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Forums - Politics - Do you consider yourself more left or right wing?

 

I am...

More left leaning 52 61.90%
 
More right leaning 32 38.10%
 
Total:84
Zkuq on 07 September 2025
the-pi-guy said:
angrypoolman said:

i wonder who paid for the cookies in this analogy

A lot of this comes down to where you put the credit.

"Business owners have the money"

"Business owners have money, because their workers made most of it for them"

"Business owners made their first chunk of money on their own, and invested it"

"Business owners couldn't have made their first chunk of money, without _________" 

- the education that society paid for,

- plenty of wealthy people got their first start because of other people's tax dollars

And lots of other circumstances.  

People are terrible at identifying the reasons that got them as far as they did. They like to think it's because they're smart and work hard, when in reality the foundation for all that work is usually all the services provided by the society. It's hard to get anywhere if you die as a kid because of insufficient healthcare, get bullied in school, run into health issues (including mental health) and can't afford to treat them, can't afford to study if your parents can't afford to fund your studies, have to work yourself to death while you study, have to take care of your close ones because the society provides insufficient support... and probably a ton of other things I'm forgetting. Yes, some people do get through hardships and to the top, but I'm pretty sure there's strong correlation between the amount of hardships one encounters and how successful that person is. But I guess it must be just those people being lazy and greedy for other people's money.



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bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
IcaroRibeiro said:
bdbdbd said:

But they do. If income tax is raised, you need to raise wages so that you earn same as you did before, which turns to raising prices for customers.

If you tax wealth - which usually is shares or apartments and such - your wealth need to create more income to pay the taxes. More dividents require higher prices, you need to raise rents if they tax your apts you're renting and so on.

The money has to some somewhere always and in a modern capitalistic society it comes from the market.

Income and property taxes have a positive net effect in economy, kinda of. It's a misconception the money from the rich come exclusively from running bussines 

If you take a bit of money from the upper high classes, money that would generally be invested in long term funds and financial applications outside the country, and give them to very low income citzens, what happens?

Well, low income citizens will start buying essential goods. Food, water, maybe clothing. This higher consumer spending will make small and local bussines to earn more money, expand, hire. It will also increase demand for industry and services. The overall GDP will increase, and the state can even recoup some of this spending through other taxes

This can drive inflation, of course. But not because the rich was getting taxed, but because more people are looking for groceries 

The said taxes have a positive effect to an extent. At some point you start losing tax revenue because the rich move out. When the rich move out you need to raise the taxes for the not so rich to to make up for the lost tax revenue.

The money for the rich may come from governments that are taking loans that support the big businesses or governments buying currency to support their own or some other currency.



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
zorg1000 said:
bdbdbd said:

But they do. If income tax is raised, you need to raise wages so that you earn same as you did before, which turns to raising prices for customers.

If you tax wealth - which usually is shares or apartments and such - your wealth need to create more income to pay the taxes. More dividents require higher prices, you need to raise rents if they tax your apts you're renting and so on.

The money has to some somewhere always and in a modern capitalistic society it comes from the market.

Like Rol said, nobody is talking about raising income taxes on working/middle class households, the discussion is always about increasing taxes on the rich.

Also, is there any evidence of tax rates and inflation being directly correlated?

Top Income Tax Rate

1991-1992, 31%

1993-2002, 39.6%

2003-2012, 35%

2013-2017, 39.6%

2018-2025, 37%

Top Corporate Tax Rate

1988-1992, 34%

1993-2017, 35%

2018-2025, 21%

Top Capital Gains Tax

1987-1997, 28%

1997-2003, 20%

2003-2012, 15%

2013-2025, 20%

Over the last ~35 years we have seen tax rates on income, profits and investments fluctuate and for the most part, inflation has been pretty stable. From 1991-2020, inflation averaged 2.3% per year and we only saw a notable surge in 2021-2023, which were not accompanied by any tax increases or cuts.

