Of course I know intellectually that the New York Times Style section exists solely in order to fill libertarians with existential disgust about the shallow, grasping lives that the free market enables its more successful denizens to lead. But even so, I was unable to control my visceral repulsion at the people described in this article who are--everyone got a hanky?--having to pare back their multimillion dollar lifestyles to a few paltry million a year.
These financial problems — if they can be called that — will hardly elicit tears from the rest of us. But in those gilded living rooms, there is a quiet nervousness about keeping up appearances.“Even if they’re not in danger of not paying their mortgage, there’s still a psychological change,” said Chris Del Gatto, chief executive of Circa, which has watched its business jump by 50 percent in the last year as wealthy clients sell their spare diamonds and Rolexes. “The economy is an issue even for people who don’t need the money.”
THEIR spouses could leave them when they discover that their net worth has collapsed to eight figures from nine. Friends and business associates could avoid them as they pass their lunchtime tables at Barney’s or the Four Seasons. And these snubs could trickle down to their children.
“They fear their kids won’t get invited to the right birthday parties,” said Michele Kleier, an Upper East Side-based real estate broker. “If they have to give up things that are invisible, they’re O.K. as long as they don’t have give up things visible to the outside world.”
. . . wealthy clients are cutting luxuries that they think their friends and relatives won’t notice, according to Mr. Del Gatto of Circa. At Circa’s midtown offices, he said, the seven consultation rooms have been busy with customers selling their precious gems. Some older couples, he said, are selling estate jewelry to help support their children who have lost Wall Street jobs. Bankers are paring down their collections of Patek Philippe watches. Wives from Greenwich and Scarsdale are selling 2-carat to 35-carat single-stone diamond rings. One recent client explained to Mr. Del Gatto that she was selling $2 million in diamonds she rarely wore, because her friends wouldn’t notice that they were gone.
“She said, ‘If I sold my Bentley or my important art, they would notice,’ ” he said. “That we hear, in differing examples, every day.”
I went to school with a fair sample of the most obnoxiously rich people in the country. I don't remember anyone saying to their parents, "No, I don't want Emily at my birthday party--her father's bonus dropped 90% this year." I have also lived my life under the impression that friends are the people who know when you're in trouble. In fact, I've always thought that that was one of the main joys of having friends. It's not as if anyone's unaware that there's a quasi-recession going on.
But the saddest thing is that it matters so much that other people think that they make crazy amounts of money. I understand why people might want to present a show of strength for business reasons, but c'mon--this stuff isn't secret. Bonuses are well known, company financials are public, or known to the investors, and it's hard to hide it when a real estate goes sour. Still, they lie, because they think that not making millions of dollars is shameful. It's one thing to lie about your finances because you blew it on craps and crystal meth, but because of an economic slowdown?
This is when I start flirting with the Megan Tax, which is a special tax for people who have too much money. "Too much" does not refer to any particular sum, but rather to the effect on the possessor: Larry Ellison clearly has too much money, just as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs clearly do not. Mostly it comes down to how much of your income you spend in order to show people how much money you can spend. I sometimes therefore toy with the idea that the purchase of certain objects, like $20,000 Hermes handbags, should trigger the Megan Tax, where the government takes half your money because you plainly have too much. The purpose is not retribution, nor redistribution. It is entirely paternalistic.
Appearances in Style section articles like this one have just been added to the mental list of ridiculous luxuries which should trigger the Megan Tax.
It's not just the people at the very high end in the article. I see in in any modestly higher income suburb. The fear is that the apparent membership in some exclusive upper class group will be forfeit if you are not displaying the right cues.
It's not a pleasant sight to see otherwise normal people be so uncomfortable with their own selves.
I've tried to estimate over the years the minimum annual income required to belong in this group. Here in the CT suburbs (not Greenwich) it is about $170-200K. That's enough to cover mortgage on a larger (4000 sq ft ) house, a couple of acceptable cars and possibly private school tuition. This also seems to be the level at which normally Republican business types turn democrat to gain in-group acceptability
I'm going to start pushing for the Megan Tax as my new official reform policy. Genius.
