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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair".  Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income.  In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes.  Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.[/quote]

"Successful?"  A lot of those so-called successful people inherited their wealth, like Donald Trump, who inherited a half billion dollar real estate empire from his father, whereas many of his own genius ventures went bankrupt.  Or, they got their wealth from connections, or being in the right place at the right time.  Or, from distortions in our whole business model.  I happen to not believe that the typical Fortune 500 CEO making $15 million today is that much more productive, profitable or valuable to shareholders than the typical CEO of 1995 making $2.5 million, or for that matter the typical CEO of 1985 making $800 thousand.  There has been considerable wage bloat and inflation at the top.  CEO pay has increased by more than 1000% in the last 60 years, whereas typical worker pay has pretty much stagnated, a mere 18% (adjusted for inflation) in the same 60 years, despite all of our economic growth.  The CEO to worker pay ratio has ballooned from 20x to 290x, and even 600x in some firms.   That's not success, that's not earned, it's greed and excess and some of it needs to be given back.  And that "opportunity" is, for most Americans, largely a myth these days.

As for standards of living and socialized medicine, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Denmark actually do a great job, in fact better than the US in many areas, and there are few complaints.  Stop peddling false narratives.  America is only the best if you're already extremely wealthy, apparently like you.  But for the remaining 300 million Americans it's a struggle.[/quote]

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