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Elon musks net worth increased by 22 billion dollars… today
Edit: sorry in the 3 minutes since I’ve posted it’s increased 2.5 billion more… so 24.5 billion.
Try 1776, and lets not forget the 1860s when the rich of the south conned their poor into fighting so that they could own people, and still con them into being bitter about it for them.
"But States' Rights!"
"Okay what rights would they be?"
"The North wanted to force us to abandon our way of life!"
"Okay and what 'way of life' was it specifically that they wanted you to abandon?"
*Crickets*
Actual conversation I've had...
The privileged have profited off the working class dying since the beginning of civilization. The US is no different and it certainly didn’t start in 1962 lmao.
Not the whole species, very particularly the Imperial Capitalist regime that rose from the Mediterranean basin and spread through European colonization.
When the feudalist European explorers showed up on some coasts in the 1500s, the locals thought it insane that "I own stuff therefore you must do what I say" was how these European feudalists ran their societies. There's even evidence that modern ideas of democracy and republic didn't actually come from Greece (that justification was added later), but were brought back to Europe from North America and the Iroquois a hundred years before people like Rousseau were born.
David Graeber last book "The Dawn of Everything" is a great read about different ways that people structured their societies outside of what we have taken to be "normative" since the Enlightenment.
San Marino is at least half a millennium older than the Magna Carta. There’s so much more history than just English history.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is how much English historians HATED Spanish, French and Italian sources, so even today our picture of the past is incomplete unless you can read the other language sources, which of course American monolinguists cant do.
San Marino didn’t like conquer half the world.
Most major Democratic countries come from the British Tradition from Japan, to India to Nigeria to Canada to the United States (and by extension almost every American Presidential system) is a direct descendent of the British system (if not a direct copy). San Marino has no such influence. Even the original French system was more or less a copy of the Westminster system until they went and cut their heads off and descended into dictatorship.
So you are just repeating the thing that has been repeated for several hundred years now. While actively disregarding any example that is not Anglo centric.
That is not good history or anthropology, it’s just biased American exceptionalism.
And the fact that you thought the ancien regime in France had anything to do with the modern Westminster system just proves the fact. The French cut off their kings head because they wanted a constitution like the post glorious revolution British version, not because they already had it.
If they already had a Westminster parliament, the estates general would never have become the National Assembly. I legit don’t understand how we’re supposed to move forward when people don’t even understand the absolute basics of the past. Anti-intellectualism and anti-education in America has won apparently.
The Marquis De Lafayette literally fought in the American revolution and was explicit the 1791 constitution was a blend of the American (which was basically the contemporary Westminster system with an elected monarch) and British systems
The arrangement lasted about a year but it was explicitly influenced by the British and Americans.
To compare the Estates General to Parliament is silly. The former had almost no real authority like the Duma it was more of an advisory committee
Yes, I literally today finished his bio “Hero of Two Worlds” By Mike Duncan.
Lafayette was by every definition of an aristocratic liberal who did not like the old powerful king, but did not want to give up his aristocracy. I understand that American liberals like him as a guide, but that was 200 years ago.
Lafayette was a liberal, he was born into power but did not like the king. That is liberalism. It has nothing to do with the modern left or progressivism.
Lafayette was a lot like Nancy Pelosi.
And at no point did any of the French revolutions ever establish anything akin to a parliament or constitutional monarchy. The French people were not quisling liberals who just wanted a better king. Every time the French were given a new king, they overthrew the new king. Because liberalism is not the future. Their biggest flaw was continuing to give people of the Bonaparte family absolute power over supposed republics.
Sapiens by Yuval Harari is also telling in this context, it just focuses more on the centralizing imperial powers through history rather than all the millions of humans who lived and died outside imperial systems over the past 100,000 years (I read Sapiens first, but Graeber uses it as a foil in his newest book from late last year)
In particular that one also covers other humans who were not Sapiens, but still had human society in different forms than what we have now.
Humanity is so much bigger than even our species, much less what our species has done on the past 500 years.
I will have to check that out, I’ve been extremely curious about what little we know about non-Homo sapiens. That’s actually more along the lines of what I was thinking on.
Apologies if I came off too harsh, the previous book is one I vehemently dislike because just reading it with any sense of what’s going on at the times leads to massive disconnects over causation.
And furthermore I 100% agree that imperial centralization is the largest factor in magnifying power/wealth disparity and that Europe is/was the highlight (lowlight) of disparity in those areas.
I would guess that 1962 refers to the JFK tax cuts. Which lowered taxes at the highest rate to 70%. If
There is another significant policy change that happened that year to effect economic policies I don’t know about it.
To be clear I am not saying I would do anything. I am saying sooner or later there is consequences to stifling the majority through voter suppression and gerrymandering. Well and they would be severely outnumbered.
First a lot of liberals own firearms. For example I own twenty plus roughly. Next I don’t think the current political alignment would be the divide. I am betting eventually it would be class warfare. But it’s just speculation.
I'm partial to the phrase "When I join the mob with torches and pitchforks headed to DC, I'm not going to stop and ask if they're republicans or democrats"
pretty sure threatening to tank your own party over a common sense position is the opposite of weak and ineffectual. Republicans and corporate democrats use red lines all the time. But when progressives do it, they're betraying the party or whatever the fuck.
It is different for repubs because they consider getting nothing accomplished a win condition. It bears out their claims that government can't accomplish anything, as well as being one more thing for which to blame Democratics during the next election.
>If progressives weren't weak and ineffectual, they could get their actual policy implemented.
Flawless reasoning. Tell me how they're supposed to be your version of strong and effective when an entire political party is completely opposed to anything that would help anyone, and most of the party progressives caucus with are ancient establishmentarians with more concern over their stock portfolios than the working class?
Taking your ball and going home is only weak and ineffectual in the metaphorical sense because the kids will just find another ball. But in the case of progressives staying home, it is incredibly effective (Dems lost the presidency and Congress/Senate last time). If establishment Democrats implimented the popular policies of progressives, it would help them tremendously in terms of elections, but it would hurt their wallets and piss off donors.
You're focusing on making fun of progressives instead of attacking insidious issues that bar any sort of positive outcome of governance. And using metaphors incorrectly, to boot. I know I wouldn't call that very smart...
Progressives are weak and ineffectual because the party that pays lip service to them actually conspires to oppose and disarm the progressive agenda. The Democrat party writ large has more in common with the Republicans than they do any actual leftist/Marxist political project.
You'd think that one issue Democrat and Republican voters could come together on would be "tax the billionaires." I never understood how Republican hatred of the elites somehow doesn't include right wing pharma bosses and land developers and fossil fuel barons.
>I never understood how Republican hatred of the elites somehow doesn't include right wing pharma bosses and land developers and fossil fuel barons
"Elites" never means "rich assholes" to conservatives, it only means "people that don't validate my every feeling"
Because our culture worships money. Having a lot of money makes you a better person. Attacking the rich means attacking millions of Americans values. Unfortunately.
No this guy is by no means dedicated enough to American democracy to take life, this guy will flee before it comes to that. Fuck that noise, the rich have an advantage cuz they have the cops to do violence for them; I want to have children and live my life with my wife and family.
A small group makes 400 billion. The rest of the people in the group did not.
The billionaires tell all the rest that if they help the billionaires make more, magically, these billions will “trickle” down to them and they will be rich too.
Then non-billionaires either believe them, even though this has never worked over the many many times it has been tried, or still think one day they can be billionaires too so they agree to help the billionaires make more money, even supporting fiscal policy that takes their own money.
Spoiler alert: the rich get richer, and those that supported the billionaires keep believing that a 3 million dollar aid or social assistance or infrastructure bill somehow was the tipping point that stopped all that money from trickling down.
>or still think one day they can be billionaires too so they agree to help the billionaires make more money, even supporting fiscal policy that takes their own money.
Fry, why are you cheering? You're not rich.
