cognitive dissident

John Cole has some great snark about the reality behind the rhetoric about the top marginal tax rate:

The 2010 proposed rate of 39.60% = socialism.
The 2002-2008 rates of 35.00% = capitalist nirvana.
The 39.6% rate of the 1990's = socialism.
Everything else = down the memory hole.

That Obama fellow sure is soaking the rich, isn't he?

Cole also provides the data, for those with short memories:

Philip Slater points out at HuffPo that "Money Doesn't Attract 'Talent,' It Merely Attracts Greed:"

Whereas the average ratio of CEO to worker salaries is about 20 to 1 in the rest of the industrial world--and was about that in America only a few decades ago--it has ballooned to 400 to 1 in recent times. Does this mean American corporate and banking executives are not only 20 times smarter than those abroad, but also 20 times smarter than the American executives who ran our economy before 1980?

Not very likely. But they're certainly 20 times greedier.

The past 35 years have seen an upward redistribution of wealth, as workers received a shrinking share of their productivity while working longer hours and paying more to maintain a middle-class lifestyle. Rectifying this injustice through progressive taxation is rewarding the work ethic, not undermining it. For a look at the other side, check out this ABC News article which quotes a whining attorney:

"We are going to try to figure out how to make our income $249,999.00. [...] Why kill yourself working if you're going to give it all away to people who aren't working as hard?"

Plenty of people who are working as hard as (or harder than) this anonymous attorney would be overjoyed to join the highest-paid echelon, but are instead struggling to make one-tenth (or less) of that income. The article also mentions a dentist who complains that:

...by reducing her income from her current $320,000 to under $250,000 by having her dental hygienist work fewer days and byl [sic] treating fewer patients, she would avoid paying higher taxes on the $70,000 that would be subject to increased taxation if Obama's proposal is signed into law.

As the lower tier of the upper class, these professionals aren't representative of the robber-baron mentality, but it must be nice to have the luxury to work less and still be financially comfortable. For more of the whining wealthy spouting Ayn-Randian-super-capitalist claptrap, look no further than this Michelle Malkin screed over at ClownHall. She writes about the pampered elites "going Galt," decrying "redistributionist thieves," and claims that "untold numbers of America's wealth producers are going on strike financially."

If the legions of overpaid and underperforming executives weren't able to rob the rest of us blind on their way out, we should say "Don't let the boardroom door hit you in the ass on the way to the Caymans."