1506
Pull those bootstraps a little harder. (lemmy.world)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/politicalmemes@lemmy.world
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[+] -7 points 5 months ago (15 children)

Well, not really. He can't actually spend that money. When he bought twitter, he had to take a bunch of sketchy loans and some of his stocks dropped because he had to sell a lot.

If he actually sells a bunch of his stocks, the price will dip and make the rest worth far less. So it's not actually spendable money.

It's more of a power measurement. If you have a billion you have influence over that many assets.

Also a problem with wealth tax. If you have to sell assets to pay it, that could have a bunch of weird effects. I think Denmark doesn't actually tax your assets, they just increase your income tax if your wealth is above a certain level. But I'm not 100% on that.

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  • [–] 12 points 5 months ago (14 children)

    Every fucking year hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Americans pay a tax on an illiquid asset: the property tax.

    Don't fucking tell me "oh it's too difficult, there's too many effects." Tax. Them.

    Progressive tax rate on long term and short term capital gains. 95 % upper limit for income tax. Kneecap their bullshit "buy, borrow, die" cycle.

    Get back to the fucking WW2 tax levels, back when we had a middle class, and then we can maybe finally have a balanced budget, at least.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    95% income is wild. But capital gains increase might not be a bad idea. Higher top brackets also probably a good idea. Taxing debt that you borrow against assets might be difficult because of mortgages. Technically I think the state gets taxes on that but only when they die. If there is a good proposal that works, I'd have no problem with it.

    Just Wealth tax is not a good idea. The problem in my opinion is not that people get too rich, it's that companies get too big. We need to break those monopolies up.

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  • [–] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates

    95 is not that high For 20 years it was over 90

    Now I know I hear people in the back "but it was world war time!" True. True.

    How long have we been at war? Since Vietnam? How many fucking desert storms have we had? Cold war?

    And not one person that has complained about the percentile has asked about what the top bracket would be.

    Are you really going to argue that a 95% tax rate on every $1 over $1,000,000 is excessive or "wild"? Or does it actually represent the marginal utility of income?

    Because the first 80k someone makes is waayyyyyyyyyyy more impactful than the next 80k. One makes sure you don't die of starvation and exposure. The other is all pleasure.

    I like your counterpoint about the wealth tax being more about monopolistic power. Hadn't considered that angle. I do believe that the government must be larger than the entities it governs. If we ever want a smaller, more agile government, we need to shrink what it's supposed to govern.

    Here is why I argue for a wealth tax: Most things in life are not simply exponential. They're logarithmic. At least for biology and natural systems. We need some corrective force that pushes back aggressively against wealth accumulation -regardless of source.

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (10 children)

    What would happen to America and the USD if all of those people left the country and took their "wealth" with them?

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago (8 children)

    They don't leave. At least, not in the scary mass exodus they always try to imply.

    So nothing?

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  • [–] -2 points 5 months ago (7 children)

    With 95% income taxed and tax on illiquid assets, you'd see a mass exodus..

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago* (6 children)

    95 % upper limit for income tax.

    Don't argue against things I didn't say.

    You don't see an exodus of homeowners for their property tax.

    Why is that? Hmmm? Is it the case that rich people wanna be where money is? And nice services are? Where the culture is? Where the art is? Where their family is? Their friends? Their children's life?

    Show me a study that unequivocally shows that raising taxes leads to mass capital flight. I haven't seen one yet. At best, its mixed.

    They say this about minimum wage "you can't raise it to $15 business will leave and go under!"

    And every fucking time states or cities increase the minimum wage, that doesn't happen.

    Stop fucking carrying water for the rich

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  • [–] -1 points 5 months ago (4 children)

    A few percent land tax is no comparison to 95% income tax. Also, people at the level of wealth we're talking about don't have a lot of income. They have capital gains.

    Also, 15$ minimum wage would destroy economies of many places. In California it's not a big problem. But in bumfuck nowhere with a median income of 25k it will destroy the local economy.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

    https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/historical-highest-marginal-income-tax-rates

    95 is not that high For 20 years it was over 90

    And not one person that has complained about the percentile has asked about what the top bracket would be.

    Are you really going to argue that a 95% tax rate on every $1 over $1,000,000 is not comparable to a 95% income tax when fully contextualized to being their one million and first dollar made in a year?

    Find me a place where raising the minimum wage devastated a local economy. I legitimately can't find one so I'm hoping you can help me learn. Here's a write up about how Walmart devastated local economies though.

    Honestly? The fact that we can even entertain, in America, that a state would have a median income of 25k shows truly just how fucked we are.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (2 children)

    Yea, you can't see it anywhere because people know not to do that.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

    So your answer is "Trust me, bro. We don't need to study this. It's obvious bro everyone knows or. Just don't do it. Don't raise wages bro it's bad. I promise. Everyone already knows this. There's no research for it But we know it's true. Trust me."

    I just want to make sure I understand your logic correctly.

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    I don't have the energy to look everything up right now. Too high MW leads to rising unemployment. America is huge and has economic powerhouses like California but also Puerto Rico and imma just call them republican states.

    15$/h in Cali makes sense. In Mississippi it's probably the upper upper end of what's maybe possible. Legislating this federally either requires a formula to fit it to the local economy or it needs to be lower than what makes sense for California.

    From what I vaguely remember 12$/h was OK but don't quote me on that.

    7.5$/h is too low, just 15$/h might be too high.

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