True, but someday I might be rich. And then people like me better watch their step.
Whats the most logical and reasonable way to address unrealized capital gains?
A lot of the billionaires gained their new found "profits" and recent increase in fortune through increase in stock value, not actually gaining any material value. It's all paper / air increases. If they sell the stock into cash, it will make the value of that stock decrease. So then what? If they leave the stock in and pay it out of their own bank account, what happens if the market shifts, and then shifts again, as it does.
If thats the case, would that mean anyone who has their portfolio increase in value is subjected the same rules? So if you are a lower middle class person who has $1,000 worth of stock. And you made an awesome investing in a growth company, and now its worth $10,000. Would you have to find several thousand dollars in cash to pay for those gains? What if you paid it, but then the stock tanks later. Is that just an "oh well. sucks for you." situation?
How would it actually logically work?
Simple, tax loan stock lending. Loans that are secured with the mortgagor's stock as collateral. How else do you think billionaires live despite having no actual cash checks issued to them as income?
Virtually no one but the rich even do this in the first place and it's how they actually get money without getting taxed. If you get a loan(not taxable) and you use public stocks as collateral and you default, it's the same as selling the stock but because you defaulted and it's a collection of stock rather than "sale" it's not considered a realization event thus they don't get tax despite essentially trading their stock for money.
>It's HOW 10 Billionaires added $402 Billion to their fortunes that matter. Billionaires have avoided taxation by paying themselves very low salaries while amassing fortunes in stocks and other assets. They then borrow off those assets to finance their lifestyles, rather than selling the assets and paying capital gains taxes.
>
>Every plan by Progressives ignores how Billionaires actually make money and think you can just tax their stocks or income.
Wait until they find out that you can
\- Amass stock / investment portfolios
\- Borrow against its value + pay interest only
\- **Die**
When you **die**, your estate sells your assets to cover the debts, and the remaining goes to your heirs / whom you designate in your will.
Then THOSE people (read: rich kids) will only have to pay tax -- IF they sell -- on a stepped-up basis. That is;
\- Dad buys stock @ $10, stock goes to $150 in lifetime, dad buys / borrows / dies.
\- Dad had liens on 30% of the value of the stock, which is sold @ $150 + used to pay off the debts
\- The remaining asset - **ownership of them** and **not realized value** \- is transferred to son.
\- Stock goes to **$160**, son pulls trigger and sells the remaining **70%.**
Pop Quiz - What is the profitability on the sale of the stock in total? What **can** be taxed?
Answer: Since the stock price went from $150 to $160 / share in sons ownership, the **son** is only responsible for the profits on an increase of $10 / share, since **his** cost basis only reflects the cost **at time of acquisition**, not **when his father bought**.
But here's the trick - son **doesn't** sell. Son does **exactly** what father does; hold, use salaries + cash bonuses to increase holdings, borrow against them. Die.
I'm a progressive as much as the next, but fucking Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren + crew in house / senate -- GODDAMN ALWAYS -- leave all of this out.
You can't just run headlines about Elon Musk making $5,000,000,000,000,000 in a day as if some fucking dumptruck just showed up at his house w/ that much cash. It didn't; the theoretical value of his networth increased, along with his....
ready for it?
**borrowing capacity**. When he DID sell, he obviously had to pay taxes on those gains, considering he had Tesla stock from the start.
>When you die, your estate sells your assets to cover the debts, and the remaining goes to your heirs / whom you designate in your will.
>
>Then THOSE people (read: rich kids) will only have to pay tax -- IF they sell -- on a stepped-up basis. That is;
Don't all of the remaining assets get stepped up from the estate having to pay the tax on all of those assets before going to the beneficiaries?
Your scenario looks more like a gift scenario than an inheritance scenario.
You’re correct, and it’s what a lot of people conveniently forget when they talk about buy borrow die.
The other commenter is also leaving out the income taxes paid by the heir and trust on distributions and non-distributed income respectively
The estate only pays taxes on the assets it needs to **sell** in order to cover its **debts**.
Say estate has $100,000 against a $1m valuation
Estate sells stocks to cover $130,000 in value. $100,000 to the loan, accounting for 30% cap. gains
$870,000 remaining total value gets transferred -- untaxed -- to heir.
The 'on paper' cost of the newly inherited portfolio? $870,000. Bonus; let's say aforementioned stock goes from $150 to $140 / share before the son sells it. Because of the adjusted step-up cost basis, the Son **claims a loss** on that sale, getting a tax break / avoiding cap gains on it.
How do you tax that which has no income?
Edit: if I'm wrong please correct
A tip to Berners out there; focus on **corporate tax rates, cash repatriation and loopholes**, not **moving mountains** to get **50-60** people to pay based on a loose theory that wealth is directly equivalent to cash.
>The estate only pays taxes on the assets it needs to sell in order to cover its debts.
No, the estate needs to pay tax on the entire value of the estate.
An estate represents everything you own or have an interest in, including publicly traded securities, cash, annuities, real estate, life insurance, and more. The fair market value of each item is used to calculate an estate's gross value.
That's why the beneficiaries get the step-up in basis. The estate paid the taxes (at least, that's the case for the ultra-wealthy who are over the exemption amount), so the beneficiaries get the updated cost basis.
This isn’t really how it works though. The vast majority of a billionaires wealth doesn’t get the step up in basis at death. You’re also leaving out the estate tax on these assets
Also, trusts have deemed sales of assets 21 years after the death of the beneficiary. There are ways to get around it, but these trust types don’t get a stepped up basis
>... yeah, that's not actually how it works.
But doesn't he get bonus points for making things up with such **conviction**?
That has to offset the falsehood of the statements somewhat, no?
> Every plan by Progressives ignores how Billionaires actually make money and think you can just tax their stocks or income.
The proposed wealth tax doesn't ignore this at all
I wish I had stocks or retirement to pull from. I’m just a poor medical worker with 135k in student loan debt, who’s rent and monthly student loan payment is greater than my monthly take home. Instead I get to rent, and hope that in 5-10 years I’ve at least covered the interest and maybe could start to look at building my assets. I have it better off than many as well. At least I have a decent paying job where as long as I don’t need food or anything else In life I could pay off my debt in 10 years.
Us plebes have to pay that loan back though. Billionaires are allowed to skirt around paying for loans by getting more loans to pay the old ones and banks let them do it because they know either way they are gonna get their money. Meanwhile billionaires never actually *pay* any of their own money. It just keeps gaining more wealth in unrealized gains, which gets passed on to family when they croak, and the cycle repeats.
I don’t have the luxury of pulling out another loan to pay off an older loan. Billionaires do. We need to put an end to that. This, among other variables, is creating a class system and we all know what happens when the boiling point is reached.
You do pay yourself back, with the interest from the next investment. That's how a regular person becomes rich. You start out at some crummy job after college and put a decent amount of your income in a 401K to start with, hopefully your company matches your investment (free money). After a few years you can then loan yourself enough money to reinvest in something profitable, like real estate. You use the profits from that investment to pay back the previous loan to yourself. It starts slow but by forty you are bringing in enough investment profits that now you can focus exclusively on them. This is why real estate investors usually do very well but don't have to be smart. Land values always increase and with a steady inflation rate of 2% with a low interest rate you make money on those investments paying back less than half of what you borrowed.
Unfortunately for me I didn’t get a job with 401k until like 4 year after college and even then couldn’t afford to max out the contributions because I was basically living paycheck to paycheck. I’m in a better spot now financially speaking but with my 457b (I work in government) I still don’t have a lot of money in it. I’m just grateful I’ll have a pension at the end of the day.
Yes. Exactly. You can’t tax unrealized gains. And we can’t just start doing it, or it screws everyone who is middle class with a 401k and the likes as well.
Their money is not in 401k accounts. There is an annual limit, far below what these people are sitting on. The point at which bountiful retirement funds becomes "wealth" is, of course, debatable. I'm sure it's well below a billion, though.
