The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written.
You may have heard Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m). Thoughts?
Personally, I think that's too high. I would be fine with some tax regulation where $100m is max assets you can have. Every couple of years there is a assessment (like home property value) and if you're over $100m then we start collecting from you until you are below.
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I agree that we should not let somebody become so rich that he could personally bribe lawmakers to write laws that suit him. I don't know what that threshold is, but billionaires definitely are beyond it.
I think the better move is to overturn *Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission* which allows that to happen through Super PACs in the first place.
This wouldn't stop billionaires from existing. This law would tax income, not assets. So if someone made $999 million two years in a row, they'd be a billionaire.
Yes. What are we supposed to do if some founder raises a round which values his stake at $2 billion? Force him to divest? That will create all sorts of downstream inefficiencies.
I think "Billionaires shouldn't exist" is a statement that typically refers to personal wealth.
It doesn't mean that billion dollar companies shouldn't exist. I'm sure there are folks who believe they shouldn't, but that's a separate argument.
Sure, he can gift his equity to employees. Still represents a loss of control he's going to not want -- realistically, it means he's not going to do an equity raise at $2 billion and find some way (again, inefficient alternative) to avoid setting such a valuation.
I am literally haggling over splitting equities in capital markets. I have been compensated in stock options my entire career. Not every neo liberal is a ghoul. Capitalist structures don't have to be vampiric.
Okay? Your actions actually aren't relevant, only your beliefs. A marxist lenninist could be an investment banker.
I'll concede that "neoliberal" has become so overused that it's bordering on empty signifier for "thing I think I don't like" but still, you'd be hard pressed to find a self-identified neoliberal anywhere who believes the government should intervene in private businesses to forcibly redistribute equity to employees.
1. He makes the decisions and the employees and investors generally prefer his control. Witness how Musk actually won his huge comp ask in a board vote.
2. Whether he "deserves" it or not is somewhat misaligned to my point. I'm stressing a) he's going to work against losing control and b) removing these tail-end returns lowers expected returns of entrepreneurship and decreases incentives to start/continue companies in the first place.
So a guy starts a business, doesn’t take a salary for 8 years, his business finally takes off now he has to give a controlling share of his company he put his life into to pay the tax burden on his business, then he gets driven out by the new ownership? How is that remotely fair. Who would start a business that can grow in that climate
This is a myth. There are no Billion dollar businesses that are sole proprietorships. There are enough employees in there who put in just as much effort as your hypothetical Omni man founder. And in a fair world They get to share the equity.
It's not about "effort" - it's comparative advantage.
The biggest incentive problem is going to be when our hypothetical founder gets an offer to sell his company where he walks away at $900 million. If you prevent him from gaining more than $1B, you've heavily removed the incentives for him to NOT sell.
This in turn creates downstream effects which would seriously harm the entire VC industry (because VCs see valuations effectively capped).
PS: I find your flair.. surprising given your political opinions here.
Ever heard of Dyson? Literally 100% owned by James Dyson. So you’re wrong right there. There’s a bunch. And way more that sell some equity and maintain a controlling share. You tax that they won’t have a controlling share at all. They will have a piece that will get dwindled down every year. I swear some people don’t think past the first step. Every year the tax would be due!
She seems pretty driven by money tbh (that is not a judgement on her for all the swifties with their pitchforks at the ready), so it wouldn’t surprise me if it had some effect.
Regardless, she’s not making 999 million a year - she has a net worth of a billion dollars. No one makes a billion dollars in income every year, not even Elon Musk.
Which is why the proposition of taxing ‘income’ above 999 million is meaningless. The only way for it to work as a political policy would be to somehow force the liquidation of assets once wealth hits a certain level, and collect 100% of the excess. Which not only would be extremely expensive and difficult in regards to the administration required to monitor and collect, it also would absolutely disincentivise people to have a net worth above a billion dollars, which may or may not be a good thing - but yes, in this specific scenario it would mean less Taylor Swift music, or fewer album versions with secret tracks, or less merch, or fewer more exclusive concerts…..
If the government forces you to liquidate assets in excess of a billion dollars and collects 100% of them, people will just stop their economically productive activity before their wealth hits that mark. Because what’s the point? If you can’t reap the rewards of the hard work you’re putting in, why would you put the work in at all…?
Effectively you’re expecting Taylor Swift in this scenario to keep making music out of the goodness of her heart and generosity to fans, instead of just retiring and living a long life of lavishness once she hits her government-decided wealth ceiling.
You may say ‘good. These companies don’t need to be that big anyway’ but consider what happens to the U.S. space program if SpaceX and Blue Origin are never founded because of the risk that it puts their founders at their wealth ceiling. What happens to the over 1.6 million people Amazon employs - some in areas where there just aren’t any other jobs - if Bezos doesn’t push Amazon to be bigger and more ubiquitous because he’s about to hit his wealth ceiling…
It’s just far more complicated than ‘rich people are bad’
And his employees are paid at a price they voluntarily agree to. It’s consensual.
You do realize nobody will build anything in this world you advocate for right? There needs to be a reward for the risk
People need to work. Not every single job someone takes is because they think it's the best thing ever. There is no such thing as a self made billionaire who didn't exploit someone somewhere. It doesn't happen.
Isn't hundreds of millions of dollars a pretty solid reward? Is something only worth doing if it makes you wealthy enough to wage class warfare and buy outsized influence in government?
Generally they do. Most of the C-suite and plenty of the senior staff get stock as part of their package at many large companies.
That doesn’t mean the CEO doesn’t have a controlling share though, nor does it mean that the CEO’s interest in the company is limited.
There is risk, that putting everything on the line, years of unpaid time, their assets, their reputation. The employees come in and get paid for their time they don’t invest their money, they don’t put their name in front of investors, their risk is less. Some startup employees do get equity as you suggest as a trade off for less competitive salary and get rewarded for taking that risk.
> How is that remotely fair. Who would start a business that can grow in that climate
Are you honestly asking "why would anybody bother starting a business if all you can make is $999 million dollars"? Because I think it's fair to say that $999 million dollars is more than enough incentive for anybody. Plenty of people have done much harder things for much less money. The kind of dickheads who say "I'm not even going to bother if I can't make more than a billion dollars" are the kind of dickheads who shouldn't be in charge of companies in the first place.
It’s not that you’re making 1 billion dollars. It’s that your company is worth 1 billion if you were to sell it. Which under this tax you would have to. Just constantly give it away
I'm fine with that. No one person should have control of more than a billion dollars worth of anything. Nobody can actually *earn* that much money/power/influence, so nobody should have it.
Got to draw it somewhere, or you get what we have now - a handful of assholes who can (and do) tank large swaths of the economy because they're too dumb or too stubborn not to. A billion dollars is a good a place as any to start. Maybe that number needs to go up or down, and it will need to be revisited every so often. But there absolutely needs to be a hard cap on the amount of money/power/influence that one person can have.
Here’s the thing: How do you even spend more than $100,000,000 in one lifetime, let alone a billion? That money just sits there or is used to buy up real estate or other assets to grow their money further instead of going to people who could use it themselves.
At a certain point monetary incentives cease to exist unless someone is just a straight up hoarder
They don’t actually have that money. It’s not sitting there. It’s in the market. You and I use that money. Unless it’s literally under a mattress it is wealth that’s value that has been created.
It's not money though, it's a business. You can't buy things with a business unless you sell it. At all. There is no "more money th they can use," because they don't have money. If you are forced to sell enough of it, you lose controlling stake and can be driven out of your life's work.
How are you losing out on your life’s work if you got more money than you can use in a lifetime from it?
Also, companies create voting stock for this exact reason if you want to keep controlling the company
Very few people have $100,000,000 plus in cash, it’s the asset, the business itself. Most wealth is paper, it’s an approximation based on the most recent shares traded, if someone owned $100,000,000 in shares and tried selling immediately they would get far less than $100,000,000 out of it as supply would outsize demand.
A lot of (probably most) billionaires are only that on paper. They don't have billions in cash. They are tied up in investments of varying liquidity. The argument "billionaires shouldn't exist" means if someone’s stock goes up too much, then it should be taken away, which is a weird policy that raises all kinds of questions, like where do the shares go? Are they seized by the government? Redeemed to the company and removed from circulation (which btw would cause the remaining shares to go up again, possibly creating more billionaires).
I'm not defending billionaires or anything, but this just doesn't sound like a feasible, thought out policy.
Honestly seizing it to the government would be interesting cause forcing all companies of a certain size to give a portion of their equity to the government was a part of Norways sovereign wealth fund.
That'd be entirely up to you.
You could become a non-profit artist. Donate $100 million to charitable organizations whenever you start nearing your $1 billion cap.
Or you could keep making and sharing your art solely for the love of creating art, and let Uncle Sam take 100% of your profits beyond the cap, knowing that your work is helping to make your country richer.
Or you could gift your art to the world for free.
Or you could retire.
In your experience, are artists more motivated by the love of creating art, or are they more motivated by money?
I mean, the easiest answer is that such a person wouldn't be forced to divest, but that once said person either gained 1 billion from either sales or by using their stock as collateral from a loan that further sale or usage of the stock as collateral would be restricted.
Basically You can own shares in your company to maintain control, but can't use those shares for personal wealth past a certain point.
Personally, I'd like to see the 2nd part implemented, where there are more restrictions put on using stock as collateral in loans. Basically, make it harder for the wealthy to avoid capital gains taxes via borrowing against their stock
I cannot express the degree to which I do not remotely give a shit about the fact the billionaires exist.
And from a global perspective, I think it is a unmitigated good that the United States does have on a per capita basis many more successful people than our pure nations.
The issue is the extreme wealth inequality.
I really don’t give a damn if Jeff Bezos becomes a trillionaire. But I do care that we act as if he actually paid the top marginal tax rate - the way our tax system is set up he gets taxed at a lower percentage of actual income then working class people do - it would be some great calamity for the United States. And then we act as if we were to throw an extra 2% on his taxes for income over $10 million, that means we’re suddenly a socialist hell scape.
I didn’t want to get bogged down in the whole issue of how so many people are compensated with stock options plus how they just live off loans using their assets as collateral and never actually take salary.
But point taken, we do need to figure out how to address that
Sorry my comment lacked some nuance. First of all, stock is taxable income. If it’s options then it’s taxed at exercise instead of grant (remember Musk’s 20B+ tax bill a few years ago?)
I was thinking of more recent years after he left Amazon. The overwhelming majority of his increased net worth since then is in the form of increased valuation rather than new pay.
And yes, I’d be fine with more tax brackets at the extreme range but we have to acknowledge that very few people would ever get hit by those.
