They should start levying a tax on industrial robots!
I have been thinking about that and it needs to happen but we are a long way from that point IMO. If it happens right now it will dampen investment and allows other countries that donât have any tax to dominate.
Simple again: in a democracy, you donât leave them to their own devices, except maybe when theyâre performing spectacularly well. (It does happen occasionally.)
I would say itâs not obvious. Itâs a difficult word to translate, but if you take away the trappings of medieval life, what you have left is a glorified landlord. And we definitely still have landlords today, though theyâre subject to more regulation than in former centuries, or more intrusion on their property rights and economic freedom, as some would have it.
Letâs try this again.
Do you see the paradox here?
People who loudly tout free markets tend to complain about state monopolies yet often have little to say about private monopolies. (I wonât summon the ghost of Jotham, but if heâs lurking, I invite him to answer the question this time instead of dodging it.)
Itâs another paradox: freedom means A is free to amass more and more wealth and power, until he has all of it (in a given sector). Then no-one else (in that sector) feels free, and eventually he canât find skilled people to work for him and maintain his own wealth and power in a stable manner because no-one starting out in the job market wants to work in a sector where you can only get ahead by being one of Aâs cronies, and Aâs cronies are too lazy to do real work since they know their rice bowls are secure anyway. In short, the whole sector is crappified by A being too successful for his own (and everyone elseâs) good.
(Translate the same phenomenon from economics to politics, and you have in a nutshell the reason why most people prefer not to live in dictatorships, and also why dictatorships tend to be unstable.)
So the state steps in and says A canât have all the wealth and power in his sector. Of course, if the state arbitrarily seizes Aâs wealth, thatâs one thing. But if the state creates rules for increased taxation of superfluous wealth, limits on conspiratorial activities like price fixing, and procedures for splitting monopolies, thatâs another thing.
âBut itâs not a free market anymore!â some complain. 
Yet itâs freer now than it was when A had a monopoly. And after all, the state was created by the market, so it actually is the market (so to speak).
Taking this back to politics, who has more freedom: the average westerner today or the average westerner X centuries ago? (Or the average westerner vs. the average banana republican?)
Some aspects of modern life are less free (information overload, surveillance, some things being illegal now that were legal before), but in general there is more freedom now (information availability, economic mobility, things being legal now that were illegal before). Who has lost the most freedom over the centuries? 
Was that a price worth paying? Most people would say yes. And most people donât have hereditary titles or hereditary super-wealth â what a coincidence.
Going back to your fear of getting less than 100% of your fatherâs wealth when he canât use it anymore (Iâm speaking hypothetically here â no offense to your mother), what some have simplified to âbecause he has moreâ is not exactly what it sounds like.
Suppose you are a frail senior 
on a fixed income, with serious medical issues, no living relatives who are any help to you for whatever reason, and no serious employment prospects. Your annual income is just $10,000. Suddenly a bill for $100 comes up. You freak out! 
How can you afford that? Things are going to be tight.
Suppose you are a tycoon and donât even know how much youâre worth at any given moment because your diversified portfolio is constantly in flux â this currency goes up 
that commodity goes down 
this stock is overvalued but no-oneâs figured it out yet 
that hotel is about to be made famous by Hollywood 
â so you gain and lose tens of millions all the time. But letâs say your annual income is $1,000,000,000 (one billion). Suddenly a bill for $10,000,000 (ten million) comes up. 
Whatevs. You still have $990,000,000 coming in, so you can still buy your sweetheart that island for Valentineâs Day. 
In case you didnât notice, $100 and $10,000,000 are exactly the same amount, when measured in percent.
The point is that the loss of each amount doesnât have the same effect.
That is the concept of progressive taxation: the tax rate (in percent) increases in tandem with the ability to pay (in practical terms of what money is actually worth to people). Thereâs no magic formula that would satisfy everyone, and there are perfectly rational arguments against it, but there are perfectly rational arguments for it as well.
No, I can allocate my resources better than a landlord and own that land. With a king, I can be the best merchant and become richer than the king and still never own land and have it all taxed away from the king. Unless of course I raise an army and seize that land from the king, but I didnât create any wealth by doing that either.
