It's true that the Kardashians are in high demand. It does not necessarily follow that we as a society should allow them as a consequence to accumulate disproportionate wealth and influence. The incentive argument in particular falls apart here. Do we really need to pay the Kardashians a boatload of money to incentivize them to do whatever it is that they do? Or would it be OK if we taxed the shit out of them and took the risk that they would quit as a result? That seems like a no-brainer to me (in every possible sense).
> Do we really need to pay the Kardashians a boatload of money to incentivize them to do whatever it is that they do?
That's a good question. I personally don't think so and don't pay them myself. But enough people in our society clearly do, and as long as they have the freedom to chose where they spend their money they should be able to chose to spend it on the Kardashians right?
The question of whether (or how much of) the money they accumulate should be taxed, I believe is a separate issue. I think we could tax the shit out of them, but I would caution against the notion of taxing them more than others on the basis that they're creating less "value" than other rich people. There are clearly plenty of people who highly value whatever it is they produce, and to tell those people otherwise seems like dangerous territory (at least it seems like non-democratic - i.e. when you have a government telling the people what to value).
Yes, I totally agree with this. But I believe there are actually very few people who are actually creating value who would stop doing what they are doing if they were taxed more. The few that do quit, I'll wager there are people willing to step in and take their place. It's a risk I'm willing to take.
This argument is simply frightening first how do you define who creates value? should we now have a citizenship score?
Secondly the vast majority of people who work freaking hard jobs would quit if they would be taxed to the point where taking a lower paying, less stress simpler job would be as beneficial.
Nearly everyone would quit their job if it would be more beneficial to take an easier job that pays just as much, i think you grossly overestimate the amount of people that are that driven by their career that it would take precedence over their actual life.
And ok say you weren't planning to go the final solution route just yet, why should I be fired for just wanting to exchange my time for money based on the maximum (in my pocket) market value I can extract from it?
Is it more morally superior to be so devoted to my job that I would do it even for free or for nothing more than minimum wage? that's some really fantastic way of life you got there....
I didn't say you should be fired. I said I would be OK with you quitting voluntarily.
Also, we have had much higher incremental tax rates in the past (notably in the 40 years between the end of WWII and Reagan, and the U.S. economy did just fine, so I see no reason that should be any different now.
I'm not in the US but last time I've checked the top federal tax rate today is higher than it was in the Reagan era.
The federal income from taxation (as % of GDP) remained fairly since WWII stable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...
But sure i'll hear you out what tax brackets do you think we should implement? where do you put the cap?
Scroll down to the bottom of that page to the "Income tax rates in history" section. Observe that the top marginal rate was as high as 91%, and did not drop below 80% in the entire period between 1936 and 1981.
I know what it was but that wasn’t ever in reality actually the case almost no one paid the exesses taxes during, heck forget almost no one paid that marginal rate.
That's true, because almost no one made enough money to pay it. That's one of the reasons that it wasn't harmful.
> So you want 91% tax from what amount?
I dunno, $5-10M or so. I also think that you should be able to defer the recognition of income so that you don't get dinged too heavily for one-time windfalls. But I think anyone regularly making $5-10M/yr should be paying a lot more than they currently do.
