Rich Germans Demans Higher Taxes

[cuddly_tomato]

And what does the government say: "Oh well done Mr Sugar, you have worked you're way out of poverty now had over more taxes to us as your "reward"" Over the past ten years the gap between rich and poor has failed to decrease. Not because of capitalism but because of the so called "Welfare State", that ruining state of dependance and laziness that creates no impulse for self improvement in the poor.

So unemployment is not the result of credit crunches, the elite gambling with everyone elses money and needing bail outs, recession, or economic depression.

It's lazy people.

I think you have been eating too many tabloids sir. Unemployment is not pleasant. And certainly allowing people to starve is more evil than the state taxing rich people to make sure the poor can eat.

[Bangs head against large brick wall] No, laziness plays a part but the real reason for the large unemployment level at the moment is the minimum wage. Basic economic theory states that a if the government imposes price controls on a market you end up with excess demand. In the case of labour this is called unemployment.

Previously the minimum wage did not cause that much unemployment because we were in a boom period (caused again by state intervention). Now we are in the bust, prices and wages historically fall during busts. Except this time wages can't fall for those on minimum wage therefore resulting in unemployemnt.

In addition let's say we have a poor person who unfortuantly has little skill to offer the economy. His (or her) skill is only worth £4 an hour but the minimum wage is above that. It is now effectivly illegal for that poor man to find work.

The minimum wage is excellent for those in employment (I myself can testify to that). But for the really needy, the poor, the uneducated, the unskilled, the mimimum wage creates an insurmountable barrier that stops them finding smployment and working their way out of poverty. As such I view it as immoral and evil.

Really? I find asking people to effectively work for nothing more than sustinence (slavery in other words), immoral and evil.

Also, earning such a small amount of money that it is all spent as soon as you find it would not allow you to "work your way out of" poverty - it would ensure that you stay in poverty.

As you say allowing people to starve is evil, dis-allowing people to find a job and therefore avoid starvation is evil as well. I hope that you also spot the hyprocracy of the state that gives money to the poor and starving while at the same time making it impossible for them to be anything but poor and starving.

Oxymoron.

In giving money to the poor and starving, they are no longer poor and starving.

Also, very foolish. Giving money to the poor and starving does not keep them poor and starving. Taking it away will not make them suddenly start working, especially as there is no work available right now. All it will do is force them to commit crime to feed themselves.

And benefits cost far less than prisons.

So I say charity and no minimum wage. And the brillaint thing is if this policy was implemented and people complained then all I'd have to say is: "put your money where your mouth is and give to charity."

ps. Daily Telegraph reader, tabloids generally take an anti-liberalism stance anyway as well as being badly written and at no pint did I say that umployment was anything but unpleasant.

Ahhh. What you have been saying could come verbatim from any right-wing publication, which generally about as much experience of poverty and poor people as Her Majesty The Queen (gawd bless you ma'am).

 

[MrNixon21]

I wasn't talking about Germany, but about the philosophy of wanting to contribute more to make your environment better and the people who live along side you more comfortable so that your own quality of life would improve as a result.

Two things. First, I'm sad this would probably never happen in America, that is people standing up to make the country better on their own volition. Second, I applaud your perfect use of grammar and spelling!

 

[ElephantGuts]

German people are crazy.

 

[ben---neb]

SNIP

Really? I find asking people to effectively work for nothing more than sustinence (slavery in other words), immoral and evil.

Once again an attribute oft mentioned about capitalism that has little grounding in actual free market realities. Look at it this way: employment is a two part agreement between employer and employee. If the employee is being paid at a substience or below sustience level then he/she will have a strong imperative to find another job and will therefore do so. This means that in order to actually hire an indivduial a firm will have to offer higher than sustinence wage levels.

Of course your argument will be that firms will collude together and each one will offer the same substience wage. However, the type of jobs this would effect are diverse and common (from retail, to manual labour, to factories, to lesuire). For collusion to happen you would have to get every single firm in every single one of these industries to settle on a substience wage level. Also add into this the extreme negative publicity of offering such low wages and you have another incentive to offer a reasonable wage.

As you say allowing people to starve is evil, dis-allowing people to find a job and therefore avoid starvation is evil as well. I hope that you also spot the hyprocracy of the state that gives money to the poor and starving while at the same time making it impossible for them to be anything but poor and starving.

