Well said, communism is in no way at all evil.

It is simply a system based on one horrible judgemental error.
Communism is a system in which everyone is assumed to cooperate, to a point where they can no longer, and then the costs of their food and such is equally spread amongst the working people.

The only problem the world faces in adopting communism is the fact that we are all in a capitalist state of mind. Money matters, prestige matters, and what matters most of all is the feeling that we are better than the other guy, because we have more toys.

This is the global sentiment, caused by free market economy and its ilk, that has corrupted mankinds ability to be selfless. When there is nothing in it for us, there is a no reason to cooperate, after all.

But enough whining about things that we can no longer change, I'm off to get some shuteye.

I could easily argue that communism is evil. It is anti-religion.

However, I think the corporate capitalism that we are currently in is just as evil. 1 person has a 10,000 sq ft home while other people can barely find food to eat.

Gobuyashi : "When there is nothing in it for us, there is a no reason to cooperate, after all." I disagree completely with this statement. Maybe among the "corporate leaders" or the super rich it is true but among the average person it is totally untrue. I find most people are actually quite willing to help others out. I read somewhere that every person in the world who makes over $30,000 a year could maintain their standard of living while giving 10% of the money they each away to charity. The higher the income bracket the higher the percentage of income that people could give away without sacrificing their standard of living.

I think the system as it stands right now benefits the rich and hurts everyone else. It's quite hard to actually move up in the world anymore. Although are any of us surprised by this? The rich want to stay/be rich and they don't want to give up any of the power or prestige it gives. I don't believe that most people are actually like this. Although, if I/you had that much money I don't know if you/I would be much different.

Well, my family is not rich.. and struggleing is hard still going through it. But I mean let the rich people have there money.. in a way it would be fair if we all had equally the same amount of money but that is not how the world works these days. Somebody might have 1 cent in their pocket and the other 1millon dollars in there pocket. But that dosen't mean just get all the taxes you can from the rich people to make them poor or not alot of money like the rest of us.

Perhaps I should have pointed out the sarcasm in my last post a little bit more...
I am in no way implying that working toghether has no benefits, quite the contrary even.
Fact is though, that the "higher echelons" of society will not get anything from working with the lower classes, which is the motivation behind the statement in my last post.

Religion is something nations can only influence through force, and even then hardly. beyond that it's enormously off topic, so maybe we should start a thread on how deeply gouvernments can penetrate into your personal life.

That would be communism.

If you want money, EARN IT. Go to college, maybe become a doctor or lawyer, but essentially stealing harder-working/luckier/whatever you want to call it peoples money and giving it to others is systematically rewarding people for doing nothing, which would ultimatly cause a collapse in the productive power of a nation

I wish to clarify my position in this debate. I'm not suggesting for a moment that I think the rich in this world don't have an obligation to help out those that are less fortunate. People who are too poor to even get food or shelter need help.

What I dislike about the whole idea of redistribution of wealth is that it's forced. In my opinion that will always fail. What we need is for people to be more willing to help each other rather than giving the governments of the world the mandate to take from the rich and arbitrarily give to the poor.

Charity breeds love. Taxes breed hate and resentment. I know which method I prefer.

Well some rich people have worked their way from ground up and deserve their money where as some of the poor don't do anything to help themselves and so don't deserve the money of some ones how's worked hard to get where they have, tbh I'm in the poor section of this debate but I'm gonna work my way up and I'd hate to have to be taxed heavily just because some guys that didn't work hard need some money my family and I will always give to charities so that's redistribution enough and rich people are already taxed more because the % increases with higher wages anyway this money gets redistributed into government spending who right now are spending most of their tax revenue on unemployment wages for those out of a job so really there already is a redistribution anymore and the economy will fail. tbh I think we're doing a good job now

I could spend an hour replying to individual people, but I don't feel like doing all the back and forth cross referencing right now... so I will just state my opinion.

I think that we probably should tax rich people and corporations more. I do not mean redistribution to poor people, like some of you are saying, I mean put the money into governmental run systems. Sure you might have more money if it was just given to you, but I don't think your Ferrari would make it down the gravel roads very well.

