From: mjp@itd.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: alt.politics.democrats.d,alt.politics.bush,talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: Re: socialism (was B isa MF)
Date: 7 Oct 92 21:58:12 GMT
 <1992Oct1.143112.21973@csi.jpl.nasa.gov> <BvHvLx.C5y@quake.sylmar.ca.us>

brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:

>Actually, it fits Sweden pretty accurately.  I don't know where this guy
>gets his 35% tax rate.  Perhaps he's just talking about the tax rate on
>those of low incomes.  If you are a high-income Swede, the tax rates 
>become confiscatory (the 85%+ rates you described).  Now, they have in
>the past year or two been backing away from this insanity, but I know that's
>how it used ot be a year or two ago, and I doubt it has changed all that 
>much yet.

Yeah, you have to look at the marginal tax rate and the
average tax rate (per person and for the entire
population).

35% must be the average rate per person or over the entire
population. It is quite possible to be paying an 85% tax
marginal rate and still pay only 35% of your total income in
tax.

People earning more should pay more tax, they have a social
responsability (funny how everyone wants to bring up their
rights but take no responsabilities in return for them) and
their money is worth more. How? if you have a surplus of
money you can
	buy in bulk and save
	not pay interest and save
	invest and have the money earn more for you.

So $1 in the hand of the poor may only be worth 90cents
after they pay interest on things and $1 of truly
discretionary disposable income in the hands of the better
off may be worth more than $1 just spent at the shops. So it
is only fair that those earning more should be taxed at
higher rates.

I do not advocate 85% marginal tax rates however as we
need some incentives.
In Australia the highest is 47% and most don't pay more than
39%, the average tax rate is around 25-30% over the
population.

What really needs to be done in taxing higher earners
is to distinguish between productive investment, which
creates new wealth and jobs and so should be rewarded with
tax allowences for the risks involved, but at the same time
highly tax investment that is more concerned with
merely accumulating wealth without taking much risk.

>Socialism is bankrupt, morally, economically, and politically.
>Now all we have
>to worry about is the stench, and what other kind of nonsense might grow up
>in it's place.  At this point it looks as though racist nonsense or 
>environmentalist nonsense is the next form of the same madness.

That all depends on the type of socialism, Finland is doing
very well out of it, so is France. I think the thing you are
refering to is imperialism, be it capitalist or communist.

Are you aware of what happened in south africa and some of
the reasons why they were forced away from apartied?

	blacks were uneducatied
	90% of the population was placed on 10% of the land
	  causeing huge environmental degredation
	blacks had no vote and no political power and almost
          no wealth

	Hence: the whites dumped toxic was in drums in the
	homelands and because the blacks were poor and
	couldn't read they cut the drums open to make barbeque
	plates, pouring the toxic waste directly into the
	rivers that became the whites water surply.

Basically the situation was unsustainable, as the whites
realised, fucking over the blacks and the environment was
acutally fucking themselves over.
	
If you truly want an efficient economy and a good quality
of life you have to treat the environment and other people
with respect. Anything else might appear to work in the
short term but in fact the only way forward is to realise
that the environment, the economy, social justice and
democracy are all inseperable.


Michael
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Newsgroups: alt.politics.democrats.d,soc.culture.canada