Oxymoron.

In giving money to the poor and starving, they are no longer poor and starving.

Also, very foolish. Giving money to the poor and starving does not keep them poor and starving. Taking it away will not make them suddenly start working, especially as there is no work available right now. All it will do is force them to commit crime to feed themselves.

And benefits cost far less than prisons.

Give a man some money and he'll feed himself for a day. Give a man a job and he'll feed himself for life. A poor person will value a job much more than a handout. A job provides self esteem, a sense of worth, routine in a day, advancement in a career. And benefits? Dependancy, slovenly behaviour and a lack of motivation towards self improvements.

For "no work available right now" counter point see my explanation on how the minimum wage increases unemployment.

So I say charity and no minimum wage. And the brillaint thing is if this policy was implemented and people complained then all I'd have to say is: "put your money where your mouth is and give to charity."

ps. Daily Telegraph reader, tabloids generally take an anti-liberalism stance anyway as well as being badly written and at no pint did I say that umployment was anything but unpleasant.

Ahhh. What you have been saying could come verbatim from any right-wing publication with about as much experience of poor people as Her Majesty The Queen (gawd bless you ma'am).

Personal insults, how low, please attack me on intellecutal grounds next time. Yes, I am fortunate enough to be in a middle class family. But I or my parents are not rich by anyone standards. And I fully appreciate the horror of poverty, I'm capitalist not inhuman. But at the same time I think that the government does more harm to the poor than good.

And I might just add that this will be my last reply. There is no possible way I can change your mind, you have to be regretfully blunt swallowed the lies and propoganda of socialism. You fail to respect the freedom of the indivdual to do what he/she wants as long as it does not conflict with an opposing person's freedom. You fail to recognise the inherent failure with any beaucratic economic system or the curtailing of freedom that state intervention entails.

If nothing else I urge you to visit www.mises.org and at the very least think about the arguments, topics and issues discussed there. I understand that I've not be the clearest person to argue against nor the politest, I apoligse for that, I can and do get carried away. Please do let me put you off following the link.

And my thanks sir for keeping things civil.

 

[Hurr Durr Derp]

You know, this is one of the many things that's fundamentally wrong with society, and a clear sign of how people think about their government.

In an ideal world, when you paid taxes you would be happy in the knowledge that your money is being spent on something you voted for, which will be to your own benefit directly or indirectly.

In the real world, people just tend to get pissed because they feel something is taken from them against their will.

 

[axia777]

I wish I lived in Germany. My brother lives in Austria and he loves it there. I love that Europeans in general seem to have a need to be socially responsible to support the society that they live in. As an American I am rather jealous. Schools are collapsing all over the nation, health care is completely out of control, the USPS is closing down service days, and budgets are being cut or eliminated for all kinds of social services for lots of people all over the place. What is wrong with a lot(not all) Americans? They have greed living in their hearts like a leech. They feel no compassion or responsibility to support the society that they live in. Oh, they can prattle on and on about giving to charity too, as if that makes a difference when it comes to supporting the real core of society. We need European style capitalistic socialism here in America. I fear it will never happen as Libertarians and Republicans are just to greedy to allow it to occur.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Why not instead of asking to raise your taxes (and everyone elses) why don't you just write a big ass check to the government? They will take it. I'm of the view that government is basically criminal in the amount of wealth it seizes from it's citizens though so I suppose i'm an extremist cause I take care of myself...

 

[rokkolpo]

wow that,s really social.....i,m stunned.

 

[ReincarnatedFTP]

This would be virtually unheard of in America.
See in America, corporations own the politicians, and you get to choose between the absolute far right corporate slaves (Republican) and the centre right (Democratic) who are just pragmatic enough to keep the people happy, but still lack spine when it comes to corporation loving.

Extending social services to reasonable levels so your money goes back to helping people in your own country (including yourself if you ever need the services) is seen as "ZOMG SOCIALISM" while they will happily pay to bomb foreigners, and fund corporations that allow gang rape (Halliburton)that are run by crazy Christian fundamentalists that outright slaughters civilians (Blackwater) but god forbid you give bullshit tax advice to a fake pimp.

