If I were a Tyrant
If I were a tyrant, I would take one million dollars from the 14 richest people in the nation. I would buy 14 million homes, set back 14 million college funds and put the rest in 14 million investment accounts for the 14 million children living in poverty in America. Maybe I am a tyrant. Maybe the 14 richest people in the nation are tyrants. [Tara Sue's Weblog News]
For someone who is supposed to be a "libertarian", this is an awfully socialist sounding theme. Take a look at the 14 richest people in the U.S. Note that the "worth" column is in millions of dollars; stealing $1M wouldn't put too much of a dent in their net worth. (Bill Gates' personal wealth varies at least that much every day that Microsoft stock trades!)
But why steal from just the 14 richest people? Why not steal from the top 140? And why just $1M? Why not $10M? Even number 140 on the Forbes list for 2001 is worth $1.6B -- $10M is about 1/2 of a percent of that, a drop in the bucket. (Far less than the annual check to the IRS.) But we'll need more than that: 14 million homes at an average of $140K would require $1.9T. (That's TRILLION dollars. With a T.) Maybe we'll just make the down payments? That would only require $392B (assuming we're putting down 20%).
Whoops, we only have $1.4B to play with. Why not just nail the whole Forbes 400 with a full 1% wealth tax? After all, a "wealth tax" sounds so much better than "stealing". Some rough numbers: Bill Gates at the top is worth $54B, the bottom is around $600M. Assume an even distribution and take 1%: about $100B. Darn, still not enough for 14 million down payments. Certainly not enough to lift 14 million children out of poverty (though I wonder why we'd plan to leave 2 million children out of a total 16 million in poverty).
I've got a better idea. Why not let the richest Americans keep the 1% we were going to steal? They're not really tyrants after all. What would they do with it if we don't steal it? All that money isn't sitting in a vault somewhere. It's being used to create jobs; pay taxes; invest in small(er) companies -- which creates yet more jobs and tax revenue; and engage in philanthropy.
9:30:28 AM [ permalink ]
|
