My second Wat?? in this thread. I've never meet a rich person that in any subscribed to these views.

And OP you didn't answer my questions:

How old are you and what is the most amount of money you every made in one year?

WTF does that have to with anything?

Also, I have no idea what's going on in that first paragraph.

Isn't inflation sort of a wealth tax? Although I guess it pretty much pwns everybody.

i would argue that bill gates fortune and market domination is to a large extent a result of pure luck. path dependency(compare windows to qwerty) and and being at the right place at the right time made his fortune, not his superior product (it isnt, atleast not today). that doesn't mean we should tax him, as a rule of thumb rich people are more likely then govt to use capital eff.

you should read this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)

pure luck and the business sense to convince ibm he had a viable operating system available when he didn't and then went down the street and bought qdos from seattle computing for 50k.

with a couple of tweaks qdos became ms-dos and the rest is history.

yes, stealing other people's stuff always leads to a "more fair an equitable society."

just out of curiosity, in what separate universe is this morally just and an accentuation of liberty?

reading this thread just made me dumber

well he is a smart guy and i'm sure he was right at the time(though in a world without Bill Gates someone similar would probably had taken his place)

what is interesting is that even though windows 7 is a great improvement to their earlier versions its still a consistent small loser vs linux distros in benchmarks and this is not even considering price: performance ratio.
ease to use is another factor but to objectively test that we would need to find a group of first time computer users and have them grade the different systems. another cool fact: out of 500 top supercomputers in the world 90% use linux and 1% use windows.

It has everything to do with the OP and his philosophy.

Not really...this is just an empirical question. I am providing one data point. At some income levels for some people, increased taxation will disincentivize labor (as it seems most people in this thread are asserting). But at some income levels for some people, increased taxation will incentivize labor. And it seems most likely to incentivize labor at the highest income levels where the marginal utility of wealth is lowest, and thus where decreasing one's income will increase the marginal benefit of working more compared with more leisure time. This of course will also vary with how much a person likes their job.

I think the NBA should require that each team has a certain number of short players. Let's face it, the average American is 5 foot 9 inches and the vast majority of NBA players are over 6 foot 8 inches. Is that fair? Absolutely not.

And don't get me started on those 400 pound offensive lineman. I really think every American who wants to play in the NFL deserves the chance to do so and the government sure as heck better make sure that everyone has the same salary and the same minimized risk of injury.

Many Africans only own a single pair of shoes. They think it's ridiculous that some people in this world wastefully own more than one.

I hereby suggest that the American government limit every American to one pair of shoes, in the name of equality.

lolquepear.jpg

(mini hijack for those who dont have much if any knowledge of Bill Gate's rise)

Although it sometimes lacks in accuracy here and there Pirates of Silicon Valley is an awesome movie and gives a good outline to just how Bill should have never really become the billionaire computer mogul he did. He got where he did with being in the right place at the right time a few times and being willing to capitalise on the ideas Steve Jobs stole from Xerox but was too inept to protect.

The line:
Is absolute genius. Id love to think it was an actual quote from Bill to Steve, but i doubt it.

Bill Gates could have hoarded all of his money in a huge scrooge mcduck vault and never given out a dime and he'd still be one of the greatest persons to have ever lived in terms of his benefit to society.

Strangely, people care about other features more than raw performance.

Almost all the 'money' he has that hasn't been given to charities is loaned to productive enterprises. He isn't just keeping it under his mattress. Letting Bill Gates use the money to start productive businesses actually helps the poor (and everyone else), while confiscating it and using it for handouts (or to 'stimulate' politically connected businesses, or to blow up brown people) does not.

I know you just pulled that stat out of your ass, but it's a very common misconception.
http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/re...uly%202007.pdf

Conclusion: most rich people give a ****load to charity.

I don't disagree with this. But it says nothing about whether Bill Gates would have been more productive or less productive had his taxes been higher. In fact, this seems like a very bad example, since Bill Gates himself has said he is in favor of a more progressive tax system and increased government spending on the poor, and his father is one of the nation's leading advocates for higher taxes on the wealthy.

The sad thing is most Democrats would vote for something like this

I hate bipartisanship, but it is interesting to note that Republicans donate a significantly higher % than Democrats. Lefties typically want to help people with other people's money.

I hate bipartisanship, but it is interesting to note that Republicans earn a significantly higher % than Democrats. Righties typically want to help themselves with tax breaks and dont care that the poor cannot afford basic healthcare.

*Typically donate a higher % of their income

FMP

First there's this:
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Gates has pledged to give all his money to charity. Buffet has too and has pledged $30 billion or so to this foundation.

Then there's this:

Estate Tax

Kicks in again in 2011. Jeebus.

Stunning, the poor want to legally rob the rich. Comical that some uneducated schmuck has the same vote I do.