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About the War on Billionaires
Robert Heinlein:
Published in GeneralThroughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”
Thomas Sowell weighs in:
– The history of the 20th century is full of examples of countries that set out to redistribute wealth and ended up redistributing poverty.
– I have never understood why it is “greed” to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else’s money.
– Despite a voluminous and often fervent literature on “income distribution,” the cold fact is that most income is not distributed: It is earned.
– Since this is an era when many people are concerned about ‘fairness’ and ‘social justice,’ what is your ‘fair share’ of what someone else has worked for?
– If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else’s expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else, including themselves.
– One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain.
– The only way anyone can have a right to something that has to be produced is to force someone else to produce it for him. The more things are provided as rights, the less the recipients have to work and the more others have to carry their load.
Saint Ambrose
William J. H. Boetcker
H. L. Mencken
Benjamin Franklin
When was the last time anyone was hired and paid a good wage/salary by a poor person?
Also, it seems that there is a implication from leftists that the rich got rich by breaking laws. If that were true, the rich should be in jail, but instead the leftists want to just tax them at confiscatory rates.
I just finished reading Tom Perkins’ biography, “Valley Boy.” He lived a very full life and had a wonderful time, at least until Gerd, his wife of 35 years died. At one time he got into a lot of trouble with the usual suspects by complaining in public about the hatred of the rich, which he compared to “Kristalnacht.” He died at age 84 but it sounds like he lived at least 100 years in that time.
https://www.amazon.com/Valley-Boy-Education-Tom-Perkins-ebook/dp/B000W9695Y/
Among other things he knew and was friends with Patrick O’Brien, the author. He was also a sailor, which means he was a particularly great fellow.
If you are unfamiliar with him, he was the venture capitalist who got Google and Amazon going.
https://rushbabe49.com/2019/09/20/did-you-know-progressives-support-slavery/
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on Paul’s vote.
Let’s be clear. Many super wealthy remain high income for longer because they can influence government in directions they like. If we want billionaires to have less or have super incomes for less time, we should flatten taxes, eliminate all deductions, simplify. Who do people think can adjust to or shape impossibly complex taxes? Ordinary middle class folks? No they’re the ones who pay more of their income as taxes. We obsess over deficits even though they just grow. Deficits combined with non deficits show how much we spend. Taxes in contrast fall on productive folks, distort spending and investment, and to the extent they are not just simple, are part of the same problem. The spending is the problem and taxes that impact harmfully are the other part, not deficits.
I deduce that a reason so many billionaires (and large corporations) vote and lobby for more government (leftism) is to preserve their current positions and to prevent competition.
Government is in the business of selling special privileges, and we’re all shocked, shocked to learn that billionaires are best able to buy what the government is selling.
The populist response – whether from the left or the right – isn’t to demand that government adhere to the rule of law (i.e., treat everyone equally under the law) but to demand that:
1. The government take billionaires’ money away from them, and
2. Give them (the populists) special privileges
In other words, populists aren’t making a principled stand against special privileges, they just want them redirected.