Peterkin

I'm not smart enough to work that one out.

Who is represented by the lazy mouse? Schools? Fire departments? Space stations? Symphony orchestras? Refugee centers? Addiction rehab centers? All of those entities benefit from, and many depend on, charitable donations and volunteers. Charity takes up the slack left by government funding and staffing of enterprises that benefit society at all income levels. That's why donations are tax deductible. (Whether political donations should be included is a moot point here.) While the rich and some of the middle class can buy security and other services from the private sector, the working poor, the unemployed poor, the rejected, marginalized, the old, disabled and disenfranchised cannot. They depend on government (tax revenues) and charity. Of those, government is the more accountable and permanent: it can plan several years ahead and allocate known quantities of revenue according to some rationale of need and urgency. Meanwhile, charity is erratic in intake and whimsical in allocation. The only advantage of charitable organizations is that they don't change leadership and direction every four years. There is certainly a cultural element in which people prefer as their social welfare facility: charity is individualistic, dramatic, often ostentatious; civil service is anonymous, reliable, mundane. (PS, when both were snatched up by a pair of owls to feed to their nestlings, the lazy mouse just had time to get off a jocular wink at his industrious brother...)

No, I have not suggested that. I have supported, with a larger body of evidence than you offered to the contrary, that very little of that spending reaches the lowest levels of the economy. In contrast to moneys collected as tax. I did the first and last stages of the production-to-end user chain. You can fill in the rest.

Price of luxury yacht. Profit at the last step to end user. from which presumably the Commission on the final sale. is subtracted. So, on the Tatoosh, listed at 90,000,000 Euros, the last transaction would skim off +/- 22,000,000 for non-productive contributions. I won't track the cost-profit ratio all the way down to digging the... sure I will! The employees in a Canadian iron mine make quite decent salaries. None of the listed occupations are at the bottom of the food-chain. They each receive a small fraction of the sale of the raw ore that will go into the steel that will go into the hull of a boat. The shareholders receive a bigger fraction. I don't have the sales figures or the math skill to calculate how much they each contribute to that yacht or what part of the final price they get. Somewhere up the chain, there must be minimum-wage dockworkers and packers who also get little dribbles. Near the top is an interior designer - who is just as productive as the broker - buying furnishings and finishes, the cost of which vary greatly, but I guarantee it's not formica and naugahyde, and their time ain't cheap. None of this disproves that the trickle-down to the bottom is minimal. This is a misrepresentation of a post on the first page in which I had - quite unbitchingly - enumerated and documented a great many very rich people who support worthy and charitable causes with large donations. After which I appended: Okay, so, having slogged through all that, do you want to analyze other areas of luxury spending from a socio-economic perspective, yell at me, or move on? I guess everyone has moved on! That'll teach me to go evidence-hunting.

Really? Good to know. Can you address the provenance of the other luxury items I listed with equal clarity and dispassion? I mean the economic and social effects, rather than the condition of anyone's underwear.

One of them is a boat, yes. What's it made of? Where did the wood come from? What animals used to live in that copse of trees? Where did the paint and fabric and all the other luxury furnishings come from? Who made them for what wages in what conditions. I didn't say making it was evil; I said it's hard to trace the collateral damage - in terms of waste, byproducts, land use, ecology, social organization, habitat, human health, etc. - of luxury spending. While the collateral damage from the trade in precious stones, furs, ivory, hand-crafted automobiles, luxury foods and potables, timepieces, fabrics, as well as exotic entertainments, accommodations and travel are all different from yachts in particular; some are more benign than others, but they each do have an ecological footprint as well as a social impact. How much of it is inside or outside what country's laws is a separate question - I was only considering the taxation issue. Do kidneys count as luxury items? I imagine cocaine is outside the law, most places, at least for not-rich people.

You mean money abstracted away into shelters, safe from taxation and out of the economy? Or money tied up in non-productive investments and thus written off or deferred? Both are significant amounts. I think what @Sensei was addressing with the yacht example is the trickle-down, tax cuts for the rich floats-all-boats economic theory, rather than the allocation of funds in general. Indeed, buying anything, even obscenely overpriced pictures, shiny pebbles, bottles of wine or, yes, scary trips to nowhere puts something back into the economy and something into the pockets of working people. At a cost, though, which may be out of proportion to the contribution being made. It's hard to measure the collateral damage from luxury spending, or trace exactly who gets stuck with all the bills and cleanup.

