Byron A Jeff

     "I don't mind anyone having the $1,000,000. But there
      should be an increasingly higher cost to spend it."


Karl Marx:

    "To each according to his needs -
     from each according to his abilities" - 'to pay' -

eh?

I'm warming to a nice comforting color of 'Red'
now ... please pass the hammer and sickle, I need
to get back to work on the 'collective' ...

Jim


----- Original Message -----
From: "Byron A Jeff" <byron@CC.GATECH.EDU>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [OT]: $1-a-day wages


> On Wed, Jun 05, 2002 at 10:21:18AM -0500, Jim wrote:
> >     "rich people should pay more for everything
> >      they buy too, there should be a rich-persons'
> >      price, and a normal price"
> >
> > This was tried in the US via something called "The
> > Luxury Tax" in the last decade.
> >
> > Unfortunately, domestic production of so-called 'Luxury
> > Items' fell because *purchase* of such items declined
> > and turned out to hurt *those* who work to build such
> > items (which turns out to be a *lot* of middle class
> > peoples).
> >
> > Moral of the story:
> >
> >    "Go ahead - *Tax* my day (and I'll seek alternatives)!
> >
> > Most socialists (and government types), it turns out, view
> > these 'systems' as wholy in-elastic and completely static
> > and do *not* take into account the dynamic adapatability
> > of those *making* the decisions when they spend their
> > dollars.
> >
> > The only real alternative  to prevent these end-runs
> > around 'the system' is total government control (See
> > 'Soviet Union', defunct 1990).
>
> I don't think that's necessarily true that total govt. control
> is the only solution. The truth of the matter is that the
> govt really should consider a modified version of what many
> Republicans have been pushing for awhile: a simplified tax
> with no taxation on capital gains.
>
> However there must be a price and the original statement above
> is pretty close to it: a progressive consumption tax.
>
> It's pretty simple. One gets taxed for what one spends. And
> the more that one spends, the higher the tax is. It promotes
> saving and investing, and those who have the disposable
> income to spend will only be taxed on the disposable income
> that they spend. In short a luxury tax on everything, not just
> specific items.
>
> The flat tax that has been proposed time and time again doesn't
> work simply because of the disparity of the amount of disposable
> income that's left when it's applied. There's a vast difference
> between a 10% tax on $10,000 and the same 10% on $1,000,000. Even
> though the latter is paying a lot more in absolute terms ($100,000)
> the amount of disposable income left over is staggering ($900,000).
>
> I don't mind anyone having the $1,000,000. But there should be
> an increasingly higher cost to spend it.
>
> That's just my off the wall thought on the subject. In my mind it
> would be equitable, promote savings, and greatly simplify the
> tax system. I also wouldn't allow any loopholes or exemptions for
> folks to slip through.
>
> BAJ
>
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