I can buy that land from the landlord and the landlord gets a reasonable market value in cash to do as he pleases and invest if he choices and maybe buy that land back or buy other land. This seems fair.
But let me extend a olive branch here. I believe the gov does need to step in sometimes. For example, Airlines. The barriers of entry are already high without regulations, but there needs to be some safety regulations like the FDA (although I think the FDA has many flaws but we need something like it) Because market forces would probably be corrected by tragedy. Like a cheap airline cutting safety costs shouldnât be allowed to come in. Also market corrections may be too slow to happen to make sense for a personâs life time.
Or have the state step aside and allow a open entry. @anon96115109 was complaining about how Comcast cable became a monoploy and his only choice. But that wasnât because they were sooooo successful and blocks competition like he tried to argue. It became a monopoly because of gov regulations that make it impossible for people to come in and comply. They make the barriers of entry even harder in many cases. the reason the media is dominated by a few large companies is that no one can operate a television or radio station unless they obtain federal approval and pay federal licensing fees. Plus a bunch of other regulations from the local gov.
Large companies can comply and pay for all of these regulations and obtain whatever licenses and hire a legion of lawyers to do what they need. And if they donât get their way with the law, just lobby for politicians to change the laws.
OK, this is a ridiculous example. Most billionaire have mostly non liquid assets, and have something like 1% in actual cash. That same hotel can also lose favor with hollywood because you used a wrong pronoun the other day.
I did give you other reasons. But first, the fact âthey can afford itâ is in contrast to those who are working full-time but still need food stamps if they want dinner. It is obviously not their fault that the system isnât working for them and itâs not right to tax them. You yourself said somewhere else something along the lines of governments task with making the lowest IQ people productive.
Other reasons I can think of:
1- I said before that the rich benefit more from government services e.g. The poor dude doesnât care about IP protection.
2- The entrepreneur also indirectly benefits from all services rendered to their employees e.g. Wal-Mart employees get food stamps and are tax exempt so they can live on their paltry income, otherwise walmart would be under more pressure to increase salaries. In other words the tax exemption is also benefiting the employer.
3- All policies are not equal. Bailing out too big to fails and quantitative easing disproportionately benefits those with capital, itâs not unfair to ask for something benefiting the poor in return.
Itâs debatable. Maybe they do, but i donât think itâs that disproportionate.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
No you canât, unless he consents to sell it to you.
Same thing: if A consents to sell B the land, fine. If not, B canât legally take it.
(If you raise an army you do generate economic activity, but thatâs another story.)
How did a question about rent become a question about purchase? Even if A wants to sell the land, why would you assume B has money on that scale? To be frank, itâs as if rent has never been part of your vocabulary.
Iâm not really familiar with that, but generally speaking, cable is only going to survive in a meaningful way by being merged with the interwebs. Net neutrality has already changed the landscape dramatically by lowering the entry barriers like never before. Guess who wants to raise them back up again and has been trying to convince the electorate to support it âbecause free marketâ⌠
Of course they have mostly non liquid assets. Thatâs why I said you canât even figure out how much youâre really worth when youâre in that demographic, and you gain and lose large amounts constantly, without it being a problem for you most of the time. You still need to have a specific figure on the right line of your tax return, so for argumentâs sake I said one billion. Pick whatever number you like; the concept is the same.
Incidentally, there was an article not long ago speculating about how many individual human trillionaires might exist on the planet. Tl/dr: if/when you get to that scale, the incentive to obfuscate is so strong, and the means available for obfuscation are so great, that the general public has no serious chance of getting a clear picture of whatâs going on, and even governments have a hard time figuring it out (and again, the individuals would never know precisely). Not to mention, when you hold enough of a particular asset (a specific currency, property in a specific countryâŚ), selling a significant quantity of it would send the market into a frenzy and most likely devalue it. I.e. itâs not about money anymore â itâs about power.
Oh please! 
You put your name on the place in big letters, like President Orange? Fine. Hire a PR firm, chill for a while, and make a comeback. Or switch to using shell companies. You make it sound like the wheel was never even invented.
