should we be taxing earnings...or should we be taxing wealth?

[Hoyt]

69. I'm with you in concept, but much of "wealth" is based on paper -- like value of stocks or real

estate.

If you begin taxing that at high levels, the value will fall immediately -- perhaps precipitously causing an economic collapse worse than we have seen before.

Again, I don't disagree with changing the way we tax folks and think the wealthy have gotten a big pass in recent years.

But, in our zeal to get them, we can't screw up the whole system unless we are prepared to go back to living like those in the 1930s (outhouses, few social programs, etc.). Personally, I'm not opposed to that at my point in life. But you think unemployment and stagnation is bad now, think what it will be like if this house of cards we've built crumbles.

Plus, I don't think taxing the rich will produce as much money as some believe. It will certainly help, but it won't relieve the rest of us from having to work, pay significant taxes, etc. If you took every penny of wealth, it wouldn't pay everything we need to pay for more than a few years. After that, we'll be eating dirt because the system will have collapsed and all of us trying to eke out a living won't produce what is needed to provide health care, welfare, education, roads, etc.

Now a reasonable tax on identifiable (not paper) wealth, transaction taxes on stock sales and the like, increasing income tax rates on those with larger incomes, etc., are OK with me.