CNBC is reporting that 51 German millionaires and billionaires have endorsed the idea of that rich people should have to give an extra 10 percent of their income to the government. I’m tempted to dismiss this story since (according to my rudimentary math skills) these clowns represent only 6/1000th of 1 percent of all wealthy Germans, but there’s a more important point to discuss. There’s no law stopping these neurotic people from giving extra money to government, so the real story is that they want the government to impose this bad policy on all successful people. I’ve debated this topic with a couple of ultra-rich American leftists (see here and here) and they never have a good answer when I ask them why they don’t give away their fortunes to the politicians and stop trying to impose their neurotic views on others.
A group of 51 German millionaires and billionaires founded a Club of the Wealthy and wrote to Chancellor Angela Merkel proposing to give up 10 percent of their income in the form of a “Rich Tax” for 10 years to consolidate the budget. With an estimated 800,000 millionaires (in dollars) — about 1 percent of the total population — Germany is eye-to-eye with the USA and has long overtaken the UK as Europe’s number one “millionaire-land”, both in terms of absolute numbers and as a percentage of the population. But traditionally, the Germans don’t dare to feel good about their riches.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/37610762