You can buy other landâŚif the landlord has allocated his resources poorly, he would probably be forced to sell that land to someone who allocates it better. You missed the point, you have the ability to own land and sell land, not when thereâs a king.
I knew you were going to put that, this is why I donât like talking to you. Itâs a non issue tiny aspect in the generl topic. Yeah you put coin in the army to use, but you kill off the kings army full of able bodied men. Not going to have much of a net growth when I just killed a bunch of able bodied men who might have families in my new kingdom.
Because you have the ability to purchase and sell land in as you please as your own. Which is not the same as the king owns all the land and may grant land to his subjects. But kings and queens do sell off land at times to other kings and queens if they need to raise money. But the average person has no chance of this.
The arguement still falls short. Letâs say all of my billions are in banks and iâm hoarding. Banks are in the business of lending so whats the big deal. If my billions are in non liquid assets like investment and stocks. Money is being used to create wealth not only for myself. But non liquid assets are more volatile and I can drop hundreds of millions in a resort already and have it shut down because they found a endanger species there So thats gone. So I get smart and at least diversify some, why I am getting punished for that? The 10,000 income grandpa doesnât have these issues of risk, 100 is not a big deal since he would likely get gov financial support that that point. Which is already coming from people paying the most taxes.
So itâs not a big deal since Iâm richâŚthis is such a weak argument. Increasing taxes for the wealthiest is socially divisive and encourages a class war situation where the poor and middle class begin to resent the rich, and the rich, who find themselves paying an increasing share of the tax bill, resent the poor and the middle class in return.
Ok, Suppose youâre a millionaire. On the top of the income tax bracket. Youâre also a frail and old now hitting 63. But youâve saved up your entire life from the housing projects. Worked 2 jobs to pay for school. Went to school and invested in your education and paid all that student loan debt back. Got a great job and eventually moved up to become executive paying 7 figures. Now you are also on your last stretch of your work and natural life. You got 4 kids and 1 is terminally ill, 2 has serious medical issues with large medical bills that you are supporting. 2 grand children you also feed living with you because one of their parent is too ill to take care of them and another one passed away from a tragic car accident. You also hope to pay for their education with the money you saved up. A bill comes up for 400,000$, things are going to be tightâŚmarkets rough and hard to move non liquid assets for anywhere near market value or what you purchased. But hey, you rich capitalist, you can afford it right?
What gives the frail old grandpa who didnât save up, didnât invest their money for growth, didnât work 2 jobs to pay for college. But yes, now heâs sick and only makes 10,000. Itâs tight yes. But does he have the moral right to say hey the rich guy will cover it for me and iâm not going to pay any taxes.
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The question was whether or not itâs morally justifiable for A to demand rent (or tax) from B. If youâre B, the âbuy somewhere elseâ solution means âget off my landâ. Is that morally justifiable?
- A is called a landlord. ==> Yes! Itâs his right!
- A is called a king. ==> No! A is a tyrant who never âcreated wealthâ!
I think you underestimate the economic significance of military phenomena. Iâll just leave it at that.
The average person has no chance ofâŚ
There are so many ways to end that sentence. 
Oh, you want to play that game?
Hereâs the violin for your biodiversity-destroying human hubris resort that will make your grandchildren ashamed of you. Now where are the violins for all the employees who got screwed out of their pensions because a few executives gave themselves massive bonuses while driving the company into bankruptcy?
Seniors get money from the government, so they have nothing to worry about! 
Thatâs a nice theory. Now try selling it to the seniors who are screwed, sometimes literally.
You think they can just waltz in to some government office and have everything taken care of?
As for why am I getting punished?, why is the senior getting punished? I showed you two scenarios of 1% loss of income. You said you wanted a flat tax. One percent is one percent.
And again, one percent is one percent. If you use proportionality to push your flat tax, once you get it are you going to turn around and say proportionality is still unfair to the rich?
Youâre so afraid of pronoun warriors. I told you you donât need to be so afraid, and you take that as an attack on your wealth. 
Whatever.
On the contrary, that same resentment would exist without taxes, though it would be articulated differently, and it would most likely be stronger overall.
Well, good people never get screwed out of their pensions, so if heâs old and poor he must deserve it.