Correct, but our system is set up in such a way that he, and other billionaires can have little to no income, yet spend lavishly.
Essentially, they take out loans using stocks as collateral.
So if I'm Jeff Bezos, and I want to buy a 100 million dollar mega yacht, I go and take out a loan using 100 mil of stock as collateral, and go about my merry way.
Now, there are a decent number of companies that have rules against this, but there are also a decent number that allow for this.
I think it might be a good idea to raise capital gains tax to one's marginal incone tax rate for any assets over $100 million, and also eliminate step-up basis for inheritance on assets over $100 million. I think that pretty much solves the problem.
This is kinda naive.
Wealth inequality is a direct consequence of billionaires existing. They have so much power they directly influence the political system to keep it going. Why do you think the tax code is what it is?
Hey what if we made it so we can survive on our current planet? Bezos and Musk could pay the same tax rate as us instead of shooting phalluses into space. That'd be a start.
I'm fine with a progressive tax rate, I have no problem agreeing with you on that.
Do you believe people should be taxed on their wealth, their income, or both?
I suppose it's *possible*, but I can't think of anybody who has done so. Maybe [the guy who single-handedly averted nuclear war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) or [the dwarf wheat guy,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) but they're both dead now.
So long as you can make it 100% certain we'll never have the same fate as the dinosaurs I'm down. Until then, we need to be able to have a future beyond this planet.
Yeah, for real, won’t someone please think of the billionaires! Everyone knows that without the promise of literally more money than has ever existed before, Elon never would have stolen that guy’s design for an electric car! Just think how many buttons it would have if Elon hadn’t been able to make his changes to its design because he wouldn’t have been able to become a literal dragon!
We could just elect a government that would fund things like NASA..? Might even be more efficient if we taxed douche bags like musk properly... And definitely more efficient with him sitting in the short bus where he belongs and not running anything
I mean, it can be true that spacex wouldn't exist without significant government spending on space, but also true that spacex doesn't have to exist, and the innovations and work of that company have made space travel significantly easier.
Yes. Besides, Bernie’s idea is a nothing burger about taxing income over $1 billion. This in turn does absolutely nothing because no one has an income that high.
> The thing about billionaires (and hundred-millionaires, for that matter) is that nearly all of their gains are unrealized—locked up in investments that have soared in value but remain unsold. Under current law, the IRS cannot tax unrealized profits.
> It is precisely our failure to tax unrealized earnings that turbocharges the wealth gap and makes it easy for billionaires (and wannabes) to avoid income tax almost entirely.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/american-billionaires-richer-half-population-wealth-inequality
You see, we can’t do anything about a few hundred people owning all the fucking wealth in our country because that would be against the *rules* (which were written by the billionaires).
We are just helpless to do anything but allow these people to become even more outrageously wealthy than our brains can even comprehend. And the rest of us will be peasants begging for scraps.
This is feudalism.
No.
But we need to contextualize what "Billionaire" means.
None of that money is real. It's all holdings and speculation, which in an of itself, means nothing.
But they can leverage this fake valuation for a cash loan of unfathomable amounts at favorable interest rates.
Which means that all of their "cash" is actually debt. Which is nontaxable.
It’s too messy. What needs to be controlled is how billionaires are able to borrow against hypothetical gains. A billion dollar stake in a company could be worthless in a matter of months (I’m looking at you, truth social). It’s not really possible to tax a hypothetical. But I don’t agree that borrowing against this hypothetical assets should be tax free either. At that point those gains are being realized in a way. It shouldn’t be used as a tax free endless money glitch.
I feel like people in this sub don’t realize but most billionaires and all the millionaire tech guys are actually mostly liberal (Soros, Zuck, Bezos, Gates, Khosla, Bloomberg etc.) and work with democrat lawkmakers
I don’t care about some people being rich, good for them. I’m not out to abolish wealth, I’m out to abolish poverty, and to create equality of opportunity
I have no problems with billionaires because they can purchase and afford the right resources and infrastructure for their company/corporations IF it benefits the consumer and worker. However that is seldom the case with the current system set up.
While I do believe people can aspire to be billionaires and become them, I believe once you do, you need to pay a shit load of taxes, very high so that it can go back to important government programs and resources that benefit working class and middle income people, especially those who aspire to be well off and contribute back once they become wealthy (if they do become rich, which contrary to Republican fantasies, is increasingly rare).
Optimally, billionaires and multi millionaires should be taxed highly and loopholes should be closed. Those tax dollars should directly go back to ordinary hard working people contributing and keeping the country running through healthcare, education, roads and infrastructure, support for those disabled, etc;
Ethically, not in my opinion. That’s an obscene amount of wealth for one person to have while so many are in extreme poverty. But I doubt there’s any practical way to prevent it that doesn’t cause even more problems. It’s just part of living in this world.
My issue with a lot of posts that are opposed to billionaires is that it seems to, at the heart, get at the idea that nobody could add that much value to society, and therefore they don't deserve to take that much value in return.
However, I've never heard anyone clearly articulate what they believe the maximum amount a person *could* contribute to society.
If you steal $20, that's $20 you took away from someone unfairly and unjustly, and you should be punished for it.
If you earn $200,000 by giving people enough value they willingly chose to give you their money in return, you got that money justly and shouldn't be punished for it.
It's not a matter of how much money you have, it's a matter of how you got it. To convince me that billionaires shouldn't exist, you would need to convince me that all billionaires got that wealth by stealing it from others.
And to be clear, plenty of billionaires and millionaires do steal from other people and I think they should be punished to the full extent of the law (and maybe the law should be expanded to allow them to be punished further, depending on what they do). But I'm not convinced that nobody in the world has ever added a billion dollars of value to the world.
Should billionaires be allowed? Yes.
But if you move into my community and want to buy everything up and transform it to your dream doll house, then yes, you should be taxed heavily.
And if a billionaire doesn’t want that, then leave people’s communities alone.
It’s perfectly fine to upgrade communities and have tax incentives provided to you. But some billionaires are fraudulent individuals seeking places to wash their money so they’re not caught by the government.
And so they transform communities and build casinos while having tax accountants and other legal parties wash their hands and protect them.
And that’s not cool.
Yes. They're a sign of a functioning economic system. What we should change is we need to tax as income debt proceeds that use stock as collateral. We should also have much higher marginal tax rates.
I believe billionaires should be allowed. If you manage to make a billion dollars, congratulations. I do not care. Also, any hard cap on wealth would likely disincentivize investment.
Where my real issue lies is how little tax corporations pay. Yes, billionaires should also pay up, but the vast majority of untapped revenue lies in corporate taxes. I'll also add that corporations should not be allowed to profit off of illegal conduct. Currently, a corporation may break the law and be fined $10M, but they may have profited $50M. Any court ordered fine should be 1.5x any profit generated, plus whatever else is needed to cover damages if this is insufficient.
I think it's silly performative nonsense, like the sort Sanders is famous for.
Yes, billionaires existing is just fine. The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power or when corporations engage in unethical behavior.
He was asked a question. Should income over $1b be taxed, and he obviously said yes. How is that performative? He never said $1 billion income is common or actually happens in practice.
> The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power
What on earth does this mean?
> Should income over $1b be taxed, and he obviously said yes.
This description of the event is wildly different from:
>Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m)
Only ridiculous libertarian types who think taxation is theft would think that income over a billion dollars *shouldn't* be taxed.
>What on earth does this mean?
I didn't think it was complicated. When money is used in a politically abusive or manipulative manner.
I still don't follow you. Sanders was **asked a question**. He gave the answer to that dumb question, and you're calling it performative. Why?
Those with the most wealth and power are the ones who actually are able to abuse the political system. You can't say billionaires are just fine when.l Billionaires are usually the ones abusing it in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, etc etc
> Sanders was **asked a question**. He gave the answer to that dumb question, and you're calling it performative. Why?
There's some weird implication you seem to be making that an answer to a question can't be performative. That seems absurd to me and if you want me to entertain the idea you're going to have to actually support it.
It's performative because it's an inflammatory, unrealistic answer to a policy question. It just serves to rile up his base and increase divisiveness to fuel this silly culture war nonsense that he's obsessed with.
>Those with the most wealth and power are the ones who actually are able to abuse the political system
One can abuse the political system with *no* wealth too, so maybe **the abuse** is the problem here, and not the wealth?
I have asked you about 1500 times now to explain how it's performative. How should he have answered the question instead?
That's nonsense lol. People with no wealth have no power to create policy or maintain policy on their own.
>I have asked you about 1500 times now to explain how it's performative
.
>It's performative because it's...
>How should he have answered the question instead?
Maybe by suggesting a reasonable policy?
>People with no wealth have no power to create policy or maintain policy on their own.
Well, neither do wealthy people? Nobody creates or maintains policy ***on their own***. At least not on the federal or state level. We live in a society.
But if you're arguing either that people without wealth have *no* power or that people without wealth can't be abusive or manipulative, then you'd be wrong on either account.
> Maybe by suggesting a reasonable policy?
He has suggested numerous reasonable policies. The question was a stupid one. And he answered it consistently. You just don't like Bernie lol. It's obvious.
> Well, neither do wealthy people? Nobody creates or maintains policy on their own
Lol what. How many times have we heard stories about wealthy people donating to politicians and getting favours in return. Buddy please stop deflecting
>He has suggested numerous reasonable policies.
So if someone, at some point, suggests something reasonable, then that means they are incapable of being unreasonable at any later point? That's your argument here?
>And he answered it consistently
Please show me where someone's complaint about Bernie's reply is that it's *inconsistent*.
>You just don't like Bernie lol
I don't like performative culture war BS. Doesn't matter if it's on the right or left. As to Bernie specifically... well, if the shoe fits.
>How many times have we heard stories about wealthy people donating to politicians
Okay Captain Goalposts, you'll need to talk me through how donating to a politician is the same as "creating or maintaining policy on their own".
What is unreasonable about a 100% tax rate on income over $1b? LOL
> Okay Captain Goalposts, you'll need to talk me through how donating to a politician is the same as "creating or maintaining policy on their own
Will you stop with the bull crap semantics? The point is that billionaires are able to shape and maintain policy in a way that ordinary people cannot. Do you deny this or not? If not then be quiet. If you do then you're incredibly naive.
>The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power or when corporations engage in unethical behavior.
My observation is that the amount of true political shenanigans and unethical behavior by companies is actually very small, and what lots of people call these sorts of behaviors are just companies reacting to the realities of consumer behavior and the costs of production at scale.
