Going Galt

[tongodeon]

Libertarians and tax reform advocates have been advocating going Galt. Named after John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, Galt and his fellow individualist captains of industry "go on strike" by withdrawing his entrepreneurial talents from the collectivist common men whose socialist governments and progressive tax structure did not provide sufficient

Comments

[mcfnord]

I am on the last chapter of Atlas Shrugged, and find comparasons to the book overblown.

Last year I did decide to quit when I hit the 25% tax rate. It seemed too annoying that one day I paid a dime more on each dollar. So I did go Galt b4 it was popular.

This year I won't have this problem.

[cdk]

Why not stop when you exhaust the standard deduction, then? Same dime hike on the next dollar there.

[mcfnord]

i itemize. i've done some cool stuff with consumer credit when it was free though. i could max out my 401k while staying in the 10% rate.

[cdk]

Ok, but still, you likely encountered a point where the last dollar you earned was not taxed, and the next dollar you earned would be taxed at or near 10%. At some point, the next dollar you earned was going to give you a dime less than the previous one. Why is that a different situation?

[mcfnord]

because i don't wanna be so damn poor!

[crisper]

So... you don't want to be so damn poor that the complete absence of taxes won't help you, but you don't want to be so rich that paying some extra taxes won't hurt you?

[mcfnord]

I wanna be doing something other than going to work. I always feel this way.

[mister_borogove]

So you're saying that, at the margin, you'd rather take $0 than take $0.75 plus a microscopically better system of highways, microscopically stronger national defense, microscopically better health care for the elderly, etc.?

[mcfnord]

Well yeah because that $0 means I get to have some fun. And that's why someone told me I wasn't really Going Galt: Because I wasn't going on strike. I was just doin my own thing, having a balanced life. I prefer to think I "responded to incentives".

[edxter]

Interesting use of the word "think".

[mcfnord]

What makes objectivist gold nuts into insufferable dicks, is what i wanna know.

[edxter]

A combination of unshakeable certainty, bad logic, and non-existent evidence.

[tongodeon]

I've actually been working on a really good post that answers this question, but I'm trying to make sure I've got it all right because I know a lot of people whose feathers it's going to ruffle.

[ikkyu2]

Our money.

[mmcirvin]

You're not going Galt, you're just taking it easy. Good on you.

Many of the people who claim to be "going Galt" seem to think that the essence of it is to be a lousy tipper.

[tongodeon]

So you're saying that, at the margin, you'd rather take home $28,068.75 rather than $52,950.00 because the government won't let you take home $56,267.50? You're willing to forego $24,881.25 in extra income rather than forego $3,317.50 in extra taxes?

I guess there are some things that I'd do for $56.26/hr that I wouldn't do for $52.95/hr, but if my professional livelihood was skating that close to the border of intolerability I'd think the real problem would be my line of work not tax brackets.