

Do Most Americans Favor Radical Wealth Redistribution? - cwan
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/americans-favor-radical-wealth-redistribution/19684224/

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rick888
How about pushing for a system based on merit rather than government
intervention.

Wealth redistribution amounts to the government taking money away from people
that earned it through hard work and giving it to people that may or may not
deserve it.

Sweden might be a great place for some, but it sucks when you actually want to
start a company or do something against the status quo.

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vannevar
Does a lottery winner earn their money through hard work? Or a rich man's kid?
Do they 'deserve' it? Hard work will make you a decent living, but beyond that
you need a significant amount of luck. We live in a society of laws that
dictate wealth distribution, and those laws are currently skewing wealth
distribution in a way that has nothing to do with merit. There is nothing
wrong with adjusting those laws to distribute wealth more widely and give more
skilled people an opportunity to build on what we as a society have achieved.

~~~
rick888
Please.

How many lottery winners are there in this world? not many. Does the lottery
winner deserve it? Yes. They gambled with their money and won. This is an
example of pure luck.

Does a Rich man's kid deserve it? Yes. Because someone in his family
(grandfather, father, etc) put the hard work into starting or continuing a
business.

"and those laws are currently skewing wealth distribution in a way that has
nothing to do with merit."

I see. So, instead of providing for your own future generations with your
wealth, it's better to "redistribute" it to complete strangers who really
don't deserve it. This is even worse than any of our current systems because
it's not based on anything. Money is just taken from the wealthy and given to
the poor. It's out right theft.

"There is nothing wrong with adjusting those laws to distribute wealth more
widely and give more skilled people an opportunity to build on what we as a
society have achieved."

How are the current laws preventing any skilled worker an opportunity for
success? The only laws I see preventing success are the restrictions and taxes
imposed on new businesses. As an example, in Michigan (and a few other
states), businesses are taxes on their gross rather than their net income.

"Hard work will make you a decent living, but beyond that you need a
significant amount of luck."

I hate this line of thinking the most. It's used as an excuse for laziness and
a way to cut down successful people.

There are opportunities all around us (the luck). Without skill, most people
won't have any idea what do or how to capitalize on them. Most people also
aren't willing to put the amount of work it actually takes to be successful.
Success takes sacrifice.

~~~
rick888
HAHA. At least I know who downvoted me ;-)

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jfb
Of course we do -- look at the mortgage interest income tax deduction, or
Medicare, two giant wealth redistribution schemes.

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lionhearted
These discussions really aren't going to go anywhere productive, it's pure
politics. I flag both the ones I disagree with and agree with, though I'll
comment too if the community decides not to flag because it's worth talking
about.

Commenting here - there's two biases they're missing. The first is the "middle
choice" bias. If you give people three options: "Do you prefer nothing, a
medium amount, or a large amount?" overwhelmingly the middle will be chosen.
That's before getting into the merits - when you give someone uneducated on a
topic a choice, intuition defaults to the middle.

Second is the word "distribution" - wealth isn't actually distributed. It's
built, mined, manufactured, planted, harvested, bartered, bought, sold,
negotiated, renovated, cleaned, transported, traded, invented, shipped,
developed, and many more things. But it's not distributed. The word itself is
flawed, though unfortunately, the most obvious other way to describe is also
flawed. ("Should people who honestly build and create wealth be allowed to
keep it or have it taken from them by force?" is biased in the other
direction) But regardless of questions on framing a debate and choice of
words, I doubt this sort of post is going to lead to a good discussion.
Someone in favor of mandatory-wealth-moving-aroundedness is going to reply
that distribution is a fine choice of word. Someone against is going to reply
no it isn't, and taking-by-force is an accurate description. In the end, no
one's mind will be changed, and we'll have learned nothing new or interesting.

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ajscherer
The word "distribution" has a meaning in statistics that is perfectly
appropriate and correctly applied in this situation. To wit: "A set of numbers
and their frequency of occurrence collected from measurements over a
statistical population."

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lionhearted
In the context of "redistribution of wealth" people aren't talking about
statistical distributions.

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bhiggins
apparently, because all the wealth somehow got redistributed to a small
minority. that's what you're talking about, right?