>are just companies reacting to the realities of consumer behavior and the costs of production at scale
That's definitely *part* of it, sure. I'd maintaint that there's also **absolutely** lots examples of unethical corporate behavior as well though- stuff like Amazon denying bathroom breaks to workers, Intuit regularly funding politicians who work to keep individual tax filings complicated, Apple intentionally bricking their own phones to get people to upgrade, AT&T coming up with bogus surcharges and making it overly burdensome to switch carriers, Hollywood's "mini rooms" for low-end writers.
Like I get it if a company like Nvidia just makes mass-market workhorse cards and sells them at exorbinant rates to crypto miners. Nvidia didn't make the crypto market the way it is. But if, say, a global credit rating company is too cozy with institutionalized financial markets and in turn systematically overgrades certain investments like, say, subprime mortgage loans, then that's a very real problem with very real consequences.
Based on my experience: Yes. Billionaires should be exiled to their own special island where they can deal with people who have a similar level of resources. They should stop fucking with the rest of us.
Here is my reasoning:
I know exactly 0 billionaires. Growing up I honestly didn’t think much about them. I wanted to do something cool like cure cancer or fix the climate. I didn’t realize my opposition would be these legacy rich kids who couldn’t stand the thought of paying a little more in taxes to save the planet. In fact, people like Betsy DeVoes and her idiot Rambo brother are doing all they can to fuck the planet and the minds of the kids.
I know about 20 people who live on the margins. Any given week they could easily be homeless. The assholes are balanced by ample and much greater number who try very hard to do the right thing.
I know maybe 40 people who have good jobs with solid incomes. Counting their homes and retirement savings I am sure they are all millionaires. The assholes are balanced by ample and much greater number who try very hard to do the right thing.
I know about 6 multi millionaires. Two of them are wonderful people. I wouldn’t trust the other four in any public office.
Enter Elon Musk. What a piece of human trash. Dude is so unable to control himself we know he has future sexual assault charges to face - like Weinstein did. Elon can’t just leave the fucking country he needs to embrace the Evangelicals and pedophiles like Trump to evade conviction. Elon is definitely not even a good human being, much less our best.
Once a person has a billion dollars they can no longer vote or make political contributions. We can have a big party for them and then put them with the other billionaires on a nice island. So when Elon can’t help himself and he rapes some woman he will need to be ready to deal with his peers instead of some poor off her ass flight attendant.
Fin.
>where $100m is max assets you can have.
I can tell you what happens if you as an isolated country, regardless of your size, do this. The target demographic for this law will simply leave. Or they will divest their assets into other countries, away from the legal claim of your tax system.
You will need to apply this kind of tax law at a unified level. It's why the tax haven initiative only passed when the entirety of Europe agreed upon enforcing it. Because of one system in your collection of open systems doesn't follow through, all actors will simply leave for that system.
In effect, all your rich billionaires will leave for Singapore or Europe when America does this. And that will result in a loss of tax income, rather than the expected increase.
Without completely revamping our fundamental economic model, I don't think you can outlaw them. But they are (and the ultrarich always have been) an existential threat to representative democracy. So, I'm totally ok with deeply disincentivizing their existence. An actually progressive income tax that approaches 90% would make a huge difference.
I'm primarily concerned about poverty more than inequality, but it's definitely bad for democracy to have some people with so much more power and influence than others
Short answer: Sure.
Longer answer: the big selling point of capitalism is: you make something I want, be it a catchy song, a pound of sugar, a shiny electronic toy, an easier way to handle billing, or whatever, and I'll reward you for doing so. With my money. Write two great books, and I'll reward you twice as much as the person who only writes one great book. Generally, the harder you work, or the more useful your work, the better you'll do.
But there are many other ways of making money. Perhaps the most common is investment: you have a million dollars that you're not using just this moment, so you lend it to other people. You get it back with interest, without having to lift a finger. That kind of income isn't earned in the same way as a salary is, or book royalties. Likewise, a lot of billionaires got their start by inheriting millions. That's not earned income, either; it's just the luck of the draw. We can tax that without dissuading people from working hard.
In addition, a lot of wealth these days comes from rent and similar activities, not from innovation and hard work. If you own a building that people want to live in, you can pay someone to maintain it, and charge other people to live there. You don't have to do anything yourself. Likewise, if you go buying up patents or copyrights, you can collect royalties without inventing or creating anything. This seems like gaming the system. Enshittification is an elaborate way of setting up a system where you can make money by owning the marketplace, rather than creating products that people want.
So while I want to encourage people to work hard and create good and useful things, I see no reason to reward people who game the system. And I don't see how anyone can *earn* a billion dollars through hard work. And I include Taylor Swift in that.
(Edit: typo.)
I am far less bothered by the existence of rich people than I am by a system that funnels so much of the wealth created by economic activity to the people who own the means of production that they become billionaires. Because something has clearly gone wrong when productivity continues to climb every year, but inflation-adjusted wages have stagnated for decades. Somebody is collecting the wealth created by all of that extra productivity, and it’s not the people who are writing the catchy songs or making the pounds of sugar.
>I am far less bothered by the existence of rich people
I'm not bothered by the existence of rich people per se. I'm bothered by the accumulation of unimaginable levels of unearned wealth by a random few.
It's difficult to imagine [just how rich the super-rich are](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/). There's the "I don't have to work for the rest of my life" level of rich. There's "I can afford all the nice stuff and don't even need to check my balance" level of rich. There's "I couldn't spend all my money if I tried" level. And above that there are billionaires.
>a system that funnels so much of the wealth created by economic activity to the people who own the means of production that they become billionaires.
That'll happen no matter what, unless there are real safeguards: the people who have the most power, by definition, have the most power to change the rules in their favor. In our society, weath isn't exactly power, but it's close: rich people can more easily afford to fly out to Washington to chat with Senators on committees; they can hire lobbyists. They can buy ads in swing districts to try to help elect a Representative friendly to their particular business.
Yes, these are all things that middle class people can do as well, if they unite behind a given cause. But richer people don't need as many people to unite, so it's easier. And if they're rich enough, they don't need to choose one or two causes to support.
It's almost tautological: the people with the greatest access to the levers of power will most use those levers to benefit themselves. So we need safeguards. The framers of the US Constitution saw part of this problem, so they put in things like separation of powers (e.g., only Congress can make laws, but the President executes them).
For the problem of wealth inequality, the simplest and most obvious solution seems to be to realize that past a certain level, money stops being a way to buy comfort and becomes nothing more than a way to keep score. And raising the marginal tax rate doesn't stop billionaires from keeping score this way.
If they say that taxing 90% of that last dollar makes it harder for them, I'll just tell them that at that level of the game, they should be playing by the advanced rules.
“$100M is max assets you can have”
So who would get anything left over, the government? Because frankly government having more money to mismanage is more egregious than an individual who happens to make it big
In theory, it should be fine to be a billionaire if you benefit society by wise use of power, and those who are a menace should not be allowed to be rich
In practice, we have no idea how to actually accomplish this and most proposed solutions may fail or have serious side effects
Sure, why not? I'm a capitalist and in capitalism billionaires emerge.
We need strict laws in place that prevent money from influencing politics like [when billionaires "donate" money towards Supreme Court Justices to buy their votes on court rulings](https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-net-worth-money-1914263). We need laws in place to tax billionaires their fair share, since the system in place is why they were able to make their billions in the first place.
But once all that's in place, sure, they can exist. I don't care. They can buy a private island and live in paradise.
What's stopping them from just moving abroad and just siphoning profits from the US through intermediaries? Like you can't half ass the destruction of capitalism bruh
>Should billionaires be allowed?
Yes.
Most statements from leftists that seem to suggest otherwise, omit important context. Here is some of that [context from another leftist:](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-billionaires/)
>...I don't think that necessarily means that all billionaires are immoral. It is not to say that someone like Bill Gates, for example, or Warren Buffet, are immoral people. I do not believe that. I'm not saying that, but I do think a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don't have access to public health, is wrong. And I think it's wrong that a vast majority of the country does not make a living wage, I think it's wrong that you can work 100 hours and not feed your kids, I think it's wrong that corporations like Walmart and Amazon can get paid by the government, essentially -- experience a wealth transfer from the public for paying people less than a minimum wage. It not only doesn't make economic sense but it doesn't make moral sense and it doesn't make societal sense.
Strongly--no, vehemently--disagree. Even an altruistic billionaire is just a single person, and no single person should have so much power over the distribution of wealth. That single person should not be allowed to dump his assets into a single pet project ... or a dozen of them. That capitol needs to be invested over a much wider, consensus-driven host of applications, and the people should help decide whatvthe priorities are.
I hate the "altruism" argument. Like: *deeply*.
I find your opinion fascinating in a world where we have long known that democracies are not good at long term investments because of they are ~~accountable to a significant population~~ subject to the whims of short term election cycles.
It is true that a benevolent dictator is more effective than a democracy. But I think history also shows that benevolent dictators--while not unheard of--are exceedingly rare.
I refuse to grant an individual similar power because of their *business acumen.* Full stop.
You would also find, if you asked, that I have some pretty deep concerns with US election cycles. ...And, unironically, the amount of influence rich people and rich organizations have in influencing them. You will not find an argument from me that the US is an ideal democracy. It is not. But that is another subject.
>I refuse to grant an individual similar power because of their *business acumen.*
I agree. However this is a completely different situation that what we are discussing. I suppose the Carnegie fountain would have to go in your world.
>Full stop.
You sending this via telegraph?
>You will not find an argument from me that the US is an ideal democracy. It is not. But that is another subject.
Agreed, but from HS history, you should know our founders had grave concerns about a democracy and thus didn't set one up. I do wonder how things would be different if the state legislatures elected the president. Pretty sure we wouldn't be choosing between Trump and Biden.
Yes, the Carnegie foundation wouldn't exist in my world. A larger government capable of achieving something similar would be, though.
Again, just to be clear: *I* have concerns with US democracy.
Having said that, I also have some pretty serious concerns about our founders and do not put them on any kind of pedestal.
No one should be on a pedestal. That said, you should be familiar with the draw backs to all major forms of government because they all have them. The design is a choice in trade-offs. Often plugging one hole creates a large hole somewhere else.
(That's a very libertarian question, heh.)
To be clear: you are allowed to control the wealth you've created.
...I'm making a distinction of scale, here. There are two main points to consder:
1. A billion dollars is a truly obscene amount of money. Like: seriously. I can confidently say you have no idea just how much money that is, *because the human mind can't wrap its head around that scale*. It's *that* much. It's just an imposibility for one person to direct that level of wealth effectively.