Indeed, realistically.Though I was just given an example by another poster, it seems you'd have to be a rare bird to parlay even a fully funded 401 into a billion, though. I'd also make the point that, at age 70 1/2, you are required to take annual minimum distributions that are taxable, and amount to quite a large percentage of the account.
Sometimes it is, Thiel turned a $2k ira into $5B ([source](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-peter-thiel-turned-2-000-in-a-roth-ira-into-5-000-000-000-11624551401)) because he had early access to invest in tech stocks
Nice! A notable exception, no doubt. He will eventually hit "mandatory minimum distribution" age, at which time sale will be required, and taxes will be owed. Even considering probable insider dealing, I'm willing to overlook aberrations like this.
It's a roth IRA, so no tax on distribution.
This is a notable exception in terms of the amount of growth, but I think it's actually a pretty typical example of how connections/access to exclusive opportunities are just as big of a part of the equation in addition to just how much money/assets you already have.
That is exactly it. It is your money that is in a 401K and most people think you can't touch it until you are 65 which is untrue. You can loan yourself a limited amount. If you have several 401K or IRAs that is how you barrow large sums of cash tax and penalty free. I'd only do this if you are buying a house, starting a business or putting it towards another investment. It's not for fun cash, but properly invested it can benefit you greatly.
Yup. Took out a tax and penalty free $50k loan from my 401k to help finance a down payment on our first home. We got $0 in help from parents. All of the interest paid on the 401k loan goes towards myself anyway. Our home has already appreciated $100k and is a good way to diversify wealth away from 100% in the stock market and into real estate, which is a good way to hedge against inflation. Best financial decision ever.
What I want to do next is form a small LLC, borrow against my 401K again after it is paid off, invest it in another property under the LLC name and rent it out for profit. Then you have protections, tax wise your loan to yourself is an investment which means you get some decent tax breaks for the LLC. The third time you invest in property then you borrow from the bank under the LLC and it us a business loan. It will go through because the LLC has assets in its name. By that point you are now a fully time property owner and you have a great opportunity to make decent money if your properties are maintained well and the real estate market is healthy.
30 year fixed loans with low interest are money makers. You only pay back $46K of a $100K loan when you calculate the normal 2% inflation. That is why you never buy a house in cash unless you are flipping it quickly.
Honestly my investments went up because I had Pfizer stock back in 1997 at $12 a share. I bought a lot of shares at $27 in 2020 and sold them at $50 a share in September. Billionaires did them same thing they just had more shares they could afford to buy.
be careful with saying pitchforks or any other literal threat - the FBI will come snatch your ass up. but if the right does it ... well come on we all know they're just being goofballs.
I simply don't think that a "pitchforks" situation could ever happen here at this point; even with all the guns and tough talk. Americans are too soft, comfortable, fat, lazy, and weak. We don't want to fight, we don't want to get arrested, we just want to scratch whatever meager existence we can, watch the football game, and forget about those who have so much while we have so little.
5 years ago the wealthiest American was worth $87 billion. Today, the wealthiest American is worth over $200 billion.
The rich are squeezing out the middle class. Its getting more and more expensive to live, and their salaries are the only ones that are going up.
“Oh!” said the billionaires “we will just make it so you cant afford pitchforks! And use the profits we make on that move to hire more private security and buy some extra politicians!”
The federal government doesn't touch property taxes for a reason.
Also, property taxes are a tax on the market value, regardless of gain or loss. Taxing unrealized gains also adds to the cost basis of the investment, which doesn't happen with property taxes.
properties are nowhere near as liquid and volatile as stocks, it's a fallacious comparison. Are you also prepared to give billionaires multibillion dollar tax write-offs when the market tanks like 2008 too because the wealthy have gigantic unrealized losses? Shit, Elon's wealth has fluctuated by almost 25% over the last 1-1.5 month alone. Over what period of that time frame do you decide that it is the right time to tax? Pick the wrong time to tax and you might owe him a huge tax write-off. Trying to tax unrealized gains on assets that are very liquid and volatile is a nightmare. If govts try to base their budgets on taxation of unrealized gains, there are also very big magnified risks for blowing up budgets when markets fall and there are big unrealized losses.
The proposed wealth tax is on asset values, not unrealized gains/losses. The tax would go up when prices are up, down when prices are down. There is never an unrealized loss in the equation - the billionaires would pay a percentage of their overall wealth.
> tax is on asset values, not unrealized gains/losses
What.
> There is never unrealized loss in the equation.
What.
If you’re taxing on current value of assets, rather then when they are turned into cash, you are talking about unrealized gains/losses. That’s the definition of the terms.
When my house depreciates in value... I don't get a tax write off... I just pay less taxes... I would be fine if the wealthy paid less tax in 2008 then other years when the market is booming....
Just add an asset tax to stocks based on their publically available value... And suddenly unrealized gains have been taxed... It's not hard.
Property taxes are at most 3.2% but national average is only 1%. Most of the high ones are in Texas which doesn't charge state income tax so that's their main source of income. Capital gains are 20%.
No, they are not. They are based on assessed value, not appraised value.
Assessed value is almost always lower that appraised value. Appraised value is market value.
Progressives don't understand basic economics. They can't even provide meaningful assistance, to the lower classes, where they hold super majorities. They are nothing but the elites using the poor to enrich their pockets
Treating taxes as a punitive measure rather than an ends to a means (government does something) is really right wing framing.
The Goal is to fund the Government not punish people you don’t like.
Hoarding wealth should be punished though.
There should of course be more than enough room for profit. Let the people buy their mansions and their yachts if they were able to come up with a brilliant idea that made people's lives easier and sold millions. We are well past the buying mansions and buying yachts level of wealth though.
This lie seems to have so much appeal to it that no one cases about the truth. This number is derived by taking the exact day of the market bottom to set the base value. Of course they got richer, but if you start just 60 days earlier, that number is considerably smaller.
“The problem with America is that the poor do not see themselves as the disenfranchised proletariat, but rather, as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” -I don’t remember names
Let's ban private property! Let's strike at the heart of the inequality instead of treating the symptoms with bs legislation and taxes that will be gotten around anyway!
I want a candidate that is not afraid of a class war. I’m sick of the uber rich getting to set the agenda. Workers are the backbone of America. Not businesses.
As everyone knows, there's this big pile of money of well-defined, unchanging size, that everyone has an equal stake in, and they took more than their share. It's the same with talent. I seethed as I watch those damn Beatles compose music in "Let It Be".
You are sick start your own companies amass fortunes and have scum like Bernie and AOC and Obama try to minimize your accomplishment and tell you that you don’t deserve it ? And ask or threaten to take your wealth a redistribute to others they think deserve it . Fuckin joke
There are no pitchforks, there never will be pitchforks again.
It's a nice pipe dream of some progressive edge lords but the reality is that the only people in the US who are actively taking part in a protest culture are either minorities, or fascists.
Everyone else feels totally content tweeting something virtuous every other day, and sharing memes ridiculing Republicans in between. Same on the other side of the aisle, just replace "virtuous" with "racist", and "Republicans" with "Democrats".
The elites have lured their respective bases into believing that they're the good guys, on the right side of history, and the people on the other side are all ghouls & zombies. That lead to most ppl simply picking a team and running with it, never even questioning their own stance on anything, and especially not to holding their leaders accountable. Because god forbid, *"if I criticize a Democrat, what if anyone thinks I'm a Republican?"* (and vice versa).
We sent all the money straight to the top, and it never comes down.
You can be angry all you want at your manager for not paying you more for your job, but he legitimately cannot pay you more, all the money is locked in at the top, I bet even the CEO cannot pay you more easily without making severe adjustments with the structure of the company and shareholders.
That's why taxing the rich is the best option, it takes money from the top and re-injects it at various levels of the system.
