Quote :

"You're Rich? Terrific. Now Pay Up. By BEN STEIN,Published: May 7, 2006, New York Times I GAVE a speech in Orlando, Fla., late last month to some private-equity folks who said that business was great. Then I flew up to Newark and the first-class section of the plane was full, and even had a waiting list. Then I rode into New York City in a blizzard of limousines, and ate dinner with my sister and her husband at a Greek place called Milos, on West 55th Street. Fresh swordfish, and it was heavenly. The place was expensive and packed. It was a fine evening, apparently the first in the city for weeks, and men and women were in outdoor cafes, eating, drinking, winking, smiling and flirting. A few were shouting, "Bueller! Bueller!" at me as I passed. I walked by a stunning woman in front of the Peninsula who giggled as she saw me. I walked down to the Yale Club on Vanderbilt, where men and women looked happy and assured under the portraits of presidents — the Bushes and Clinton. On my way back, two young men accosted me in front of Rockefeller Center. They told me they were recent Yale graduates who were making a great living working at hedge funds. They told me that their boss made $100 million a year trading currencies, and that there were dozens like him making more money than I could imagine. (I have my doubts, but that's what they said.) Suddenly, as the men happily walked away from me, I had a vision. Here we all are under the gorgeous crystal dome of prosperity, drinking, making money, eating swordfish, changing money at the temple, showing off ourselves to others, bragging — and all of it, every bit of it, is made possible by the men and women who wear the uniform. Every bit of it is done under the protection of the Marines, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard, serving and offering up their lives for pennies. And we're also under the protection of the police and the firefighters and the F.B.I., who offer up their lives for nothing compared with what others make trading money on computer screens. Something flashed into my mind — something that my late father used to say, quoting loosely from the economist Henry C. Simons, a founder of the Chicago School of economics: that it is "unlovely" to see the extremes of wealth and nonwealth that are evident in contemporary America. We may be able to live with it. Some of us may even be able to prosper amid it. But it's not pretty. The rich should simply not be that much richer than everyone else — especially those whose lives protect them from terrorism. As I thought that, I had a revelation about oil. We all know — and I mean all, even Congress — that the oil companies are not fixing prices. We all know that the oil companies are not creating these wild prices out of thin air. The worldwide market is at work, and traders and speculators are driving up the price, based on uncertainty of supplies and inventories, and presumably becoming very rich in the process (at least some of them). That's the market at work. It's not up to the government to set the price or to fix the situation except by opening more space for exploration, and even that may not help. In the same way, even I was startled when I read about the pay of Lee R. Raymond, the former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, who recently retired. His retirement package was in the neighborhood of $400 million — a breathtaking sum, even for those of us who admire the job that Big Oil does and think that the industry gets a bum rap. Still, that's between him and his stockholders, not a matter for Congress. And it would not even remotely be addressed by a windfall profits tax — an idea that has been tried and has failed miserably. The real problem is the difference between the rich — including rich oil people, of whom there are not many, but there are enough — and the poor. It is up to the government to redress this extraordinary difference in incomes of the rich and the nonrich, even at the margins. What Congress can do, and should do, is address the stunning underpayment of military men and women and the staggering budget deficits that will be a burden on our posterity for decades, by raising the taxes on the rich. It's fine that there are rich people. It's even fine that there are superrich people. But if they are superrich, they derive special benefits from life in the United States that the nonrich don't. For one thing, they can make the money in a safe environment, which is not true for the rich in many countries. It is just common decency that they should pay much higher income taxes than they do. Taxes for the rich are lower than they have been since at least World War II — that is to say, in 60 years. This makes no sense in a world at war, in a nation with so many unmet social needs, in a nation with so many people without health care, in a nation running immense and endless deficits. America is becoming a nation of many rich people. I recently read that there were close to 10 million millionaire households. I read that there were hundreds of thousands who made more than $1 million a year. Good for them. But it's unlovely for them to pay as little tax as they now pay. The real problem in this country is only temporarily about oil. That will right itself, or we'll get used to it and adjust. The real problem is saving a nation that is beset by terrorism, and we cannot do that unless we feel that we are all in the same boat, pulling at the oars together. That includes the rich. Whatever rationale there may have been in 2001 for lowering their taxes is long gone. It's time for them — us, because it includes me — to pay their (our) share. It's not about oil. It's about fairness. "

Looks like our favorite eye-drop pimping "Republican" has turned into a self-loathing wealthy liberal. Forget that the top 10% of income earners pay over 60% of fed. income taxes...and that he bottom 50% of earners pay less than 4%. We must punish the rich for their success! True, the rich benefit from military protection, but they're the ones who are already providing most of the military's money.

