61% of British voters are in favor of reintroducing the 50p top rate of income tax, and only 26% are against it. 40% don’t care if the levy doesn’t raise any money – they want it reimposed on moral grounds. (YouGov/The Times)
Wisdom of the masses. Yes, they are right. Trickle-down economics was always a fraudulent idea. In the old days, when rich people gave back to the country that had made them rich, there were better employment figures, a middle class that was a true middle class, everyone was more committed to the good of the country and less demoralised.
Epicurus would take one look at the current economic and political system and say, “This is clearly not working, except for the 1%”.
We are picking on the Russian super-rich as payback for the invasion of the Crimea. This is an apparent acknowledgment that the only people that matter are the ultra- rich, since they have most of the money and most of the power (in Russia as elsewhere), International relations are now being conducted on the basis of twisting the arms of our real rulers, military force being out of fashion for the moment. But the idea that stopping the “trickle down” effect is going to devastate the ordinary Russians and make Putin cave is mis-guided. Billionaire robbers buy yachts and diamond rings and spread their wealth among the ladies of the night. There is no trickle down effect except among a small number of expensive and elite shops in Bond Street, London and similar places. Meanwhile, these billionaires have so much cash squirreled away all over the world that they can shrug and continue buying soccer clubs.
Loved your poem about the comma which I have shared with people! Not sure I agree with your enthusiasm for the 50% rate…..just invites tax dodging behavior at which the rich are highly ingenious…..I prefer mechanisms to tax the spending of the wealthy both through estate duties, higher real estate taxes, luxury taxes on high end restaurants, etc. and have never understood why the expenditure tax proposed by Kaldor never took off as an idea.
The above comment was sent me by an economist friend and I posted it for him. Was Kaldor’s idea a form of VAT? Problem with that is that it is regressive unless you exempt certain things and charge higher rates for luxury goods – which gets very complicated.