John McCain: seriously?
"Cocaine is God's way of saying you're making too much money." - Robin Williams
I just attended a wedding this weekend in Phila that was listed in the Times' style section. It was totally bitchin' I must say; not that I could afford it in a million years. Rich, middle-aged couples from the Main Line dancing to a 9-piece band playing "Let's Get It Started" and a Chic medley: priceless.
I would much rather have the ostentatious rich spend their money on meaningless luxuries than open amateur businesses. Buying luxuries like art and clothes transfers capital efficiently to those who will better invest it. When some nouveau riche decides to open up some misconceived business this wastes resources and is an ineffective use of capital. We really should be sending the message to these people that unless you spend all your capital on diamonds or art you have no class.
Megan, this is probably the weirdest specific way for a libertarian to reveal a streak of moral puritanism I've ever seen.
The disgustingly rich, or even the well to do middle class, spending their money on expensive status symbols, is a feature, not a bug, of the capitalist system.
It seems in some ways Megan, you instinctvely find this sort of thing distasteful, don't listen to those musings, as that way leads to Marxism.
I think too many people wrongly believe support for capitalism=support for whatever people do with the rewards of capitalism. If you can't call a rich douche a rich douche then I don't know what's left of America.
it's astounding how easy it is for humans to build such a beautiful cage, and then insist on living in it... they could walk out of it, if only they would.
Such people don't own anything. Their possessions own them. Their expectations, and other people's opinion own them.
For the same reason that Megan supports her Megan tax, I support confiscating most of the estates of the super wealthy after they die. There are few creatures on earth lower and less deserving of fortune than the children of the super wealthy. They end up blowing the family fortuen on cocaine and tacky behavior anyway and unlike their parents they didn't do anything to earn the money. Why not take it and use it productively. I call it the "Paris Hilton Tax Plan."
Really? As I recall there were 4 levels of popularity for guys and it all depended on three things: good looks, athletic ability, and socioeconomic status.
To be "A" list you needed all 3 (looks, money, and athletic ability) "B" you needed any two, "C" any one, and none of the three relegated you to "other".
So, can you really say that the social status of your peers didn't depend on their socioeconomic status?
Crap like this is why I don't like cities. Not only do I hate being crammed in with a bunch of other people and the traffic, there's something about the culture that prevails among people when they're in that situation.
Crap like this is why I don't like cities.
It's wonderful how a culture of egalitarian simplicity and Quaker austerity prevails in places like La Jolla.
Megan tax = Luxury tax
A strange admonition for a self-professed libertarian, no?
Really strange tax proposal for a libertarian. I assume its not serious.
If it were, not only would in put some tax agency in charge of determining how people should be spending their money, which should be bad enough, but if its is calculated in the form of money spent on appearance/ total income than the hardest hit class would be much much lower in the income bracket. You know the people who spend more on their car (status symbol) that they do on their house. In other words, every single male below the age of 30 would be taxed to death.
But what if you think an Hermes bag is beautiful? I suppose the Megan tax wouldn't kick in if someone bought a lovely painting for 20,000, someone who adored art and was supporting a lesser known artist?
I don't think I like the Megan tax. Some people are assholes. It's their G-d-given right to be.....
This behavior is indeed disgusting, but there's no need for a Megan Tax. Lesser Fool Theory (a fool and his money are soon parted) is still in operation.
Meghan,
Do you find any value in having a group of people who are in a position to consume the best that mankind can produce? I like living in a world that produces things like a $20,000 Birkin Bag or a $100,000 hand beaded Dior couture evening gown, or a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti.
I like that some people get to live life as well as it can be lived.
If you look back on the greatest cultural and artistic accomplishments of mankind, you will find, a group of people with the time and money to comission and support the creattion of great and magnificent things.
I am trying hard, and failing, to enter into the kind of mindset necessary to believe that Megan was being completely serious about the Megan Tax.
