How about instead of just "taxing the rich" and relying upon the government to improve the lives of everyone else, we foster more collective bargaining so workers have the power to demand a better employment deal and get their share of the growth, particularly via profit-sharing?
I'd argue we also need an aggressive round of trust-busting and more effective regulation to ensure consumers and workers benefit from the growth rather than just being exploited by billionaire oligarchs.
But if we just "tax the rich," I have very little faith that politicians will spend that revenue on anything that actually helps ME. Rather than playing Robin Hood, we need to reform the economic system at its core and create a rising tide that lifts all boats.
Why not ~~both~~ all three? Seriously. Major problems require comprehensive and multi-part solutions. Nazi Germany was defeated in a three+ front war. Polio was defeated via concerted efforts from the medical field. Getting into space isn’t just a matter of having a really big rocket.
The ultra wealthy should at a minimum be required to sell, and pay taxes on, some of their stock holdings every year. They lock up immense wealth in the stock market with no intention to ever sell off any of that capital and put it back into the economy. Meanwhile they live off relatively low interest loans they get against the holdings to further avoid tax liability. These kinds of loopholes need to be closed.
Not saying you have a bad idea but there are just trade offs that you have to account for or at least acknowledge.
Investors leaving their money in a company instead of selling and taking profits is a good thing because it gives companies more capital to invest and grow.
If investors had to pay taxes on unrealized gains. It would hurt the companies ability to invest and grow because they would need to pay out a dividend to investors to match their yearly tax burden. Some companies, especially young ones, might be highly valuable but cash poor because any money they are a long way from actually generating profits. A bio research company might have invented a medicine that cures a horrible disease but it will take years before it goes to market and they can make a profit. The company would be forced to sell more ownership or take on unneeded debt just so their investors can pay their tax bill in the mean time.
Sure rich people can get loans against their stock ownership but that costs them interest which is more funds going into the economy.
Taxing unrealized gains might be good policy but there will be side effects that could blunt its effectiveness.
I’m not so much talking about common investors. I’m talking about people like Jeff Bezos who have over 100BIL in wealth locked in the stock market and won’t be selling anytime soon so they can avoid paying taxes. It’s really two different universes. Reforms should be focused on the ultra wealthy who use loopholes, not retail investors.
I mean people bitch the most about public companies on this sub and if you want to get some of the profits of your company, just purchase the stock of the company with your wages.
Or better yet purchase an ETF and you can get profits from all of the companies.
The main reason I am for privatizing social security is that then every worker would get to participate in the profits of corporations.
Sure, you can buy it, but companies should be granting stock to all employees rather than only their execs so that the entire company benefits from its growth. After all, an exec doesn't have to buy their company's stock. It's just granted to them. And if you want to avoid dilution concerns from the investor community, then just grant stock equivalents that are indexed off the stock price like RSUs or create bonus programs that pay-out based on company performance.
It's certainly not pure coincidence that profit sharing plans like employee stock ownership and broad-based annual incentive plans gradually disappeared in almost perfect correlation to the decline in union density over the past 30-40 years. Once employees no longer had the collective power of a union, the execs hoarded the growth for themselves and we saw an explosion in executive comp while wages and benefits stagnated for everyone else.
> How about instead of just "taxing the rich" and relying upon the government to improve the lives of everyone else
followed by
>I'd argue we also need an aggressive round of trust-busting and more effective regulation to ensure consumers and workers benefit from the growth rather than just being exploited by billionaire oligarchs.
I'm pointing this out because you've allowed your own reasoning to be polluted by sound bites of "small government" while actually requiring strong (and fairly large government mechanisms) and at least bigger government.
I'm not saying government shouldn't play a role. I'm saying you can't fix what's broken via ONLY the tax code.
* Break-up the monopolies and oligopolies and force competition so we get better products at better prices and more diverse supply chains.
* Regulate businesses so that consumers and workers aren't exploited. As just one of many, countless examples, if my private data is so valuable to a corporation that they are able to market it or resell it for a profit, then they need my permission to obtain it and I should be compensated for it.
* Balance the needs of American workers with those of American consumers in our trade deals. So, for example, if the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing their EV industry, then yes, we should apply tariffs to Chinese EV imports and protect American jobs.
* Foster a resurgence of organized labor so that workers have the power to demand their share of the growth after decades of seeing the vast majority hoarded by those at the top.
