Gates at the G20 Summit proposes a Robin Hood tax

Even if the U.S. government were to execute the richest 1% and confiscate all their wealth, it would not make a drop in the bucket in balancing the budget. It is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
 
captainmcd said:
Even if the U.S. government were to execute the richest 1% and confiscate all their wealth, it would not make a drop in the bucket in balancing the budget. It is a spending problem, not a revenue problem.
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It's both. On what factual basis do you assert that increased revenue is not a factor in balancing the US budget?
 
Evita, you should have posted this thread on the catchall Expat Life forum, it would have had a lot more attention. I posted my reply hoping to start a discussion. Of course you are correct, that any increase in revenue will help to reduce the deficit, but the numbers are troublesome.
2011 budget 3.8 trillion
2011 revenue 2.1 trillion (57%)
2011 deficit 1.6 trillion (43%)
Adjusted Gross income of the top 1% is 1.3 trillion. That would go a long way toward balancing the budgtet, but at what cost?
If you confiscate all their income you would of course transfer assets and power from individuals to the government, who gain power by re-distributing it to those they favor. When taken to its ultimate extreme you have situations like Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia, Stalin's Gulags, Chairman Mao's cultural revolution, etc. and I don't think any reasonable person favors that kind of solution.
 
It's also about the Tobin Tax (Keynes got the idea first):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobin_tax

Purpose is to levy a tiny tax on financial transactions.
Back in 1990, the amount of yearly world financial transactions was 15 times the world's nominal GDP. Nowadays, it's about 75 times that.

Just a 0.05% tax would generate around 700 billion of US$. That would also encourage long-term investments against short-term ones.
 
The problem as I see it is the mistaken belief that the economy is a zero sum game, that you can make the poor become rich if you can make the rich become poor. But like all laws, there are unintended consequences, usually the people who would pay the taxes will find a way around them, or just get up and leave. If the richest one percent are those who are to pay for the deficit spending, we would lose many people, like the late Stephen Jobs whose contribution to economic activity helped many in the 99%.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
>>> Thomas Jefferson
 
The problem is we are making the poor people more poor and the rich people richer. To state some numbers about the US budget and the income of the top 1% and then state that the concept of progressive income tax or income redistribution is going down the path of the cambodian killing fields is a red herring (and totally unrelated) argument (albeit an amusing comparison).

We already re-distribute income in this country to the rich with tax breaks, loan guarantees and bail outs of the banking and auto industries. We also penalize people who want to save their money buy keeping interest rates artificially low for "rich" business people who are supposed to invest it and enticing people with credit cards to over extend their ability to spend.

Until we stop redistributing income in the federal government it is perfectly reasonable to discuss how we are going to redistribute it and who should receive that distribution.
 
RIP Andy Rooney:
"Taxes are important. President Bush's tax proposals leave no rich person behind."
 
It seems odd to me that so many feel that by making the rich poor, so that all are equal is desirable. Do those same people feel that We in the developed nations, where about 1 in 14000 mothers die in delivery should become more like Sierra Leone, where 1:7 deliveries results in maternal death? Would that bring justice and equality to the world?
 
captainmcd said:
The problem as I see it is the mistaken belief that the economy is a zero sum game, that you can make the poor become rich if you can make the rich become poor. But like all laws, there are unintended consequences, usually the people who would pay the taxes will find a way around them, or just get up and leave.
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Are you really this dumb?
 
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