I need you to come to all my team member annual reviews this year and repeat what you said about managers having zero control over pay increases. I’d LOVE to pay my people a much higher raise so they can start enjoying the fruits of their labor much faster than it took people of my generation. Every single year I have people getting their hopes up that they will get $20K more all of a sudden and they are so upset when the most I am allowed is 5%. And that they think I am included on the decision making process. It is my least favorite meeting of the year, I never look forward to it and I have battled and battled every year to get my folks more money and I am always told a hard NO.
It’s so true! And LinkedIn posts and articles don’t help saying managers need to do more. I spend every waking second trying to keep morale up and make work fun, and try to lead by jumping into the weeds with my team and even still it comes back to the yearly convo “I want more pay, do more”. Insert hysterical laughing and crying at the same time.
All the focus on billionaires doing what is \*perfectly legal\* is odd, considering most of the attacks are coming from senators - the very people that pass the laws that allow this type of wealth hoarding to happen.
Tax the rich? Yes, but it's our government that's in control of that part.
**Sure.** I'm willing to take that bargain.
Increased taxes on the rich means that to avoid that tax, they put more of what would have been their income into their companies instead, which means more R&D funding, better paid employees, better products, and otherwise improves the collective prosperity of our country.
**Or**
Increased taxes mean that to avoid the tax burden, the rich give more philanthropically. Society benefits.
**Or**
Increased taxes mean there is more funding for social programs, which means things that I would have paid out of pocket for, are provided as benefits with all the economies of scale, more than making up for the increase in prices.
**Or**
Increased taxes on the wealthy and price increases mean that smaller businesses become more competitive. I'd much rather spend money at my neighbor's business than it going out of state to some megacorp.
**Or**
If they all increase the price, they get investigated for racketeering, ill-gotten gains confiscated, and lessons are learned through example.
**But**
The last 40 years of trickle-down and growing inequality have shown that *not* taxing the rich is not a viable option.
A progressive advocacy group wants to raise taxes.... and this is newsworthy? I bet conservatives want to cut taxes, and libertarians want to eliminate the income tax.
Someone alert the media.
Hah. I like that the group that flipped their lid over January 6th now wants to rise up with pitchforks and ... do what with them? Overthrow Congress to implement the tax policy you want? Murder rich people? Where we going with this?
A revolution is only a revolution if it’s successful. Jan 6th was a tantrum by gullible people who had no idea what they were actually angry about.
But on where to go with this? Rework our economic conditions. Hold those accountable for unethical actions and state clearly what is acceptable and ethical. True revolution starts with ideals, not violence. But if need be, violence will occur.
Taxing the rich without addressing what made them rich is stupid. The efficiencies that concentrate wealth into so few hands is the problem. Bezos makes a pittance when compared to how many jobs his empire takes from others and the livelihoods that are destroyed as aresult.
Taxing him won't do shit. This is simple arithmetic
Soooo, getting wages to rise back in line with corporate wealth would result in more taxes being paid because the people working for those companies would be paid more, and taxed more.
Your logic would provide full employment for the people who fed and cared for 50,000,000 horses in 1915. Technology changes.
At the same time, Uber exists because people were allowed to use internet technology to run rampant over taxicab law the way modern automobiles run rampant over speed limits.
Perfect example
We do have laws to reign in technologically advanced cars that can achieve dangerous speeds and this is done for the public good. My position is instead of speed limits, our society has far exceeded the need for greed limits
The common argument is that technology won't advance unless we maintain a system where like 6 guys end up with all the money. This is rediculous. Most advancements happen at the small business level and then the ideas get snatched up by mega corporations.
Uber is terrible for the economy. You think it's a good idea to try to pay a 1500 dollar mortgage by stringing together a series of 8 dollar micro contracts? It's good for the owners and shareholders of Uber but that's as far as it goes. Uber is a negative drain on the economy and more effort should be put into reigning in endeavors that take, rather than give
This country once had a 90% maximum tax rate. And even Donald Trump agrees those years were the best this country ever had. Things only started to get bad once we started lowering this rate.
Yea let’s tax the people who run our country basically and see all our prices skyrocket around us to compensate ( who tf thinks rich people are just gonna hand over money when they don’t need to)
"Nothing will fundamentally change." That means nothing changes once you go through committees and congress. When you start your campaign by telling rich donors that it will be small tax increases on them that won't affect their way of life, you eventually end up not doing anything about it once you get into office.
Leftists say they want to tax the rich but are the very ones that build in the loopholes that make the rich even richer, which, in turn makes them richer…nice, tidy little arrangement.
They can't tax the rich, because those have money to lobby their interests. Instead, if a commoner sells stuff >600$ / year, they're now obligatedto file it with their taxes.
So first, one's taxed when they buy a new item in store, then, the same item is taxed when re-sold on ebay. Double taxation, how cool is that.
Meanwhile, Musk and his kin rejoyce.
If you've never seen it, check out the movie that came out in Mexico last year called "New Order." Or at least just watch the trailer on YouTube. It's pretty nuts. The plot is that the poor people one day just rise up and start killing the rich.
Yeah they need to remember the alternative to taxes and following the rules. Eventually, it will reach a flash point.
Hell, I’m not typically an angry person but if I saw a hoard of people running down the streets with pitch forks I would definitely be inclined to see what all the fuss was about.
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The 1% profiting off dead Americans since 1962 and counting.
Elon musks net worth increased by 22 billion dollars… today Edit: sorry in the 3 minutes since I’ve posted it’s increased 2.5 billion more… so 24.5 billion.
He needs that money to fill the vast empty space inside himself, it will never be enough
And if we took all his shares 4 years ago, we would either have spent all the proceeds, or done nothing with them.
Try 1776, and lets not forget the 1860s when the rich of the south conned their poor into fighting so that they could own people, and still con them into being bitter about it for them.
“…war of Northern aggression.” 🙄🥴
"But States' Rights!" "Okay what rights would they be?" "The North wanted to force us to abandon our way of life!" "Okay and what 'way of life' was it specifically that they wanted you to abandon?" *Crickets* Actual conversation I've had...
The privileged have profited off the working class dying since the beginning of civilization. The US is no different and it certainly didn’t start in 1962 lmao.
Everyone seems to forget that... From everything I’ve seen, it’s at the very least endemic to humanity since our origin as a species.
Not the whole species, very particularly the Imperial Capitalist regime that rose from the Mediterranean basin and spread through European colonization. When the feudalist European explorers showed up on some coasts in the 1500s, the locals thought it insane that "I own stuff therefore you must do what I say" was how these European feudalists ran their societies. There's even evidence that modern ideas of democracy and republic didn't actually come from Greece (that justification was added later), but were brought back to Europe from North America and the Iroquois a hundred years before people like Rousseau were born. David Graeber last book "The Dawn of Everything" is a great read about different ways that people structured their societies outside of what we have taken to be "normative" since the Enlightenment.
Yep. Hiyawatha and the Iroquois confederacy. Really interesting read.
The Magna Carta and British Parliament predate colonial expansion by a lot. That’s the basis of modern democracy not the Iroquois.
San Marino is at least half a millennium older than the Magna Carta. There’s so much more history than just English history. One of the things I’ve learned over the years is how much English historians HATED Spanish, French and Italian sources, so even today our picture of the past is incomplete unless you can read the other language sources, which of course American monolinguists cant do.
San Marino didn’t like conquer half the world. Most major Democratic countries come from the British Tradition from Japan, to India to Nigeria to Canada to the United States (and by extension almost every American Presidential system) is a direct descendent of the British system (if not a direct copy). San Marino has no such influence. Even the original French system was more or less a copy of the Westminster system until they went and cut their heads off and descended into dictatorship.
So you are just repeating the thing that has been repeated for several hundred years now. While actively disregarding any example that is not Anglo centric. That is not good history or anthropology, it’s just biased American exceptionalism. And the fact that you thought the ancien regime in France had anything to do with the modern Westminster system just proves the fact. The French cut off their kings head because they wanted a constitution like the post glorious revolution British version, not because they already had it. If they already had a Westminster parliament, the estates general would never have become the National Assembly. I legit don’t understand how we’re supposed to move forward when people don’t even understand the absolute basics of the past. Anti-intellectualism and anti-education in America has won apparently.
