unfortunately we're all suffering for it. people want their money and they want to spoil their kids with it and those kids aren't learning anything about how to earn money (whereas at least [most] poor people receiving government help are at least very GRATEFUL for it) and it's only going to get worse.

sorry for ranting. :)

yes the "super rich " should be allowed to stay "super rich"

taxing the "super rich" as you call it really isn't taxing the "super rich" but it's really taxing the hard working people of the middle class

that means the middle class (majority who make up american society today) have less freedom to spend money where it is needed and have no free room to move up in society an gain more money. they are kept in a small box basicly. and all their hard work for their money never pays off.

most people who are "super rich" worked hard to earn that money and did not inherit it as some hollywood movies dictate they do.

i'll give you an example:

Bill Gates

He is SUPER-DOOPER RICH ! shouldn't his money be taken and spread around to those who have less and can't afford much?

No.

Outrageous ! why so harsh?

because Bill Gates invented something created a "thing" a hardware(microsoft)the consumer the general public needed and wanted and so on. He refined updated and renewed this product advanced it and kept it up to date so that the consumer would keep buying his hardware.

Bill Gates worked hard to earn his money.. by creating the gigantic company Microsoft.

You must work hard for your money .. would you want it to be taken and given to someone who has never worked for anything at all in their life? that includes achieving a good education in high school and going to college to prepare themselves to get a decent job.

no you wouldn't be very happy and i'm sure you would do your very best to hide all your money too.

i will take care of them. those great rich human beings you communicate approximately already pay many of the income taxes. IRS documents (related under) shows that the strategies-blowing one million% income earners paid 37% of all the federal income taxes, at the same time as earning in basic terms 19% of the country's income. They pay their undemanding proportion. you will additionally observe from that documents that the backside 50% of income earners pay next to no longer something in federal income taxes. i might like a actual source on that 80% wealth statistic you throw out. sounds like something the class warrior politicians got here up with. The great rich did no longer "USE" exertions, or make the main it. They gave jobs, a livelihood, and often in all possibility advantages, to those human beings they employed. maximum of those rich human beings started their very own businesses, took all the hazards, extraordinarily risking their very own money, and labored like canines for years. They deserve a payback on their investment. What does exertions danger or make investments? They look after the business enterprise is started, and gets a commission for his or her exertions. If exertions ever rose up, as you propose, it rather is going to kill the very jobs those human beings could desire to stay, because of the fact human beings depend upon those rich persons to offer them reliable jobs. look at bill Gates. what proportion hundreds of persons has he given reliable jobs to? what proportion hundreds of thousands of persons have become greater effective and rich because of the fact of bill Gates? If being rich gets you punished, who might complication? Why might the bill Gate's of the international even complication? All those jobs and all that wealth does no longer be created.

The rich will find a way to stay rich whether they appear to be "allowed" to do so or not. How? Why? Because the rich are the ones who pay for our government officials' campaigns.

Leave the rich be for now and let's focus on what's really robbing the middle, working and lower classes: Inflationary monetary policy and unsustainable government spending.

The super rich will stay super rich, they'll just have to pay their fair share of taxes.

If you had $5 and your neighbor had $15 & I decided to charge you $3 tax on it BUT to keep it fair and equal, everyone had to pay the same amount of taxes, which is $3 so after paying taxes your left with $2 & your neighbor $12. Is it fair to you that you having the lesser amount of money should have to pay the same amount back in taxes?

The point is, they are'nt paying as much as what they are able OR should be paying. No one is talking about making everyone middle class citizens by any means, believe me...the rich will continue to be rich even after paying their fair share.

The super rich have gotten superly richer over the last 30 years.