A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. by Joel S. Hirschhorn
(libertarian)
Friday, January 30, 2009
By now most Americans have experienced extreme disgust upon hearing about the nearly $20 billion in bonuses given to people in New York City's financial sector at the end of 2008. After sending the nation into the current economic black hole there is no way of comprehending the audacity of financial company executives in giving themselves and their colleagues shameful rewards for abysmal and disgraceful performance. Other than screaming and moaning about all this dishonorable behavior what should the Obama administration and Congress do?
Here is the solution that the overwhelming majority of Americans should demand: A law should be immediately passed that imposes a new special federal income tax of 99 percent on all income in excess of $500,000 annually for single taxpayers and $1 million for couples, starting for 2008 income. Call it a greed tax. Call it justice. Call it getting even for too many years of uncontrolled greed that has given the nation nothing but economic injustice and inequality, and given capitalism a very bad name. Call it a sensible way to raise federal revenues to help offset the cancerous national debt.
Considering that nearly all of the people who received the 2008 bonuses also received high salaries and even larger bonuses in previous years, and the many billions of dollars of federal dollars going into bailouts of companies, there should be no qualms about such a greed tax. For example, in the two previous years a total of about $70 billion in bonuses were received by these greedy financial sector elites.
Even outside the financial sector, executives also received obscene bonuses in 2008 despite terrible performance. The compensation research firm Equilar, for example, reports that the average performance-based bonuses for top executives, other than the chief executive, at 132 companies with revenues of more than $1 billion increased by 14 percent, to an average of $265,594, in the 2008 fiscal year, in addition to high salaries.
As just one of countless examples of greed, consider that the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd, received $42.5 million in 2008 pay. He had received over $20 million in signing inducements in 2005. During his tenure some 40,000 jobs have been eliminated at H-P. And consider this nice little perk: In 2008 the company also paid out about $181,000 for his business meals.
And then there is the case of Robert Rubin at Citigroup. During his nine years there the company lost over $65 billion. What did Rubin earn? He pocketed $126 million. What did he say when he left? "I bet there's not a single year where I couldn't have gone somewhere else and made more."
Enough already. Drastic action is needed to achieve some justice. With all the attention on the Obama stimulus plan based on spending money the nation does not really have or can afford, it is appropriate to use this proposal to raise more revenues. Tax greed!
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That does not make sense. They have a huge amount of lawyers and CPA's ready to modify their structured bonusese so that they will not pay the tax anyway. Cayman Islands, accounts in Switzerland, etc... Not only they will not pay the taxes, they will take the money out of the country and spend it elsewhere. How does that help the local economy?
So if you win a jackpot of $5M in the lottery, your take home is less than $1M?
And the governement will steal all of that money from this execs and spend it however they like it?
A similar situation happended in other socialist countries where the highest tax bracket rate was 90%. So high earners were encourage to either stop working, getting barter or evading taxes by moving payments offshore.
As much as we all dislike these idiots getting huge bonuses while even with their low performance and then us bailing them out, the solution is not to have a 99% bracekt. The real solution is NO MORE BAILOUTS!!!! and NO MORE INCOME TAXES.
This was written by a "libertarian"? You've got to be kidding me.
Ok, let's:
Steal
Stifle a drive to succeed.
Blame people based on their incomes rather than their actions
Treat people as groups rather than individuals
Not address the problem, which is government spending, government waste, government destruction of the currency
Stipulate that the only requirement to be punished is earning a certain amount of income - which, of course, will be lowered in the future when this idiotic theft doesn't produce the promised results
Ignore the principle of ex-post-facto and change tax laws in the past. What happens if someone spent more than 10% of last year's income, should we throw them in jail?
Do everything we can to sound like socialists. How did this guy get a libertarian label anyway?
Are you serious, Joel Hirschhorn?
On the other hand, how about we change the laws to imprison thieves? Like politicians and their accomplices who enact immoral ideas like this one.
Well put, Allen. Two wrongs do not make a right. Advocating outright theft to balance outright theft is more a Communist than a Libertarian ideal.
Joel, such legislation is ill-advised and poorly thought through. To test the validity of a legislative idea, I usually start here:
[link edited for length]
Good legislation starts with sound principles and strict adherence to existing law. Bad legislation starts with emotion and has little respect for the law.
Posted By: Jahfre Fire Eater
Date: 2009-01-30 17:38:51
Ohhh, darn you Ken. You beat me to it...I was going to say Envy tax but close enough. :-)
I've had the pleasure of knowing a number of wealthy people over the years. I've never met a greedy on.e Don't get me wrong, I'm certain they exist. My point is that a person's wealth doesn't determine their character. Every wealthy person I've met became wealthy as a side-effect of pursuing their talents and initiative.