I second what jmo said above about status among upper middle class schoolchildren. Definitely family socio-economic status played a significant role. (I went to Collegiate, fwiw.) Of course, there was also a bit of reverse snobbery/liberal guilt, so if you were from a poor black family, that would be fine. But having a (white) father who was a solo legal practitioner rather than a partner at Simpson Thacher, or an office manager rather than an investment banker, would set you back.
There was much less of that at boarding school, where parents were far away, relatively spartan living conditions obtained for all, and opportunities for conspicuous consumption were much reduced.
I understand the distaste behind the Megan tax, but can't condone it, any more than I can condone my husband's wish for a biblical plague to clear out 90% of the population of Manhattan, though I understand that, too.
I'm with Freddie 100% when he says "If you can't call a rich douche a rich douche then I don't know what's left of America." Rich douches shouldn't be disincented from buying overpriced watches, so we can identify them. But I'll also note, for the record, that the great American tradition of ridiculing certain rich people for being crass is closely tied to the great American tradition of immediately trying to intermarry with them.
I don't think anybody thinks she is being serious, Freddie, but the musing about it, even gently, irks me somehow. I, however, shall heroically keep from suggesting a 'what irks Anon' tax.
I sometimes therefore toy with the idea that the purchase of certain objects, like $20,000 Hermes handbags, should trigger the Megan Tax, where the government takes half your money because you plainly have too much.
What about spending $20,000 or $200,000 on an original work of art? Megan Tax or no Megan Tax?
And why distinguish between one outrageously expensive handbag or pair of shoes vs a closet full of 'usually' expensive bags and shoes (plus the walk-in closets to hold them, plus the huge house to hold the walk-in closets)?
But really, this stuff doesn't bother me. It seems kind of funny, and pathetic, and stupid, but doesn't inspire outrage. I mean, I also think it's dumb when people spend $50K on a car when a $20K model would work just as well. Or build a 3,500 square foot house for a couple with no children. Or spend $2K on a Macbook Pro, when a $500 Toshiba would work just fine (ducking now). Or blow $150 on a bottle of wine.
But...I don't really care how other people spend (waste) their money. Reading stories like those just makes me feel smarter.
Someone has too much time on her hands. The Red Cross could use a helping hand. Volunteering will relieve you of worrying about how others lead their lives.
Don't you worry that you'll run out of inferiors if you keep perfecting the world by decree?
Slocum,
So you don't find any value in experiencing the best that man can produce? You would be happy going trough life only experiencing the Best Western, the Chevy Aveo, Denny's, etc.
Seems like a horribly dystopian way to live.
Do you see any value is spending extra to get something that is meticulously crafted, flawlessly engineered, constructed of the finest materials, spending money to incent people to produce the very best they can?
I imagine your dream world being like East Germany circa 1987 - all of us in our plastic shoes and 2-stroke Trabants, eating our rancid sausage.
John
June 3, 2008 11:05 AM
Except for the fact that the Paris Hiltons of the world never, ever, under any circumstances, wind up having to pay it. And the fact that the person who winds up facing the tax is inevitably a middle-to-upper-middle class small business owner to whose parents never realized that the tax law defined them as rich and whose business does not have a particularly transparent market value. But, hey, that's okay as long as we sneer at Paris Hilton while taking his money.
"spending money to incent people to produce the very best"
So how much would it take to get you to write in minimally literate English?
Very funny. I make 92K a year and have a masters and live in a trailer park. I am the QUEEN of the trailer park. But seriously, it leaves me lots of money for my favorite causes. But obviously I am an eccentric who doesn't understand what life is all about while most people agree that she who dies with the most fabric wins.
Gene,
English grammar and vocabulary are determined by common usage. If people use it, it's a word.
jmo-
Slocum didn't say his dream was everyone live like him. He was merely saying that he didn't need expensive things and felt like spending too much on material items was stupid.