If I was in a position to change the taxation system this is what I would do. First of all I would create a study , paid with taxes of course, to figure out what amount of money is needed for a "good" quality of life. Lets say that number turned out to be $50,000 per year. Then what I would do is allow people to make double or triple that amount so they could have a "luxurious" quality of life. Now any one making over that much money I would tax the s*** out of, like 50-75%. The people making less money would still get taxed but not at such a ridiculously high rate. This would allow people to live luxurious lives (aka upper middle class+) and still be able to get filthy rich (aka more money than they know what to do with),   just at a slower rate.

Keep in mind these numbers are just place holders. If we had a ridiculously high tax rate for any one that made over $500,000 a year I think it would have the same effect. Also, it should be a dynamic rate and not a static rate, meaning it should change from year to year depending on the standard of living.

As of this year the highest tax bracket in USA is 35% for any income over $373,651 a year. Honestly I think this should be much higher. How many mansions and private jets does one person need?

After a little research, I found that the tax rates were as high as 94% for an income over $250,000 in 1944 , this was during world war two and should be expected to be higher. The tax rate remained in the high 80's / low 90's until 1962. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#Year_2010_income_brackets_and_tax_rates for all the rates, the chart is about 1/4 the way down the page.

The rich have been taxes as much as 94% but now they are only taxed 35%, I definitely think we should increase taxes to the higher tax bracket.




A lot of people have been mentioning big corporations like oil companies. This is somewhat off topic so I will only talk about it briefly.
Although there is somewhat of a trickle down effect when they expand or start up new businesses , their motive isn't to create jobs for people, nor is it to help out their country. The only reason they expand is so they can make more money. That is , after all, the nature of capitalism. There is an ever growing trend of outsourcing that I tend to think backs up my statement.



"The rich get richer and poor get laid off" -Some dude some where

Sephitard9001 : So... that statement that the United States has the best healthcare system.... yeah... you're a bit off.

The World Health Organization put out a list ranking the world's health care systems in 2000... the Unites States is 37th. The best health care system in the world belongs to France.

I would also like to put it out there to everyone that if you raised the taxes on the rich by only 5% (not even remotely close to making them poor), it would make significant strides towards closing our deficits. If you raised them higher, to more old-time highs (we don't have to go with the 94%... which was across the board by the way)... but maybe 50%. Then imagine what we could do.

Of course, 35% might work just fine if they didn't keep stashing 2/3rds of their wealth in offshore banks to avoid reporting it as income and having to pay taxes on it.

Elara :   I always like to point out this out when I am discussing American health care, as I find it very interesting. OK here it goes...

 Every year, the USA gives Israel over 2.5 billion dollars, which has totaled to over 100 billion dollars or 150 billion according to less conservative sources. Now this is fairly common knowledge, but the interesting part is that Israel does have universal health care,  and is ranked higher than USA on that list you linked.

Another interesting fact is that the current health care system is the leading cause of bankruptcy. For example, in 2007, 62.1% of filers for bankruptcies claimed high medical expenses.

I am not implying that 2.5 billion dollars will cover all health care costs but am just giving some information that I find interesting in a health care debate. I personally believe that health care is the most important area a government can spend money in, and that any population of people should have the best health care possible regardless of the cost.



Now on to the other portion of your post, you stated that the 94% was across the board and that is not the case. I counted 26 different tax brackets in 1944 and only 6 in 2010. If you don't believe me go to http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html there is a very well done PDF-style flash spreadsheet on that site. The lowest tax bracket was 25% for any one making under $2,000. Also, one should keep in mind the vast amount of inflation that has happened since that time. I mean some one making over $200,000 in 1944 is more equivalent to some one making over a bllion dollars today.

I do agree that 94% would be way over the top and something like 50-60%  would be much more realistic. If it was high like the 94% seen in 1944, there would be very little incentive for people to try and make more money.
 

smotpoker86 : Coulda swore it was, I stand corrected. Also, I can only find evidence of taxes hitting 91% outside of the Tax Foundation lists. Curious.

But yeah, you noticed the same thing I did about inflation, it really has made it impossible to go back to that high of a tax percentage. I mean, even the poor paid more taxes back then and still functioned. What is the lowest rate now, something around 13%?

I would not support this because this is a big simmilarity to communism, which nobody wants. They earned their way to become wealthy and I don't want it to be taken away.