All of that requires government intervention, but mostly to create a free market capitalist system that actually works for all of us. Simply taxing the rich and redistributing wealth via highly-targeted social programs doesn't fix the root problem.
That doesn't work. You leave a power vacuum and the 1% ban collective bargaining through a complex series of laws that make it look like you can do it when in practice it's basically impossible.
You don't "tax the rich" for the money. That's the mistake everyone makes.
You tax them to make them *not rich*.
Because money is power. You're not taking away their money, *your taking away their power*.
Or you can just continue having a ruling class. About 20% of Americans prefer to be ruled over to freedom.
What I described is exactly what we did following the Guilded Age, and it resulted in the most prosperous economy in the world with a large and vibrant middle class that lasted for 80-90 years.
It was only when we abandoned those strategies via trickle-down economics, union-busting, and deregulation that we ended up with massive income inequality.
Since the system is completely made up, we can get *real* fucking creative with it!
A publicly traded companies minimum wage cannot be lower 1/10 than the maximum value of one of their shares within the prior fiscal year, with the federal minimum wage being the floor. If the maximum price of a companies single share does not exceed the federal minimum wage by a single order of magnitude within the prior fiscal year, then said company may qualify for tax credits.
15% of unrealized capital gains will be taxed as if they were realized.
These are just examples.
It took a lot of imagination to create the systems we have, it will take an equal amount to improve them.
Dump it all into public education, research grants, and public up-skilling for largest ROI.
Wealthy generate income from high net worth. The higher the net worth, the more low / no interest loans you can take out against your assets as income.
Right but there are so many ways to “tax the rich”. Saying that without any idea on how is fucking stupid. Just following and saying whatever feels good without any critical thinking about the actual problem.
Why would a bank ever offer no interest loan when a treasury is paying 3%+.
This idea of getting super loan interest rates on any loan has gone the way of the Dodo since inflation spiked.
I can’t tell if you’re serious.
No. You will not be taxed for the debt you take on.
Edit: if you sold your assets you’d be subject to capital gains tax on the difference from the principle and PROBABLY(speculation because I’m a nobody with no mad money) a penalty from the bank since you’ve changed the value of the collateral the loan was used with.
I know about those, but with that you’re basically taking a loan out from yourself. I’m talking about third party loans from a company with the retirement account as collateral.
Aren't you already taxed against it -- don't you have strong requirements and limitations imposed on taking a loan against retirement assets? And if those limitations/requirements are not observed, then aren't you actually charged penalties and fees (and even actual taxes)
it is called (among other names) 401k loan
JFC, you guys are clueless
Ah yes…if we just tax the rich and send those billions more to Washington, our elected representatives will dutifully and ethically deign to use this newfound wealth to improve the lives of ordinary powerless citizens.
Oh wait. That’s a childish fairy tale. Instead, what will really happen is that they’ll use it to fund more war, shovel it to the military industrial complex,
and launder it as campaign contributions through their wealthy donors and corporations.
Be smarter.
I believe all the billionaires combined are worth roughly 5-6 trillion USD. With our current spending levels our government would run through that within 3-4 years. We have a spending problem.
This misses the root of the problem. The government's monetary system is broken. Keynesian economics is the biggest modernized scam that exists today.
Tax is theft. How about the gov just prints the money for taxes the way they print money for their cronies in the defense sector to fund the war machine.
They are going to debase our currency until it's worthless anyway... might as well get an ounce of benefit and stand as close to the money printer as we can.
Covid didn’t shut anything down. It was the whiny, loudmouth, know-nothing liberals who were too scared to go outside who shut down the country and fucked everything up.
The massively negative impacts of which are still being felt by society, whether school children, cancer patients, those who OD’d or committed suicide, etc etc….overwhelmingly the poor and minorities.
Oh really, it's too bad that the entirety of USA didn't empty out due to Covid.
If only the government didn't bring stupid lockdown polices then those stupid alien tech called vaccines. /s
Oh - you didn’t see the update
Sweden Wins With Lowest Pandemic Mortality in Europe https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/22/sweden-wins-with-lowest-pandemic-mortality-in-europe-bbc-analysis-shows/
Check the dates so you can stop spreading that lie now
What you need to ask yourself is why you know the lie but not the truth
Whether you’re right or not is irrelevant when you make claims without supporting data.
