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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jttmab who wrote (138958)	7/6/2004 1:15:35 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>> It would because you've defined the wealth [income] curve as symmetric. What I meant to say is that the subjective measure of wealth that most people use (i.e. someone with 3x their income) matches our symmetric measure of the wealth. In other words our subjective feelings are fairly accurate. >> It's puzzling to me, why it's so difficult to find a comprehensive look at income/tax distribution. :0 You don't say!!! I wonder what's being hidden. > Of course, IMO, wealth should be measured in terms of assets owned rather than annual income. >> I would agree with that. That measure could lead one to develop a "fair" tax system... The wealthy should pay more taxes, not to satisfy some miserly envy sense of the rest of us, but because they use more of the resources (police, city infrastructure, government services, etc) and because they can contribute more to the society. There was a study done in California a few years ago. It looked at how much it costs to create and maintain roads and suage system in the suburbs compared to the inner cities. It then compared those costs to how much taxes the suburbanites paid. Surprise surprise, it came nowhere near covering the money used to help them commute to work and keep a clean neighborhood...besides, if Bill Gates retired and had zero income, he'd still be using a lot of services just by the virtue of having the assets. So I don't think it would be fair for him and some starving poor bastard to be in the same category.