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Journal Marxist Hacker 42's Journal: Human Rights Vs Special Rights 18

Journal by Marxist Hacker 42
No- this isn't yet another JE on Gay Marriage even though I'm against that too. No, this is about economics instead.

There are three types of income in this world- earned income, portfolio income, and passive income.

The first is morally based- you get it because you actually do something to get it. You create a good for society or the free market, and society or the free market pays you for that good. I have very little problem with this type of income- I'm fine with the idea that this type of income is a natural right.

The second type is a bit more dubious- You provide the money to buy a person's tools, a means of work. In return, you get a portion of the money THEY earn.

The last is even more strange- you own some property or a piece of equipment, and you rent it directly to people who couldn't afford to buy it. Basically, you're stealing money from them for the crime of being poor.

Now a reasonable society would look at these three forms of income and say: Hey, we want people to create good for us, so we shouldn't tax earned income. People who have portfolio income are still producing a good of sorts- they enable other people to have earned income, but they're not acutally doing anything else for that income, so they should be taxed, but not very much, say capped at 2%. Finally there are the people living off of passive income- they've done nothing to earn their money at all, in fact, many times the asset is in their name only as a convience for the bank to really own the asset. These people should be taxed the highest, say, at maybe 95% of their income, because they can always just ask the bank for another loan to get another asset to rent out.

Of course, the United States is not a reasonable country- and so our tax structure is EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE- passive income is the lowest taxed of all, portfolio income is not taxed hardly at all, and earned income is now where the Federal government and many states get almost all of their money from. Think about that next time you support an anti-tax bill.
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Human Rights Vs Special Rights More

Human Rights Vs Special Rights

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  • And now you know where the "Marxist" in "MarxistHacker42" comes from.

    Although I must say I'm having trouble differentiating between numbers one and two.
    • I have more trouble differentiating between 1 and two, as between two and three. However, the new SEC rules about expensing stock options is likely to take care of the differentiation soon.
  • i really don't see much difference between type 2 and 3... not nearly enough for the 50-fold tax increase. both involve some property or capital that others use.

    i really don't see the point of the extreme tax burden on type 3. if it's really so harmful, why not make it illegal.

    check-cashing places are a form of number 2, and i think they are more harmful than those who rent homes. actually, there have been recent studies that show that for people who move every five years, owning a home is 30% more exp
    • i really don't see the point of the extreme tax burden on type 3. if it's really so harmful, why not make it illegal.

      Here's a reason- to provide services to those who cannot work. By allowing it, but taxing it high, you limit it's use to a bare minimum- and provide money to provide for those who can't provide for themselves.
  • The last is even more strange- you own some property or a piece of equipment, and you rent it directly to people who couldn't afford to buy it. Basically, you're stealing money from them for the crime of being poor.

    Wrong.

    What you're describing is portfolio income--money that you get from putting your wealth in a postion where it allows someone else to "gain" from it.

    Passive income is royalties, licenses, and the rest--income from you doing something so useful that society decides to reward you continuou
    • Thanks for straightening that out- rents would by that definition be type 2. And that would mean by the rule I'm trying to make explicit no man should be able to earn income by the sweat of another, that portfolio income should be taxed the highest, and below that passive and earned income should be taxed relatively lowly. Most CEO compensation today has a large component of portfolio income- the tax structure for earned income already discourages any salary over $1 million for anybody, the standard way a
  • They raise your rent?
    • They raise your rent?

      I don't pay rent- I refuse to play that game. The game I did play for a while is similar though- surviving on credit cards during a period of joblessness- to the extent that it will be 2010 before I'm debt free.

      But what this JE is really about is a strict interpretation of a Biblical principle: Those who do not work, should not eat, and nobody should profit off of another person's work. If you agree with these principles- you should be favoring a socialist, progressive tax structu
      • I disagree entirely. Taxation is stealing. It is money being taken without express permission by force or threat thereof. That right-wing nuthouse the wikipedia defines stealing as "Theft (also known as stealing) is, in general, the wrongful taking of someone else's property without that person's willful consent." So if you believe in a strict interpretation of the Ten Commandments, you should be anti-tax. Since many taxes in even this young nation of ours were implemented before my birth, I have willf
        • I disagree entirely. Taxation is stealing. It is money being taken without express permission by force or threat thereof. That right-wing nuthouse the wikipedia defines stealing as "Theft (also known as stealing) is, in general, the wrongful taking of someone else's property without that person's willful consent." So if you believe in a strict interpretation of the Ten Commandments, you should be anti-tax. Since many taxes in even this young nation of ours were implemented before my birth, I have willfully
  • That's how I would make taxes. Right now wealthy people can put most of there money in stuff like #2 and #3. They then get money solely because they have money. Poorer people must do actual work, possably grueling, to get even less than the rich. Without them the rich wouldn't even have money.
    When there were few people there were still laborers but there were no CEO's. People still made money even without rich people to usurp it.
    Of course this generallizes and black and whites but the idea is similar.
    That's

  • There are three types of income in this world- earned income, portfolio income, and passive income.

    The first is morally based- you get it because you actually do something to get it. You create a good for society or the free market, and society or the free market pays you for that good. I have very little problem with this type of income- I'm fine with the idea that this type of income is a natural right.

    The second type is a bit more dubious- You provide the money to buy a person's tools, a means of w

    • You could make the same argument as far as someone borrowing money from a bank (that borrowed it from me and several thousand others) to finance having a house built. I won't loan my money to any bank because they aren't allowed to pay me interest (because they can't charge interest on money borrowed to build houses) so now the only people who can afford to buy houses are those who have saved the entire purchase price, $100,000 to $1,000,000 or more.

      At which point deflation kicks in due to the lack of la

      • You could make the same argument as far as someone borrowing money from a bank (that borrowed it from me and several thousand others) to finance having a house built. I won't loan my money to any bank because they aren't allowed to pay me interest (because they can't charge interest on money borrowed to build houses) so now the only people who can afford to buy houses are those who have saved the entire purchase price, $100,000 to $1,000,000 or more.

        At which point deflation kicks in due to the lack of la

        • Which explains why there's lots of housing for people in places like Africa, where you can get lots of land for free. This is why in places with no lending system and no money around to build houses, and thus no competition for land use, we see lots of really nice housing. NOT.

          Nice depending on your terms- it's rare for any tribe anywhere to have a homeless problem, you need to have land hoarding to have homelessness. The reason is obvious- building materials really do grow on trees for the most part.
  • Didn't Joseph do #3 when he saved all that Egyption grain for 7 years, and then sold it to everyone else (including his family) during the drought at very high prices? He was making huge profits at the expense of others. Of course if he hadn't saved the grain everyone would have starved....
    • One of the basics of Catholicism that people have a problem with is that while the Deposit of Faith and Dogma is eternal, Doctrine Develops according to an ever-increasing sense of what is Holy and Correct. Joseph was in three situations, that made what he did less evil:

      1. He wasn't profiting for himself, he was in the service of another (the Pharoah).
      2. The Hebrews at that time had not had the experience of slavery- or the experience of how evil ownership could be.
      3. He was pre-Christian, in a ti

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