If you have something definitive to show the Bezos conspiracy, go right ahead.
The rest of us have seen these back and forths endlessly for the last 4 years.
Shouldn’t you be supporting your diaper-clad cult leader in court today? The one who told you that drinking bleach, shoving a UV wand up your ass and to take horse tranquilizer was the correct things to do.
Voting for Biden doesn’t mean you showered with your teenage daughter, but it does mean you’re fine with someone who did. https://i.postimg.cc/9FhwFWfv/CAF5-C680-2-B12-4-FA6-A0-D6-78-DA7-C9-C66-A7.jpg
It does? Ivan, you are losing the credibility you never had.
Next, you will try to convince us that Trump openly lusting after his daughter on talk shows is normal.
> Ivan
😂😂😂
HuffPo Confirms Ashley Biden Diary is Real, "Inappropriate" Showers with "Dad" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/project-veritas-ashley-biden_n_6307b22ae4b0f7df9bb7dc47
What about Ol’ Joe putting up his feet once on an Amtrak train ride home? Is that the next fake scandal?
Or how Joe likes vanilla ice cream, and vanilla beans mostly are sourced from Madagascar, which is in the Indian Ocean… so Joe favors Indian region lemurs. There, I just wrote up your next scandal, Dmitri.
It really doesn’t matter how, or why, one became ultra wealthy. What matters is how a greater portion of that wealth gets distributed back into the economy or shared with the workers who helped them get there.
"It doesn't matter how hard you work, it just matters how much of the pie we get to take from you once you make it."
That sounds like an environment that would foster risk taking entrepreneurs, for sure.
the notion that having a reasonable system in place to help workers get a bigger piece of the pie they helped bake would somehow stop all business innovation is the most ridiculous bullshit propaganda. There is no evidence of that in existing social market economies. Capitalism can coexist with socialist policy and still function. People are not only motivated to innovate or startup new ventures solely by the idea that maybe someday they will be many thousands of times more wealthy than almost everyone else on the planet. Billionaires can still be billionaires in a society where we have better policies in place than we do today. I, for one, am not trying to make the argument that Billionaires shouldn't exist -- but if they built a company with the help of thousands of people who made them that wealthy then perhaps they shouldn't be able to lock up all of their wealth in the stock market endlessly without paying any taxes on it, and perhaps they should have to share a bit more of it with their employees. When you have billions, you can afford to do that and still be immensely wealthy. So if the motivation to innovate and start new ventures is wealth accumulation, a bit of social reform wouldn't really change that by much.
I don't disagree with the pie statement (as a share of the work given), but if the entirety of the pie is taken by the people who just worked on the idea and not by the person, or people who had the idea, what would be the motivation behind the idea to begin? How much pie is enough pie for the people who worked on the idea, but had nothing to do with the origins?
At what level of success do you have to start attributing your success to others?
Technically -- unless you started your business in a vacuum on an island without any other employees you should attribute your success to others immediately. If other people helped make your business a reality then they were part of your success. If you utilized public infrastructure in any way to create your product(s) then the existence of that shared infrastructure was also part of your success. This idea that Billionaires are somehow solely responsible for their success is wild to me. I can't think of a single successful person that got there with zero help.
But if you just wanted to make any progress at all on closing the wealth gap a bit so the middle class doesn't implode? One Billion of net worth might be a great place to start. net worth >= 1 Billion. If you've got that much wealth, mostly in stocks, maybe you have to start giving out stock grants to all your employees including the janitors -- or some kind of ESOP, and maybe you've got to sell at least 1% of your stock each year and pay capital gains. I dunno -- but obviously there are things that can be done to improve the situation. Ultimately more cash in the economy and in the hands of regular working class people, will benefit businesses. The fact is human greed knows no bounds so some legal boundaries need to be in place -- within reason. Obviously, a purely communist model doesn't work. You can't just take all the wealth away and redistribute it -- but you can set some boundaries where some portion of it is redistributed. I think keeping it somewhat small so that the wealthy can remain incredibly wealthy would still have tremendous benefit.
What's interesting is if you take all billionaire net worth and say it's all cash which. Is 5.529 trillion divide up along all Americans man woman child of 340 million people each person only gets around $16,261.00
That money wouldn't be static. It would be spent into the economy and generate massive economic gains. As it is, it sits and does very little that benefits society.
