Karl Fogel

Karl Fogel at

Reminder: the U.S. President regularly responds to questions by delivering long meaningless word salads in public. (Start at "Thank you, Mr. President" in the page below to see the Q&A. The preceding speech isn't that great either.)


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The difference between "income" and "wealth" is fuzzy.  Concentrations of wealth are used to create more wealth in the same hands -- yet whether that derivative wealth is called "income" or "wealth" or "capital gains" is an exercise in nominalism.

I don't see how a wealth tax is any more "outright theft" than property taxes are, since property taxes are simply taxes on a particular form of wealth.  (You may consider property taxes to be outright theft as well, in which case you would have the virtue of consistency!)

That historical top *marginal* rate of 70% on *income* is fairly random, I think.  I don't really care that much if that number is 65%, or 70%, or whatever. What matters much more is how the taxable base is defined in the first place.  We've defined certain things -- e.g., "capital gains" -- out of the category of "income".  There are theoretical public-good arguments in favor of doing that (freeing up for investment the money that is most likely to be used for investment is the main one, I believe), but the practical results of our policies over the last forty years are in plain site: much sharper inequality (I'll go with the Gini Coefficient, but it's much sharper according to many other reasonable definitions too) than we used to have.

In any case, even if one doesn't like Elizabeth Warren's policies (I do like them, but I understand why you don't), she is not aggressively trying to destroy the foundations of Constitutional governance in this country, spread lies that damage the entire political process, etc.  It's also obvious that she would not use the Presidency for personal gain. Trump's problems are not merely of a different magnitude, they are of a different kind.  Tax policy is important, but it's not the most important thing at stake in this election.

Karl Fogel at 2019-10-17T22:17:35Z

"The only Democrat I can see myself voting for is Tulsi Gabbard"

Who was the first Democrat that Trump met with?

answer: 
Tulsi Gabbard, she reports he was very receptive to what she had to say.

zykotick9 at 2019-10-18T01:15:39Z

The Democrat of South Asian descent who is a vocal partisan of the intolerant Hindu fascist Modi government?


Edit ... she is not actually of South Asian descent, AFAIK, but the child of Hindu converts.


She still is an apologist for Modi's regime.

B. Ross Ashley at 2019-10-18T23:23:20Z

She is??  I didn't know that.  That's a huge strike against her, if so.  Yiiiick.

Karl Fogel at 2019-10-19T01:35:00Z