I think thereâs a vacancy at @finleyâs club.
No i didnâtâŚweâve been using I and you pronouns to substitute each scenario as examplesâŚcome on.
yes, how is it so hard to get there are 2 fundamental differences in how each system would work for someone who calls himself an intellectual.
One system allows the voluntary sale of land, requires each individual to need to allocate their resources to keep their wealth, has the same law that governs all, and has the chance to own anything.
Another is itâs the kings, you can not buy or sell land, and do you think taxes are voluntary? If the king is worse at allocating their resources, they can simply tax you more even if youâre wayyyy richer than the king through trade, you can never own land either.
How are these two systems the same? If my landlord messed up and is short on money, sure he can raise the rent up higherâŚbut I have choice to not pay and move somewhere else. If the kings messed up and is short on money and says you must now pay more taxes to cover his lossâŚdo you think you can simply say no?
You sound like youâre taking an argument wayyy to personal. Maybe chill out and relax. You are the one to bring up scenarios ok, I just added more for you to think about.
How is the senior getting punished? The only question here why is the senior getting rewarded?
How do you know he didnât. Because all seniors lived their life well and none of them were shit heads that blow their pay checks in a week on stupid things and never accomplished anything. And why try to stir up sentiments with a frail old senior? Letâs say I blow my money on drugs and prostitutes. Do I also have the right to some money from lets say you? Or only seniors fit this logic 
That sounds like a fun game. Iâll start:
I blow my money on drugs and prostitutes.
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I dont think TAXIs are morally wrong??
OH TAXES, yes whats wrong is that major corporations escape tax like crazy. Apple has amassed over 100 billion and should have paid taxes on that. I read Amazon is paying ZERO federal tax this year. Incredible how that is allowed to happen. And us salary people are taxed up the A-hole.
I thought amazon is barely making a profit, hence the low tax. Or am I mistaken ?
Amazon making beaucoup bucks on cloud data for corporates.
Okay, you took it as an attack on rich people in general. My bad.
Do I call myself that? I hadnât noticed. 
AnywayâŚ
Thatâs the landlordâs/kingâs right. 
The tenant/subject has no legal right to force it to happen. Period.
(Adverse possession is another story.)
The landlord needs to allocate resources for upkeep, to some extent. So does the king. Those resources may be human labor plus the food etc. needed to sustain a bunch of humans, but theyâre still resources, and theyâre still allocated.
The king can sell land if he wants to. And do you think rent is voluntary?
Yes, the king can raise the tax rate, and the landlord can raise the rent. In modern times, rent control may limit that right, but the loudest âfree marketâ proponents fight against rent control ad nauseam.
Some people can afford to pack up and leave their land their landlordâs land; others canât.
Some people can afford to pack up and leave the kingdom (or arrange a coup); others canât.
As I said, a landlord is a lord (or seigneur etc.) minus some peculiar medieval customs, but what matters to the tenants is they need to pay the lord just to maintain a modicum of stability in their lives, and if they canât, theyâre screwed. For most people, itâs about their ability to live in a place where they can find enough work to sustain themselves and raise their children, not about having the nicest view or the trendiest stuff.
The state is the ultimate landlord: instead of taking a percentage of your income (in farm produce or whatever currency) in exchange for your right to live on the land, it takes a percentage of your income in exchange for your right to live⌠in the land! And in modern times, it also gives you a heck of a lot in terms of infrastructure, economic stimulus, bailouts for anyone âtoo big to failâ and so on, though ymmv.
So did I. 
If you want more information, I can help.
Dude, you got your flat tax in those scenarios, and youâre still not satisfied.
You might as well ask,
How is the billionaire getting punished? The only question here why is the billionaire getting rewarded?
And if you think rich people donât get rewarded with taxpayersâ money⌠thatâs worth a whole other thread.
How do you know anything? 
@discobot quote
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. â Buddha
Sure, but the poster was talking about amazon not Aws
Besides, amazon files consolidated income statements I presume so any profits at aws are offset with losses at another division
I cannot see why amazon would file separate tax returns for aws
Or ?
Discolord obviously takes a keen interest in this topic. And thatâs all Iâll say about that. 