In article ,
 "Vorlonagent"  wrote:

> Then we have the gray motivations.  The "rich" don't really
need all that 
> money so we can take it if we think it's a good cause--and we have nothing 
> if not a lot of expensive good causes. Besides, income transfers like this 
> keep the gap between the rich and the poor from widening so fast.

 Never have in the past. There is a rather interesting study floating 
around (from the IRS IIRC) that indicates since the end of WWII, income 
taxes RECEIVED always hang around 30% no matter what the actual marginal 
rates and tax brackets say. It looks as though anything above that makes 
it worthwhile for people to go hunting for loopholes and maximizing 
them, below that, just ain't worth the trouble I guess.  Found that to 
be amazing stat when making the argument about tax policy and income 
transfer. 
> 
> Then there are the dark motives which you allude to.  The rich are evil 
> because they control "the system" (capitalism) which
exploits, burns, global 
> warms and animal extincts its way across the planet.  

  Other intersting study from the IRS. Looked at a sample of tax returns 
from 1990 and the same individuals 10 years later. They found a bunch of 
churn with something like 1/3 moving from one quintile to another over 
the decade. While most just bumped up one or two, there were a few that 
went bottom to top and vice versa. The "rich" aren't always the same 
people.
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