Group of Rich Germans Demand That Rich Pay Higher Taxes

By Daniel Miessler on October 24th, 2009: Tagged as Politics

money

[ Germany's Rich Push to Have Themselves Pay Higher Taxes ]

So, it goes without saying that America is better than Germany–with us being God-fearing religious types and all–so where are the Americans pushing for the fortunate to shoulder more of the load in order to help others?

Ah, yes, they’re too busy screaming “Mine, mine, mine!”. Oh, and they already pay far less tax than the rich do in Germany.

So what’s the difference between these two groups? Simple. America is infused with an overriding culture of selfishness, whereas Germany, and Europe in general, is more in line with a culture of community.

Both are needed, of course, and both are bad at the extremes, but we here in America are unfortunately at the selfishness extreme, and it’s killing us. ::

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cooperati

So the pope's German. Of course the country's going to be more charitable to everyone, including to their government.

Yay, redistribution! Still the national socialists we've loved for most of the last century.

OK, some.

-=T=-
CarlM

Daniel, get some perspective. This is a group of 44 wealthy Germans (so far) .. it's not a huge group. There are plenty of (ultra-)wealthy Americans who have made similar views known here.
http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

That's not the key. “Having the same perspective”. No. The key is that they're pushing for political action to actually change tax policy in order to tangibly solve an existing problem.
CarlM

Daniel, your post implies that attitudes on this topic are different in the two countries (Germany and the US). You didn't merely point out that there was a group of wealthy Germans who were in favor of higher taxes on the wealthy. You went on to imply that there were no such people here in the US. This is factually incorrect. It MAY also be the case that most wealthy Germans are screaming “Mine, mine, mine!”. The data certainly doesn't suggest otherwise, but you have jumped to the conclusion that these 44 petition signers are representative of wealthy Germans and that those in the US screaming “Mine, mine, mine!” are representative of wealthy Americans.

During the presidential campaign last year there were MANY such comments from wealthy Americans. The one who pushed the issue the hardest was Warren Buffett, but he was far from alone. For a recent example of Buffett's push for political action on this, follow this link: http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/58129-buffet…

Too often, Daniel, you let your position on an issue color how you view evidence. I'm sure that we're all guilty of this to some extent, but I'll still call you on it when I see you doing it.
http://danielmiessler.com/ Daniel Miessler

I agree. Too emotional of me.
http://www.r4karte.ch/ r4i

Thats absolutely true, one always tries to put in the shoes which he feels comfortable in, this can be related with the taxes paid by them.

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