Reducing Wealth Statification

[Martin Hash]

I had this discussion with a guy last night at dinner. He parroted the conservative economic narrative just like everyone else, and made the same old tired arguments that highly paid managers won't work if they don't get exorbitant salaries, and that they also won't work if they can't turn their heirs into royalty. By the end of the night I convinced him.

I'm even refining my argument:
All those "special" people who won't work if they are not paid $100,000,000; my answer, there are 10,000 guys just like you lined up to take your job.

[Speaker to Animals]

Except that's not the argument.

[Martin Hash]

Except I won.

p.s. BTW, this guy's also a multi-millionaire who lives in my neighborhood.

[Martin Hash]

He also agreed that though my logic was sound, people are base, and I could probably only implement my plan as Czar with plenty of guillotines at the ready. And that WiFi would have to fail first.

[DBTrek]

Awmazing. Did he read your book? Because we know you’ve had multiple offers to “win” your argument here, but you’ve always decided to pass.

[Martin Hash]

Yeah, he bought my book using his phone during the car ride home. He's excited to read it (or polite).

p.s. When did you buy my book?

[Martin Hash]

This is a similar exchange with Capps, who's posting long debates via messages for whatever crazy reason he won't post publicly.

...

Dude, I’ve presented my entire argument on the forum a few times before I put it in my book. It took a while to recognize that nobody here was ever going to change their mind, so now I just look to see if they’ve got anything new to say. I’m fine with being a constituency of 1.

p.s. “If you care what other people think, they control your life, you don’t” - me

...

Just yesterday I finished harvesting my quotes (and other people's), so I've seen all the narratives recently. Unless you do the same thing, how would you know better than me? Read my fucking book if you want to see them all in order. I'm not going to repeat myself endlessly; the whole idea is to gain new insights, not regurgitate old ones to people who aren't going to change their minds.

p.s. And quit being a baby, and just post this long shit to the forum so it gets in the next harvest.

[Speaker to Animals]

If we are getting into the punitive tax business, I'd rather differentiate between actual wealth generation and wealth redistribution. Tax the latter but not the former.

For instance, most of what banks do is technically wealth redistribution, and most wealth redistribution -- despite the common rhetoric -- goes to the top. Tax that with heavy taxation. Wall Street is a good example of an industry that for the most part makes money by taking it from others. These people do not actually expand the economy, add innovation and quality of life increases to society, or really much of anything that helps us long term. They do a little bit of good and utility, but mostly it's just a fleecing of society through various means.

On the other hand, I don't really see the point in cognitively taxing wealth that a business generated through innovation and economic growth. That kind of taxation harms us.

[Martin Hash]

Tax business?! Where R U getting that?

In Hashland, business isn't taxed.

[Speaker to Animals]

I wouldn't want to tax them either, but if we are going to punitive tax rates, then I would rather focus on the negative businesses that redistribute wealth from the middle class to the top one percent or so than tax businesses that actually grow the economy (wealth generation). There's no way to differentiate between the two at the individual level.