On top of that, we have to factor in what the taxes are being used for. Lets say you’re right and the higher taxes are causing the price of consumer goods to increase but those taxes are being used to invest in healthcare, childcare, elder care, education, housing, nutrition, infrastructure, manufacturing, climate change, research & development, etc.

I will gladly take increased prices on consumer goods if that means quality of life in increasing for the average person.

And as I said originally is, that that's the misconseption people have. They think "taxing the rich" is taxing the top 10 people, not the top 10% earners.

This tax rates for USA? I think you're proving my point about the low tax rate. Low taxes are the reason why so much of the western capital is in the USA. 



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
RolStoppable said:
bdbdbd said:

If we tax people who have more money than they need, this is very marginal group and have virtually no effect on people's welfare, but they still want their wealth to generate more wealth which turns to higher prices. This is also monet they invest to prevent the earnings to lose value due to inflation. 

Since this discussion spawned based on a German survey, I'll just continue there. Right now the German state has problems to finance everything they need to spend money on, from infrastructure to military to getting their struggling economy going. They have an expected deficit in the ballpark of €80 billion for next year's budget, so the state is going to take on debt. But the only reason they have to take on debt is because the conservative party in the government refuses to raise taxes on the rich. A study has found that a wealth tax of 1% would bring in €35 billion annually in Germany, which is pretty striking. This means that taking just a measly 3% from the rich would fill the entire hole in the budget and leave some extra money too, which could be used to allow welfare programs to keep up with inflation, as opposed to the current German proposal of making no inflation-adjusted increases at all because the available money is so tight.

You are either gullible or stupid if you believe the lie that taxes on the rich will hurt the regular citizen. It's a popular lie that keeps being told by rich people every time the topic of taxing them appropriately comes up. Their motive is plain greed.

Also, the unsubstantiated hypothesis that all the rich people would raise the prices of their companies' goods quickly falls apart when there are laws against collusion and cartels. They'd lose far more money than via taxes that way.

Remember, we are talking about raising taxes on individuals, not corporations. That's a big difference. A corporation can maintain all their profit margins, because increased taxes on individuals merely mean that people in high management positions get less money out of their overall salaries. It's also incredibly bad PR for corporations if it comes out that the reason for increased prices on goods come down solely to already overpaid board members looking to earn more money for themselves, so that's yet another reason why prices of goods wouldn't go up when taxes for the rich would be increased.

The high management raises their salaries. Also the owners would want more money out from the company because they want the same income as they did before. The whole idea of "taxing the rich" is based on them getting more money out of the companies so nobody would not lose anything. If the overpaid board members are incredibly bad PR, shouldn't the taxes be lower so that they'd not need to pay the board members as much? 

A wealth tax of 1% may lead to more capital leaving the country than it would bring in as tax revenue. Taxes for the rich always lead to taxes for everyone else. The reason why these taxes work so bad in todays world is because of globalism and global free trade. Capital goes from one country to another without being taxed in between, so does goods. 



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
curl-6 said:
bdbdbd said:

This "race" obsession is pretty much a US-specific thing. In a way it's understandable based on historical and cultural aspects.

Yeah as a non-American, the extent to which the US seems to obsess over race seems downright bizarre to me.

It's like they see absolutely everything and everyone through the lens of skin colour, as if this one trait alone defines us.

Doesn't seem very healthy either, as it just seems to promote division, conflict, and hate.

The obsession is beyond being ridiculous. I think maybe the best example was the elections for Trump's first term when the data was showing it may actually be a close call, but everyone was saying it was going to a landslide for Clinton because of all these demographics were favouring her.

The people who think they benefit from division, conflict and hate are the ones promoting it. 



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

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bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
GoOnKid said:
Chrkeller said:

https://usafacts.org/articles/who-pays-the-most-income-tax/

72% is of all taxes, not tax rate.  

I also think your post is exactly what is wrong with left think.  Love how you volunteer other people's money and decide for them.  Lol.  

How about your worry about your money and not mine?