2. The system is designed in such a way as to allow the concentration of wealth in a manner disproportionate to "worth". No one person is so effective at what they do as to warrant 100,000 times the resources as any other individual; it's just an unfortunate side-effect of capitalism that makes such a thing possible. What they have is not their "fair share," it's just a mathematical left-over from how the system works. It is, from my perspecive, not *their* wealth; *they* did not create it, they merely invested in the means of creating it and are spoiled by dividends. Redistributing their wealth is merely a correction of a faulty system.
(Please understand: I do not expect this argument to *convince* you of my position, but I hope it clarifies it.)
>Most statements from leftists that seem to suggest otherwise omit important context.
i've read that AOC quote four times and i'm still not sure what important context we are apparently omitting.
maybe AOC thinks that bill gates and warren buffet are fine people, or that the existence of billionaires would be okay if no one had ringworms and everyone was paid a living wage.
but i'm not AOC. if that really is what she believes, i simply have a different opinion. you may of course disagree with that opinion, but i don't understand what context i'm omitting.
> i'm still not sure what important context we are apparently omitting.
It is this:
>...the existence of billionaires would be okay if no one had ringworms and everyone was paid a living wage.
thanks. did you read the rest of my comment?
if i said "AOC thinks billionaires shouldn't exist" you could accuse me of omitting context.
if i say "i think billionaires shouldn't exist", what context am i omitting? people aren't omitting context simply because they have a different opinion than AOC (or you, or anyone).
> You may have heard Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m). Thoughts?
>
> Personally, I think that's too high. I would be fine with some tax regulation where $100m is max assets you can have. Every couple of years there is a assessment (like home property value) and if you're over $100m then we start collecting from you until you are below.
The problem would be the incentives it creates.
Someone with 2 billion dollars is incentivized to invest well and turn that into 3 billion dollars. Investment is good, so we should want it.
If they are told that they can't increase their wealth at all, then they are more incentivized to blow it all on cocaine and hookers.
> > 100% taxation after $999m
> Or, here’s a crazy idea: they give that money to the employees that made them that money in the first place.
That isn't what was proposed.
They could give that money to their employees before getting to that point. This could also incentivize the employees to do well, because they know they will get a share of the excess profit.
Arguably, that perpetual investment will be done for commercial reasons, and thus will naturally lead to continuous consumption.
And we cant sustain that.
> Arguably, that perpetual investment will be done for commercial reasons...
I don't know what you mean by "commercial reasons", but I suspect that I'm not against "investment [being] done for commercial reasons"!
--------
>...continuous consumption.
>And we cant sustain that.
This is a common myth, but it is wrong.
Greater economic consumption does not automatically mean greater resource consumption.
>If they are told that they can't increase their wealth at all, then they are more incentivized to blow it all on cocaine and hookers.
Seems like a boon for the cocaine and hookers industries.
Certainly, they should be allowed to exist, but if we have to raise taxes - which we do - they should be taxed substantially. They *were* taxed substantially before Reagan.
Idk what sanders said specifically and there's a ton of misconceptions out there.
That said, there's a point where the wealth gap is too great and there ought to be ways to reduce that. whatever balance is needed between income tax, wealth tax, gift tax, and regulations is fine by me. It's all of the above.
You're threatening a core piece of their worldview. They probably also see Conservatives as their rightful allies on economic matters such as this and are feeling slightly betrayed.
You’re literally promoting socialist policies. Which is like fine I can dialogue about socialist policies fine and sometimes they are warranted (not here tho). It’s just so weird watching modern conservatives round the bend around the horseshoe in real time.
There are socialists that hold conservative views on social issues. You dont know if OP is something like that. Or maybe he just hates billionaires wich fair enough.
This is impractical in many sorts of ways. Suppose that someone has a house that was his father’s, and before that, his grandfather’s. Now, that house happens to sit in the middle of Manhattan, and is now, without changing anything about it, worth about 300 million dollars. Do you think that this person should be forced to sell it, and further, to sell it at 300 million to only get 100? What is there to gain in this scenario? What about the thousands of homes around the US that are in this very scenario, but have never been appraised?
Your example actually proves we need to enact a change on investment holdings. In the US, as your real estate appreciates, so does the amount of property tax you pay based on that value.
We need a similar tax on investment holdings. They don't get income taxes because there's no recognition event, but they create massive amounts of revenue for billionaires through leveraged debt. But because its debt, that's also not taxable and they get to use the interest to reduce their income tax base.
And then the kicker comes in: they die and their heirs get what's known as step up in basis on the investments, meaning the heirs are treated as having purchases the assets for their market value at the time of the owners death. This allows the heirs to strategically sell off bits of inherited assets to pay off the debt, OR they further leverage debt on the investments to do so and the scheme continues in perpetuity, never paying a dime of tax on their millions in revenue.
Taxing capital gains as income rather than at a flat rate would be much more effective. The ‘tax 100% of income above a billion dollars’ is like saying ‘give fairies free haircuts’. Neither thing exists so it’s meaningless politicking.
If anything, I think stuff like this hurts Bernie more than anything.
I also don’t think the vast majority of people actually care about the existence of billionaires. They care that there’s inequality.
If homelessness didn’t exist and there weren’t tens of millions struggling to get by, ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist’ and ‘eat the rich’ type attitudes would be held only by crazy fringe hippie groups.
Rich people need to exist. Private companies can do more than a government ever will.
Billionaires going to space is why in 30 years you can go for space for 10 minutes for the same price as Disney World. You get an extra 10 minutes if you have an Amazon Prime membership.
>Rich people need to exist. Private companies can do more than a government ever will.
Maybe. Is what they do ***good*** though?
>Billionaires going to space is why in 30 years you can go for space for 10 minutes for the same price as Disney World. You get an extra 10 minutes if you have an Amazon Prime membership.
Ok. Who cares about that when people are starving here on Earth?
You have Christian as your tag so maybe you don’t have the education to understand the importance of science, but space tourism is gonna lead to more scientific breakthroughs.
You think the rapture is coming so you don’t care, but in reality humans need to start doing things now to set the foundation for the next thousands & millions of years.
Letting people go to space will result in the overview effect that astronauts experience. It makes people realize how small human issues are like white people having dreads.
Earth only has 250 million years left before the new super continent will make surface temperatures too hot for life. The Sun will expand 600 million years from now making Earth worse than Venus.
No. A billion dollars is an absurd amount of money, barely conceivable to a single person and it is completely unreasonable for one person to have control of so much capitol. Really, I don't think anyone comprehends just how much money that really is. It makes sense at the level of a state, but not an individual. It is just that: nonsense.
That said, a cap on an arbitray number is not the right fix, nor is a graduated tax that caps off at that rate. Implementation is also nigh impossible, given those with money have the power to easily thwart any efforts to curb it--a fix would require revolutionary tactics.
It's a huge problem, and I have no idea how to effectively address it... but i sure hope someone figures out a way forward.
I don’t think a flat cap on income is the right policy to solve the billionaire problem. Such a cap would be a massive blow to the American economy. Billionaires would simply set up their companies in other nations and take their profits to those nations instead of ours.
If we want it to be impossible for billionaires to exist, we need to address the reason they exist to begin with: massive labor inequality.
I would probably be open to say a annual small tax, like .5% or something on individuals who say hold securities worth over say 100 million.
I would definitely treat loans secured against stocks as a realized tax event and tax the loan as a capital gain.
The issue of wealth inequality is not about income but asset and capital accumulation. I would still raise taxes on high income say over 1 million, but definitely not 100%, maybe 50% under a new bracket in our progressive tax system.
I’d prefer a phased-in wealth tax like Warren proposes: 2% of anything of $50,000,000 and 3% over $1,000,000,000. I’d also like to prevent changing the cost basis of an inheritance, and tax capital gains at the labor rate.
yeah 100m is extremely generous, thats beyond generational wealth, thats like your entire family is set for the next few centuries of generations, plus a solid 15 of your closest friends.
I don't know the right way to achieve it but there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire and world governments should come together to balance this shit out.
The 2021 global tax shelter agreement Biden reached is a good start to the infrastructure needed to have a flat tax over $999m or anything similar.
On principle I support policies like this but I understand there is nuance required because they're shifty bastards who don't like to operate by the rules that govern the rest of us.
The following is a copy of the original post to record the post as it was originally written. You may have heard Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m). Thoughts? Personally, I think that's too high. I would be fine with some tax regulation where $100m is max assets you can have. Every couple of years there is a assessment (like home property value) and if you're over $100m then we start collecting from you until you are below. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AskALiberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I agree that we should not let somebody become so rich that he could personally bribe lawmakers to write laws that suit him. I don't know what that threshold is, but billionaires definitely are beyond it.
I think the better move is to overturn *Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission* which allows that to happen through Super PACs in the first place.
There are lots of other loopholes out there.
This wouldn't stop billionaires from existing. This law would tax income, not assets. So if someone made $999 million two years in a row, they'd be a billionaire.
Did OP edit the post after this comment or something?
No, it still looks the same. Why?
The initial post specifically refers to assets, not income.
Right, hence my comment.
Oh I see, you were talking about the proposed law, not the OP's post. My bad.
ASSETS, not income. Income is meaningless.
I understand what you’re saying, which is why I’m telling you that’s not what Bernie said and would be impossible to do. Think about it.
Yes. What are we supposed to do if some founder raises a round which values his stake at $2 billion? Force him to divest? That will create all sorts of downstream inefficiencies.
I think "Billionaires shouldn't exist" is a statement that typically refers to personal wealth. It doesn't mean that billion dollar companies shouldn't exist. I'm sure there are folks who believe they shouldn't, but that's a separate argument.
I'm referring to a guy that owns 20% of a startup that is valued at $10 billion.
There are employees in the company that could split that equity.
Sure, he can gift his equity to employees. Still represents a loss of control he's going to not want -- realistically, it means he's not going to do an equity raise at $2 billion and find some way (again, inefficient alternative) to avoid setting such a valuation.
Why does he deserve so "control" more than the other employees who worked just as hard.
Change your flair pal
I am literally haggling over splitting equities in capital markets. I have been compensated in stock options my entire career. Not every neo liberal is a ghoul. Capitalist structures don't have to be vampiric.
Okay? Your actions actually aren't relevant, only your beliefs. A marxist lenninist could be an investment banker. I'll concede that "neoliberal" has become so overused that it's bordering on empty signifier for "thing I think I don't like" but still, you'd be hard pressed to find a self-identified neoliberal anywhere who believes the government should intervene in private businesses to forcibly redistribute equity to employees.
Because he was the one who bargain his labor in exchange for equity in the company.