That's an interesting idea, because it has two equal and opposite parts of an answer. On the right hand, yes, there is a retrogressive trend in large segments of the population. In the Middle Ages, people were told by absolute authority figures exactly what was true and what was right, and they believed it all (even when what they called truth and right ran counter the people's intuitive sense and empirical observation) for two reasons: it was dangerous to do - or at least admit - otherwise, and the common belief in absolute authority gave them certainty; moral and intellectual security. Those were anxious times, what with plagues and wars and Muslims at the door: certainty, authority and moral security were so precious that they would sacrifice their neighbors to it, and risk their own lives for it. On the left hand, this age of ignorance and superstition is an artificially manufactured product of technology. The same forces at work: frightening events, threats, anxiety, insecurity, resentment of the alien, scarcity of material comforts - and a relatively small number of manipulative power-seekers. However, the manipulators of those forces have different tools. The absolute authorities are factional, not national: each segment of the population - whether divided along geograpic, political, economic, educational, ethnic or religious lines - has its own set of authorities and trusted sources, and truste only those sources. The manipulators or leaders can set up more accessible podia and sock puppets; they can reach more of the gullible faster, more effectively; the gullible can then infect their peers almost instantly, over any distance.

I like that explanation! It's one I never thought of - or even about - but will consider now. Re the yacht and trickle down, I was on a slightly divergent track. A luxury item accounts for a very, very small niche in the making and marketing of consumer goods. It's true that low-paid workers are employed in the extraction of resources, the generation of energy and the manufacture of materials and components. The key point being that there are many such workers, and they each turn out a generic product in vast quantity. Only a minuscule portion of the ticket price on that yacht reach one. Their respective employers, selling the product on to other users, makes a profit and receives a tiny portion of the eventual yacht. By the time these components work their way into the final product and the salesman collects his commission and bonus, the boat will have paid variously large and small portions of skilled workers, professionals and specialists' salaries and five or six tiers of profit to the investors in all of those companies. The unskilled worker at the bottom of the pyramid would be paid the same hourly wage if yachts were omitted from the final inventory. Maintenance and repair, crews and servants do account a few more jobs - much like hotel, cruise and vacation resort jobs; a very small portion of the work-force, changing the fortunes of nobody. Where there is a quite comfortable living to be made is in the specialized trades - furnishings and upholstery, decorating and engine repair, sail-making and hull patching. And the very, very rare profession of marine architect. But it makes no noticeable dent in the bottom three tiers of wage-earners, thus: It barely reaches the bottom of the economic food-chain.

Go ahead. Ask.

About what? You made no opening comment, no statement, no ethical proposition. You addressed this thread to me specifically. If you have something to tell me or ask me or argue with me regarding the ethics of taxation or billioonairehood or mice, please state it clearly so that I can respond without becoming any more trollish than I already am.

You might have articulated that in the opening post, if only to save on confusion. The title question is rather obscure. But, on the principle of "better late", which nuances of taxes do you wish to explore? For that matter, what do you mean by 'nuances'? Still don't know how you frame the the issue of 'value to society'. It's not for me to suggest; it's for you to clarify what aspect of ethics you wish to discuss. Enlighten us, please.

That's the best sentence I've read all week. It could crown a pyramid of economic, sociological, psychological and historical scholarship. Alas, such an edifice would not fit into the available space. As things do stand, humans, if they hope to prosper as a species, must learn to control money; reduce its status from deity to the medium of exchange that its advocates assert it to be. Taxation is one mechanism whereby that could be achieved - if government were not in thrall to money. There are other devices. Christian, Judaic and Muslim scriptures urge charity on the prosperous faithful, and they have had much influence. A sense of obligation to some particular institution or organization, such as the one Jared Isaacman holds for St. Jude's hospital or Alex Trebek did for his alma mater, often prompts generous contributions to the betterment their fellow humans. A personal interest in some cultural activity makes some wealthy people lifelong supporters of the arts and art education. Love and friendship. Concern for the future. Popularity; social standing. Very rich people are as motivated by the same feelings and ideas as the rest of us. Unfortunately, one of the most compelling of these feelings is "I want mooooore!" and one of the most pervasive ideas is "Anything I own this, nobody else can. " It's at this end of the scale that government needs to step in, like a good parent, and regulate the uncouth child's behaviour. Siblings and peers can help!

It's a cognitive gap, apparently. The Craig. T. Nelson problem. Granted, he's only a millionnaire, so maybe that doesn't count.

Is there a purpose for this thread? Why is it in Ethics?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWS8Mg-JWSg How old do you think I am?