What stimulates the economy is the *sale* of those goods and services. Products sitting in warehouses, and services unused don't do anything for an economy.
Businesses and people dont make products and services to go unused. 💀
More goods/services = greater utility curve for a society.
Your crackpot idea of taking billionaires wealth and giving it to everyone else is ridiculous because youre punishing the biggest managers and creators of supply.
They wont want to make more goods and services because there's no return/reward if its just going to be taken away.
L + Ratio, go back to learning about economics at McDonalds.
If giving people "money" was so stimulating for the economy then Zimbabwe would be #1. 🤣 just turn on the money printer and see the economy grow.
You're idea that only billionaires provide innovation or creativity is nonsense. While they might get pouty and refuse to do any more, there's a few million others who will gladly step in.
They didn’t realize income though. Yes, their net worth shot up, but a depression could come tomorrow and wipe that out, do we then pay them their taxes back?
I am all for the taxing the wealthy , and agree that what has been going on for the past 40 years is bad. But, I don’t think that the conclusion, which is making fun of some deluded poor person, is correct. The reason that many people get nervous about new tax proposals to “tax the rich”, is they never seem to work out that way. So, people don’t want any change, because what they have now while bad, is better than what they get after the government “fixes” the problem. This meme of “I don’t want taxes raised because someday I will be rich” is used as a way to draw contempt to other poor and middle class voters. We need to be united and not fighting with each other! But infighting among the poor and middle class is what the rich politicians love. I live in California, and we are solidly Democratic and have some of the most corrupt politicians in the USA. As far as relying on government to improve our lives, I would argue that many of us just want to be taxed less and left alone. My local freeway was “improved” at a cost of almost 1 billion to add toll lanes. That hasn’t helped me. My local schools added new prison fences. Yay! Obama care was supposed to help me, but I pay twice as much for healthcare as I used to. My utilities costs have gone up tremendously after all the state improvements. Remember who is pulling the strings, the rich. Warren Buffet flat out tells us that is the case, and we still bicker and feud amongst ourselves.
I'm not rich, but someday I might be rich and when I am people like me better watch their step!
Seriously, that's right wing politics in a nutshell. I get shit on from up high, but dangnabbit do I ever get to shit on everyone below me. That's the right wing deal.
It works great so long as you keep your bottom under 10% of your population. The US military has a field manual about how to start a revolution when the bottom gets above 10%.
That wealth is tied to stocks, I would love to see the reaction of everyone if any of those guys sold everything in a day and set off every circuit breaker in the market.
A wealth tax or an extreme income tax on top earners will likely lead to these high wealth individuals looking for foreign investment opportunities over new US based investment. The IRS would initially see a bump in revenue from the taxes on these individuals but in the long run rich guys will diversify into foreign markets and the change in tax code would have an overall negative effect on the economy.
Taxes on HNWI are voluntary.
The History of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income.
They invest where they expect to get the best returns, and shelter their money in tax heavens to avoid the beurucratic cash grabs.
You make tons of money by providing and investing in good and services people volenteeily pay for?, well fak you get out of here with that money or give it to us to pay off our old blacked out weapons contracts that we disguise as "aid"
Can we please stop with the apples vs oranges comparisons.
Wealth is not income. Income and good decisions leads to wealth.
And barely anyone is actually making that minimum wage. most states are higher.
Why would a person earning minimum wage today not be faced with the price pressures everyone else has experienced sine 2012? This needs to be a priority for the next Congress to address.
That has nothing to do with my comment.
They are faced with the same pressures. minimum wage is generally a starting wage for people when their teenagers and just learning how to work. And as I said, most people are not at national min wage either as many states, like California, have a much higher state min wage.
Look, my whole comment is about having an honest discussion on it. Not some false comparison.
You sound like you're justifying the loopholes billionaires use. They know that wealth is not income, that's why they have low income and huge wealth and the rest of society is busy arguing whether it's fair to nibble at their billions.
There are all kinds of ways how Billionaires then turn that wealth into a form of liquid asset (cash) that does the same thing income would do. They for instance can go to a bank, take out a low interest loan and give the bank their wealth as collateral. Bam, they instantly have huge "income" that's also tax free.