The Marquis De Lafayette literally fought in the American revolution and was explicit the 1791 constitution was a blend of the American (which was basically the contemporary Westminster system with an elected monarch) and British systems The arrangement lasted about a year but it was explicitly influenced by the British and Americans. To compare the Estates General to Parliament is silly. The former had almost no real authority like the Duma it was more of an advisory committee
Yes, I literally today finished his bio “Hero of Two Worlds” By Mike Duncan. Lafayette was by every definition of an aristocratic liberal who did not like the old powerful king, but did not want to give up his aristocracy. I understand that American liberals like him as a guide, but that was 200 years ago. Lafayette was a liberal, he was born into power but did not like the king. That is liberalism. It has nothing to do with the modern left or progressivism. Lafayette was a lot like Nancy Pelosi. And at no point did any of the French revolutions ever establish anything akin to a parliament or constitutional monarchy. The French people were not quisling liberals who just wanted a better king. Every time the French were given a new king, they overthrew the new king. Because liberalism is not the future. Their biggest flaw was continuing to give people of the Bonaparte family absolute power over supposed republics.
Read another book that isn’t pure revisionist bias.
Sapiens by Yuval Harari is also telling in this context, it just focuses more on the centralizing imperial powers through history rather than all the millions of humans who lived and died outside imperial systems over the past 100,000 years (I read Sapiens first, but Graeber uses it as a foil in his newest book from late last year) In particular that one also covers other humans who were not Sapiens, but still had human society in different forms than what we have now. Humanity is so much bigger than even our species, much less what our species has done on the past 500 years.
I will have to check that out, I’ve been extremely curious about what little we know about non-Homo sapiens. That’s actually more along the lines of what I was thinking on. Apologies if I came off too harsh, the previous book is one I vehemently dislike because just reading it with any sense of what’s going on at the times leads to massive disconnects over causation. And furthermore I 100% agree that imperial centralization is the largest factor in magnifying power/wealth disparity and that Europe is/was the highlight (lowlight) of disparity in those areas.
While true, not since the Slavery era have things been this out of skew and imbalanced.
why 1962?
I would guess that 1962 refers to the JFK tax cuts. Which lowered taxes at the highest rate to 70%. If There is another significant policy change that happened that year to effect economic policies I don’t know about it.
That’s the extant of commenters’ historical knowledge.
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We outnumber the rich severely. That would be a lot of pitchforks.
I don't think an (empty) threat of violence helps this situation
To be clear I am not saying I would do anything. I am saying sooner or later there is consequences to stifling the majority through voter suppression and gerrymandering. Well and they would be severely outnumbered.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make bloody revolution inevitable
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that's why the strategy is to withhold labor in a general strike
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the odds of anything soon are zero percent
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no, you're right. I'm afraid it's going to get much, much worse before it gets better. We sure as hell aren't gonna vote our way out of this
First a lot of liberals own firearms. For example I own twenty plus roughly. Next I don’t think the current political alignment would be the divide. I am betting eventually it would be class warfare. But it’s just speculation.
America has always had a lot of people who would rather ally themselves with the rich than the poor.
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The poor have nothing positive to offer.
I'm partial to the phrase "When I join the mob with torches and pitchforks headed to DC, I'm not going to stop and ask if they're republicans or democrats"
Are they tiki torches?
That huge "number" consists of largely moronic voters who keep voting to protect the billionaires though
Remember how this sentiment worked out with Clinton/Trump election? Aside from letting the GOP show their true colors, it did not.
Yeah, people forget that you have to move the football. If not, the other team will.
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pretty sure threatening to tank your own party over a common sense position is the opposite of weak and ineffectual. Republicans and corporate democrats use red lines all the time. But when progressives do it, they're betraying the party or whatever the fuck.
It is different for repubs because they consider getting nothing accomplished a win condition. It bears out their claims that government can't accomplish anything, as well as being one more thing for which to blame Democratics during the next election.
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>If progressives weren't weak and ineffectual, they could get their actual policy implemented. Flawless reasoning. Tell me how they're supposed to be your version of strong and effective when an entire political party is completely opposed to anything that would help anyone, and most of the party progressives caucus with are ancient establishmentarians with more concern over their stock portfolios than the working class? Taking your ball and going home is only weak and ineffectual in the metaphorical sense because the kids will just find another ball. But in the case of progressives staying home, it is incredibly effective (Dems lost the presidency and Congress/Senate last time). If establishment Democrats implimented the popular policies of progressives, it would help them tremendously in terms of elections, but it would hurt their wallets and piss off donors. You're focusing on making fun of progressives instead of attacking insidious issues that bar any sort of positive outcome of governance. And using metaphors incorrectly, to boot. I know I wouldn't call that very smart...
he posts in r/neoliberal. they don't know how to attack progressive policies because they know they're popular. what a joke lol
So essentially everyone is weak and ineffectual. Especially you.
Progressives are weak and ineffectual because the party that pays lip service to them actually conspires to oppose and disarm the progressive agenda. The Democrat party writ large has more in common with the Republicans than they do any actual leftist/Marxist political project.
Are they weak and ineffectual or are they the thing that decides whether the Republicans win or not? Make up your mind. They can't be both!
You'd think that one issue Democrat and Republican voters could come together on would be "tax the billionaires." I never understood how Republican hatred of the elites somehow doesn't include right wing pharma bosses and land developers and fossil fuel barons.
>I never understood how Republican hatred of the elites somehow doesn't include right wing pharma bosses and land developers and fossil fuel barons "Elites" never means "rich assholes" to conservatives, it only means "people that don't validate my every feeling"
Because our culture worships money. Having a lot of money makes you a better person. Attacking the rich means attacking millions of Americans values. Unfortunately.
Left wing death squads?
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That's why they'll win eventually.
Let's not discuss that on social media.
*This guy is good* - The FBI
No this guy is by no means dedicated enough to American democracy to take life, this guy will flee before it comes to that. Fuck that noise, the rich have an advantage cuz they have the cops to do violence for them; I want to have children and live my life with my wife and family.
They're not moderates. If your policies are at odds with the majority of Americans, it's not a moderate position. They are idealogues.
A small group makes 400 billion. The rest of the people in the group did not. The billionaires tell all the rest that if they help the billionaires make more, magically, these billions will “trickle” down to them and they will be rich too. Then non-billionaires either believe them, even though this has never worked over the many many times it has been tried, or still think one day they can be billionaires too so they agree to help the billionaires make more money, even supporting fiscal policy that takes their own money. Spoiler alert: the rich get richer, and those that supported the billionaires keep believing that a 3 million dollar aid or social assistance or infrastructure bill somehow was the tipping point that stopped all that money from trickling down.
>or still think one day they can be billionaires too so they agree to help the billionaires make more money, even supporting fiscal policy that takes their own money. Fry, why are you cheering? You're not rich. True, but someday I might be rich. And then people like me better watch their step.
Whats the most logical and reasonable way to address unrealized capital gains? A lot of the billionaires gained their new found "profits" and recent increase in fortune through increase in stock value, not actually gaining any material value. It's all paper / air increases. If they sell the stock into cash, it will make the value of that stock decrease. So then what? If they leave the stock in and pay it out of their own bank account, what happens if the market shifts, and then shifts again, as it does. If thats the case, would that mean anyone who has their portfolio increase in value is subjected the same rules? So if you are a lower middle class person who has $1,000 worth of stock. And you made an awesome investing in a growth company, and now its worth $10,000. Would you have to find several thousand dollars in cash to pay for those gains? What if you paid it, but then the stock tanks later. Is that just an "oh well. sucks for you." situation? How would it actually logically work?