Hell, the bailed out companies are causing a "controversy" by whining about not getting to raise their wages. They asked for the bailout, they got it. As far as I'm concerned they should have been on government salary the second they took the offer. IMO, if we had just enforced regulations or reformed them we wouldn't have "too big to fail" companies.

Things are nowhere near as bad as aristocratic France here,and probably never will be, but I think I'm starting to understand why they were so brutal during the revolution.

Edit:That and we outsource everything for cheap labor so the rich can get richer, and if/when anyone so much as trys to regulate this or raise a percent of tax on the rich so they pay a fair share, all your hear is whining about how they'll leave the country after they're done cutting their emo CEO wrists.

 

[Rolling Thunder]

Snip

Oh god, please tell me we don't have another objectivist on this board!


Anyway, personal insults aside, your point on the minimum wage is valid. Or rather, it is valid in being fairly basic. However, your issue completely ignores the fact that all business is driven by consumption. Put simply, if you removed the minimum wage, the consumption function drops. Consumption function drops, aggregate demand drops. Aggregate demand drops, then suppliers have to keep cutting back. Cue vicious cycle of recession/economic shrinkage.

 

[Nickolai77]

I am afraid there is no easy way of putting this: holding up the Middle Ages as a standard of libertarianism is as wrong as it is amusing. The Middle Ages were full of Guilds, Lords and restrictions that hampered the ordinary man from bettering himself. Governments granted monoploies even more so that they do now, most men were not free but under a Lord and therefore had their life dicated to them and guilds kept prices high by wiping out all competition.

The closest example you will get of a libertarian society is during the 19th century in America/Britain. A time of great technological advancement, social movement, the appearance of the Middle classes, tourism, prosperity in every level of society and mass production.

In short, Capitalism worked its magic. Goods of all kinds were produced in greater varity and cheaper price. The poor were not so poor and the number of rich people grew and grew. And that leads on to your second facilcy which is that "the richer get richer and the poor get poorer". Actually what we see in the 19th, 20th and 21st century is that the rich get more numerous and the poor get fewer. There are less poor and more rich people in Britain today than a hundred years ago. What do we have to thank for that? Capitalism.

How did Alan Sugar work his way up from a low income family to a multi millionaire: hard work, entruprenurial skill and a keen business eye. And that is the essense of capitalism, anyone, regardless of race, creed or income can start up a business, can innovate, can be an entrepreneur and can be successful.

And what does the government say: "Oh well done Mr Sugar, you have worked you're way out of poverty now had over more taxes to us as your "reward"" Over the past ten years the gap between rich and poor has failed to decrease. Not because of capitalism but because of the so called "Welfare State", that ruining state of dependance and laziness that creates no impulse for self improvement in the poor.

So don't lecture me about the evils of liberalism when the evidence of history suggests that it is you who has to explain to me how state intervention is not evil.

ps. I would love to debate private vs public ownership with you but I have no time. Visit www.mises.org for more.

Alright, i'll move away from private V public ownership then. (Btw, i feel i came across as a bit socialist there, to me both private and state ownership have their own problem's, so i take the middle ground and support a mixed economy)

I think i may grant you the point regarding the Middle Ages as not being libertarian, although i think the middle ages where a lot more libertarian than Victorian England.

The Victorian era, was not exactly a libertarian era, as the 19th century crept onwards a number of laws where introduced which weren't very libertarian, For instance Income tax was introduced during the Napoleonic Wars, the Poor laws where reformed, the Corn Laws raised trade tariffs, child labour was banned. Similarly mandatory public education was introduced. Even before the 19th century there was government interference, for instance the Enclosure Act. However, as off today, the Victorian era was more economically libertarian than today.

Even so, there was a lot of poverty in Victorian England, just read Charles Dickin's novel's which raise concerns about industrial poverty, or the poetry of William Wordsworth who was concerned about the plight of the rural poor. It's likely that the atmosphere of Victorian London motivated Karl Marx to write Das Kapital. Not everyone was becoming wealthy in the Victorian era which was more libertarian than today.

Really, the state has become increasingly involved in the country's economic affairs since the Norman Conquest, the only time the state ceded powers over the economy was during Thatchers time. There are flaws with both having too much state involvement and having too little, so i opt for the middle ground.