You're asking me? OTOMH, government, ex-wives and spiral staircases. Did I guess any right? Do I get to cross the bridge?

There's lots in Alaska. I think, as far as water is liquid - it's a really hardy plant. Poor. I had some in a small pond, years ago. As the pond dried up, the bullrushes retreated. By the third year, they had all died out. It more commonly propagates through rhizomes, so you could dig some up from a roadside ditch to have a stand of them sooner. But they do need mud.

I realize that. As the launches take place at Cape Canaveral, I just wondered how this: @dimreepr : transaction works. Still unclear, actually, but it's not important.

No. You pointed out that at first, only a very few people made use of air transportation because of the cost. Then as it became cheaper, more and more people did. Which is how the aviation industry grew and grew, consumed more and more more fossil fuel and produced more and more CO2, noise pollution, bird deaths, airport sprawl, etc. and a lot of peripheral damage due to tourism and the industries serving it. Not an altogether risible idea, but of course civilization is dependent on it now. Still, the Covid crisis did reduce much of the frivolous flying and made the world a little cleaner and safer for a while. There isn't much to recommend a pandemic! As with air traffic, so also with space traffic: I disapprove of using such incidentally harmful and potentially deadly tools as playthings. I didn't think it was on topic. His good works won't prevent anyone burning to death in a defective vehicle. Once the mechanical problems are corrected, I'm sure electric cars will be safe, clean and wonderful. In space, bailing out doesn't seem like an option.

I didn't count them, but I know "filthy" isn't one I generally employ, as I don't consider t a term of endearment, and I have an unsubstantiated suspicion they don't, either. Why do you think I should be complimentary about the super rich? I am failing to take comfort from that. Indeed I did. He paid for all the seats. He is doing it for a hospital, which is very nice - but not a pre-requisite for space jaunts. No, there are lots, not heavily used. But that's the SpaceX is launching from. They're where I left them. Read as you please.

What did I say about them that's so offensive? 1. They're useless in an emergency on a space flight. 2. Their joy-riding does not advance science and technology, but does add to space debris and air pollution. 3. I think that's a waste of resources. How??? He'd just die, same as on the Challenger. There is absolutely nothing he could do. I don't know why this happens; it's a technical bug that needs to be corrected. I never said "filthy" - you did, at least twice. How come? AFAIK, they're the only ones who can afford a seat. unless somebody wins one in a lottery. 10 years from now, it might be as cheap as $100,00 - still a bit out of reach for the average paramedic and short-order cook. Plastic surgeons and stock brokers, I suppose. They won't be able to fly a spaceship, either, but if one place is taken up by an astronaut, it'll be $I33,000, plus a third share in his salary and life insurance premium. That's not politics; that's economics. I happen to think that money could be put to more productive uses, including more effective ways of promoting science, but that's just opinion. Funny, that's exactly what I've been saying all along. They're grownups; presumably they know the risk; if they want to assume that risk according to the terms of their contract, whether that's wise or not, it's perfectly appropriate for them to do so. I have concerns, but that's not one of them. At least until Cape Canaveral is under 10' of ocean. https://www.climatecentral.org/news/cape-canaveral-launch-sites-threatened-by-rising-seas When were we ever off? Do you think this is wise or appropriate? No. Yes.

What we each might want for ourselves is not really on the table. It's not us going into the capsule. I wouldn't. They want to. Whether it's wise or not, it seems to be the right decision for them.

Thank you for that. I don't really have any further arguments. The only objective one was about the waste and pollution mentioned in my first post. Seems to me, the Earth is fragile enough, and is already orbited by an unconscionable amount of its own squandered resources; it doesn't really need to be an even more reckless playground for the people who benefit most from squandering its resources. If such a stance is considered political, I'm okay with it. If holding it gives me a bad rep, I'm okay with that, too. My personal opinion regarding these private flights is that I would not willingly be riveted into a vehicle owned by someone whose vehicles occasionally combust spontaneously. But if an autonomous, informed adult wants to take that risk, it's theirs to take. I'm no more concerned with their safety than that of Everest climbers or motorcycle racers. I do see that NASA, unable to launch its own ferry service for astronauts and scientists, would rather depend on charter flights with a private American company than a Russian government one. (I'm not crazy about the situation where America's space agency has that choice to make, but that wasn't in the OP topic.) However, I don't see how circus and mail-order business CEO's having a super-expensive carnival ride advances mankind.

If I missed a point, please provide information to set me straight. I thought NASA was publicly funded.