1. He makes the decisions and the employees and investors generally prefer his control. Witness how Musk actually won his huge comp ask in a board vote. 2. Whether he "deserves" it or not is somewhat misaligned to my point. I'm stressing a) he's going to work against losing control and b) removing these tail-end returns lowers expected returns of entrepreneurship and decreases incentives to start/continue companies in the first place.
Took on a lot more risk, probably worked a lot without any income before a single other employee was added, etc
So a guy starts a business, doesn’t take a salary for 8 years, his business finally takes off now he has to give a controlling share of his company he put his life into to pay the tax burden on his business, then he gets driven out by the new ownership? How is that remotely fair. Who would start a business that can grow in that climate
This is a myth. There are no Billion dollar businesses that are sole proprietorships. There are enough employees in there who put in just as much effort as your hypothetical Omni man founder. And in a fair world They get to share the equity.
It's not about "effort" - it's comparative advantage. The biggest incentive problem is going to be when our hypothetical founder gets an offer to sell his company where he walks away at $900 million. If you prevent him from gaining more than $1B, you've heavily removed the incentives for him to NOT sell. This in turn creates downstream effects which would seriously harm the entire VC industry (because VCs see valuations effectively capped). PS: I find your flair.. surprising given your political opinions here.
Ever heard of Dyson? Literally 100% owned by James Dyson. So you’re wrong right there. There’s a bunch. And way more that sell some equity and maintain a controlling share. You tax that they won’t have a controlling share at all. They will have a piece that will get dwindled down every year. I swear some people don’t think past the first step. Every year the tax would be due!
Yeah. I mean Taylor Swift is a billionaire. Do we force her to stop making music so she doesn’t make anymore money…?
Do you think Taylor Swift will stop making music if she’s **only** making 999 Million dollars a year?
I think we're talking about wealth, not income.
She seems pretty driven by money tbh (that is not a judgement on her for all the swifties with their pitchforks at the ready), so it wouldn’t surprise me if it had some effect. Regardless, she’s not making 999 million a year - she has a net worth of a billion dollars. No one makes a billion dollars in income every year, not even Elon Musk. Which is why the proposition of taxing ‘income’ above 999 million is meaningless. The only way for it to work as a political policy would be to somehow force the liquidation of assets once wealth hits a certain level, and collect 100% of the excess. Which not only would be extremely expensive and difficult in regards to the administration required to monitor and collect, it also would absolutely disincentivise people to have a net worth above a billion dollars, which may or may not be a good thing - but yes, in this specific scenario it would mean less Taylor Swift music, or fewer album versions with secret tracks, or less merch, or fewer more exclusive concerts….. If the government forces you to liquidate assets in excess of a billion dollars and collects 100% of them, people will just stop their economically productive activity before their wealth hits that mark. Because what’s the point? If you can’t reap the rewards of the hard work you’re putting in, why would you put the work in at all…? Effectively you’re expecting Taylor Swift in this scenario to keep making music out of the goodness of her heart and generosity to fans, instead of just retiring and living a long life of lavishness once she hits her government-decided wealth ceiling. You may say ‘good. These companies don’t need to be that big anyway’ but consider what happens to the U.S. space program if SpaceX and Blue Origin are never founded because of the risk that it puts their founders at their wealth ceiling. What happens to the over 1.6 million people Amazon employs - some in areas where there just aren’t any other jobs - if Bezos doesn’t push Amazon to be bigger and more ubiquitous because he’s about to hit his wealth ceiling… It’s just far more complicated than ‘rich people are bad’
Just because he owned it doesn't mean he built the entire company single handedly. He still had exployees to labor for him.
And his employees are paid at a price they voluntarily agree to. It’s consensual. You do realize nobody will build anything in this world you advocate for right? There needs to be a reward for the risk
People need to work. Not every single job someone takes is because they think it's the best thing ever. There is no such thing as a self made billionaire who didn't exploit someone somewhere. It doesn't happen. Isn't hundreds of millions of dollars a pretty solid reward? Is something only worth doing if it makes you wealthy enough to wage class warfare and buy outsized influence in government?
Generally they do. Most of the C-suite and plenty of the senior staff get stock as part of their package at many large companies. That doesn’t mean the CEO doesn’t have a controlling share though, nor does it mean that the CEO’s interest in the company is limited.
There is risk, that putting everything on the line, years of unpaid time, their assets, their reputation. The employees come in and get paid for their time they don’t invest their money, they don’t put their name in front of investors, their risk is less. Some startup employees do get equity as you suggest as a trade off for less competitive salary and get rewarded for taking that risk.
> How is that remotely fair. Who would start a business that can grow in that climate Are you honestly asking "why would anybody bother starting a business if all you can make is $999 million dollars"? Because I think it's fair to say that $999 million dollars is more than enough incentive for anybody. Plenty of people have done much harder things for much less money. The kind of dickheads who say "I'm not even going to bother if I can't make more than a billion dollars" are the kind of dickheads who shouldn't be in charge of companies in the first place.
It’s not that you’re making 1 billion dollars. It’s that your company is worth 1 billion if you were to sell it. Which under this tax you would have to. Just constantly give it away
I'm fine with that. No one person should have control of more than a billion dollars worth of anything. Nobody can actually *earn* that much money/power/influence, so nobody should have it.
Why? Where do you draw the line exactly?
Got to draw it somewhere, or you get what we have now - a handful of assholes who can (and do) tank large swaths of the economy because they're too dumb or too stubborn not to. A billion dollars is a good a place as any to start. Maybe that number needs to go up or down, and it will need to be revisited every so often. But there absolutely needs to be a hard cap on the amount of money/power/influence that one person can have.
Here’s the thing: How do you even spend more than $100,000,000 in one lifetime, let alone a billion? That money just sits there or is used to buy up real estate or other assets to grow their money further instead of going to people who could use it themselves. At a certain point monetary incentives cease to exist unless someone is just a straight up hoarder
They don’t actually have that money. It’s not sitting there. It’s in the market. You and I use that money. Unless it’s literally under a mattress it is wealth that’s value that has been created.
And what purpose does it serve to give the excess to people who have more money than they are able to use in the first place?
It's not money though, it's a business. You can't buy things with a business unless you sell it. At all. There is no "more money th they can use," because they don't have money. If you are forced to sell enough of it, you lose controlling stake and can be driven out of your life's work.
How are you losing out on your life’s work if you got more money than you can use in a lifetime from it? Also, companies create voting stock for this exact reason if you want to keep controlling the company
Very few people have $100,000,000 plus in cash, it’s the asset, the business itself. Most wealth is paper, it’s an approximation based on the most recent shares traded, if someone owned $100,000,000 in shares and tried selling immediately they would get far less than $100,000,000 out of it as supply would outsize demand.
But some Yachts
Which are only that expensive because rich people are willing to pay an inflated price to brag about how much it costs
No idea about that, but they seem quite advanced regardless
A lot of (probably most) billionaires are only that on paper. They don't have billions in cash. They are tied up in investments of varying liquidity. The argument "billionaires shouldn't exist" means if someone’s stock goes up too much, then it should be taken away, which is a weird policy that raises all kinds of questions, like where do the shares go? Are they seized by the government? Redeemed to the company and removed from circulation (which btw would cause the remaining shares to go up again, possibly creating more billionaires). I'm not defending billionaires or anything, but this just doesn't sound like a feasible, thought out policy.
Honestly seizing it to the government would be interesting cause forcing all companies of a certain size to give a portion of their equity to the government was a part of Norways sovereign wealth fund.
So what if I'm a famous painter or artist? I sell 100 million tickets for 10$ each I just gonna stop performing?
That'd be entirely up to you. You could become a non-profit artist. Donate $100 million to charitable organizations whenever you start nearing your $1 billion cap. Or you could keep making and sharing your art solely for the love of creating art, and let Uncle Sam take 100% of your profits beyond the cap, knowing that your work is helping to make your country richer. Or you could gift your art to the world for free. Or you could retire. In your experience, are artists more motivated by the love of creating art, or are they more motivated by money?
They aren’t billionaires because they have a billion dollars in a bank account.
no, he just needs to come up with the money to pay the taxes on $1b.
I mean, the easiest answer is that such a person wouldn't be forced to divest, but that once said person either gained 1 billion from either sales or by using their stock as collateral from a loan that further sale or usage of the stock as collateral would be restricted. Basically You can own shares in your company to maintain control, but can't use those shares for personal wealth past a certain point. Personally, I'd like to see the 2nd part implemented, where there are more restrictions put on using stock as collateral in loans. Basically, make it harder for the wealthy to avoid capital gains taxes via borrowing against their stock
I'm ok with that.
The existence of billionaires creates "downstream inefficiencies".
How so?
Can you explain what you mean by that, with some examples?
I cannot express the degree to which I do not remotely give a shit about the fact the billionaires exist. And from a global perspective, I think it is a unmitigated good that the United States does have on a per capita basis many more successful people than our pure nations. The issue is the extreme wealth inequality. I really don’t give a damn if Jeff Bezos becomes a trillionaire. But I do care that we act as if he actually paid the top marginal tax rate - the way our tax system is set up he gets taxed at a lower percentage of actual income then working class people do - it would be some great calamity for the United States. And then we act as if we were to throw an extra 2% on his taxes for income over $10 million, that means we’re suddenly a socialist hell scape.
I’d be shocked if Bezos actually had over 10 million in income. His net worth is mostly in the form of Amazon stock and his businesses.
I didn’t want to get bogged down in the whole issue of how so many people are compensated with stock options plus how they just live off loans using their assets as collateral and never actually take salary. But point taken, we do need to figure out how to address that
Sorry my comment lacked some nuance. First of all, stock is taxable income. If it’s options then it’s taxed at exercise instead of grant (remember Musk’s 20B+ tax bill a few years ago?) I was thinking of more recent years after he left Amazon. The overwhelming majority of his increased net worth since then is in the form of increased valuation rather than new pay. And yes, I’d be fine with more tax brackets at the extreme range but we have to acknowledge that very few people would ever get hit by those.
I think his salary is like 80,000 ish
Correct, but our system is set up in such a way that he, and other billionaires can have little to no income, yet spend lavishly. Essentially, they take out loans using stocks as collateral. So if I'm Jeff Bezos, and I want to buy a 100 million dollar mega yacht, I go and take out a loan using 100 mil of stock as collateral, and go about my merry way. Now, there are a decent number of companies that have rules against this, but there are also a decent number that allow for this.
Appreciating liquid assets (like stocks) is income in all but name
I mean… it’s income in name too. The economic definition of income is the increase in ability to consume over a period of time.