“The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”

For clarifictaion, I don't want to make rich people poor. They can stay rich, that's fine, but the extent of it is what's wrong. The top 10% can pay even more taxes and it wouldn't hurt them at all, meanwhile the lowest 10% would benefit massively. The imbalance should be countered to a certain degree, not totally, but a little bit. The government would be able to provide better public services -> a win for everyone. Improved wealth distribution would lead to less crime -> another win for everyone. Tell me how that is a bad thing. 

But millionaire xyz maybe wouldn't afford his 20th appartment, yes. That's the sacrifice.

The problem with this thinking is, that the rich would not move elsewhere. Also, you can be a millionaire with just two apartments in the city and they're not even the expensive ones.



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
GoOnKid said:
Chrkeller said:

The problem is the gap between 10 percentile and 1% percentile is massive.  I'm just at the edge of 10%...  dude I have one house, not 20.  I don't have yacht.  Having a few million puts one in upper, but it isn't like a couple million buys 20 houses.  

It was an example. An extreme one, okay, but still. Nothing more. I am pretty sure the 1% can spare another few percent of their money and still be absurdly rich. 

And when "today's 1%" move away, we have new 1% to tax because people who moved away are not paying their taxes to your country anymore. They aren't making the same as the previous 1% so we need to raise their taxes even more to make up for the lost revenue. 



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

GoOnKid on 07 September 2025
bdbdbd said:
GoOnKid said:

It was an example. An extreme one, okay, but still. Nothing more. I am pretty sure the 1% can spare another few percent of their money and still be absurdly rich. 

And when "today's 1%" move away, we have new 1% to tax because people who moved away are not paying their taxes to your country anymore. They aren't making the same as the previous 1% so we need to raise their taxes even more to make up for the lost revenue. 

The point is that the power distance is hurting more than it benefits. Which solutions do you suggest?



bdbdbd on 07 September 2025
GoOnKid said:
bdbdbd said:

And when "today's 1%" move away, we have new 1% to tax because people who moved away are not paying their taxes to your country anymore. They aren't making the same as the previous 1% so we need to raise their taxes even more to make up for the lost revenue. 

The point is that the power distance is hurting more than it benefits. Which solutions do you suggest?

It depends on what we want to do. If we want to get rid of the rich, raise taxes until they leave or they are poor. If we want to maximise tax revenue we need taxes low enough so that the rich live and move to your country to pay taxes. If we tax to rich to pay better benefits, are we going to cut the benefits when the rich leave? Many countries are facing this problem at the moment because of the 2000's populism where politicians have been buying votes by promising voters better benefits. At the moment we have a situation where government programs subsidise lowsy wages and these people are complaining about not getting enough benefits. And why do they do so. Because better wages would just cut their benefits.

When the increased tax revenue is used in more public spending, there's no amount of taxes collected that would be enough. When the income after taxes is low enough, it hurts the economy because people stop buying the expensive local products and services and buy cheap imports instead.

It's always "tax the rich" but the majority of increased tax revenue comes from the top 10% or top 20% of earners anyway instead of "1%".



Ei Kiinasti.

Eikä Japanisti.

Vaan pannaan jalalla koreasti.

 

Nintendo games sell only on Nintendo system.

the-pi-guy on 07 September 2025
Chrkeller said:

Group A: earn 50% of the money and pay 72% of all taxes.

Group B: earn 50% of the money and pay 28% of all taxes.


Liberals -> group A needs to pay their fair share!!!!

Lol, crazy.

Group A: 1 family making 200k, owns two houses. 

Group B: 9 families making 22k each, struggling to put food on the table

Conservatives -> they should pay the same rate, it's only fair!

If tomorrow your wages doubled, your costs wouldn't. You need a smaller percentage of your income to live as you make more. Housing and food don't suddenly cost more just because you make more money. Your first thousand dollars is much more important than your millionth thousand dollars. 

That should be obviously true. 

Last edited by the-pi-guy - on 07 September 2025