First of all two things. I am under a short leash time wise so hopefully I can get in most of my thoughts.
And think of this post more as a philosophical attempt to try and change thinking than actual practical solutions. I will try to get to some practical ideas somewhere down the line, but for now trying to set up a different type of approach to solving poverty. And since a philosophy there is going to be more holes than swiss cheese. Just think more of trying to redefine what can be done in reading this than trying to find all the holes.
And going back to the previous post and some of the democratic way of thinking, you just cannot keep throwing money at the problem of poverty. Money itself won't solve poverty, it has to be an attitude change. The democrats act like they have the found the original basket that was used to feed the multitudes in the Gospels. That there is this unlimited amount of fish and bread that can be poured out with the right amount of money thrown at the situation. Well that has only happened once in history so until that happens again we must find ways to change our thinking and behaviour.
So: I want to be rich, there is nothing wrong with being rich, having money, even much of it. You have to applaud the person who starts a business and makes a small or even large fortune. What Henry Ford did to create generational wealth with his company in of itself is not bad. Yes lets applaud Gates and Jobs. They developed whole new industries with what they created. And I have talked previously about how we need to look to new industries to help us out of our current economic situation. Let us continue to build and to build wealth.
The issue is what does wealth for wealth's sake do for us as a society. Is there a line that a person can cross where individual wealth becomes non productive for society. And in general there is a word for this: greed. The problem becomes in how to define greed and what can a society expect to accomplish be creating a social policy to fight greed. Well you probably cannot find that line or policy.
The next step then is to put in place a system where a person who is wealthy is rewarded for certain behaviors that go counter to the concept of greed and are productive for society. Now we have some in place like you get a tax break for charitable contributions. Nowadays though we need more. Much more, see issue of poverty. The war on poverty cannot be won with money, we seriously need to change attitudes across the board.
The rich are always complaining about being taxed too much. That they shouldn't be taxed because the contribute to society by creating jobs etc, well I agree if they actually put that and more into place. The issue becomes where does their wealth become productive vs counter productive and yes individual wealth can become counter productive to society. A person who makes hundreds of millions, but never really invests into the economy at large and basically is only making money to make money is in a whole different way a larger drag on society than a person who is on the government dole. Take some re rationalizing to digest that thought, but at this point in our history we need to make these steps.
I have mentioned before about using tax policy to change behavior. Basically think of tax policies that are flexible not embedded into the IRS code on a permanent basis that can be used to vary how people behave. Yes there are some serious constitutional issues with this thinking, so maybe behavior isn't the right word. You just have to rethink what we are trying to accomplish though. So take for example the charitable gift tax break, it is another way we throw money at a problem, but how much of it gets reinvested into getting people out of a problem or situation. Now some do, for example non profits that work to eradicate cancer etc. This is a working example of a productive charitable contribution. Money is invested into research that produces better health.
It is this thinking, but much more involved that is how we should approach dealing with poverty.
Going back to above (running out of time here) my example for this post then is that people who use their wealth productively should get the tax break. And this can be done in a variety of ways especiall since it takes more than money, but stronger attitude adjustment to win the war on poverty. So lets take the person who has generated large wealth for himself and can now start to live off the income from his wealth etc. The idea here would be for him not to be taxed heavily if he gives back to society, not just money, but his talents. A successful business man could go into underdeveloped areas and help them build businesses so the population of these areas build their own wealth. HIs income tax percentage would be lower than a wealthy person who only spent time increasing their wealth. THere are some more examples in my head that would help to illustrate this further, but my time is up for today. I will try to get back to more examples. The idea of a different tax rate not just on the traditional amount of income ( our graduated income tax rate) but on what you contribute to help others, including time and talents is something I didn't create, but something that can be part of the solution for many.
More to come.
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