A bias against wealth?

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So...we now have a trend since the baby boomers whereby kids are likely to be worse off as adults than their parents were - not better off - as the trend was until then. And the BB's are bitching that anything above 33% tax is too high, and making hundreds of thousands a year is not wealthy, and have a tendency to blame the poor for their poverty without a concept of how fortunate they are - all the while reversing the things that were the foundation that helped them get where they are. That does kind of irk me.
 
Kimmio, I think there is a likely a great conversation to be had regarding taxation.

I was kinda hoping to have a conversation around the topics that came up in coveting and Where do we go from here.

I have a sense that this thread is not going to come back to that area.
If anyone does wish to have that conversation, then, please engage. Otherwise, I will likely consider it not going to happen.
 
There's nothing I said that can't be worked into those topics. How do the wealthy get wealthy - the history of wealth in the last 50 or 60 years. I suspect there's more than a bit of covetousness involved in the resistance to taxation, and even in deciding there's a bias against the wealthy....coveting of wealth, no? Where do we go from here? Maybe what I wrote was not what you wanted to hear, but it is pertinent to the OP.
 
With the rich and powerful ... would such conversation be taxing causing contrary bias ... a seam rough on the other's IDe?

Taken from the fabric of the great weaver ... the lessor of d'w evils as one well whetted as irony against as'tune ... as' toute ... when Gabriella calls? Tis all about the horn wishing to be on top ... a sign of bull, goads and V' Kings ... V' Nous ... indi go Jinns ... as four letters in a twisted form ... genetic outlander ... even the po' needs de Light in myth ... thus the imagination as the abstract side ... indeterminate as yet-I?

Real people will unravel nothing ... different than the rag man ... thus the Tiger Rag's kind 've a timely cougar! Goes with the blue's and azure's Guise ... dremaers, or just imaginary aspirations put down by what? They reining with heavy hand cause underlying dissonance in great hoards ... Eris in hosts? Some thing to look intue ...
 
There's nothing I said that can't be worked into those topics. How do the wealthy get wealthy - the history of wealth in the last 50 years. I suspect there's more than a bit of covetousness involved in the resistance to taxation.... Where do we go from here? Maybe what I wrote was not what you wanted to hear, but it is pertinent to the OP.

It is to the extent that it is evidence of the very bias she is trying to prove.

Did you bother to look up what the income level for that high tax rate under Truman was? It was US$400K. That translates to somewhere in the range of US$3-4M today (depending on the calculator you use), which would convert to CAD$4-5M. Only a very tiny fraction of the population in this country makes that much money (in 2014, less than 1% of Canadians made over $200,000, let alone $5M) or even has that much in assets (< 0.1% per the Financial Post article below) so you're actually not going to get much revenue out of it. Thus, there is no argument for it other than it being a punishment for wealth.

http://federal-tax-rates.insidegov.com/d/a/Harry-S.-Truman

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil105a-eng.htm

http://business.financialpost.com/p...ich-heres-how-to-tell-and-why-you-should-care

How do the wealthy get wealthy? IME, many of them work for it. They develop a product or service and are successful in selling it. Why punish that?

Example: Two UW grads just sold their AI startup to MS. I haven't heard figures (it was privately held so nothing has to be filed publicly until MS reports to shareholders) but I'll bet they are now multimillionaires given MS's history of generous takeover offers. Are you going to punish them for their success by making them give 90% of that to the government, esp. given that history shows that they will most likely take that money and use it to start another company with another product (tech entrepreneurs have a history of jumping from startup to startup)? These people are creating jobs, and creating technologies that help others create jobs. Why do you want to punish that success? Are we expecting people like this to donate their hard work to society?

All you'd accomplish with your tax proposal is to send anyone with that kind of talent to a country with less punitive taxes. As it is, we lose a lot of our best and brightest to Silicon Valley (did you know that Uber was co-founded by a Canuck who now chairs their board and is worth an estimated US$5.3 billion?). You'd just turn that into a wholesale exodus. Punishing wealth willy-nilly breeds mediocrity because it also punishes success.

Yes, take down some of the tax shelters and dicey deductions.

Yes, bring in a minimum tax level

Yes, go after off-shoring

But punitive taxes like you propose will only make the rich more willing to use dodges or simply pack up and leave.
 
