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Comment by faeriechangling | Hacker News Reader

Conservatism has its benefits, but I didn't see the Amish get rich off the Dotcom boom either.

Really fail to see the value of that comment. I haven't seen any FANG/Startup creators sustain themselves building quality furniture or barns either...

Kind of an odd measure of if their values are a good idea or not

What would a rich Amish even do? The same as they always have. Some Amish around me in Ohio actually got quite wealthy selling oil rights on their land, they put all the money into a general emergency fund for their fellow Amish and continued on.

In Pennsylvania, the Amish are reputed to be quite wealthy (at least by local standards.) Shrewd and thrifty businessmen who often buy properties outright with surprising quantities of cash. I haven't dealt with them personally, but this is what I've heard about them from people who have.

Yes, but then they don't pay tax either, so maybe they have used those extra funds to buy fields etc.

The site posted indicates that they do pay most taxes, except for FICA, for which they have a religious exemption (dear god, don’t anyone tell the Christian Nationalists about this exemption).

Any group that qualifies for the employment tax exemption already knows about it. They have to be in one of several groups that are known to have existed for several decades, and either have their own mutual benefit program or conscientiously object to the taxes for religious reasons. That list includes far right, far left, and moderate adherents.

(Sometimes clergy from mainline or popular denominations will also claim it. There is some grey area in interpreting legitimate conscientious objection.)

> There is some grey area in interpreting legitimate conscientious objection.

A ton of unnecessary gray area, and a violation of separation of church and state to give preference to certain tribes over others based on political influence.

They’re also permitted to pull their kids out of school after 8th grade (Wisconsin v. Yoder)

That depends on your view of social security. It may become more of an issue if contributions become a progressive tax (no payroll income cap.)

I assume they already are. Not just from explicitly benefit reductions like increasing the retirement age, but also the decreasing purchasing power of a dollar (inflation) outpacing any cost of living adjustments. I still have 35 years to go before I can collect, but I expect the demographics will be so tilted by then, that I will see little benefit from Social Security.

In the sene that SS is a broken pyramid model that depends on short retirements and population growth, yes. However, this is not a problem the US is willing to contemplate as they would removing the payroll cap, which would become a significant national conversation.

Inflation, not so much an issue, since benefits and maximum contributions receive COLAs and theoretically wages are inflating at pace with CPI.

No payroll tax cap would make contributions a flat, not progressive, tax.

It would make it progressive because those proposals do not lift the benefits cap (most of them don't, at least.) But I do understand what you're saying about the flat percentage of tax taken out per dollar of income.

Do the Amish have a lot of political influence?

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