 

[Anarchy In Detroit]

As an American I had to read that headline 4 times to make sure I wasn't misreading it. As I read the article it was as though I was in bizarro-land. A sentiment like that makes me feel like Germany would be a great place to live.

Full story from BBC: Rich Germans demand higher taxes. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8321967.stm]

Germany nowadays tends to have it's head out of it's ass. Bravo Germans.

If the rich in the US did this they would say something like...

GREETINGS CATTLE!

We, the Richest Bastards Around, demand that taxes be raised. On Ourselves? BWHAHAHAHA! Fucking morons! Of course not! RAISE THEM ON THE PEONS. We must continue to back government policy that takes tax money and puts it in our hands... you know, to spur private industry or something (like hiring servants for our football field sized yachts and many many houses). Yes, once We have trillions of your tax payer dollars We will hire peons, er people and pay them better. Or we shall buy the Moon and put advertising on it. Not decided yet.

P.S. Anyone demanding that taxes go towards education is a filthy gay Communist, a radical Muslim wife beater and child fucker, and/or a NAZI! Yes, all three. Socialism for the rich is fucking great! We run this *****! You want school? You want healthcare? Fuck you! I want boats! MORE BOATS! And planes. Big comfy planes with pancake dispensers and big titted attendants who massage my balls with exotic oils!

 

[Arcticflame]

Makes me proud to have dual citizenship.

Now if only they would remove the censorship from video games I would consider utilising it.

Oh who am I kidding? Australia is just as bad.

Tschüß Australia! Hier ich komme Deutschland!

 

[Inverse Skies]

I think it's quite a refreshing attitude to be honest. It's certainly different from what normally happens that's for sure. Then again I wouldn't want to be taxed at a higher rate if I was earning a lot of money, so it's more of a case of "I think it's good... but I don't want to do it". How hypocritical of me.

 

[razer17]

I think higher taxation is a more Continental European way of doing things, as opposed to the British and U.S. way of lower taxation but inferior public services. As a Brit I actually prefer what the Germans are co. are doing, but then again I don't have to pay their taxes

Im sorry, which Britain are you in? Because we have a 50p per £1 tax rate,that isn't a lower taxation. Although admittedly our public services are inferior to Germany's.

 

[Alphavillain]

I think higher taxation is a more Continental European way of doing things, as opposed to the British and U.S. way of lower taxation but inferior public services. As a Brit I actually prefer what the Germans are co. are doing, but then again I don't have to pay their taxes

Im sorry, which Britain are you in? Because we have a 50p per £1 tax rate,that isn't a lower taxation. Although admittedly our public services are inferior to Germany's.

It is lower by comparison to other countries, and I thought that's what we were talking about, not the whole "when I was young" bullshit old people go on about. The whole "bang for your buck" thing is obviously hard to determine in relation to different countries' tax to public services ratio, and is really the only acceptable way of judging how effective taxation is.

 

[FightThePower]

Why can't all rich people be like that...?

 

[ben---neb]

Snip

Oh god, please tell me we don't have another objectivist on this board!


Anyway, personal insults aside, your point on the minimum wage is valid. Or rather, it is valid in being fairly basic. However, your issue completely ignores the fact that all business is driven by consumption. Put simply, if you removed the minimum wage, the consumption function drops. Consumption function drops, aggregate demand drops. Aggregate demand drops, then suppliers have to keep cutting back. Cue vicious cycle of recession/economic shrinkage.

True but you fail to take into account that if wages drop then costs for a business drop as well. Either this means more profit for the producer or a lower price for the consumer. Either way this feeds back into the economy and increases aggrgate demand. In addition more people are employed which also means that agrregate demand increases.

And recessions are not caused by falling aggregate demand, rather that is an effect of a recession. For more details about the cause of a recession from the people who predicted it visit: http://mises.org/story/3128

 

[Kajt]

Oh, Germany, you almost rival Japan in being weird.

 

[Dr Ampersand]

While this is good, I can't help that it might actually generate more money if people who are rich with inheritance don't get taxed more than they already do. The reason being that they could start up businesses with the money and generate a continuous money source so they fall on the rich threshold for longer. Though I think I'm seriously underestimating how rich is rich in the taxe's eyes but oh well, someone push my theory off of the boat. Also the giving to charity for things that can be fixed by charity might be speedier as it cuts out the middleman(government).