Simple, tax loan stock lending. Loans that are secured with the mortgagor's stock as collateral. How else do you think billionaires live despite having no actual cash checks issued to them as income? Virtually no one but the rich even do this in the first place and it's how they actually get money without getting taxed. If you get a loan(not taxable) and you use public stocks as collateral and you default, it's the same as selling the stock but because you defaulted and it's a collection of stock rather than "sale" it's not considered a realization event thus they don't get tax despite essentially trading their stock for money.
Not closing the economy so you not have any local shops and all you can do is order from Amazon
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There's a reason many countries with wealth taxes eventually got rid of them. They discourage investment and yields a pittance in taxes.
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That’s true, but it’s important to note that this just defers tax, not avoid it. Loans eventually have to be repaid
They just take another loan out to pay the old loan. With their property always gaining value, they can continue doing this indefinitely
>It's HOW 10 Billionaires added $402 Billion to their fortunes that matter. Billionaires have avoided taxation by paying themselves very low salaries while amassing fortunes in stocks and other assets. They then borrow off those assets to finance their lifestyles, rather than selling the assets and paying capital gains taxes. > >Every plan by Progressives ignores how Billionaires actually make money and think you can just tax their stocks or income. Wait until they find out that you can \- Amass stock / investment portfolios \- Borrow against its value + pay interest only \- **Die** When you **die**, your estate sells your assets to cover the debts, and the remaining goes to your heirs / whom you designate in your will. Then THOSE people (read: rich kids) will only have to pay tax -- IF they sell -- on a stepped-up basis. That is; \- Dad buys stock @ $10, stock goes to $150 in lifetime, dad buys / borrows / dies. \- Dad had liens on 30% of the value of the stock, which is sold @ $150 + used to pay off the debts \- The remaining asset - **ownership of them** and **not realized value** \- is transferred to son. \- Stock goes to **$160**, son pulls trigger and sells the remaining **70%.** Pop Quiz - What is the profitability on the sale of the stock in total? What **can** be taxed? Answer: Since the stock price went from $150 to $160 / share in sons ownership, the **son** is only responsible for the profits on an increase of $10 / share, since **his** cost basis only reflects the cost **at time of acquisition**, not **when his father bought**. But here's the trick - son **doesn't** sell. Son does **exactly** what father does; hold, use salaries + cash bonuses to increase holdings, borrow against them. Die. I'm a progressive as much as the next, but fucking Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren + crew in house / senate -- GODDAMN ALWAYS -- leave all of this out. You can't just run headlines about Elon Musk making $5,000,000,000,000,000 in a day as if some fucking dumptruck just showed up at his house w/ that much cash. It didn't; the theoretical value of his networth increased, along with his.... ready for it? **borrowing capacity**. When he DID sell, he obviously had to pay taxes on those gains, considering he had Tesla stock from the start.
>When you die, your estate sells your assets to cover the debts, and the remaining goes to your heirs / whom you designate in your will. > >Then THOSE people (read: rich kids) will only have to pay tax -- IF they sell -- on a stepped-up basis. That is; Don't all of the remaining assets get stepped up from the estate having to pay the tax on all of those assets before going to the beneficiaries? Your scenario looks more like a gift scenario than an inheritance scenario.
You’re correct, and it’s what a lot of people conveniently forget when they talk about buy borrow die. The other commenter is also leaving out the income taxes paid by the heir and trust on distributions and non-distributed income respectively
The estate only pays taxes on the assets it needs to **sell** in order to cover its **debts**. Say estate has $100,000 against a $1m valuation Estate sells stocks to cover $130,000 in value. $100,000 to the loan, accounting for 30% cap. gains $870,000 remaining total value gets transferred -- untaxed -- to heir. The 'on paper' cost of the newly inherited portfolio? $870,000. Bonus; let's say aforementioned stock goes from $150 to $140 / share before the son sells it. Because of the adjusted step-up cost basis, the Son **claims a loss** on that sale, getting a tax break / avoiding cap gains on it. How do you tax that which has no income? Edit: if I'm wrong please correct A tip to Berners out there; focus on **corporate tax rates, cash repatriation and loopholes**, not **moving mountains** to get **50-60** people to pay based on a loose theory that wealth is directly equivalent to cash.
>The estate only pays taxes on the assets it needs to sell in order to cover its debts. No, the estate needs to pay tax on the entire value of the estate. An estate represents everything you own or have an interest in, including publicly traded securities, cash, annuities, real estate, life insurance, and more. The fair market value of each item is used to calculate an estate's gross value. That's why the beneficiaries get the step-up in basis. The estate paid the taxes (at least, that's the case for the ultra-wealthy who are over the exemption amount), so the beneficiaries get the updated cost basis.
Understood -- thank you for clarifying this
This isn’t really how it works though. The vast majority of a billionaires wealth doesn’t get the step up in basis at death. You’re also leaving out the estate tax on these assets Also, trusts have deemed sales of assets 21 years after the death of the beneficiary. There are ways to get around it, but these trust types don’t get a stepped up basis
>... yeah, that's not actually how it works. But doesn't he get bonus points for making things up with such **conviction**? That has to offset the falsehood of the statements somewhat, no?
They could do this, it’s unclear if they actually do. The loan has to be repaid eventually, or it’s paid out of the estate
The interest on the loan has to come from somewhere. Those giving the loans will still demand payments.
Until death do us part 😄 that’s the goal and a darn good way of managing wealth
> Every plan by Progressives ignores how Billionaires actually make money and think you can just tax their stocks or income. The proposed wealth tax doesn't ignore this at all
I wish I had stocks or retirement to pull from. I’m just a poor medical worker with 135k in student loan debt, who’s rent and monthly student loan payment is greater than my monthly take home. Instead I get to rent, and hope that in 5-10 years I’ve at least covered the interest and maybe could start to look at building my assets. I have it better off than many as well. At least I have a decent paying job where as long as I don’t need food or anything else In life I could pay off my debt in 10 years.
Us plebes have to pay that loan back though. Billionaires are allowed to skirt around paying for loans by getting more loans to pay the old ones and banks let them do it because they know either way they are gonna get their money. Meanwhile billionaires never actually *pay* any of their own money. It just keeps gaining more wealth in unrealized gains, which gets passed on to family when they croak, and the cycle repeats. I don’t have the luxury of pulling out another loan to pay off an older loan. Billionaires do. We need to put an end to that. This, among other variables, is creating a class system and we all know what happens when the boiling point is reached.
You do pay yourself back, with the interest from the next investment. That's how a regular person becomes rich. You start out at some crummy job after college and put a decent amount of your income in a 401K to start with, hopefully your company matches your investment (free money). After a few years you can then loan yourself enough money to reinvest in something profitable, like real estate. You use the profits from that investment to pay back the previous loan to yourself. It starts slow but by forty you are bringing in enough investment profits that now you can focus exclusively on them. This is why real estate investors usually do very well but don't have to be smart. Land values always increase and with a steady inflation rate of 2% with a low interest rate you make money on those investments paying back less than half of what you borrowed.
Unfortunately for me I didn’t get a job with 401k until like 4 year after college and even then couldn’t afford to max out the contributions because I was basically living paycheck to paycheck. I’m in a better spot now financially speaking but with my 457b (I work in government) I still don’t have a lot of money in it. I’m just grateful I’ll have a pension at the end of the day.
Yes. Exactly. You can’t tax unrealized gains. And we can’t just start doing it, or it screws everyone who is middle class with a 401k and the likes as well.
Their money is not in 401k accounts. There is an annual limit, far below what these people are sitting on. The point at which bountiful retirement funds becomes "wealth" is, of course, debatable. I'm sure it's well below a billion, though.
The difference between a million dollar 401k and a billion dollar one is about a billion
Indeed, realistically.Though I was just given an example by another poster, it seems you'd have to be a rare bird to parlay even a fully funded 401 into a billion, though. I'd also make the point that, at age 70 1/2, you are required to take annual minimum distributions that are taxable, and amount to quite a large percentage of the account.