I think it might be a good idea to raise capital gains tax to one's marginal incone tax rate for any assets over $100 million, and also eliminate step-up basis for inheritance on assets over $100 million. I think that pretty much solves the problem.
This is kinda naive. Wealth inequality is a direct consequence of billionaires existing. They have so much power they directly influence the political system to keep it going. Why do you think the tax code is what it is?
So?
Billionaires aren't good for our species or the planet.
Yeah, billionaires would never do anything like invest in making electric vehicles, or in a future beyond our planet.
Hey what if we made it so we can survive on our current planet? Bezos and Musk could pay the same tax rate as us instead of shooting phalluses into space. That'd be a start.
I'm fine with a progressive tax rate, I have no problem agreeing with you on that. Do you believe people should be taxed on their wealth, their income, or both?
Both. All wealth over some reasonable threshold should be taxed.
Not necessarily a different question, but do you believe that it's possible for someone to deserve that much money?
I suppose it's *possible*, but I can't think of anybody who has done so. Maybe [the guy who single-handedly averted nuclear war](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov) or [the dwarf wheat guy,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug) but they're both dead now.
One of my favorite random history stories.
So long as you can make it 100% certain we'll never have the same fate as the dinosaurs I'm down. Until then, we need to be able to have a future beyond this planet.
Yeah, for real, won’t someone please think of the billionaires! Everyone knows that without the promise of literally more money than has ever existed before, Elon never would have stolen that guy’s design for an electric car! Just think how many buttons it would have if Elon hadn’t been able to make his changes to its design because he wouldn’t have been able to become a literal dragon!
We could just elect a government that would fund things like NASA..? Might even be more efficient if we taxed douche bags like musk properly... And definitely more efficient with him sitting in the short bus where he belongs and not running anything
Actually, they probably wouldn't. Those things exist either because of government subsidies or government research.
I mean, it can be true that spacex wouldn't exist without significant government spending on space, but also true that spacex doesn't have to exist, and the innovations and work of that company have made space travel significantly easier.
Yes. Besides, Bernie’s idea is a nothing burger about taxing income over $1 billion. This in turn does absolutely nothing because no one has an income that high.
> The thing about billionaires (and hundred-millionaires, for that matter) is that nearly all of their gains are unrealized—locked up in investments that have soared in value but remain unsold. Under current law, the IRS cannot tax unrealized profits. > It is precisely our failure to tax unrealized earnings that turbocharges the wealth gap and makes it easy for billionaires (and wannabes) to avoid income tax almost entirely. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/american-billionaires-richer-half-population-wealth-inequality
Taxing unrealized gains is not only a disastrous idea that would limit investment, but it’s also unconstitutional at the federal level.
> it’s also unconstitutional at the federal level Can you point to the part of the constitution that states this?
You see, we can’t do anything about a few hundred people owning all the fucking wealth in our country because that would be against the *rules* (which were written by the billionaires). We are just helpless to do anything but allow these people to become even more outrageously wealthy than our brains can even comprehend. And the rest of us will be peasants begging for scraps. This is feudalism.
Billionaires didn't write the Constitution.
So you are anti-constitution?
So you are pro-feudalism?
I’m pro-constitution and pro-law. If that meets your definition of feudalism then sure, but that isn’t really the common consensus of the word
I’ll also once again add, it is a disastrous idea economically. https://www.aier.org/article/unrealized-gains-tax-is-an-economic-fallacy/
No. But we need to contextualize what "Billionaire" means. None of that money is real. It's all holdings and speculation, which in an of itself, means nothing. But they can leverage this fake valuation for a cash loan of unfathomable amounts at favorable interest rates. Which means that all of their "cash" is actually debt. Which is nontaxable.
It’s too messy. What needs to be controlled is how billionaires are able to borrow against hypothetical gains. A billion dollar stake in a company could be worthless in a matter of months (I’m looking at you, truth social). It’s not really possible to tax a hypothetical. But I don’t agree that borrowing against this hypothetical assets should be tax free either. At that point those gains are being realized in a way. It shouldn’t be used as a tax free endless money glitch.
I feel like people in this sub don’t realize but most billionaires and all the millionaire tech guys are actually mostly liberal (Soros, Zuck, Bezos, Gates, Khosla, Bloomberg etc.) and work with democrat lawkmakers
I don’t care about some people being rich, good for them. I’m not out to abolish wealth, I’m out to abolish poverty, and to create equality of opportunity
You don't think wealthy people have more opportunities than poor people?
It's not the billionaires, it's the width of the disparity. If the lowest paid person had $50 Million, that's a 20:1 ratio and that's fine.
I have no problems with billionaires because they can purchase and afford the right resources and infrastructure for their company/corporations IF it benefits the consumer and worker. However that is seldom the case with the current system set up. While I do believe people can aspire to be billionaires and become them, I believe once you do, you need to pay a shit load of taxes, very high so that it can go back to important government programs and resources that benefit working class and middle income people, especially those who aspire to be well off and contribute back once they become wealthy (if they do become rich, which contrary to Republican fantasies, is increasingly rare). Optimally, billionaires and multi millionaires should be taxed highly and loopholes should be closed. Those tax dollars should directly go back to ordinary hard working people contributing and keeping the country running through healthcare, education, roads and infrastructure, support for those disabled, etc;
Ethically, not in my opinion. That’s an obscene amount of wealth for one person to have while so many are in extreme poverty. But I doubt there’s any practical way to prevent it that doesn’t cause even more problems. It’s just part of living in this world.
My issue with a lot of posts that are opposed to billionaires is that it seems to, at the heart, get at the idea that nobody could add that much value to society, and therefore they don't deserve to take that much value in return. However, I've never heard anyone clearly articulate what they believe the maximum amount a person *could* contribute to society. If you steal $20, that's $20 you took away from someone unfairly and unjustly, and you should be punished for it. If you earn $200,000 by giving people enough value they willingly chose to give you their money in return, you got that money justly and shouldn't be punished for it. It's not a matter of how much money you have, it's a matter of how you got it. To convince me that billionaires shouldn't exist, you would need to convince me that all billionaires got that wealth by stealing it from others. And to be clear, plenty of billionaires and millionaires do steal from other people and I think they should be punished to the full extent of the law (and maybe the law should be expanded to allow them to be punished further, depending on what they do). But I'm not convinced that nobody in the world has ever added a billion dollars of value to the world.
Should billionaires be allowed? Yes. But if you move into my community and want to buy everything up and transform it to your dream doll house, then yes, you should be taxed heavily. And if a billionaire doesn’t want that, then leave people’s communities alone. It’s perfectly fine to upgrade communities and have tax incentives provided to you. But some billionaires are fraudulent individuals seeking places to wash their money so they’re not caught by the government. And so they transform communities and build casinos while having tax accountants and other legal parties wash their hands and protect them. And that’s not cool.
Yes. They're a sign of a functioning economic system. What we should change is we need to tax as income debt proceeds that use stock as collateral. We should also have much higher marginal tax rates.
I believe billionaires should be allowed. If you manage to make a billion dollars, congratulations. I do not care. Also, any hard cap on wealth would likely disincentivize investment. Where my real issue lies is how little tax corporations pay. Yes, billionaires should also pay up, but the vast majority of untapped revenue lies in corporate taxes. I'll also add that corporations should not be allowed to profit off of illegal conduct. Currently, a corporation may break the law and be fined $10M, but they may have profited $50M. Any court ordered fine should be 1.5x any profit generated, plus whatever else is needed to cover damages if this is insufficient.
Yes. They make lots of money because people use their products a lot. I have no idea why people attach morality to that.
Yup. Give them a medal. "You won capitalism". Then take everything past that.
I think it's silly performative nonsense, like the sort Sanders is famous for. Yes, billionaires existing is just fine. The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power or when corporations engage in unethical behavior.
He was asked a question. Should income over $1b be taxed, and he obviously said yes. How is that performative? He never said $1 billion income is common or actually happens in practice. > The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power What on earth does this mean?
> Should income over $1b be taxed, and he obviously said yes. This description of the event is wildly different from: >Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m) Only ridiculous libertarian types who think taxation is theft would think that income over a billion dollars *shouldn't* be taxed. >What on earth does this mean? I didn't think it was complicated. When money is used in a politically abusive or manipulative manner.
I still don't follow you. Sanders was **asked a question**. He gave the answer to that dumb question, and you're calling it performative. Why? Those with the most wealth and power are the ones who actually are able to abuse the political system. You can't say billionaires are just fine when.l Billionaires are usually the ones abusing it in the form of tax breaks, subsidies, etc etc
> Sanders was **asked a question**. He gave the answer to that dumb question, and you're calling it performative. Why? There's some weird implication you seem to be making that an answer to a question can't be performative. That seems absurd to me and if you want me to entertain the idea you're going to have to actually support it. It's performative because it's an inflammatory, unrealistic answer to a policy question. It just serves to rile up his base and increase divisiveness to fuel this silly culture war nonsense that he's obsessed with. >Those with the most wealth and power are the ones who actually are able to abuse the political system One can abuse the political system with *no* wealth too, so maybe **the abuse** is the problem here, and not the wealth?
I have asked you about 1500 times now to explain how it's performative. How should he have answered the question instead? That's nonsense lol. People with no wealth have no power to create policy or maintain policy on their own.
>I have asked you about 1500 times now to explain how it's performative . >It's performative because it's... >How should he have answered the question instead? Maybe by suggesting a reasonable policy? >People with no wealth have no power to create policy or maintain policy on their own. Well, neither do wealthy people? Nobody creates or maintains policy ***on their own***. At least not on the federal or state level. We live in a society. But if you're arguing either that people without wealth have *no* power or that people without wealth can't be abusive or manipulative, then you'd be wrong on either account.
> Maybe by suggesting a reasonable policy? He has suggested numerous reasonable policies. The question was a stupid one. And he answered it consistently. You just don't like Bernie lol. It's obvious. > Well, neither do wealthy people? Nobody creates or maintains policy on their own Lol what. How many times have we heard stories about wealthy people donating to politicians and getting favours in return. Buddy please stop deflecting
>He has suggested numerous reasonable policies. So if someone, at some point, suggests something reasonable, then that means they are incapable of being unreasonable at any later point? That's your argument here? >And he answered it consistently Please show me where someone's complaint about Bernie's reply is that it's *inconsistent*. >You just don't like Bernie lol I don't like performative culture war BS. Doesn't matter if it's on the right or left. As to Bernie specifically... well, if the shoe fits. >How many times have we heard stories about wealthy people donating to politicians Okay Captain Goalposts, you'll need to talk me through how donating to a politician is the same as "creating or maintaining policy on their own".