You can pay the military more, I think we should. But how about cutting some social programs that pay people for not-working and give that money the soldiers? How about delaying the "Bridge to Nowhere" for a few years and use that money for something worthwhile.

I am constantly stunned at these rich people who promote wealth envy/warfare- their guilt and fear must be staggering.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 11:32 AM. Reason : .]

5/10/2006 11:31:29 AM

oh
looks like the poor hating conservatives (not you earthdogg) are going to throw ben stein under the bus after years of letting him be a hero

5/10/2006 11:47:13 AM

You realize until this bizarre end-life revelation, Ben Stein WAS a poor-hating conservative, right?

Not necessarily poor-hating, but, you know, ever the advocate for keeping his damn money.

5/10/2006 11:53:34 AM

your story has become tiresome

please don't post unless you have some actual bracket numbers to propose

5/10/2006 12:00:50 PM

I understand that many members of the upper class are hard workers who earned the status that they've achieved. But it's also likely that they were provided the fortunate circumstances to allow their hard work to pay off for them. There's likely many hard working lower class members who've never received the good fortune to allow their efforts to get them anywhere.

Not that I have a point or anything.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:04 PM. Reason : ie?]

5/10/2006 12:04:04 PM

you're forgetting one very imporant thing here in regard to mr. ben stein:

what does he know? he's an edomite, ffs!

5/10/2006 12:10:05 PM

i know only a handful of people who have over a million dollars and every single one was either born into money (90% of those i know) or are complete assholes. and the ones born into money were complete assholes too. I have no problem taking their money b/c theys suck and Earthdogg is poor so this thread sucks my nuts.

5/10/2006 12:10:59 PM

Quote :

"Taxes for the rich are lower than they have been since at least World War II — that is to say, in 60 years."

The argument against high marginal tax rates is not a moral argument but a technical one.

I would never argue that the traders on wall-street deserve their millions. But if you try to take away their millions then we risk them stoping what they're doing, to our own detriment. Taxes do more than just raise money for the government to spend, they change human behavior in very detrimental ways.

The rich are already rich, there is nothing we can do about that (except wait for them to die). But they fullfill a major role in our society by starting and running businesses and engaging in the nation's commerce. They don't need to do these activities to be rich, many of them are already rich. But by taxing heavily these individuals will abandon their persuits to the detriment of society: markets become unstable, job growth slows, risks go untaken, and taxes go unpaid.

This is not speculation, we have many instances of historical experiments where heavy taxation did anything but raise money: 1910s, 1930s, 1970s. And many instances where cutting tax rates on the wealthy resulted in even higher rates of tax payment (1920s, 1940s, 1960s, 1980s, 2000s).

A most recent example is 2002-2003 after George Bush managed a tax cut for the top 1% from 38.6% to 35%. The net effect, however, was to increase the top 1%'s share of tax liabilities from 21.4% in 2002 to 22.6% in 2003.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/70xx/doc7000/12-29-FedTaxRates.pdf
http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm

So, while I'm sure we all wish we could raise the top tax rate on the wealthy to 91% without any ill effects to our standard of living, I'm affraid the last time it was done in 1932 did not work out to the benefit of the nation or the nation's poor.

5/10/2006 12:17:40 PM

^^ WTF are you talking about? One million dollars in weath is not that much -- unless your a dumb fucking redneck living in the backwoods of NC.

5/10/2006 12:21:22 PM

perhaps, but im guessing you are one of the aforementioned assholes. har har.

5/10/2006 12:25:26 PM

Ben Stein needs to bring back his game show.

5/10/2006 12:26:08 PM

now that was a redistribution of wealth

5/10/2006 12:26:46 PM

^^^^

Quote :

"i know only a handful of people who have over a million dollars and every single one was either born into money (90% of those i know) or are complete assholes. and the ones born into money were complete assholes too. I have no problem taking their money b/c theys suck and Earthdogg is poor so this thread sucks my nuts."

read much


oh and poor people complaining about how the gubment takes rich peoples money makes my rofl outa my fuckin chair

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:30 PM. Reason : !]

5/10/2006 12:29:36 PM

So when you say "over one million" you actually mean over 3 or 4 million?

Quote :

"oh and poor people complaining about how the gubment takes rich peoples money makes my rofl outa my fuckin chair"

Just because you live in bumfuck NC where 10K/yr is a lot, doesn't mean that's a good salary else where.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:39 PM. Reason : I'm not going to get personal.]

5/10/2006 12:32:12 PM

man, I only have one million and one dollars. where does that put me?

what if it's in monopoly money?