My employer made hundreds of millions back in the early 90's and founded a company that has employed thousands of people over the past 15 years. In Joel's world these jobs and millions just like them would not exist. No capital, no jobs. It's pretty simple to grasp if one can get past petty emotions.
To automatically assume everyone who has more than you do is acting out of greed says much about Joel S. Hirschhorn and nothing about those he targets.
There was a lot of greed and ambition involved in the financial bubble and the aftermath of its bursting. If that led individuals to break laws they should be prosecuted. If the American people don't like the legal results of policies that leverage greed and ambition in the financial sector for their continued success, they should focus their ire on those who advocate ignorant, destructive Keynesian and Friedmanite policies that enable and fuel that system. The entire academic/government economist guild has to be held accountable for the disaster they are STILL happily leading us deeper into. Until that happens we're still in an economic and cultural death spiral. The classic crumbling of a dominant empire; albeit enormously accelerated by crackpot populist economic theories and digital printing presses.
The race is on! Will the political power brokers and their economist guildmasters manage to enslave the population of the US before that population comes to its senses and strings them up in their ivory towers?
So far, it looks like the slavemasters are way ahead. All that means is that first comes a period of oppressive slavery to the State, then comes the stringing up of the guild. Sooner or later the consequences are suffered but they are always suffered.
Hirschhorn, I would have not taken you as a Socialist hiding under the guise of a libertarian.
Of course, it is easy to associate the favoritism that big business receives from government and still assume that we are living in a free market economy where capitalism and wealth has become the enemy. It is equally as easy therefore, to equate the apparent greed associated with the rich and powerful with free market capitalism, thus continuing the common denigration of the markets and capitalism in particular. The exposure of various scandals, crimes and abuses only seem to promote the idea that capitalism must be restrained, that profits restricted and wages controlled. The fact is that in a free market, where there is a very definite separation between those who regulate and those who are regulated, businesses are punished for corruption, fraud and crimes. As we have seen time and again, example after example, the current cozy relationship between government and big business has only served to conceal the various abuses and frauds that tend to take place under the watchful eyes of the official government regulators.
First, the solution is to stop the cozy relationship that government has formed with big business and allow the competitiveness of the market once again take precedent instead of the de facto Corporatism that now rules the roost. While it is easy to condemn free market capitalism, the culprit here is an ingrained system of corporate welfare that has permeated both government and big business. Additionally, as we have seen with the government’s latest bailouts, one could call them REWARDS, the government has now vastly expanded its corporate welfare program and put its stamp of approval on the very corporations, and many of the corporate executives which committed abuse and fraud.
In a free market, under a real capitalist economic system, there would be no such rewards, nor would there be a hosts of favorable legislation, or various subsidies or protections stemming from government to the politically connected corporatists. In a real free market economy the government would not have the power or the ability to give to one while taking from another to bestow the various benefits on corporate entities.
It is also necessary to understand that despite law, people are, by nature, greedy and that cannot be legislated away, especially by some draconian confiscatory taxation program which would cause far more problems than it solved if ever such a stupid idea were passed as law. The unintended consequences of such a tax bracket would instantly stifle economic growth and innovation in this country.
Hirschhorn, would you go to work everyday if you didn’t get paid? Basically, that is what you are calling for when you recommend such a hair-brained, ill-conceived “solution”, after all, if you tax someone making $500 K or a Million per year at 99% do you actually think they would continue working at that job? The destructive nature of your suggestion is beyond belief and frankly I am very surprised that you would even post this article. Please use a bit of logic.
Joel, I viserally agree, but one has to be realistic(sigh).
In a (more) perfect world, here's my "solution."
Leave everything as is for now, but when the economy is back to "normal" (whatever that is) start a new system of taxation which taxes you upon the goods you buy.
Remove tax from FOOD items (yes, food IS taxed) as well.
Then abolish the Federal Reserve. Take about half of Homeland Security and convert them to work for Congress and the Treasury to take up the slack and provide jobs, as the Fed pays the way for Congress every year for the "privilege" of printing up all that pretty money with NO accountability. After all, each U.S. dollar is merely a note of debt, but with this new system it would be transform currency back to what is was originally designed for.
I would also abolish high interest rates and lower the late fees and other outrageous credit card fines and charges. The same goes for banking charges, since they are basically one and the same, but many folks don't own credit cards. Oh, no more offshore tax-havens either!
One last thing, I would legalize hemp for industrial useage, and legalize marijuana and tax the hell out of it!