It is to the extent that it is evidence of the very bias she is trying to prove.

Did you bother to look up what the income level for that high tax rate under Truman was? It was US$400K. That translates to somewhere in the range of US$3-4M today (depending on the calculator you use), which would convert to CAD$4-5M. Only a very tiny fraction of the population in this country makes that much money (in 2014, less than 1% of Canadians made over $200,000, let alone $5M) or even has that much in assets (< 0.1% per the Financial Post article below) so you're actually not going to get much revenue out of it. Thus, there is no argument for it other than it being a punishment for wealth.

http://federal-tax-rates.insidegov.com/d/a/Harry-S.-Truman

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil105a-eng.htm

http://business.financialpost.com/p...ich-heres-how-to-tell-and-why-you-should-care

How do the wealthy get wealthy? IME, many of them work for it. They develop a product or service and are successful in selling it. Why punish that?

Example: Two UW grads just sold their AI startup to MS. I haven't heard figures (it was privately held so nothing has to be filed publicly until MS reports to shareholders) but I'll bet they are now multimillionaires given MS's history of generous takeover offers. Are you going to punish them for their success by making them give 90% of that to the government, esp. given that history shows that they will most likely take that money and use it to start another company with another product (tech entrepreneurs have a history of jumping from startup to startup)? These people are creating jobs, and creating technologies that help others create jobs. Why do you want to punish that success? Are we expecting people like this to donate their hard work to society?

All you'd accomplish with your tax proposal is to send anyone with that kind of talent to a country with less punitive taxes. As it is, we lose a lot of our best and brightest to Silicon Valley (did you know that Uber was co-founded by a Canuck who now chairs their board and is worth an estimated US$5.3 billion?). You'd just turn that into a wholesale exodus. Punishing wealth willy-nilly breeds mediocrity because it also punishes success.

Yes, take down some of the tax shelters and dicey deductions.

Yes, bring in a minimum tax level

Yes, go after off-shoring

But punitive taxes like you propose will only make the rich more willing to use dodges or simply pack up and leave.

Is the other side of the bias ast aid tue? One needs a larger medium ... some psyche beyond what we know ...

It is all in the con Text ... but one has to allow some variance for simple diversity ... there are some points say God likes IT ... diverse thoughts ... something for the greater powers to gather and grasp ... but Kahn they if contained by a dark fog of desire? Sort of like arm dealing ... bio Niches? Mocking d' evils of excess!

With blinded faith can they envision anything else?
 
I also would like to point out that we pay federal taxes, provincial taxes , gas txes, hst taxes, We certainly pay much more than 33% tax

Wealthy are easy scapegoats. We all love to envy the wealthy. We forget that the wealthier people are also giving back. Giving to charities, building businesses that hire people. In our case my husband is now joining a group of people who have pooled their fpmoney to help start ups with both financing and their business experience

Is it reasonable that people pay their fair share of taxes. Certainly. We pay through the roof for taxes, thank you Kathleen Wynne

Could we also think that governments wastew billions of dollars. Just in Ontario, gas plants, ehealth, Ornge, teachers raises.........

Here we have trudeau wasting our money touring around chatting and selfie taking
 
I wasn't really arguing with you until, whoa, "teachers raises"? They're a 'special' sub-group that don't deserve to be compensated decently?

I find wealthy people sometimes have a slightly distorted concept of 'value-added' than us plebes. From where I sit, my friend the maintenance guy, who whips around the college fixing everything for everyone, always with a smile and a hello, adds much more value to my place of work than the entire executive team.
 
In Ontario there has been an unhealthy relationship between teachers and the liberal government

Big raises and big support at election time. It has now been banned as the unethical practice it has been but damage has been done

First there was the issue that the government paid thesecondary teachers union $1,000,000 to negotiate their contract
Then there was wage freezes, exceot tachers got theirs anyway

Teachers wages have skyrocketted compared to people of similar education, like nurses
 
Teachers wages have skyrocketted compared to people of similar education, like nurses
Really? You think so?

Are you comparing base salaries or taking into account shift differentials and the like that nurses receive? For example, nurses are well compensated for working on stat holidays. Not that they shouldn't be but these things boost their take home income.

