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[–] 29 points 1 year ago (4 children)

We could call it Guillotine Insurance 👍

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  • [–] 54 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    A 100% wealth tax on every dollar $1 billion and up would solve a lot of problems and doesn't require guillotines.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Every year, your total assets are assessed and every red cent required to bring you to below 1 billion dollars is taken.

    IF you ended up getting taxed at this rate, a bench gets installed in a public park with a small placard having your name on it. You get to pick the park.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago*

    Realistically, even if enacted, would be tricky to implement, and would definitely have to be done slowly not to shock the economy.

    I think this also means creating a system where companies beyond a certain size cannot be privately owned and must be governed by large "committees", since beyond a certain evaluation, concentrated controlling entities would be forced to sell off.

    Long shot research and development (e.g. think employing thousands for a decade, like drug development) could probably be harder to get started, but at the same time less corruptible due to spreading out power.

    I do think spreading out power can be a good thing, but I have to acknowledge that would probably make the government much more powerful (i.e. corruptible) by comparison.

    Also, a lot of wealth is tied up in non-liquid assets, so these billionaires would be forced/incentivized to hold more liquid value -- who'd want to hold something that can be capped one year only to have it fall the next?

    So on one hand, a ton of market value disappears from the economy due to increased supply, yet on the other a ton of hoarded value is unlocked to circulate in the economy.

    Anyway, don't know where I'm going with this, I'm not an expert by any means.

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  • [–] 24 points 1 year ago* (2 children)

    You don't have to tax them directly. You can also tax things they enjoy.

    This year, France increased taxes on private jets by 300%

    https://www.fliteline.com/blog/understanding-frances-new-private-jet-passenger-tax

    Billionaires didn't even notice.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago*

    That's not good enough because the vast majority of their wealth will never be spent. It will just be used to accumulate more wealth.

    That's why all of these billionaires have real tax rates in the low single digits (or less). Even with opulent spending habits they keep most of their gains unrealized, so they are never taxed.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    Luxury taxes are bad because supply is less elastic than demand, so the tax incidence falls on suppliers. In other words, the working class people building the airplanes pay the tax because the rich can just not buy them.

    K.I.S.S. Tax wealth. Tax the only thing they really care about. Making them notice isn't just more satisfying; it's better economics.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago

    Note that the inflation adjusted average rate of return on the stock market over the long run is ~8% (https://www.officialdata.org/us/stocks/s-p-500/1980)

    That means a 2% wealth tax on billionaires would not make them lose a single penny. Instead, it would just slow down the rate at which their wealth grows (while still growing exponentially).

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  • Do we really have 3000 billionaires in this world? That's disgusting.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It should be much higher, and not just billionaires. Add in 100 millionaires to the mix, and a lot of 10 millionaires too.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    I honestly find it hard to believe that there is a meaningful difference in lifestyle if you make over $10m a year vs over $100m. So you can afford a bigger boat faster? Save and seethe on your new money dingy.

    I fully support a unavoidable progressive tax that taxes every dollar above $10m in a year at 100% and nobody that hits that will suffer or be less motivated in the slightest.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Just enough to fund ICE

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Take it all. The GOP has abused their time, funded by the rich. Do the same when it’s ours. Then the rich won’t have the same power to influence elections any more, and those who deserve a chance to thrive can finally have one.

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  • i don't want the feds to have money at all ever for any purpose because they use it to build concentration camps

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  • 5 comments in c/globalnews@lemmy.zip view that post
    [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    But WHY do That when you can ELIMINATE MY HEALTHCARE INSTEAD? After all Billionaires NEED the Newest Private Jet but I DONT NEED HEALTHCARE!

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  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago

    But then that money might get wasted on luxuries like healthcare or education instead of being spent on important things like super yachts or vanity trips to space.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago

    It needs to be prohibitive to amass the kind of wealth these people are stealing from our pockets. They are making record profits and historical wealth off of decades of suppressed wages and they want us fighting each other instead of them about it. Fuck the system, fight the power.

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  • American tax rates need to go 70 years into the past and stay that way until billionaires stop existing.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    and 2% wealth tax still leaves them over 10% less than most of us would pay in taxes, that's another trillion+ on the table just to make things fair again.

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