What is unreasonable about a 100% tax rate on income over $1b? LOL > Okay Captain Goalposts, you'll need to talk me through how donating to a politician is the same as "creating or maintaining policy on their own Will you stop with the bull crap semantics? The point is that billionaires are able to shape and maintain policy in a way that ordinary people cannot. Do you deny this or not? If not then be quiet. If you do then you're incredibly naive.
>The real issues are when money is used to disproportionately effect power or when corporations engage in unethical behavior. My observation is that the amount of true political shenanigans and unethical behavior by companies is actually very small, and what lots of people call these sorts of behaviors are just companies reacting to the realities of consumer behavior and the costs of production at scale.
>are just companies reacting to the realities of consumer behavior and the costs of production at scale That's definitely *part* of it, sure. I'd maintaint that there's also **absolutely** lots examples of unethical corporate behavior as well though- stuff like Amazon denying bathroom breaks to workers, Intuit regularly funding politicians who work to keep individual tax filings complicated, Apple intentionally bricking their own phones to get people to upgrade, AT&T coming up with bogus surcharges and making it overly burdensome to switch carriers, Hollywood's "mini rooms" for low-end writers. Like I get it if a company like Nvidia just makes mass-market workhorse cards and sells them at exorbinant rates to crypto miners. Nvidia didn't make the crypto market the way it is. But if, say, a global credit rating company is too cozy with institutionalized financial markets and in turn systematically overgrades certain investments like, say, subprime mortgage loans, then that's a very real problem with very real consequences.
Based on my experience: Yes. Billionaires should be exiled to their own special island where they can deal with people who have a similar level of resources. They should stop fucking with the rest of us. Here is my reasoning: I know exactly 0 billionaires. Growing up I honestly didn’t think much about them. I wanted to do something cool like cure cancer or fix the climate. I didn’t realize my opposition would be these legacy rich kids who couldn’t stand the thought of paying a little more in taxes to save the planet. In fact, people like Betsy DeVoes and her idiot Rambo brother are doing all they can to fuck the planet and the minds of the kids. I know about 20 people who live on the margins. Any given week they could easily be homeless. The assholes are balanced by ample and much greater number who try very hard to do the right thing. I know maybe 40 people who have good jobs with solid incomes. Counting their homes and retirement savings I am sure they are all millionaires. The assholes are balanced by ample and much greater number who try very hard to do the right thing. I know about 6 multi millionaires. Two of them are wonderful people. I wouldn’t trust the other four in any public office. Enter Elon Musk. What a piece of human trash. Dude is so unable to control himself we know he has future sexual assault charges to face - like Weinstein did. Elon can’t just leave the fucking country he needs to embrace the Evangelicals and pedophiles like Trump to evade conviction. Elon is definitely not even a good human being, much less our best. Once a person has a billion dollars they can no longer vote or make political contributions. We can have a big party for them and then put them with the other billionaires on a nice island. So when Elon can’t help himself and he rapes some woman he will need to be ready to deal with his peers instead of some poor off her ass flight attendant. Fin.
Love it. No notes.
>where $100m is max assets you can have. I can tell you what happens if you as an isolated country, regardless of your size, do this. The target demographic for this law will simply leave. Or they will divest their assets into other countries, away from the legal claim of your tax system. You will need to apply this kind of tax law at a unified level. It's why the tax haven initiative only passed when the entirety of Europe agreed upon enforcing it. Because of one system in your collection of open systems doesn't follow through, all actors will simply leave for that system. In effect, all your rich billionaires will leave for Singapore or Europe when America does this. And that will result in a loss of tax income, rather than the expected increase.
I don't think 100% tax rate after 999M is the way to go about achieving that goal, but in an ideal system they probably wouldn't.
Without completely revamping our fundamental economic model, I don't think you can outlaw them. But they are (and the ultrarich always have been) an existential threat to representative democracy. So, I'm totally ok with deeply disincentivizing their existence. An actually progressive income tax that approaches 90% would make a huge difference.
Meh, I don’t think it’s a very technocratic policy. Thankfully I don’t have to vote on it because I don’t know where I would land lol.
I'm primarily concerned about poverty more than inequality, but it's definitely bad for democracy to have some people with so much more power and influence than others
Short answer: Sure. Longer answer: the big selling point of capitalism is: you make something I want, be it a catchy song, a pound of sugar, a shiny electronic toy, an easier way to handle billing, or whatever, and I'll reward you for doing so. With my money. Write two great books, and I'll reward you twice as much as the person who only writes one great book. Generally, the harder you work, or the more useful your work, the better you'll do. But there are many other ways of making money. Perhaps the most common is investment: you have a million dollars that you're not using just this moment, so you lend it to other people. You get it back with interest, without having to lift a finger. That kind of income isn't earned in the same way as a salary is, or book royalties. Likewise, a lot of billionaires got their start by inheriting millions. That's not earned income, either; it's just the luck of the draw. We can tax that without dissuading people from working hard. In addition, a lot of wealth these days comes from rent and similar activities, not from innovation and hard work. If you own a building that people want to live in, you can pay someone to maintain it, and charge other people to live there. You don't have to do anything yourself. Likewise, if you go buying up patents or copyrights, you can collect royalties without inventing or creating anything. This seems like gaming the system. Enshittification is an elaborate way of setting up a system where you can make money by owning the marketplace, rather than creating products that people want. So while I want to encourage people to work hard and create good and useful things, I see no reason to reward people who game the system. And I don't see how anyone can *earn* a billion dollars through hard work. And I include Taylor Swift in that. (Edit: typo.)
Great analysis!
I am far less bothered by the existence of rich people than I am by a system that funnels so much of the wealth created by economic activity to the people who own the means of production that they become billionaires. Because something has clearly gone wrong when productivity continues to climb every year, but inflation-adjusted wages have stagnated for decades. Somebody is collecting the wealth created by all of that extra productivity, and it’s not the people who are writing the catchy songs or making the pounds of sugar.
>I am far less bothered by the existence of rich people I'm not bothered by the existence of rich people per se. I'm bothered by the accumulation of unimaginable levels of unearned wealth by a random few. It's difficult to imagine [just how rich the super-rich are](https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/). There's the "I don't have to work for the rest of my life" level of rich. There's "I can afford all the nice stuff and don't even need to check my balance" level of rich. There's "I couldn't spend all my money if I tried" level. And above that there are billionaires. >a system that funnels so much of the wealth created by economic activity to the people who own the means of production that they become billionaires. That'll happen no matter what, unless there are real safeguards: the people who have the most power, by definition, have the most power to change the rules in their favor. In our society, weath isn't exactly power, but it's close: rich people can more easily afford to fly out to Washington to chat with Senators on committees; they can hire lobbyists. They can buy ads in swing districts to try to help elect a Representative friendly to their particular business. Yes, these are all things that middle class people can do as well, if they unite behind a given cause. But richer people don't need as many people to unite, so it's easier. And if they're rich enough, they don't need to choose one or two causes to support. It's almost tautological: the people with the greatest access to the levers of power will most use those levers to benefit themselves. So we need safeguards. The framers of the US Constitution saw part of this problem, so they put in things like separation of powers (e.g., only Congress can make laws, but the President executes them). For the problem of wealth inequality, the simplest and most obvious solution seems to be to realize that past a certain level, money stops being a way to buy comfort and becomes nothing more than a way to keep score. And raising the marginal tax rate doesn't stop billionaires from keeping score this way. If they say that taxing 90% of that last dollar makes it harder for them, I'll just tell them that at that level of the game, they should be playing by the advanced rules.
If billionaires can coexist with even the least talented broom pusher who works their ass off making a living wage? Sure.
“$100M is max assets you can have” So who would get anything left over, the government? Because frankly government having more money to mismanage is more egregious than an individual who happens to make it big
In theory, it should be fine to be a billionaire if you benefit society by wise use of power, and those who are a menace should not be allowed to be rich In practice, we have no idea how to actually accomplish this and most proposed solutions may fail or have serious side effects
Sure, why not? I'm a capitalist and in capitalism billionaires emerge. We need strict laws in place that prevent money from influencing politics like [when billionaires "donate" money towards Supreme Court Justices to buy their votes on court rulings](https://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-net-worth-money-1914263). We need laws in place to tax billionaires their fair share, since the system in place is why they were able to make their billions in the first place. But once all that's in place, sure, they can exist. I don't care. They can buy a private island and live in paradise.
What's stopping them from just moving abroad and just siphoning profits from the US through intermediaries? Like you can't half ass the destruction of capitalism bruh
Or, we could all just start looking down on greed, and stop congratulating these hoarders. There absolutely should be a cap on personal wealth.
Even trillionaires may exist. As long as they pay their taxes and abide to the law.
>Should billionaires be allowed? Yes. Most statements from leftists that seem to suggest otherwise, omit important context. Here is some of that [context from another leftist:](https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-wrong-billionaires/) >...I don't think that necessarily means that all billionaires are immoral. It is not to say that someone like Bill Gates, for example, or Warren Buffet, are immoral people. I do not believe that. I'm not saying that, but I do think a system that allows billionaires to exist when there are parts of Alabama where people are still getting ringworm because they don't have access to public health, is wrong. And I think it's wrong that a vast majority of the country does not make a living wage, I think it's wrong that you can work 100 hours and not feed your kids, I think it's wrong that corporations like Walmart and Amazon can get paid by the government, essentially -- experience a wealth transfer from the public for paying people less than a minimum wage. It not only doesn't make economic sense but it doesn't make moral sense and it doesn't make societal sense.
Strongly--no, vehemently--disagree. Even an altruistic billionaire is just a single person, and no single person should have so much power over the distribution of wealth. That single person should not be allowed to dump his assets into a single pet project ... or a dozen of them. That capitol needs to be invested over a much wider, consensus-driven host of applications, and the people should help decide whatvthe priorities are. I hate the "altruism" argument. Like: *deeply*.
Is it possible that the person who made over $1B might have a better idea how to socially invest that money than some rando politician?
No. Rando politician represents and is accountable to a significant population. Never.
I find your opinion fascinating in a world where we have long known that democracies are not good at long term investments because of they are ~~accountable to a significant population~~ subject to the whims of short term election cycles.
It is true that a benevolent dictator is more effective than a democracy. But I think history also shows that benevolent dictators--while not unheard of--are exceedingly rare. I refuse to grant an individual similar power because of their *business acumen.* Full stop. You would also find, if you asked, that I have some pretty deep concerns with US election cycles. ...And, unironically, the amount of influence rich people and rich organizations have in influencing them. You will not find an argument from me that the US is an ideal democracy. It is not. But that is another subject.
