Oh and for the supermodel wife : you don't need to pass via a "Daddy" to land one - IF that is your aspiration. Hopefully, you do not come from a "good" family, as this makes it easier.
I do not see how those topics are unrelated, if not identical. Inequality arises from the fact that the extremely rich are not paying relatively equal dues than the small man on the street. And please name a single other item that is higher up on the expense list of an extremely wealthy individual than capital gains taxes. And of course you have taxes on most assets. To start with, and that is an asset every wealthy individual holds is property which are taxed via property taxes. The whole concept of inequality is not the absolute difference between the 1% richest and 1% poorest. It is that the 1% richest are not held accountable to pay their fair share in dues to society/government (call it whatever you want if the term government catches you on the wrong foot).
without questioning the validity of your statements but I hear this same identical story on every internet board and if each story was true we would have to look very hard to find a person in our midst who is not a millionaire.
sorry but I never promised a prick statistics who states the untruth of what others have said and cannot even acknowledge in having done so. Dude, you seem to be the master slick dick on this board, notice that I ALSO NEVER asked you to apologize. I asked you to stop twisting the truth. Simple as that. Do not make life more complicated than it is.
He never does, he has an agenda to follow and above all he has 100 mouths to speak and 1/2 ear to listen.
OK, I guess you have not spent enough time around rich people. Rich people don't pay capital gains taxes. Rich people "in general" own assets. And in "general" those assets are in a trust. There is a trillion dollar industry in this country in the creation and management of trusts. We're talking about the top 1% here, not some doctor making 250k a year. That's one of the reasons why the top 1% laugh at the idea of paying higher income taxes. They don't have any income taxes. They don't pay capital gains taxes and their properties are in trust. Are you starting to get this now? Now as to your left wing dribble about the poor paying all the taxes. The poor pay zero income taxes. Yes, they do pay excise taxes on goods and services but those goods and services are ironically enough being paid for them BY tax dollars in the form of gov't transfer payments. So the problem we have here is, like the OP, you are struggling with the basic concepts of money and how government works. You know enough to start shouting things into the wind, but not enough for those things to actually make enough sense. Now let me make one thing clear. I'm NOT in disagreement with you or the OP or Martin for that matter that there is not a huge gap in equality. My argument is that your presentation of the argument is inaccurate and we both seem to have different solutions top remedy it.
I disagree with you but its ok, I am not too interested in continuing to debate the differences between wealth and income because I get the impression you fail to see the big picture. Nobody is debating how to tax assets that are already owned. How would you want to do that anyway? Tell the top 1% that they need to transfer 5% of their fair asset values to the government? Is that fairer? Clearly not, the discussion is about how to tax further asset accumulation and whether the current assessment is fair. No matter how many assets you currently have if you want to earn one additional dollar then how that additional dollar will be taxed is the question at the heart of the whole discussion. Remove yourselves from definitions, little unimportant details.
You still are not getting it. That is my point, there is no "additional dollar" The rich leverage their net worth through debt. In other words, they convert income into debt to create leverage of existing assets. So there is no income, only an asset. I know there is hard to understand and maybe I'm being too big of a dick here patronizing you for it as honestly most Americans don't understand this. But debt in the financial world IS an asset and that asset has different income generating qualities then equity. The top 1% earn practically ZERO income so there is no marginal income to tax. You see here is what you need to get your head around. Income, as you understand it, only has value to those who need cash flow in the present to meet expenses. If you don't need that cash flow, there is absolutely ZERO benefit to creating a cash flow. So any cash flow that does exist is converted into debt wiping out the short term taxable cashflow. Why do you think rich people own 15 properties all over the world. Most of them will never step foot in those homes, they bought the homes to create a debt or obligation. The debt in this case IS an asset and the interest on that debt is tax deductible against any short term cash flows. I know this is confusing but this is why people get paid bucks to learn and understand the math and optimize assets to create maximum value.
Right, so am I to understand that you don't have any evidence or data to support your assertions? You stated you have evidence and are happy to provide it if someone asks for it. I have asked for it. This is very simple. In fact, I can't think of anything less complicated than this. We can discuss all the other stuff later, if you like...