As for myself, I go with whatever makes people happy as long as they can afford it. If some super rich person wants to drive a million dollar car, I'm happy for them. What I don't like is when people feel like they have to spend so much just to be accepted (or look down on others for not spending so much). That's just sad. True friends don't care what the label is on your clothes or what kind of car you drive.
jmo
Writing in marketing-speak seems inconsistent with sneering at middle-brow products and plumping up "meticulously-crafted" ones, nome sayin?
jmo, you can sample fine food and wine, exquisite hand-crafted items, and meticulously crafted goods made of the finest materials without entering a price range that would bankrupt anyone outside the elite classes, by following two rules:
Pay for the experience, not to be seen doing it. And never pay extra for a name.
If you're paying an order of magnitude more for a product than you would for its competitors, in all likelihood you're not really the sort of person who enjoys the finest things in life... you're just a sucker for hype.
We all know that status is a relative concept. Megan may sneer at people who are upset at being downgraded from 9 figure wealth to 8 figure and having to hock their Patek Phillippe watches. But then again there are probably people out there who sneer at someone who owns a Kindle, a PowerBook, etc., etc.
Maybe there's even a "Megan Tax" for any people foolish enough to flaunt their wealth by buying a Kindle rather than simply checking a book out of the library.
When you say “some people are @$$holes” are you referring to supporters of the Megan Tax or the people that it’s targeting?
I really don’t care if someone wants to buy nice things than I have no interest in purchasing or join exclusive clubs that I have no interest in joining because they care about status. It doesn’t really affect me one way or the other, at least not in a way that I have any legitimate cause to complain about.
On the other hand, supporters of using the tax code for social engineering never seem to know where to quit. First it’s my smokes and my booze, then it’s the “excess profits” from my employer, then it’s higher energy prices, etc.
Personally, while I don't care to acquire the items that Megan is talking about, I see no reason to rail at others for purchasing them, so long as that does not adversely affect me. After all, I have my own list of what to others would be over-priced frippery.
But this brings up a recurring point with me: would you rather 'the rich' be $2,000,000/yr on 'living expenses', and at least employing a few people, or would you rather have them spending the same amount of money to have an influence on politics all out of proportion to their numbers and judgment? _That_ I cannot abide.
Finally, to tie this in with another thread, I find the preoccupation with social status among the elites themselves disturbing. No mythical Verdienst uber alles for them! It seems quite clear from the article that appearance of status is more important for the acquisition and maintenance of status than anything so tawdry as being accomplished at some mortal task.
Maybe the Megan tax could be..
"No person should have more money than brains."
By that definition, I became successful in my twenties.
Megan's post comes off as "sour grapes" bitterness.
I don't object to people having, or wanting, very nice things. I think Bill Gates' big toy house is a perfectly valid use of his fortune. I object to people being so caught up in having other people know that they have nice things that they invest vast amounts of energy pretending that their income has not declined.
For the same reason that Megan supports her Megan tax, I support confiscating most of the estates of the super wealthy after they die. There are few creatures on earth lower and less deserving of fortune than the children of the super wealthy. They end up blowing the family fortuen on cocaine and tacky behavior anyway and unlike their parents they didn't do anything to earn the money.
According to the Stupid Grandson Theory, the children of the self-made rich often manage their inheritances quite wisely. It's when the money goes to the third generation, in other words the grandchildren of the people who originally earned it, that trouble is likely to start.
Paris Hilton doesn't quite fit this theory, being the great-granddaughter of the family business.
I also support confiscatory inheritance taxes to take the money away from the children and grandchildren of the super-rich. But since I have absolutely no faith that the government would spend this money more productively, I propose giving it all to me to redistribute as I see fit.
Personally, were I a Person of Wealthiness, I'd buy what I wanted---and any of my friends who sneered at me for my tastes would no longer be my friends.
If I wanted a super-fancy car, I'd by God buy one, but if all I wanted was a silly little Ford Festiva to putter around town in, that'd be what I'd buy.
And one thing the rich do with their purchases of super-fancy, cutting-edge goodies is serve as beta-testers for us commoner folk; this computer I'm writing on would've cost me $5000 or so when the Pentiums first came out, instead of the $350 or so it cost my brother to get it for me for Xmas. VCRs, DVD players, you name it, the rich buy them first and work the bugs out, so that when the price drops as it always does, my model works just fine. Long live the rich! YAAAY Paris Hilton! (Seriously, she's blonde, not bad-looking, and apparently has NO inhibitions; what's not to like? Do you think I'd want conversation with her?)