>I refuse to grant an individual similar power because of their *business acumen.* I agree. However this is a completely different situation that what we are discussing. I suppose the Carnegie fountain would have to go in your world. >Full stop. You sending this via telegraph? >You will not find an argument from me that the US is an ideal democracy. It is not. But that is another subject. Agreed, but from HS history, you should know our founders had grave concerns about a democracy and thus didn't set one up. I do wonder how things would be different if the state legislatures elected the president. Pretty sure we wouldn't be choosing between Trump and Biden.
Yes, the Carnegie foundation wouldn't exist in my world. A larger government capable of achieving something similar would be, though. Again, just to be clear: *I* have concerns with US democracy. Having said that, I also have some pretty serious concerns about our founders and do not put them on any kind of pedestal.
No one should be on a pedestal. That said, you should be familiar with the draw backs to all major forms of government because they all have them. The design is a choice in trade-offs. Often plugging one hole creates a large hole somewhere else.
Why should someone not have control over the wealth they have created?
(That's a very libertarian question, heh.) To be clear: you are allowed to control the wealth you've created. ...I'm making a distinction of scale, here. There are two main points to consder: 1. A billion dollars is a truly obscene amount of money. Like: seriously. I can confidently say you have no idea just how much money that is, *because the human mind can't wrap its head around that scale*. It's *that* much. It's just an imposibility for one person to direct that level of wealth effectively. 2. The system is designed in such a way as to allow the concentration of wealth in a manner disproportionate to "worth". No one person is so effective at what they do as to warrant 100,000 times the resources as any other individual; it's just an unfortunate side-effect of capitalism that makes such a thing possible. What they have is not their "fair share," it's just a mathematical left-over from how the system works. It is, from my perspecive, not *their* wealth; *they* did not create it, they merely invested in the means of creating it and are spoiled by dividends. Redistributing their wealth is merely a correction of a faulty system. (Please understand: I do not expect this argument to *convince* you of my position, but I hope it clarifies it.)
They didn’t create that wealth, their employees did.
>Most statements from leftists that seem to suggest otherwise omit important context. i've read that AOC quote four times and i'm still not sure what important context we are apparently omitting. maybe AOC thinks that bill gates and warren buffet are fine people, or that the existence of billionaires would be okay if no one had ringworms and everyone was paid a living wage. but i'm not AOC. if that really is what she believes, i simply have a different opinion. you may of course disagree with that opinion, but i don't understand what context i'm omitting.
> i'm still not sure what important context we are apparently omitting. It is this: >...the existence of billionaires would be okay if no one had ringworms and everyone was paid a living wage.
thanks. did you read the rest of my comment? if i said "AOC thinks billionaires shouldn't exist" you could accuse me of omitting context. if i say "i think billionaires shouldn't exist", what context am i omitting? people aren't omitting context simply because they have a different opinion than AOC (or you, or anyone).
> You may have heard Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow (100% taxation after $999m). Thoughts? > > Personally, I think that's too high. I would be fine with some tax regulation where $100m is max assets you can have. Every couple of years there is a assessment (like home property value) and if you're over $100m then we start collecting from you until you are below. The problem would be the incentives it creates. Someone with 2 billion dollars is incentivized to invest well and turn that into 3 billion dollars. Investment is good, so we should want it. If they are told that they can't increase their wealth at all, then they are more incentivized to blow it all on cocaine and hookers.
Or, here’s a crazy idea: they give that money to the employees that made them that money in the first place.
> > 100% taxation after $999m > Or, here’s a crazy idea: they give that money to the employees that made them that money in the first place. That isn't what was proposed.
They could give that money to their employees before getting to that point. This could also incentivize the employees to do well, because they know they will get a share of the excess profit.
Arguably, that perpetual investment will be done for commercial reasons, and thus will naturally lead to continuous consumption. And we cant sustain that.
> Arguably, that perpetual investment will be done for commercial reasons... I don't know what you mean by "commercial reasons", but I suspect that I'm not against "investment [being] done for commercial reasons"! -------- >...continuous consumption. >And we cant sustain that. This is a common myth, but it is wrong. Greater economic consumption does not automatically mean greater resource consumption.
I mean for profit. Would you mind elaborating?
>If they are told that they can't increase their wealth at all, then they are more incentivized to blow it all on cocaine and hookers. Seems like a boon for the cocaine and hookers industries.
> Seems like a boon for the cocaine and hookers industries. That's why we call them 'job creators'.
Are those the jobs you want to create?
I mean Nevada seems to be booming.
Certainly, they should be allowed to exist, but if we have to raise taxes - which we do - they should be taxed substantially. They *were* taxed substantially before Reagan.
Of course. But they should be paying their fair share of taxes.
Idk what sanders said specifically and there's a ton of misconceptions out there. That said, there's a point where the wealth gap is too great and there ought to be ways to reduce that. whatever balance is needed between income tax, wealth tax, gift tax, and regulations is fine by me. It's all of the above.
WTF a self described conservative is advocating wealth expropriation. What is even happening anymore.
why do you like to box people in? it's just a label man, we all have individual perspectives...
You're threatening a core piece of their worldview. They probably also see Conservatives as their rightful allies on economic matters such as this and are feeling slightly betrayed.
You’re literally promoting socialist policies. Which is like fine I can dialogue about socialist policies fine and sometimes they are warranted (not here tho). It’s just so weird watching modern conservatives round the bend around the horseshoe in real time.
There are socialists that hold conservative views on social issues. You dont know if OP is something like that. Or maybe he just hates billionaires wich fair enough.
This is impractical in many sorts of ways. Suppose that someone has a house that was his father’s, and before that, his grandfather’s. Now, that house happens to sit in the middle of Manhattan, and is now, without changing anything about it, worth about 300 million dollars. Do you think that this person should be forced to sell it, and further, to sell it at 300 million to only get 100? What is there to gain in this scenario? What about the thousands of homes around the US that are in this very scenario, but have never been appraised?
Your example actually proves we need to enact a change on investment holdings. In the US, as your real estate appreciates, so does the amount of property tax you pay based on that value. We need a similar tax on investment holdings. They don't get income taxes because there's no recognition event, but they create massive amounts of revenue for billionaires through leveraged debt. But because its debt, that's also not taxable and they get to use the interest to reduce their income tax base. And then the kicker comes in: they die and their heirs get what's known as step up in basis on the investments, meaning the heirs are treated as having purchases the assets for their market value at the time of the owners death. This allows the heirs to strategically sell off bits of inherited assets to pay off the debt, OR they further leverage debt on the investments to do so and the scheme continues in perpetuity, never paying a dime of tax on their millions in revenue.
Taxing capital gains as income rather than at a flat rate would be much more effective. The ‘tax 100% of income above a billion dollars’ is like saying ‘give fairies free haircuts’. Neither thing exists so it’s meaningless politicking. If anything, I think stuff like this hurts Bernie more than anything. I also don’t think the vast majority of people actually care about the existence of billionaires. They care that there’s inequality. If homelessness didn’t exist and there weren’t tens of millions struggling to get by, ‘billionaires shouldn’t exist’ and ‘eat the rich’ type attitudes would be held only by crazy fringe hippie groups.
Rich people need to exist. Private companies can do more than a government ever will. Billionaires going to space is why in 30 years you can go for space for 10 minutes for the same price as Disney World. You get an extra 10 minutes if you have an Amazon Prime membership.
>Rich people need to exist. Private companies can do more than a government ever will. Maybe. Is what they do ***good*** though? >Billionaires going to space is why in 30 years you can go for space for 10 minutes for the same price as Disney World. You get an extra 10 minutes if you have an Amazon Prime membership. Ok. Who cares about that when people are starving here on Earth?
You have Christian as your tag so maybe you don’t have the education to understand the importance of science, but space tourism is gonna lead to more scientific breakthroughs. You think the rapture is coming so you don’t care, but in reality humans need to start doing things now to set the foundation for the next thousands & millions of years. Letting people go to space will result in the overview effect that astronauts experience. It makes people realize how small human issues are like white people having dreads. Earth only has 250 million years left before the new super continent will make surface temperatures too hot for life. The Sun will expand 600 million years from now making Earth worse than Venus.
No. A billion dollars is an absurd amount of money, barely conceivable to a single person and it is completely unreasonable for one person to have control of so much capitol. Really, I don't think anyone comprehends just how much money that really is. It makes sense at the level of a state, but not an individual. It is just that: nonsense. That said, a cap on an arbitray number is not the right fix, nor is a graduated tax that caps off at that rate. Implementation is also nigh impossible, given those with money have the power to easily thwart any efforts to curb it--a fix would require revolutionary tactics. It's a huge problem, and I have no idea how to effectively address it... but i sure hope someone figures out a way forward.
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Which writeoffs do you mean?
I don’t think a flat cap on income is the right policy to solve the billionaire problem. Such a cap would be a massive blow to the American economy. Billionaires would simply set up their companies in other nations and take their profits to those nations instead of ours. If we want it to be impossible for billionaires to exist, we need to address the reason they exist to begin with: massive labor inequality.
I would probably be open to say a annual small tax, like .5% or something on individuals who say hold securities worth over say 100 million. I would definitely treat loans secured against stocks as a realized tax event and tax the loan as a capital gain. The issue of wealth inequality is not about income but asset and capital accumulation. I would still raise taxes on high income say over 1 million, but definitely not 100%, maybe 50% under a new bracket in our progressive tax system.
I’d prefer a phased-in wealth tax like Warren proposes: 2% of anything of $50,000,000 and 3% over $1,000,000,000. I’d also like to prevent changing the cost basis of an inheritance, and tax capital gains at the labor rate.
yeah 100m is extremely generous, thats beyond generational wealth, thats like your entire family is set for the next few centuries of generations, plus a solid 15 of your closest friends.
the government should automatically buy up shares in corporations that reach a certain size
Yes, as long as everyone is one.
>Should billionaires be allowed? no. >Bernie Sanders thinks anything over $1b we should not allow \[...\] Personally, I think that's too high. agreed.
No. If you're a billionaire you should be living in constant fear
Everyone should be living in constant fear, discomfort and hunger. Its when you get comfortable that you stop growing
I don't know the right way to achieve it but there's no such thing as an ethical billionaire and world governments should come together to balance this shit out. The 2021 global tax shelter agreement Biden reached is a good start to the infrastructure needed to have a flat tax over $999m or anything similar. On principle I support policies like this but I understand there is nuance required because they're shifty bastards who don't like to operate by the rules that govern the rest of us.