5/10/2006 12:41:27 PM

This graph shows more than would be useful for this purpose (the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s are much more stark and less confused, as I remember, but I don't have that data available).

5/10/2006 12:45:19 PM

Quote :

"But how about cutting some social programs that pay people for not-working and give that money the soldiers?"

How about we cut away the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, no bid contracts and tax incentives to billion dollar corporations annually? We have more than enough money in this country to guarantee full education and health care to anyone who deserves it. Its time we stop prioritizing business over people.

5/10/2006 12:45:56 PM

One million dollars is a lot of money. If my man and I were at the age where we could receive pensions, and we had a million dollars, we'd retire.

I'd say it's "rich," not "wealthy" though.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:53 PM. Reason : sss]

5/10/2006 12:48:24 PM

Quote :

"How about we cut away the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies, no bid contracts and tax incentives to billion dollar corporations annually?"

This is the main problem with many Republican politicians. They mistake supporting business as somehow supporting markets. From an economics standpoint, directed tax breaks, subsidies, and directed regulations to a few businesses is actually destructive to the freemarket because it inhibits productivity, prevents competition, decreases consumer power, mis-directs market resources, increases political conflict, and wastes government revenue.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:54 PM. Reason : .,.]

5/10/2006 12:53:31 PM

^^My first question is where do you live? Then why don't you do a serious calculation on how long you could last on 1 million and pension. I'd bet you would reconsider.
Also, I'd rethink betting my retirement on a pension plan, I don't trust corporate america that much.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 12:57 PM. Reason : .]

5/10/2006 12:57:09 PM

I'm for cutting a lot of subsidies, so don't get me wrong, but I love when people try to say we should prioritize people over business as if the two are completely different.

We need great national defense, healtcare for all, free medicine, abundant food choices for all Americans. Screw helping businesses because people are starving.

Let alone the logic that its usually corporations providing these things in the first place and that if we declare war on corporate profits we'll find ourselves stuck with nothing. We have to care about the people, dammit!

5/10/2006 1:03:02 PM

clalias, I was born and raised right here in Raleigh, NC.

And how long would I last?

Let's see: probably the earliest I could ever collect a pension is 55. So, if I was 55 today, we're looking at trying to last 25-35 years.

Yeah, with a financial planner, a pension, and one million dollars, I think I could swing retirement.

For you to suggest that I couldn't swing it is ABSURD.

Quote :

"Also, I'd rethink betting my retirement on a pension plan, I don't trust corporate america that much."

Government pension, for starters.
And there would be mutual funds and all that crap involved.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 1:06 PM. Reason : sss]

5/10/2006 1:03:38 PM

Well I guess since you work for the government you'll never have to worry about retiring early.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 1:14 PM. Reason : shouldn't you be working now? quit wasting my tax dollars to play on tww.]

5/10/2006 1:11:42 PM

this is getting stupid.

the average american makes around 40,000 a year. That being said, the initial statement was to say over one million dollars a year. I didnt know someone was going to get all technical and start graphing how much one million dollars will last someone.

and im from Oakland if that helps any since we're saying that being from bumfuck NC means you have no concept of money.

with that being said. Unless you make Millions a year you shouldnt be complaining about the government taking the rich peoples money unless you have a hard on for Tom Cruise.

5/10/2006 1:15:57 PM

One million/yr. I agree with you now, absolutely.

5/10/2006 1:22:25 PM

i gotta start proof reading my posts

5/10/2006 1:23:34 PM

Quote :

"the average american makes around 40,000 a year."

I remember seeing that the average household makes $37.5K

where is this from?

5/10/2006 1:34:56 PM

1 million dollars is more than enough to live on. If you cannot live on 1 million dollars than you are a loser who doesn't deserve the money.

5/10/2006 1:36:40 PM

you could give me 1 million right now tax free and i'm pretty sure i could live without working for a good 30 years

5/10/2006 1:47:06 PM

Quote :

"Government pension, for starters. And there would be mutual funds and all that crap involved."

Bridget knows what she's talking about.

I'm in Navy ROTC, and after I get commissioned I hope to stay in long enough to get a pension after I retire. The Navy will allow me to have both a Roth IRA (which I will be opening soon) and a government mutual fund (as soon as I get commissioned) without much detriment to my taxes. And I plan to put away as much as possible.

5/10/2006 1:50:11 PM

Quote :

"Here we all are under the gorgeous crystal dome of prosperity, drinking, making money, eating swordfish, changing money at the temple, showing off ourselves to others, bragging — and all of it, every bit of it, is made possible by the men and women who wear the uniform. Every bit of it is done under the protection of the Marines, the Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the Coast Guard, serving and offering up their lives for pennies. And we're also under the protection of the police and the firefighters and the F.B.I., who offer up their lives for nothing compared with what others make trading money on computer screens."