So you don't find any value in experiencing the best that man can produce?
At $20,000, how much better can it be for a couple of leather pieces stitched together than a $100?
That handbag better be able to do my laundry and vacuum my floors. Designer labels are such a waste. For the same price, you could fly to Bangkok, find a tailor, show him an item in a magazine and he'll make the same thing for about the same quality. On top of that, you could relax on the beach in Ko Samui while he makes it.
I think Megan's post was made with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Yes, it sounds contradictory to have a libertarian espouse what some would consider Marxist views, but that's what makes us human. If people don't like it, they can get their own blog.
Why not just implement a VAT? Luxury items (non-housing, non-transportation) would receive an additional 25% tax. I'm a cultural and economic moderate libertarian and I propose the following:
*90% income tax on any family who's prized brat appears on MTV's Sweet 16.
*95% income tax on anyone who has appeared on any MTV or VH-1 reality show.
*75% tax on plastic surgery, unless it's reconstructive.
*100% tax on therapy for pets.
*1,000% tax on oversized sunglasses.
*100% tax on Hummers.
That should do it. It may not necessarily yield any social or economic benefits, but I think I'd feel better and isn't that what a blog's all about?
I think the person who designs it deserves not to have his intellectual property stolen. Or do you think artists have no right to profit from their creative works?
JackofAllTirades,
I think it might make sense to add a couple of things:
* 500% tax on any stay at an "eco-resort" you don't walk or bicycle to.
* 200% tax on any purchase from Urban Outfitters
A consistently logical libertarian viewpoint would not care one whit how others chose to spend their own incomes ... after all, it is their property to do with as they choose. Nobody else's business.
This idea is puritanical perhaps, or marxist, maybe socialist, but clearly not accurately described as libertarian.
I object to the "Style" section of the paper.
It think your moral outrage is rendered somewhat flaccid when you begin a paragraph by saying
"I went to school with a fair sample of the most obnoxiously rich people in the country."
ruralcounsel - A consistently logical libertarian viewpoint would not care one whit how others chose to spend their own incomes
I think it's better just to say that a libertarian wouldn't use government coercion. Peer pressure and revulsion are fair game. For that matter, cultural controls and religious institutions are vital for government to be absent.
ruralcounsel,
I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. Why should the belief that the government has no right or should have no authority to determine how people spend their money preclude one from having an opinion on others' decisions?
No, no, no.
The proper libertarian position is that poor people should not eat shit and die, because that would take shit out of the mouths of the people who create wealth. Poor people should not even eat their own shit, because they should not be given enough food to produce shit in the first place. They should just die.
Of course McArdle, who lives off a trust fund, is secretly jealous of people who create wealth, because she lacks any ability to create wealth herself. When the trust fund runs out, McArdle won't last a month.
Thorley Winston -
That's what I get for swearing, when, in general, I don't think swearing is very nice.
I wasn't referring to Ms.McCardle as an as*hole. I like this blog and I enjoy her commentary. I never understand some of the vitriol directed towards her.
Okay, I read Thorley Winston's comment wrong, too, and responded, er, wrongly.
I give up. Time for coffee. It's late in the dayand I still haven't woken up.
*I am shallow and tend to like things like Hermes, although I don't have the money for any of it.
Don't care about fancy cars, though. If I ever got really rich I bet I would have some Hermes bags, rooms full of books, maybe a super modern couch, and that would be about it for me, materialisome-wise!
A Megan Tax would be delightful. People who are suffering - and they do suffer, I have seen it - from a need to be certified as really rich would be able to point to their Megan Tax listing. They really would feel better.In fact, I think the tax would need a stern collector (a retirement job for Megan herself?) who would refuse to accept voluntary contributions from those who wished to inflate their Megan list status.