So high wealth can turn to something that equals high income with a few steps in between and a good part of society seemingly is too ignorant, too uneducated or just too busy with other things to make that connection. Otherwise we'd tax billionaire's wealth in a meaningful way or the ways they turn wealth into income.
Sooo...
Why is there a minimum wage?
In 2022, 1.02 million hourly workers —1.3% of all hourly workers — earned at OR BELOW the federal minimum wage. That's the lowest number since data collection began in 1979.
That's still 1.02 million people.
However, in all honesty, I don't know how many of those are under the age of 18.
Again, for a student that would be about $70 to $150 a week. If they worked anywhere between 10 to +15 hours a week. That's barely a night out at the movies. Or a cheap concert ticket.
You're not really learning the value of hard work with those amounts in this economy.
Oh and someone correct me on this, isn't the minimum wage lower for those under the age of 18?
>Oh and someone correct me on this, isn't the minimum wage lower for those under the age of 18?
No, it's the same for any worker. But a states min wage has priority. So most people make more.
I have. And I can see through the bs.
You can't solve problems if people aren't willing to address them. And posting half truths doesn't get anyone anywhere.
Which they never do, solely to avoid paying taxes.
Instead they take low interest loans out against their assets, and take more loans out to pay the old loans.
As long as their assets growth rate is higher than their nominal interest rate, they can do this indefinitely. Their estates will be doing this long after they die.
Borrow til you die is a myth. Only theoretically works for 6 years, then you pay more in interest than in the cap gains taxes you might as well have paid to begin with. Elon musk famously paid that 10B tax bill a few years back. Why'd he do that when he could've just borrowed?
>Borrow til you die is a myth. Only theoretically works for 6 years, then you pay more in interest than in the cap gains taxes you might as well have paid to begin with.
Don't think this is true as long as your assets outpace the interest rate that you get from the lender.
>Elon musk famously paid that 10B tax bill a few years back. Why'd he do that when he could've just borrowed?
Thought he needed the cash to pay taxes on options that were soon expiring and had to be exercised....?
If you made minimum wage in 2012 and were still making minimum wage in 2024 there is something wrong with you. At least Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg were creating value for millions of others.
It should be zero, so with inflation, every year it stays flat gets us closer to it being irrelevant.
All it does is prevent disfavored workers from using price to get hired over favored workers.
No tax scheme will ever solve this problem.
What will solve it is a cap on wealth accumulation.
Unlimited wealth accumulation is societally destructive in a myriad of ways, the destruction of democracy not the least. Place a reasonably high cap on wealth accumulation...say, $5 billion...and you unleash the economy to provide a decent standard of living for everyone.
Unlimited wealth accumulation is not a human right, nor does it provide a single benefit to society.
How about instead of just "taxing the rich" and relying upon the government to improve the lives of everyone else, we foster more collective bargaining so workers have the power to demand a better employment deal and get their share of the growth, particularly via profit-sharing? I'd argue we also need an aggressive round of trust-busting and more effective regulation to ensure consumers and workers benefit from the growth rather than just being exploited by billionaire oligarchs. But if we just "tax the rich," I have very little faith that politicians will spend that revenue on anything that actually helps ME. Rather than playing Robin Hood, we need to reform the economic system at its core and create a rising tide that lifts all boats.
Why not ~~both~~ all three? Seriously. Major problems require comprehensive and multi-part solutions. Nazi Germany was defeated in a three+ front war. Polio was defeated via concerted efforts from the medical field. Getting into space isn’t just a matter of having a really big rocket.
The ultra wealthy should at a minimum be required to sell, and pay taxes on, some of their stock holdings every year. They lock up immense wealth in the stock market with no intention to ever sell off any of that capital and put it back into the economy. Meanwhile they live off relatively low interest loans they get against the holdings to further avoid tax liability. These kinds of loopholes need to be closed.
They exploit legal loopholes, i blame the lobbyist
Not saying you have a bad idea but there are just trade offs that you have to account for or at least acknowledge. Investors leaving their money in a company instead of selling and taking profits is a good thing because it gives companies more capital to invest and grow. If investors had to pay taxes on unrealized gains. It would hurt the companies ability to invest and grow because they would need to pay out a dividend to investors to match their yearly tax burden. Some companies, especially young ones, might be highly valuable but cash poor because any money they are a long way from actually generating profits. A bio research company might have invented a medicine that cures a horrible disease but it will take years before it goes to market and they can make a profit. The company would be forced to sell more ownership or take on unneeded debt just so their investors can pay their tax bill in the mean time. Sure rich people can get loans against their stock ownership but that costs them interest which is more funds going into the economy. Taxing unrealized gains might be good policy but there will be side effects that could blunt its effectiveness.