This is absolutely true.

5/10/2006 1:56:15 PM

Quote :

"I remember seeing that the average household makes $37.5K"

Average Compensation is closer to $60k a year.

Remember, America has a per-capita GDP of $40k, that is $40k for every man/women/child, many of which don't have jobs.

5/10/2006 1:58:00 PM

thats per capita, when you look at the actual distribution of the GDP, its concentrated in a relatively small population

5/10/2006 2:16:33 PM

They are the ones that said Average, not me.

5/10/2006 2:33:28 PM

yeah, but "average" income is pretty meaningless with so many ridiculous outliers, the median is a much better measure and is currently hanging around $45k/household.

5/10/2006 2:38:17 PM

5/10/2006 2:39:21 PM

Well, the bottom 50% of wage earners can't afford health care, can't buy a house, can't put fuel in a car, can't afford to go to college, ect. They really have little to live for.... are you suggesting that we raise taxes on them?

5/10/2006 2:50:20 PM

ya?

rich people need to stop being greedy and build some new shit downtown. And with more people b/c its taking too long. I'll be moved in a year.

5/10/2006 2:50:38 PM

maybe it is just me, but when the top earners are making hundreds of millions vs a normal familys 30k, yeah id expect them to end up paying 50%+ of the taxes when you just look at the %. it isnt like they pay 90% and everyone else pays 10.

hell, by those charts logic, if we raise their taxes, it'll help raise 50%+ of our tax income...sounds good to me.

[Edited on May 10, 2006 at 3:18 PM. Reason : better]

5/10/2006 3:16:00 PM

Quote :

"But if you try to take away their millions then we risk them stoping what they're doing, to our own detriment. Taxes do more than just raise money for the government to spend, they change human behavior in very detrimental ways."

They'll cut spending, which wouldn't be a terrible thing, but I don't think I've ever heard of a relationship between raising tax rates on the rich and them saying "fuck this I'll sit at home"

5/10/2006 3:16:07 PM

The bottom 50% can't afford anything and don't have anything to live for?

What are you, retarded?

The poverty line is well below the 50% mark and even if you argue its too low, you'd have to be a complete fool to think the average American can't afford the things you're talking about.

5/10/2006 3:27:26 PM

autonomous consumption

5/10/2006 3:28:25 PM

Kris, such a relationship does exist, but more subtely than actually quitting. They may invest less in limited partnerships and start-up companies that create jobs. They cut their spending and the people who used to make their goods lose their jobs.

Thinking that rich people won't stop what they're doing when you raise taxes on them is utter insanity. They do it slowly (mostly they just avoid paying taxes instead) but try to move their tax rate up to 75% and see how many of them still work. Under the logic that they'll never quit, we ought to tax them 100% and make them our slaves, they seem to have an insatiable desire to produce for us.

5/10/2006 3:30:15 PM

another one of these fucking threads. earthdogg says the same goddam thing in every one of his threads.

WE GET IT. YOURE A LIBERTARIAN AND ARE PROUD OF IT. NOW SHUT UP.

5/10/2006 3:31:41 PM

Quote :

"They may invest less in limited partnerships and start-up companies that create jobs."

Why? If they're paying more in taxes, then they need to make more money, correct?

Quote :

"They cut their spending and the people who used to make their goods lose their jobs."

That's really not that big of a deal for us considering most of the manufacturing jobs are overseas. We need to cut consumption, and the only way to do that is to cut back spending.

Quote :

"Thinking that rich people won't stop what they're doing when you raise taxes on them is utter insanity."

Thinking that rich people will quit their jobs due to tax increases is far more insane.

Quote :

"but try to move their tax rate up to 75% and see how many of them still work"

Well if they don't work, how would they plan on eating? If we tax them more it means, either they will have to spend less or make more. Not really too many other options that can continue their lifestyle.

5/10/2006 3:41:09 PM

5/10/2006 3:42:55 PM

something tells me we dont have to bump their rate upt o 75% or more for this idea to be effective.

5/10/2006 4:08:17 PM

im not gonna lie, i have no idea what the purpose of that table is.

5/10/2006 4:16:19 PM

IT MEANS EUROPE IS TEH SUX0R, LOL

woohoo, go Brazil.

5/10/2006 4:17:46 PM

Kris, if you tax their income and we already assumed that they were RICH, they'll just stop working and live off their accumulated wealth. We're talking about the rich, not the poor, remember

5/10/2006 4:50:23 PM