Many front-line nurses appear on Ontario's sunshine list every year.
 
It is to the extent that it is evidence of the very bias she is trying to prove.

Did you bother to look up what the income level for that high tax rate under Truman was? It was US$400K. That translates to somewhere in the range of US$3-4M today (depending on the calculator you use), which would convert to CAD$4-5M. Only a very tiny fraction of the population in this country makes that much money (in 2014, less than 1% of Canadians made over $200,000, let alone $5M) or even has that much in assets (< 0.1% per the Financial Post article below) so you're actually not going to get much revenue out of it. Thus, there is no argument for it other than it being a punishment for wealth.

http://federal-tax-rates.insidegov.com/d/a/Harry-S.-Truman

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/tables-tableaux/sum-som/l01/cst01/famil105a-eng.htm

http://business.financialpost.com/p...ich-heres-how-to-tell-and-why-you-should-care

How do the wealthy get wealthy? IME, many of them work for it. They develop a product or service and are successful in selling it. Why punish that?

Example: Two UW grads just sold their AI startup to MS. I haven't heard figures (it was privately held so nothing has to be filed publicly until MS reports to shareholders) but I'll bet they are now multimillionaires given MS's history of generous takeover offers. Are you going to punish them for their success by making them give 90% of that to the government, esp. given that history shows that they will most likely take that money and use it to start another company with another product (tech entrepreneurs have a history of jumping from startup to startup)? These people are creating jobs, and creating technologies that help others create jobs. Why do you want to punish that success? Are we expecting people like this to donate their hard work to society?

All you'd accomplish with your tax proposal is to send anyone with that kind of talent to a country with less punitive taxes. As it is, we lose a lot of our best and brightest to Silicon Valley (did you know that Uber was co-founded by a Canuck who now chairs their board and is worth an estimated US$5.3 billion?). You'd just turn that into a wholesale exodus. Punishing wealth willy-nilly breeds mediocrity because it also punishes success.

Yes, take down some of the tax shelters and dicey deductions.

Yes, bring in a minimum tax level

Yes, go after off-shoring

But punitive taxes like you propose will only make the rich more willing to use dodges or simply pack up and leave.
I didn't propose it I mentioned it - then later mentioned that heads would explode at the thought of a 90% tax rate...aaaaand voila.

You know that when money incentives for physical labour are raised, people perform better. When financial incentives for creative innovative ideas is raised - people perform worse. So, they're not getting paid big money for physical work, we know that. And they're not getting paid huge money for stellar mental work either. So, what are they getting paid huge money for?
 
say what? Although salary increases are not shown as the best incentive for retaining folks, money is an incentive in new development.
I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt, that bonuses and options sure do make a difference in driving work. Mendalla is absolutely spot on regarding the folks who have become millionaires via their businesses being successful. Know a few of them personally.
 
Really? You think so?

Are you comparing base salaries or taking into account shift differentials and the like that nurses receive? For example, nurses are well compensated for working on stat holidays. Not that they shouldn't be but these things boost their take home income.

Many front-line nurses appear on Ontario's sunshine list every year.
The sunshine list is set way too low. $100k is, in all honesty, not exceptional in business these days.
Move it to $200k or make it a regionally based limit based on average wages / living costs.
 
Many front-line nurses appear on Ontario's sunshine list every year.

Profs, too. Pretty much every president, provost, dean and dept. chair and many full professors, too. In the case of academia, it's market conditions moreso than special compensation. You have to offer a competitive salary to get/keep good people in these positions. Which goes back to @Pinga 's point above.

The sunshine list is set way too low. $100k is, in all honesty, not exceptional in business these days.
Move it to $200k or make it a regionally based limit based on average wages / living costs.

It is not exceptional and it's also not like you can live high off the hog on $100K, esp. in inflated real estate markets like the GTA. I'd go further and put it at a quarter mil myself but I actually like your idea of doing a bit work and using local labour market conditions to determine who is on the "sunshine" list. And adjust the limit annually (or at least every 3 or 4 years) to account for inflation. $100K is worth less today than it was when the list was set up. At the very least, if you're using a fixed target, index it to wage inflation.
 
say what? Although salary increases are not shown as the best incentive for retaining folks, money is an incentive in new development.
I can say beyond the shadow of a doubt, that bonuses and options sure do make a difference in driving work. Mendalla is absolutely spot on regarding the folks who have become millionaires via their businesses being successful. Know a few of them personally.
Statistically, not so, I'm afraid. Saying you know a few personally is not a great argument.
 
