Re: WAY OT: Gas-Gouging Greenspan

On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 16:00:23 -0700, "Marcello" <marcello@xxxxxxxxxx>
quacked:


>
>Great, so if you ran the country then I would have to give up a kidney to a
>less healthy person just becuase I exersize and stay in good shape...but
>hey, all in the name of being fair, becuase even thoguh I may spend my time
>working out and the recipient may spend his/her time at the bar, its fair
>becuase I am much more healthy. Blah! You won't ever get around the fact
>that by having skewed progressive taxation the last thing you are doing is
>promoting fairness and equality.
>
>>
I want to redistribute market rents, and you accuse me of wanting to
redistribute kidneys? Are you a total idiot? Don't you know the
difference between a redistribution of market rewards, most of which
are derived from privilege of one sort or another, and body parts?

So you think it promotes equality to have one guy earn $50,000 and
anotherg guy earn $12,000,000 and then tax them both the same? If you
do not see that equality is promoted by taking more from the rich guy,
you don't have much of a handle on numbers.

Now, if you just don't care about equality, fine. I'm not trying to
recruit you. but it is nonsensical to argue that progresive taxation
does not promote equality. Of course, it does not achieve full
equality, but it reduces the degree of inequality.

Oh, do you think that good kidneys are mostly about working out? Well,
there is a large genetic component and a lot of luck as well.
Differences in outcomes are sometimes due to differences in effort,
but effort explains a small part of the differences and almost none
when it come to great wealth.
--McDuck
.