The "clogs to clogs in three generations" (as we say in Yorkshire) issue is a different kettle of fish. Warren Buffet is the latest prominent example of how to deal with it, in the interests of your children as well as of the rest of the world.
Megan said, "It's one thing to lie about your finances because you blew it on craps and crystal meth..."
In my circles, that's called investing...
Why should libertarians be filled with "existential disgust" at these "shallow people"?
Where's Tom Wolfe when you need him? No one has a narrower or deeper skill set when it comes to analyzing status-obsessed homo sapiens douchebagus.
Paris Hilton! (Seriously, she's blonde, not bad-looking, and apparently has NO inhibitions; what's not to like? Do you think I'd want conversation with her?)
Second that. Just make sure you double bag.
Why not? Just because you think someone is within their rights to act like a shallow twit does not mean you necessarily have to approve of their twittery.
Bill,
I meant it more along the lines of why would libertarians in particular would find such people disgusting. It almost seemed like "liberals" should have been the word, but I am sure Megan wrote it the way she meant to.
According to Forbes, Paris Hilton makes over $6 million a year on her own from her various endorsements and so forth. If she were just some trust fund socialite, you never would have heard of her. Face it, she's an entrepreneur, and a good one at that. Take her inheritance from her, and her standard of living won't fall that much.
So you don't find any value in experiencing the best that man can produce? You would be happy going trough life only experiencing the Best Western, the Chevy Aveo, Denny's, etc.
Well, if Best Western, Aveos, and Denny's were all that was on offer, sure I could be happy. Compared to what 99.x% of people who ever lived experienced, they are all in the category of miracles. Seriously. A car is a friggin' miracle on its own, but one that has air-condition, surround sound, anti-lock brakes, and air-bags? Same with a clean, safe, private hotel room with unlimited hot and cold running water and a TV.
I'm not saying I never go more upscale than that, because I do. But I avoid going way out on the diminishing returns end of the curve just so I can say I have 'the finest'.
Seems like a horribly dystopian way to live.
Not being able to recognize how silly and spoiled you have to be to turn up your nose at all the above strikes me as a lousy way to live.
Do you see any value is spending extra to get something that is meticulously crafted, flawlessly engineered, constructed of the finest materials
A well-engineered product is NOT one made with the finest materials or the most meticulous craftsmanship. A good engineer trades off cost against utility. Bridges are built of steel, not titanium. I don't want 'the finest' materials, and 'the most meticulous craftsmanship', I want the product that gives me 95% of the utility of 'the finest' at 10% of the cost.
So rather than spend, say $5000 on an expensive mountain bike, I'd rather have a $500 bike, and a $500 kayak, and a $500 laptop, and a $500 digital SLR, and a whole bunch of weekend trips to go out and enjoy them.
And if she were not a trust fund socialite, would she be making $6 million/yr from endorsements? Be honest, now.
A well-engineered product is NOT one made with the finest materials or the most meticulous craftsmanship. A good engineer trades off cost against utility. Bridges are built of steel, not titanium. I don't want 'the finest' materials, and 'the most meticulous craftsmanship', I want the product that gives me 95% of the utility of 'the finest' at 10% of the cost.
I see good engineering as about achieving the goals of the customer to the greatest degree possible after considering all constraints. I think that you're implicitly assuming that price is one of the more significant constraints. That's not necessarily true.
If you engineer a robotic vacuum which lasts for a year costs $200 and saves a median person 10 minutes a week, and it might make sense for anyone who makes more than $200 after taxes in 8 2/3 hours, which is a lot of people. Engineer a better vacuum which saves 12 minutes a week and lasts 10 years but costs $54,000 and not many people will buy it, but it's not purely a status symbol. If saving 2 minutes of your time is worth more than $100 to you than buy it with a clear conscience that it was cost effective. Just because there aren't many people who make the $12 Million/year for 50 weeks working 40 hours a weeks doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with their decision.
It's so disturbing to find myself agreeing with Freddie, LFP, and SoV. It just goes to show that high school really does never end for some people.