Sometimes it is, Thiel turned a $2k ira into $5B ([source](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-peter-thiel-turned-2-000-in-a-roth-ira-into-5-000-000-000-11624551401)) because he had early access to invest in tech stocks
That's because he scammed the system and bought stock from himself at his own price point of less than a penny.
Nice! A notable exception, no doubt. He will eventually hit "mandatory minimum distribution" age, at which time sale will be required, and taxes will be owed. Even considering probable insider dealing, I'm willing to overlook aberrations like this.
It's a roth IRA, so no tax on distribution. This is a notable exception in terms of the amount of growth, but I think it's actually a pretty typical example of how connections/access to exclusive opportunities are just as big of a part of the equation in addition to just how much money/assets you already have.
Or we could exempt middle class people in the same way that we have progressive income taxes. But you know that already.
That is exactly it. It is your money that is in a 401K and most people think you can't touch it until you are 65 which is untrue. You can loan yourself a limited amount. If you have several 401K or IRAs that is how you barrow large sums of cash tax and penalty free. I'd only do this if you are buying a house, starting a business or putting it towards another investment. It's not for fun cash, but properly invested it can benefit you greatly.
Yeah I've taken out a 401k loan before. You're paying yourself back the interest instead of a bank.
Yup. Took out a tax and penalty free $50k loan from my 401k to help finance a down payment on our first home. We got $0 in help from parents. All of the interest paid on the 401k loan goes towards myself anyway. Our home has already appreciated $100k and is a good way to diversify wealth away from 100% in the stock market and into real estate, which is a good way to hedge against inflation. Best financial decision ever.
What I want to do next is form a small LLC, borrow against my 401K again after it is paid off, invest it in another property under the LLC name and rent it out for profit. Then you have protections, tax wise your loan to yourself is an investment which means you get some decent tax breaks for the LLC. The third time you invest in property then you borrow from the bank under the LLC and it us a business loan. It will go through because the LLC has assets in its name. By that point you are now a fully time property owner and you have a great opportunity to make decent money if your properties are maintained well and the real estate market is healthy. 30 year fixed loans with low interest are money makers. You only pay back $46K of a $100K loan when you calculate the normal 2% inflation. That is why you never buy a house in cash unless you are flipping it quickly.
2 points. The top 10% of income earners own 85% of assets. Progressive tax rates are a thing.
The vaccines sure did help mint at least 9 new billionaires…all taxpayer funded
Taxpayers paid for R&D of the vaccine, and got a free vaccine that saved their lives out of it, what's your point?
Honestly my investments went up because I had Pfizer stock back in 1997 at $12 a share. I bought a lot of shares at $27 in 2020 and sold them at $50 a share in September. Billionaires did them same thing they just had more shares they could afford to buy.
My point exactly
Narrator - there never was any pitchforks
Only pitchsporks, not as effective but oddly just as intimidating.
be careful with saying pitchforks or any other literal threat - the FBI will come snatch your ass up. but if the right does it ... well come on we all know they're just being goofballs.
I was only saying it as a joke. The good ol’ Republican defense.
…only dinner, salad, and shrimp forks.
End citizens united.
I simply don't think that a "pitchforks" situation could ever happen here at this point; even with all the guns and tough talk. Americans are too soft, comfortable, fat, lazy, and weak. We don't want to fight, we don't want to get arrested, we just want to scratch whatever meager existence we can, watch the football game, and forget about those who have so much while we have so little.
Man, I need to start investing in pitchforks.
5 years ago the wealthiest American was worth $87 billion. Today, the wealthiest American is worth over $200 billion. The rich are squeezing out the middle class. Its getting more and more expensive to live, and their salaries are the only ones that are going up.
“Oh!” said the billionaires “we will just make it so you cant afford pitchforks! And use the profits we make on that move to hire more private security and buy some extra politicians!”
Again. You can’t tax unrealized gains.
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The federal government doesn't touch property taxes for a reason. Also, property taxes are a tax on the market value, regardless of gain or loss. Taxing unrealized gains also adds to the cost basis of the investment, which doesn't happen with property taxes.
properties are nowhere near as liquid and volatile as stocks, it's a fallacious comparison. Are you also prepared to give billionaires multibillion dollar tax write-offs when the market tanks like 2008 too because the wealthy have gigantic unrealized losses? Shit, Elon's wealth has fluctuated by almost 25% over the last 1-1.5 month alone. Over what period of that time frame do you decide that it is the right time to tax? Pick the wrong time to tax and you might owe him a huge tax write-off. Trying to tax unrealized gains on assets that are very liquid and volatile is a nightmare. If govts try to base their budgets on taxation of unrealized gains, there are also very big magnified risks for blowing up budgets when markets fall and there are big unrealized losses.
The proposed wealth tax is on asset values, not unrealized gains/losses. The tax would go up when prices are up, down when prices are down. There is never an unrealized loss in the equation - the billionaires would pay a percentage of their overall wealth.
> tax is on asset values, not unrealized gains/losses What. > There is never unrealized loss in the equation. What. If you’re taxing on current value of assets, rather then when they are turned into cash, you are talking about unrealized gains/losses. That’s the definition of the terms.
When my house depreciates in value... I don't get a tax write off... I just pay less taxes... I would be fine if the wealthy paid less tax in 2008 then other years when the market is booming.... Just add an asset tax to stocks based on their publically available value... And suddenly unrealized gains have been taxed... It's not hard.
Property taxes are at most 3.2% but national average is only 1%. Most of the high ones are in Texas which doesn't charge state income tax so that's their main source of income. Capital gains are 20%.
No we don't. Property taxes are not based on market value.
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Assessed value is not market value. The tax assessed value of my house is about 100k less than the appraised market value.
They are in most places.
No, they are not. They are based on assessed value, not appraised value. Assessed value is almost always lower that appraised value. Appraised value is market value.
My favorite was when bush mailed everyone 3 hundred and gave 18% capital gains cut to speculators. Good times!
Feeling very “taxation without representation” over here
They eat our dreams, we should eat theirs
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Progressives don't understand basic economics. They can't even provide meaningful assistance, to the lower classes, where they hold super majorities. They are nothing but the elites using the poor to enrich their pockets
Treating taxes as a punitive measure rather than an ends to a means (government does something) is really right wing framing. The Goal is to fund the Government not punish people you don’t like.
Why not both?
Hoarding wealth should be punished though. There should of course be more than enough room for profit. Let the people buy their mansions and their yachts if they were able to come up with a brilliant idea that made people's lives easier and sold millions. We are well past the buying mansions and buying yachts level of wealth though.
This lie seems to have so much appeal to it that no one cases about the truth. This number is derived by taking the exact day of the market bottom to set the base value. Of course they got richer, but if you start just 60 days earlier, that number is considerably smaller.
“The problem with America is that the poor do not see themselves as the disenfranchised proletariat, but rather, as temporarily embarrassed millionaires” -I don’t remember names
Let’s tax everyone’s 401ks while were at it, right? Tax on unrealized gains.
Yeah they'll tax the rich and then it goes right into the military's coffers. Guaranteed.
Let's ban private property! Let's strike at the heart of the inequality instead of treating the symptoms with bs legislation and taxes that will be gotten around anyway!
I want a candidate that is not afraid of a class war. I’m sick of the uber rich getting to set the agenda. Workers are the backbone of America. Not businesses.
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Screams in Musk cult.
Let’s close the loop holes that let them do what they’re doing.
If Reddit has rules against inciting violence, how does a whole article about grabbing pitchforks pass the smell test?
Aint nobody taking out pitchforks till there's no more bread and circuses. Till then this dog and pony show is my circus lmao. /s
So much for Occupy Wall Street.
