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Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

Right but that goes against the narrative which permeates indie media where the 1% are freeloading devils with offshore accounts who are running the state into the ground because they are not paying their fair share of taxes.

Mind you I'm not a 1%er. Not that that should have any bearing. But indie media have their dead horse they like to climb on and it wears thin.

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who has more to lose if order and the fabric of society break down, those with or those without? if you already have nothing, and live in uncivilized territorty, the breakdown of order will make things worse, but marginally less so than for those isolated from the ills of poverty.

lets call a spade a spade and treat tax like what it is, a protection racket. you are protecting yourself from two things: alien invaders and zombie hoards. health care, food, housing, and, entertainment keep the hoards from destroying your logistics infrastructures and disrupting transportation routes. it also keeps them just alive enough to keep buying what you are selling. defense, police forces, and tough crime laws reduce your risk of having your factories and warehouses bombed or burned to the ground. in short, you are paying for muscle and placation, keeping the peace. (edit: forgot, you are also paying for intellectual property protection, so your inventiveness cant be cloned or repackaged.)

why should the 'rich' pay the majority of the taxes? because it benefits them the most to have low crime healthy consumers. whose problem does it end up being if the 99% are unemployed, homeless, starving, diseased, and unable to consume. whose house slash bunker is going to get broken into, the person with nothing, or the person with years of survival stockpile? why should the 'rich' pay the majority of the taxes? because they are the ones with something to lose (a business, a family, a lifestyle), worth paying to protect.

all that said, im not defending the current tax code or federal government as an efficient or effective way to put that "protection/socialorder" tax to good use.

Considering most of the rich can move at a moment's notice, aren't you over-estimating their reliance on "low crime healthy consumers"?

There's an entire cottage industry in places like Monaco, Panama or St Kitts & Nevis built on rejecting that thesis.

Additionally, is California with its high income tax rates significantly safer and healthier than states with no such tax, like Washington or Nevada?

I'd point out though that the oft-cited '1%' is often shorthand for '0.1%' – that maybe lazy, but a different figure.

It also generally refers to the top '1%' with regards to wealth, not income.

You don't understand. 45% of 1 million means nothing. Maybe skimp on the next vacation to Paris. 20% income tax on 60k means someone might never be able to retire or help pay for his kids college degree.

As long as we can poke fun at what they spend their money on, and dehumanize them, we can justify any tax level. Maybe that extra 17% could have gone into angel investments.

Perhaps the idea that those that earn 28% of the income need to be taxed at 45% is an indictment on California's spending.

If you look beyond the fun poking and focus on the facts, you'll still find that the trickle down economic policy your argument imply simply doesn't work.

https://psmag.com/the-imf-confirms-that-trickle-down-economi... http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42986.0

So change the 1% to the 99% "takers" and you have the other indie media ( which appears to be in rapid decline ).

> the 1% are freeloading devils

Some are. Some aren't.

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