As I keep trying to tell you, Rob, I'm not a liberal! Just a farm-boy, albeit a technocratic one who got hisself some of that kollidge edication. Not surprising that my basic values are essentially conservative ones.
Thinking about it, from a strictly material utility-maximizing perspective, status consumption is pretty irrational. If something is particularly worthwhile, the purely logical thing to do would be to consume as discretely as humanly possible. After all, why build competition for scarce luxury.
It's so disturbing to find myself agreeing with Freddie, LFP, and SoV. It just goes to show that high school really does never end for some people.
Word. In fact, I believe the phrase "hat trick" came to mind when I read SoV's 12:59er.
Ha!
I think the Megan tax should go to...Megan!
>they think that not making millions of dollars is shameful
I blame this in part on the rhetoric of the more rabid free-traders, who have one-upped Newspeak by proclaiming that greed is virtue. (Thank god the evangelists are there to overturn the tables...oh...wait...)
John: "the children of the super wealthy. They end up blowing the family fortuen on cocaine and tacky behavior"
This is correctly referred to, in technical terms, as "proper allocation of capital by rational market actors."
john-
For the same reason that Megan supports her Megan tax, I support confiscating most of the estates of the super wealthy after they die.
I would rather take a 100% "death tax" from the 5.5 billion poorest people in the world- as just another way of saying, "You failed"!
Why would you ever want to penalize "success"?
Same here. It is unnerving.
I'll join Rob and Mouse in observing the strangeness of our all agreeing. It's mostly what Freddie said:
I believe in the system these people to become obscenely rich, because I believe it helps the rest of us out, but that doesn't automatically make any uses of that system laudable and moral.
Meanwhile though, I was struck by the notion that this post, if serious, is the least libertarian thing Megan has ever posted. I can only assume that her "Megan tax" on conspicuous consumption is a joke from frustration, not a serious policy proposal.
a. It won't raise any money
b. Does that mean you'll pay off their debts?
c. They won't care they're dead.
You are either a total idiot or a send up.
Perhaps one explanation is that you might fear that even though there's an economic slowdown, it will be perceived that you mismanaged your money. How would you really be able to tell whether someone is covertly flitting away their cash or if they're just experiencing the consequences of a slowdown? Simpler to just signal uninterrupted wealth, than risk having to overcome the misperception of financial mismangement.
I think these people put a very very high value on winning. Having any reduction in your circumstances says that you aren't as much of a winner as the guy who didn't experience such a reduction. I don't sense that they put a really high value on wisdom as such.
This looks like a tax on people too poor to countersignal.
Sov: Paris Hilton wouldn't have gotten her gigs endorsing stuff had she not been a trust fund baby, but she is hardly just sitting around doing nothing but spending down money she didn't earn. She's making good use of the resources chance gave to her - like I use my brain and Michael Jordan uses his athletic talent. I don't admire her as I would, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger, but she's not some totally useless trust fund socialite. See also: Ivanka Trump.
Telnar re: vacuums. Your example hit home. I fought my husband on getting a Dyson for the longest time, thinking it was an outrageously over-priced gadget designed primarily to let men feel the tool was sufficiently tech-heavy to be manly to use. Then he just got one. 3x more expensive than the POS we had before, and it paid for itself in a year of my not having to dismantle it and try to pull out gunk with a hanger. Sometimes you really are paying for quality.
I can imagine the boasts now: "Last year I paid seven million in Megan taxes!"
Anyway, somebody who pays $20k for a $20 handbag is already being "taxed". And the best bit is that the government only gets some of the money!
I WISH I had blown my money on craps and meth!!! As it is it's all in retirement accounts and unless I turn 59 and 1/2 I have to pay a 10% penalty to enjoy it.
Fascist pinkos.
By the way. We DO have such a Megan tax. It's called New York State estate taxes. Why do you think so many snowbirds die in Florida?
Can I suggest that the Waltons be subject to the Megan Tax? If you have that much money it's criminal to be so...boring.
remember how the luxury tax destroyed the u.s yacht industry in the '80s