You're not really going to find a more conservative first world country then America. 

Just an FYI. The lower 47% of the US pays no federal tax. The top 5% of the income earners pay 60% of all federal income tax.

What I mean by stealing, is taking from someone for the sole purpose of giving it to someone else. That's stealing in my book. I would be ok with the statistic I gave you, if that was just to "run the country". It's not. A lot of money collected is given away to others.

Every dollar given to an american from the federal government, was first taken from someone else.

Our problem isn't the redistribution of wealth, it's the fact that we can't do redistribution right, something that everyone else in the OECD has figured out.

The fact that we had to struggle so much for even this wimpy health-care bill attests to that.

Sorry I did not respond to this, this morning. I had to go to work.

First off, that's not how it works. You take money from the rich, they still buy a sports car. What they don't do, is invest in companies. What would be better, is if that money went to a business and created jobs, so a hundred thousand people could buy milk every week, and not just once.

The world runs of effort. The collective quality of life of an area is directly related to the total amount of effort produced. If you take it to the extreme, and everyone stopped producing effort (just laid down right where they are), everything in the world would stop. There would be no food, no electricity, no running water, no products, nothing. Everyone would die, and the world would he as if humans never existed.

The world runs on effort. If you want to improve the quality of life, you need to maximize the quantity of effort while protecting peoples human rights. This is the perfect world.

Redistribution of wealth hurts in two ways. It de-incentivize's the rich to invest in effort, and it de-incentivize's the poor to produce any effort at all.

So in your example, the best solution is to create a world where the money to buy those 100,000 gallons of milk, was earned though effort, because of the improved collective quality of life that effort would have produced. (better roads, cleaner buildings, improved feelings of self worth, etc...)

This is why when you redistribute wealth, everyone loses, not just the rich. 

Re-distribution of wealth doesn't disincentivize the rich unless taken to an extreme. The rich still earn far more than the poor - and indeed are still the rich - under progressive taxating systems. It can disincentivize the poor who are getting welfare but in my opinion it is required in order to protect what I consider their human rights - shelter, food, education, healthcare and security. People living on the streets generally don't get enough of any of those.

If your hypothesis was correct the countries with the most progressive taxation systems would have huge problems with effort and therefore have a lower GDP per capita, which countries like Norway don't.

I find the OP to be highly pretentious.

I dont know a single "rich" person who is getting money "stolen" from them who cant sleep at night because they cant feed their kids and cant afford a prescription or cant pay their bills.

I, however, do know a lot of the employess that make those people rich in those situations.

But whatever, everyone has a stance and opinion, no use trying to change anyones at our ages, they wont budge. I find your views rather comedic as you seem to be implying your main issues are with a current administration rather than the bulk of our laws/tax codes which were written under a conservative administration.

Granted, we still live in a country where the military can launch a war on the drop of a dime and schools still need to hold bake sales for funds.....but enjoy your beach.

The rich always think the poor and the government are trying to take their money.  The poor always think the rich and the government are trying to send them further into poverty for their own benefit.  The middle split their opinion in between.  Who's right?  Neither and both but we can understand why each side would hold their bias.  

Have fun in NZ though.  After seeing Lord of the Rings, I do know it is quite beautiful haha.  But there's no place like home I'll tell ya what.  But I just say that because I'm from Louisiana.  No substitute for the food.

Yeah, living in America for all 23 of my years, I can attest to that.. Not to sound anti-american or anything (I actually really like what this country stands for, or at least use to stand for), but there really does seem to be an "every man for himself" mentality in this country moreso than any other, so when a universal health care bill shows up (oh the humanity!), everyone is up in arms about it. It's pretty rediculous.

May you find everything you wish for in NZ. Just get used to that whole summer in january thing and water that drains clockwise. :)

When it comes to things like "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor", the lines become very gray and ambiguous. For example, which rich person or group of people are you talking about? Do you mean the Walmart family? A family who owns a corporation that reinvests very little money in comparison to what in generates back into the USA? A corporation that is largely, if not solely responsible from the complete and utter destruction of small business in the USA? 

There are many rich families that own corporations whom, whether you believe it or not, although they do pay a lot of taxes and produce low-paying, non-satisfactory, depressing jobs, do more harm than good. These companies are responsible for the fact that there is no longer capitalism in the US, just the illusion. The immense amount of control they have over the market impedes true capitalism from even having a chance. 

I know many people argue that the money you make is your money, and I agree, but when you have a situation like the one you currently have in America, finding a solution that doesn't violate someones right is difficult. I mean, who's more wrong here, a small group of people controlling a market used by million upon millions, which in turn crushed small business, caused the stock market to crash, and send millions to the unemployment lines... or the poor, who take money from the rich?

Blurry lines...