Well, then how about reversing the tax system, reducing taxes as you go up the financial ladder, to indicate to all how much we appreciate hard work, wise lifestyle choices, and entrepreneurship???
Could we impose my hypotheticals rather than yours?
No, because you can work very hard and make great lifestyle choices and still not be successful financially due to factors beyond your control. I know people who did everything right for the last 30 years and were wiped out in the financial crisis.
2. And, you did an excellent job of explaining why it is bogus to consider the luck factor in taxation:
"It's unmeasurable and different for everyone."
No its not. You started this thread on the principles of progressive taxation, not on the exact marginal levels. The fact that we cannot measure with precision the exact probabilities of success in life does not obviate the maxim that randomness affects outcomes. We can't measure the exact probability of an earthquake at a given place and time either, but that doesn't mean we don't accommodate for the unknown probabilities of an earthquake.
No. You merely provided a pithy example to wave aside the broad affects of randomness on people's lives without actually addressing the issue. Power goes out at night, snooze fails, the worker sleeps in and he is fired for not showing up. Betcha that's happened somewhere.
I didn't say that. It was you who dismissed the work of psychologists with sleight of hand, presuming that we should dismiss without question the work of those who dedicate their lives to the study of psychology.
Straw man. I didn't say we should raise taxes. I said we should have a progressive tax system. Nor did I say we should raise taxes ad infinitum. What I'm saying is that those who earn more should pay a higher rate of taxation because we recognize that not all of their success is due to their own effort. But I do believe that the majority of one's success if based on individual effort, and thus marginal tax rates should reflect that. I am willing to consider a flat tax where the first amount of income is tax free, which is effectively a progressive tax system.
But surely if you believe that life is all about the success one puts in, you must be for taxing inheritance at 100%, right? I mean, how can one argue that life isn't affected by randomness when someone is born with $10 million?
So, by your logic then, there are NO accentuating circumstances that affects one's life. Every single step along the way is due to the will of the individual. Every single thing around the individual is irrelevant, and the only factor which affects one's standing in life is what they do. Seriously?
Asking for an exact measurement of randomness is about as valid as measuring the exact amount of freedom. But that doesn't mean freedom, or randomness, doesn't exist.
But we do know some things which can be inferred about randomness. For example, we know that a child born to a single parent is less likely to be successful than one born to two parents. We know that a child is more likely to go to university if both parents have been to university compared to those whose parents never went. There are numerous such studies concluding that the environment affects one's upbringing.
I love how the left of center (you'll admit to that, won't you?) usually considers religion as some kind of pejorative, because it relies on faith, but has no problem using 'faith' or 'belief' when it suits their argument?
Kind of sounds like 'birthers'....
I have no idea what you are talking about.
And you see that guy in my sig? That's Stephen Harper. If you don't know who he is, Google him.
5. "...ending up in poverty and not ending up in poverty is a different proposition from making $30,000 a year and making $300,000 a year."
Hey...I thought you said you understood human nature????
You mean everyone judges success the way you do?
Perhaps you should consider this definition:
"Success is what gets you closer to what you believe is important."
And, that is why individual rights are so important. We're all different.
Shouldn't society be proud of the rich, rather than use them as a cash cow?
This is a thread about taxation, isn't it? I mean, you started it. So why are you going off on this other tangent? I agree that success isn't just monetary. Start a thread about that and I'll back you up. But it's irrelevant in this thread on progressive taxation.
I have to admit, Toro....this is why I post on the board!
1. "You started this thread on the principles of progressive taxation, not on the exact marginal levels."
You use the term 'marginal levels' as though it is related to the assumed randomness, on which you base your precis....but you admit you have no way of quantifying same,...and, in fact, state that it differs for each of us!
So, should marginal rates differ for each?
2. "Power goes out at night, snooze fails, the worker sleeps in and he is fired for not showing up."
No, he's not. First, he has the union to fight for him. And secondly, randomness is universal, so guess what happened to the bosses' electricity?
3. "It was you who dismissed the work of psychologists with sleight of hand, presuming that we should dismiss without question the work of those who dedicate their lives to the study of psychology."
Did not. Said that they simply verify with extensive and expensive studies what we all know via common sense. Either that or they make concrete statements about inconsequential things....life the sex life of the tsetse fly.
But I did get a chuckle out of "...the work of those who dedicate their lives to the study of psychology."
4. "I didn't say we should raise taxes. I said we should have a progressive tax system."
Distinction without a difference.
Do the progressive taxes or do they not go up. See, 'raise', and 'up'....
5. "What I'm saying is that those who earn more should pay a higher rate of taxation because we recognize that not all of their success is due to
their own effort.
How and in what fashion do you apply that doctrine to the poor?
6. "But surely if you believe that life is all about the success one puts in, you must be for taxing inheritance at 100%, right? I mean, how can one argue that life isn't affected by randomness when someone is born with $10 million?"
Oh....that is a winner! I congratulate you on an excellent point! Bravo!
My answer is that the few in that position represent the wishes of their families...whose efforts provided same.
But I really like your point.
7. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
Then let me elucidate: your belief in the ability to devine the extent of luck in one's success has as much proof as religious folks proof of the Divinity, or a Lefties belief in Obama's birth certificate.
8. Of course I know who Harper is...but your pic of him makes you a conservative like my pic of supergirl gives me super powers.
Based on your great point, I give you one of my fav poems, on in support of randomness:
Hap, by Thomas Hardy
IF but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"
Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.
But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
--Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan....
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.
