Let them buy an island, just make sure it's not one of the beauties in the Caribbean. Has Krakatoa re-emerged yet? I'd be willing to let them homestead.

First let me say that the rich are different.  They aren't like us.  To try to assume we would know what they would do is usually foolish unless you have studied rich people.

I can make a few easy observations:

Rule one.  The Rich like being rich, and more importantly like to feel rich.  They feel they deserve it.

Rule two.  They hate taxes.  They resent taxes.  They go to great lengths to resist and avoid taxes.  They don't want to believe and don't believe that taxes and death are inevitable. They hire smart people and unscrupulous people to help them resist taxes.  They even do very foolish things sometimes in their endeavors.

Rule three.  There are many ways they can avoid taxes and the Congress of the US is very helpful with the tax laws for they seem to consider themselves more closely aligned with the rich than with the ordinary people.  ((Here I am not talking about their speeches which have not much bearing on their personal behavior.))

I will just bring up one example of this which I always thought was kind of funny.
We now have a minimum tax.  It was mainly enacted because there were some very rich people who didn't pay any taxes at all.  Most regular people felt very satisfied when the rich were required to pay some minimum taxes.

In actuality the rich people made less money  overall putting their money into vehicles (bonds and such) so they had little or no tax obligation.  

When they had to start paying taxes again they took their money out of these type vehicles which mainly existed because they were desirable to society as a whole and the rich started making more money overall and starting working on protecting that money in other ways that weren't so obvious and apparently legal.

Another problem that Nate might be alluding to is that the rich people are less willing to "give to various good causes" and to invest in good causes or to invest at all when they feel (rightly or not) that they are under an onerous tax burden.

Instead of investing in American industry, they might decide that land or property investment both domestic and foreign is a better long term deal with taxes deferred until a better day.  Likewise investment in foreign industry and endeavors has advantages.  

But what was running through my mind the whole time was what would Bob Rubin and Paul O'Neill had done differently in their lives if the marginal tax rate on income over 1 million dollars was higher than it actually was.

The answer would be
"a hell of a lot less damage".

And as to this not-quite-question:

So imagine for a moment that the Masters of the Universe like Rubin and O'Neill went to Galt Gulch and completely deprived the nation of their productivity as a result of an increase in the marginal tax rate for millionaires - how much would we lose if a Mere Mortal took their place?

The answer would be:
"A net gain, if only from the manufacture and sale of party favors for their bon voyage shindig."

The analysis also shows separately the effects of the President's tax relief in three parts
reflecting: 1) the lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains; 2) the lower tax rates on
ordinary income (i.e., the top four rate brackets); and 3) the 10-percent tax rate bracket, higher
child tax credit, and marriage penalty relief. This decomposition reveals that the tax relief
components are likely to have very different effects on future economic activity. For example,
extending just the lower tax rates on dividends and capital gains increases output in the long run
by 0.4 percent, but when the lower tax rates for the four top income tax brackets are extended as
well, output increases by a total of 1.1 percent in the long run. Extending the remainder of the
tax relief - the 10 percent rate, the expansion of the child tax credit, and the reduction in
marriage penalties - stimulated economic activity during and immediately after the recession and
served other purposes, such as making the tax code more progressive. However, these elements
of the tax relief do not have positive growth effects in the longer term in ways that this type of
model can measure.

But what are they gonna do...the vig is what the man says it is...they ain't going on strike, nobody is.  Lazy and pacified.

LINK

Isn't that the point?  The singular focus on the rate of taxes and simply lowering and raising it misses the real point which is does the government take in more or an acceptable level of money versus the amount it plans to spend.

Tax rates, tax revenue and spending must all be discussed with equal value.  

One interesting point I made this year is that we don't have to raise rates at all.   You can raise the rates all you want but if the rich can continue to work the system then the government is going to hurt the driver of the economy, buisness, and not collect anymore money from the "rich".

Cut out the amount of deductions rich people are allowed to use to not pay income taxes.   Why screw with the rate when so much revenue is missed out on in actual income through deductions.

Also the idea that simply raising taxes will somehow generate more revenue is blown away by the above link.   That only works if the economy existed in a vacuum and didn't react positively or negatively to the change in the tax code.    As the link shows lowering the rate in certain circumstances cause the economy to take off and for the government to collect more revenue.

In the days of Clinton it didn't matter what he did to rates the economy was booming so revenue went up.    I'm sure there are other examples.