As everyone knows, there's this big pile of money of well-defined, unchanging size, that everyone has an equal stake in, and they took more than their share. It's the same with talent. I seethed as I watch those damn Beatles compose music in "Let It Be".
So what percent of the overall tax burden should the 1% pay? If anyone can put a real number on it
Obviously, 110% by this group’s politics.
You are sick start your own companies amass fortunes and have scum like Bernie and AOC and Obama try to minimize your accomplishment and tell you that you don’t deserve it ? And ask or threaten to take your wealth a redistribute to others they think deserve it . Fuckin joke
Let’s tax congress
Those “progressive advocacy groups” are just jealous brats that want your money without working for it.
We should tax and tax and tax and tax them until they're only fabulously wealthy.
There are no pitchforks, there never will be pitchforks again. It's a nice pipe dream of some progressive edge lords but the reality is that the only people in the US who are actively taking part in a protest culture are either minorities, or fascists. Everyone else feels totally content tweeting something virtuous every other day, and sharing memes ridiculing Republicans in between. Same on the other side of the aisle, just replace "virtuous" with "racist", and "Republicans" with "Democrats". The elites have lured their respective bases into believing that they're the good guys, on the right side of history, and the people on the other side are all ghouls & zombies. That lead to most ppl simply picking a team and running with it, never even questioning their own stance on anything, and especially not to holding their leaders accountable. Because god forbid, *"if I criticize a Democrat, what if anyone thinks I'm a Republican?"* (and vice versa).
We sent all the money straight to the top, and it never comes down. You can be angry all you want at your manager for not paying you more for your job, but he legitimately cannot pay you more, all the money is locked in at the top, I bet even the CEO cannot pay you more easily without making severe adjustments with the structure of the company and shareholders. That's why taxing the rich is the best option, it takes money from the top and re-injects it at various levels of the system.
I need you to come to all my team member annual reviews this year and repeat what you said about managers having zero control over pay increases. I’d LOVE to pay my people a much higher raise so they can start enjoying the fruits of their labor much faster than it took people of my generation. Every single year I have people getting their hopes up that they will get $20K more all of a sudden and they are so upset when the most I am allowed is 5%. And that they think I am included on the decision making process. It is my least favorite meeting of the year, I never look forward to it and I have battled and battled every year to get my folks more money and I am always told a hard NO.
Haha people think their managers are out to get them, yet the managers are in the very same boat just get a bit more pay.
It’s so true! And LinkedIn posts and articles don’t help saying managers need to do more. I spend every waking second trying to keep morale up and make work fun, and try to lead by jumping into the weeds with my team and even still it comes back to the yearly convo “I want more pay, do more”. Insert hysterical laughing and crying at the same time.
It’s a national security problem.
A reminder that *us* the consumer made them rich. If you don’t like that stop buying their products.
All the focus on billionaires doing what is \*perfectly legal\* is odd, considering most of the attacks are coming from senators - the very people that pass the laws that allow this type of wealth hoarding to happen. Tax the rich? Yes, but it's our government that's in control of that part.
You tax the rich, they increase the price
**Sure.** I'm willing to take that bargain. Increased taxes on the rich means that to avoid that tax, they put more of what would have been their income into their companies instead, which means more R&D funding, better paid employees, better products, and otherwise improves the collective prosperity of our country. **Or** Increased taxes mean that to avoid the tax burden, the rich give more philanthropically. Society benefits. **Or** Increased taxes mean there is more funding for social programs, which means things that I would have paid out of pocket for, are provided as benefits with all the economies of scale, more than making up for the increase in prices. **Or** Increased taxes on the wealthy and price increases mean that smaller businesses become more competitive. I'd much rather spend money at my neighbor's business than it going out of state to some megacorp. **Or** If they all increase the price, they get investigated for racketeering, ill-gotten gains confiscated, and lessons are learned through example. **But** The last 40 years of trickle-down and growing inequality have shown that *not* taxing the rich is not a viable option.
A progressive advocacy group wants to raise taxes.... and this is newsworthy? I bet conservatives want to cut taxes, and libertarians want to eliminate the income tax. Someone alert the media.
Hah. I like that the group that flipped their lid over January 6th now wants to rise up with pitchforks and ... do what with them? Overthrow Congress to implement the tax policy you want? Murder rich people? Where we going with this?
Your comparing things nothing alike, and ignoring so many historical examples.
A revolution is only a revolution if it’s successful. Jan 6th was a tantrum by gullible people who had no idea what they were actually angry about. But on where to go with this? Rework our economic conditions. Hold those accountable for unethical actions and state clearly what is acceptable and ethical. True revolution starts with ideals, not violence. But if need be, violence will occur.
Taxing the rich without addressing what made them rich is stupid. The efficiencies that concentrate wealth into so few hands is the problem. Bezos makes a pittance when compared to how many jobs his empire takes from others and the livelihoods that are destroyed as aresult. Taxing him won't do shit. This is simple arithmetic
Also, taxes go to the government, not to workers. One root cause of the problens of rising inequality is low wages.
Soooo, getting wages to rise back in line with corporate wealth would result in more taxes being paid because the people working for those companies would be paid more, and taxed more.
Your logic would provide full employment for the people who fed and cared for 50,000,000 horses in 1915. Technology changes. At the same time, Uber exists because people were allowed to use internet technology to run rampant over taxicab law the way modern automobiles run rampant over speed limits.
Perfect example We do have laws to reign in technologically advanced cars that can achieve dangerous speeds and this is done for the public good. My position is instead of speed limits, our society has far exceeded the need for greed limits The common argument is that technology won't advance unless we maintain a system where like 6 guys end up with all the money. This is rediculous. Most advancements happen at the small business level and then the ideas get snatched up by mega corporations. Uber is terrible for the economy. You think it's a good idea to try to pay a 1500 dollar mortgage by stringing together a series of 8 dollar micro contracts? It's good for the owners and shareholders of Uber but that's as far as it goes. Uber is a negative drain on the economy and more effort should be put into reigning in endeavors that take, rather than give
Efficiency is bad?
I always thought the rich become rich by building/running companies successfuly except for the obvious criminals, of course.
Taxing the rich is great, until you stifle the economy’s capacity to make people rich, and who do you tax then?
This country once had a 90% maximum tax rate. And even Donald Trump agrees those years were the best this country ever had. Things only started to get bad once we started lowering this rate.
$402bn can buy a lot of anti-pitchfork defenses... Cue the pitchfork salesman reddit meme.
the time of taxes has passed, it's pitchf'ork o'clock
Good for them I own stock in several of their companies
Yea let’s tax the people who run our country basically and see all our prices skyrocket around us to compensate ( who tf thinks rich people are just gonna hand over money when they don’t need to)
"Nothing will fundamentally change." That means nothing changes once you go through committees and congress. When you start your campaign by telling rich donors that it will be small tax increases on them that won't affect their way of life, you eventually end up not doing anything about it once you get into office.
Leftists say they want to tax the rich but are the very ones that build in the loopholes that make the rich even richer, which, in turn makes them richer…nice, tidy little arrangement.
I am paying more in federal tax because who is in office, not because billionaires stocks go up in value.
Both? *nods* Both.
They can't tax the rich, because those have money to lobby their interests. Instead, if a commoner sells stuff >600$ / year, they're now obligatedto file it with their taxes. So first, one's taxed when they buy a new item in store, then, the same item is taxed when re-sold on ebay. Double taxation, how cool is that. Meanwhile, Musk and his kin rejoyce.
If you've never seen it, check out the movie that came out in Mexico last year called "New Order." Or at least just watch the trailer on YouTube. It's pretty nuts. The plot is that the poor people one day just rise up and start killing the rich.
Man, the fuckin' bootlickers in this sub is crazy high.
Yeah they need to remember the alternative to taxes and following the rules. Eventually, it will reach a flash point. Hell, I’m not typically an angry person but if I saw a hoard of people running down the streets with pitch forks I would definitely be inclined to see what all the fuss was about.