Businesses start-up Kimmio. They either are successful or not. Some are extremely successful. Some are big failures.
The ones you read about are the extremely successful, usually. They are the folks who make millions when they go public or are bought.
The other ones you may know about are the successful. Again, those are the folks you see as wealthy or upper middle class.

I am not talking about the uber-wealthy inherited, or the 2nd generation wealth.
I am talking about those who have worked, got lucky, and make $$$.

For employees: Salary increases, in HR terms, tends not to be a great incentive. Though poorly paid staff will leave, giving large increments has not been seen as a way to keep a disgruntled employee. Bonuses, though an incentive for work, dont' always drive good solutions, hence a lot have gone away.
 
You have to admit there's a huge dose of luck involved. Like musicians. I have seen so many talented ones playing on the street corner. I'd guess that less than 1 in a million will get seen by a talent scout. And there's also nepotism.... Anyway...they cash in on their one big invention and don't really have to work hard beyond that and those they hire in their inner circle are not necessarily smarter or more deserving than the rest of us. Trump is giving us a window into how it really works. He reasonably highlights by his being, why there is a bias against the rich. He's a living parody of what's wrong with wealth - and what's wrong with chasing wealth.
 
Trump is giving us a window into how it really works. He reasonably highlights by his being, why there is a bias against the rich. He's a living parody of what's wrong with wealth - and what's wrong with chasing wealth.

And you judge all wealthy people based on him? That's like saying all popular musicians are publicity-seeking arseholes based on Kanye West or all actors are drug-addled jerks based on Charlie Sheen.

There are many wealthy people who are the polar opposite of Trump. Look at Buffett. Modest, hard-working, frugal. And worth 20 or more times what Trump is worth (he's actually pretty small potatoes).

Gates. Zuckerberg. Bezos. All relatively liberal, all living comfortable but not necessarily ostentatious lives, all giving back to the community in a variety of ways.

If you think Trump is the model for wealth, you're living in a dreamland of your own prejudices. I'd suggest that he's actually the exception. There are people far richer than him that you never hear about because they don't live it up and behave like jerks, they simply live their lives like anyone.

If you judge rich people based on Trump's asnine behaviour, then that's prejudice, pure and simple, and no more valid than any other prejudice. He's the poster child for rich people gone bad, not for rich people as a group.
 
And you judge all wealthy people based on him? That's like saying all popular musicians are publicity-seeking arseholes based on Kanye West or all actors are drug-addled jerks based on Charlie Sheen.

There are many wealthy people who are the polar opposite of Trump. Look at Buffett. Modest, hard-working, frugal. And worth 20 or more times what Trump is worth (he's actually pretty small potatoes).

Gates. Zuckerberg. Bezos. All relatively liberal, all living comfortable but not necessarily ostentatious lives, all giving back to the community in a variety of ways.

If you think Trump is the model for wealth, you're living in a dreamland of your own prejudices. I'd suggest that he's actually the exception. There are people far richer than him that you never hear about because they don't live it up and behave like jerks, they simply live their lives like anyone.

If you judge rich people based on Trump's asnine behaviour, then that's prejudice, pure and simple, and no more valid ythan any other prejudice. He's the poster child for rich people gone bad, not for rich people as a group.
He's not a model - he is a parody of what's wrong, of toxic greed and self interest that exists and is running the world - now he's going to be leader of the world. You cannot look at Trump and say that greed is not ruining the world. Buffet, etc. are anomalies, too. But if they are the benchmark, then Trump would not be where he is. And the poor get blamed - while the really wealthy get more "handouts" than anybody.

Nobody paid attention to the comfortable living calculator I posted, eh? People are going to stick to their guns that $200K is modest, you need and deserve more - then you're part of the problem, imo.


You don't work any harder than the homeless person trying to survive. You don't know for sure how they got there, and you don't know that it can't happen to you.
But I will be ripped apart for saying that.
 
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