> Einstein wrote:

> Assume for a moment I am part of the 1%, that class of ultra rich that you despise.

"You tax the stock market
Personal Effect: I stop trading
Public Effect: Stock Values plummet affecting retirement accounts. The 99% suffers"

You won't stop trading by a Tobin tax of just 0,01% for every transaction. But your personal income idea suggests, that the volume of your trade is still below the billions that are traded every second and that destroy the global financial system right now.

"You tax my pay
Personal Effect: I get a raise to cover the taxes
Public Effect: My raise came at cost of employees, customers, or both. The 99% suffers"

CEO already get raises for the costs of employees etc. But with higher taxes, the public gets a higher share. Over time the benefits will be greater, because the common family feels that equality means a fair share for everyone.

"You tax my Capital Gains
Personal effect: I shut down the business.
Public Effect: The employees I was employing file for unemployment. The 99% suffers."

You would really close your business for a tax on capital gains. As a CEO/Owner of a pretty big company? Don't make me laugh. Your example doesn't fit.

"You tax my property very high
Personal Effect: I move into the Ritz or some other motel and dump the property at a low price. I wait out the currend administration and then get another house later.
Public Effect: High end property values plummet and eventually so does tax revenue. The people maintaining the property lose. The 99% suffers."

Lower values of estates lower the inflation. Inflation ruins the mass of the people every day. The rich profit from it, because they can use the benefits for their personell gains. No government would rise the taxes that fast if it is not real bankruptcy it faces, e. g. Greece. 

"You tax my corporation (and my business) higher
Personal Effect: Raise prices to pay new taxes.
Public Effect: The 99% suffers"

Yeah, raise your prices and you are out of business. What a great CEO you are! Worth every Cent. Again your profile is ill chosen. Lower your costs by rising the efficiency of your production. Lower the costs of energy consumption. Cut the income of your CEO, that would rather close the company as to pay a bit more taxes.

"You tax my wealth
Personal Effect: I freak out, dramatically raise prices
Public Effect: Economic nose dive, the 99% suffer"

Yeah, freak out. See above. Raising prices because of personell problems.

"You tax luxuries
Personal Effect: The rich buy luxuries elsewhere
Public Effect: Those 99%ers making the luxuries lost their jobs."

Sure, they jump in their helicopter and fly to Mexico. Back home they wonder why the door of the new BMW is broken. Luxuries are consumed worldwide. That is why it must be taxed higher. Rise the tariffs for luxury imports! Buy US!

"You cap salaries:
Personal Effect: The corporation leases houses, art, cars, etc for me
Public Effect: Still no help for the 99%"

Which work is worth millions of $ a year? For everyone a day has 24h. Who produces more, a worker in a factory or a manager of Goldman Sachs?
The worker gives the world real value, the manager only excuses to hide money and press the mass of the people to the ground.

"You reduce taxes
Personal Effect: Short term I get richer, reinvest to try to get richer, or to fight off competition
Public Effects: More of the 99% can become the 1% (Actually would be 2% then), cheaper goods (increased competition), more 99% has things easier."

Lower taxes are nice, but only in good times. The good times are over. There are just blood, sweat and tears to come. We will have to pay our fair share. The rich will pay their price one day. They open their purse, or lose their heads when the riots are around the planet, hunting for prey. When they stand before god, their money won't help them.

It is a new dawn, face it!

"> [TI] Primo wrote:

> In general, you make some sort of sense, but there are two important factors in this story you overlooked.

1) It depends on how much you tax, for instance, if you tax capital gains by a 5% or whatever, if the company is healthy, it will still create plenty of revenue for the owner.

2) If the taxes are used for something beneficial for the richer as well (infrastructure, education and even povery reduction to an extend), they won't mind paying these taxes so much. If the money is carelessly thrown around into dark pits of nothingness (development aid to corrupt governments), that will cause resistance."

A detailed tax system is a must, but those speeches of clear tax numbers like "all americans pay 5, 10, 15...%" is the wrong way. there is no easy way in such a big nation.

Dark pits are always a problem when politicans and money come together. May they call themselves socialist, liberal or conservative, they all want our best: our money. In Germany we have the so called "Bundesrechnungshof". This is a federal but independent institution, that collects failed or too high spendings of tax money. Every year the Bundesrechnungshof analyzes the financial management of the federal spendings and publihes it in a summary. The tax payers can read the dark pits that were found in detail every year. That rises the pressure on the politicans for good spending. Of course there are still many failures, but it helps.
Has the US something similar? If not, it is time.

Drats Zarf, you stole exactly my next point.

I can take a vacation for a decade, just up and leave.

Your so called benefits do not benefit the me, they benefit others and my company.

My companies cannot be run better by lesser skilled people... look at Apple for an example... When Steve Jobs left the company coasted until it almost stalled and died.

Apple was written off in most peoples eyes. No one skilled enough could save her. Until Jobs returned. Now she is the second most profitable company IN THE WORLD.

Unsexy as it may be, there are people better at being a CEO than you are. These people have their place in this world.

Screw them? No... screw yourself is more like it. If you tax all the rich they WILL PASS THE COSTS TO THE CONSUMER, or reduce payroll, or reduce staff, or a combination of the three. Do not think they won't.

Alternatively screw them enough and they pack up and leave, which then screws you worse.

Don't think it happens? Ask New York City how come they cannot pay their bills now. The rich left.

There will always be winners, you cannot stop this.

They will find a way, a place, or a way to wait you out.

If instead you force them to work harder because that new competitor is smart and capable... then you weaken their grips on money.

As an economics major i can honestly say that some of Flints conclusions are 100% wrong

The largest flaw here i just want to poitn out is that Flints arguement is 100% moronic.

He is looking ONLY at tax PAYMENT. Ofcourse noone will EVER be better off from solely the payment of taxes, its when they are redistributed and put to use that the 99% can gain from them . He is ignoring this whole part of the tax plan, and naturally the net effect for everyone involved is negative.

Still beats the alternative tho

Were you... trying to answer specific arguments here?

> [TI] Primo wrote:

> 2) If the taxes are used for something beneficial for the richer as well (infrastructure, education and even povery reduction to an extend), they won't mind paying these taxes so much. If the money is carelessly thrown around into dark pits of nothingness (development aid to corrupt governments), that will cause resistance.

Oh, I forgot about this one.

The big problem here is that government programs are public resources.  The rich can say "yeah, that's a good program... no worries."  However, once the program is passed, there's nothing to force any individual rich person to produce the taxable income required for that public resource.  Thus, the incentives to reduce taxable income would still exist... bringing us back to Flint's argument.