Government’s role in the USA is income redistribution. This creates massive disincintives to work hard and save and a huge incentive to sign up to be on the receiving end of the redistribution gravy train.
AND:
Add to all that the reality that wealth concentration is accellerating.
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Which one is preferable? The wealth disparity or the “redistribution of income”? You either want power and money to be further concentrated, or you want the income to be redistributed back to the working people (most of those who are truly wealthy do not work, they just live off the productive labor of others).
I think this is one of the issues that the PTB (mega-banks & corporations) try to manipulate in the minds of U.S. citizens. They try to convince J6 (that’s most of us, if we have to “work” for a living) that he, too, can be “rich” if only he works hard enough. This argument between fiscal conservatives & liberals keeps us fighting amongst ourselves while they (banks/corps) make off with the loot.
I can show you one example after another of people who’ve worked very hard and lived frugally all their lives, with very little to show for it. I can also show you one example after another of people who do very little work — even those who assist in the destruction of our economy (witness the credit bubble, and all the bubbles it’s created) — and they have many millions, if not billions of dollars.
The greatest determinant of wealth, IMHO, is how close a person is to those in power (already wealthy). Power begets money, money begets power, power begets money, etc. Those with money control Congress and can even hold sway over court decisions.
Everything is relative. If you make $100K, but everyone else is making $70K, then you are rich, financially-speaking. I don’t believe for a second that higher taxes prevent anyone from legitimately earning more money. Since all people over the given limits would be taxed equally, you’d still be wealthy and have all the advantages, when compared to others below you in income-earning capacity. Your lifestyle would still be significantly better than theirs.
Even if it were so, someone else would pick up the slack, and earn that money, instead. That would actually be better, as the wealth could be divided more equally, and people would have more free time (since they would somehow lose the incentive to work, if taxes were higher).