P.S. All you stringers-up of corporate executives and politicians, BEWARE! I like the idea of that as well, but only the IDEA of it. In reality you might end up with another Cambodia as in the late 70's. Once you start stringing up the ivory-tower folks, where's it all end?
c'mon all you textbook utopian libertarian studs... i thought it was funny... i am sure the super-rich are chuckling too : )... it is time for a new vision. anyone seen the new "zeitgeistmovie.com"... now that is a utopia worth working towards...
Let's just let the rich greedy bastards make whatever they want, but once they screw over the taxpayer and the economy, we re-enact the Reign of Terror on their butts and hang them from the nearest trees? I think that sort of mob justice would be a sufficient deterrent to excessive greed.
Personally, I would love to see the gated communities stormed by large mobs of unemployed, massive mansions torched, families summarily executed, and greedy executives hung from their balconies and disemboweled. This would serve as a sufficient incentive to encourage CEOs and other executives to act in the best interests of not only their stockholders, but society as a whole.
At first I thought this was farce, but his chart shows him as a liberal-libertarian. His use of the word "Justice" gives him away though. Sadly, "Justice" is one of those words that has been co-opted and no longer means what it once did. It is now used almost exclusively by liberals to denote "Social Justice" - redistribution of wealth from the "haves" to the "have-nots." Capitalism is "unjust." In this view, the bindfolded Lady Justice is replaced with wide-eyed Robinhood with bow and arrows on his back, the head of a de-capitated capitalist in one hand and a bag of gold schillings being tossed out amongst all the "poor, innocent victims."
I do have a problem with the vagueness of the questions for the chart, because it labels me a hard-core Libertarian, whereas in reality I am a Paleo-Libertarian-Conservative. Anytime a questionaire is short and you must choose one answer from multiple choices, you are forced to choose the best answer, even though in reality your true answer would be "Yes...BUT..." The BUT in this case is what truly separates hardcore Libertarians from Liberals and Conservatives. So, most authors on this site are listed as "Libertarian" but when you read their articles you can usually tell if they are truly more Conservative or Liberal. The reason for this is that anyone who actually believes in the Constitution automatically selects the most constitutional answer to the question on the chart, although in reality their personal beliefs may differ. This is because (in my case) I may personally have Conservative views, but because I believe my views, and therefore my Rights would be violated by any law that limits anyone's rights (including liberals), I must therefore choose the answer that upholds INDIVIDUAL Rights and LIMITS Government regulation. Abortion is the perfect example; I chose pro-choice, not because I am personally pro-abortion (I'm not), but because I believe the government has no right to tell me or anyone else what we can or cannot do; I also disagree strongly with the Christian Right on this point because in my view if they were to "win" the "battle" to outlaw abortion, the next step on that slippery slope would be to restrict certain religious practices / views. Any time an issue is based on a "moral" perspective, we must err on the side of freedom, of the government not interfering, because ultimately our personal "morality" is shaped by our personal religious perspective (even if one is an atheist, because declaring a belief in no God is automatically acknowleging that God may exist, at least in the view of others).
The gay rights question was a real conundrum, since gay rights are fine, but I am totally against gay marriage, because marriage has always, since the dawn of mankind, been a religious institution (I'm going back to ancient Mesopotamia here). I believe the government should only recognize Civil Unions for everyone, and that "marriage" should be left to personal religious ceremonies. This includes marriage between men and women; government manipulation of marriage is why divorce rates are so high.
Immigration was another annoying question, since I believe very strongly in the Right of sovereign nations to defend their borders. I am against illegal immigration for many reasons, but even Libertarians believe in sovereignty, and unfettered immigration inevitably erodes such sovereignty. Plus, is costs us Billions of dollars a year in taxes (this is because of liberal social policies), and destroys the environment because more people living in our wasteful society means more land is over-developed for the increased population, and soon we will not only face higher costs of energy (we drive more and use more electricity than anyone), but water and safe food as well. In other words, it is a serious violation of our Federal Government to do the one thing it is mandated to do - protect us (not just from foreign invasion, but from death by pollution or starvation as well). Nevermind the fact that the more people that come here, the more likely it is that the government is going to violate our Right to private property via Eminent Domain to house and feed all these newcomers. Annie get your gun!
Posted By: Joel S. Hirschhorn
Date: 2009-02-10 13:27:05
I am amazed at the extent of delusional thinking and beliefs revealed here. When I and others speak of criminal greed these days it has nothing to do with those people who amassed great wealth INCIDENTAL to their pursuit of their ideas, intelligence and expertise, as well as their risk taking. What we ARE talking about are the many, many people especially in the financial world and business CEOs who seek and receive totally absurd levels of income that have no relationship whatsoever to their real talents or what they actually accomplish. Greed is all too real and all too damaging to society. The American economy WAS raped by many greedy people.
