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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TigerPaw who wrote (9694)	1/25/2006 9:02:39 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541346

I look upon it as an issue of fairness....t's the kind of think the market should decide. I'm finding your point inconsistent. If you define fairness as whatever the market decides then it's not unfair that some people's labor is rewarded in the form of a salary and other people's labor is rewarded in the form of growing assets. Salaries end when you stop working. Assets endure. It's the simple nature of things. The government treats assets as assets when you die regardless of how you came by them and equal treatment is as fair as it gets. since that is one of the only businesses that an individual can easily enter (except for Amway of course). Huh? If you're a plumber, you can work for a salary or go into business for yourself. Most knowledge work can be done either under salary or by contract. We have a lot of real estate agents because that's something that can be done part time or on one's own schedule, not because there aren't other business opportunities.

To: TigerPaw who wrote (9694)	1/25/2006 12:20:23 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 541346

I look upon it as an issue of fairness. I don't think it makes any sense to look at it that way. I don't think that one subset of occupations should get great governmental advantage over others Neither is getting a government advantage. If you invest in something that has a continual return you have an advantage over someone who doesn't have that continual return but is not granted by or created by government. In theory government could try to take it away but their lack of aggressive action against someone with an advantage does not equal giving the advantage to someone. Businesses are not the only thing you can invest in that can have a continuing return. The money used to start or buy the business could have been used invested in other assets that have a continuing return. Also any investment has some risks (even government bonds have a very small default risk and also a risk of negative returns after inflation). For many investments the return may be zero or negative (and small businesses certainly fall in this category). but the government favors business owners through inheritance No it doesn't. Refusing to take away all of one generations accumulated wealth is not granting a favor. In fact just the opposite is true because some of the wealth is taken away through inheritance taxes. and all sorts of deductions that they can charge that a salaried person can't. Here you have a better argument but its not a simple one. Businesses take deductions because they have costs in order to make revenue. Their net revenue is not their profit. Some special deductions may be unfair, unreasonable, and/or economically inefficient. I would probably support removing most of these special targeted deductions, but again the issue isn't simple. This creates distortions, such as about a zillion real estate agents per square mile I don't think that is primarily due to any government caused distortion. It is more due to the fact that individual can easily enter the business (as you point out). Tim