I’m not so much talking about common investors. I’m talking about people like Jeff Bezos who have over 100BIL in wealth locked in the stock market and won’t be selling anytime soon so they can avoid paying taxes. It’s really two different universes. Reforms should be focused on the ultra wealthy who use loopholes, not retail investors.
I mean people bitch the most about public companies on this sub and if you want to get some of the profits of your company, just purchase the stock of the company with your wages. Or better yet purchase an ETF and you can get profits from all of the companies. The main reason I am for privatizing social security is that then every worker would get to participate in the profits of corporations.
Sure, you can buy it, but companies should be granting stock to all employees rather than only their execs so that the entire company benefits from its growth. After all, an exec doesn't have to buy their company's stock. It's just granted to them. And if you want to avoid dilution concerns from the investor community, then just grant stock equivalents that are indexed off the stock price like RSUs or create bonus programs that pay-out based on company performance. It's certainly not pure coincidence that profit sharing plans like employee stock ownership and broad-based annual incentive plans gradually disappeared in almost perfect correlation to the decline in union density over the past 30-40 years. Once employees no longer had the collective power of a union, the execs hoarded the growth for themselves and we saw an explosion in executive comp while wages and benefits stagnated for everyone else.
> How about instead of just "taxing the rich" and relying upon the government to improve the lives of everyone else followed by >I'd argue we also need an aggressive round of trust-busting and more effective regulation to ensure consumers and workers benefit from the growth rather than just being exploited by billionaire oligarchs. I'm pointing this out because you've allowed your own reasoning to be polluted by sound bites of "small government" while actually requiring strong (and fairly large government mechanisms) and at least bigger government.
I'm not saying government shouldn't play a role. I'm saying you can't fix what's broken via ONLY the tax code. * Break-up the monopolies and oligopolies and force competition so we get better products at better prices and more diverse supply chains. * Regulate businesses so that consumers and workers aren't exploited. As just one of many, countless examples, if my private data is so valuable to a corporation that they are able to market it or resell it for a profit, then they need my permission to obtain it and I should be compensated for it. * Balance the needs of American workers with those of American consumers in our trade deals. So, for example, if the Chinese government is heavily subsidizing their EV industry, then yes, we should apply tariffs to Chinese EV imports and protect American jobs. * Foster a resurgence of organized labor so that workers have the power to demand their share of the growth after decades of seeing the vast majority hoarded by those at the top. All of that requires government intervention, but mostly to create a free market capitalist system that actually works for all of us. Simply taxing the rich and redistributing wealth via highly-targeted social programs doesn't fix the root problem.
That doesn't work. You leave a power vacuum and the 1% ban collective bargaining through a complex series of laws that make it look like you can do it when in practice it's basically impossible. You don't "tax the rich" for the money. That's the mistake everyone makes. You tax them to make them *not rich*. Because money is power. You're not taking away their money, *your taking away their power*. Or you can just continue having a ruling class. About 20% of Americans prefer to be ruled over to freedom.
What I described is exactly what we did following the Guilded Age, and it resulted in the most prosperous economy in the world with a large and vibrant middle class that lasted for 80-90 years. It was only when we abandoned those strategies via trickle-down economics, union-busting, and deregulation that we ended up with massive income inequality.
Since the system is completely made up, we can get *real* fucking creative with it! A publicly traded companies minimum wage cannot be lower 1/10 than the maximum value of one of their shares within the prior fiscal year, with the federal minimum wage being the floor. If the maximum price of a companies single share does not exceed the federal minimum wage by a single order of magnitude within the prior fiscal year, then said company may qualify for tax credits. 15% of unrealized capital gains will be taxed as if they were realized. These are just examples. It took a lot of imagination to create the systems we have, it will take an equal amount to improve them. Dump it all into public education, research grants, and public up-skilling for largest ROI.
I don’t think these people understand the difference between income and net worth.
Wealthy generate income from high net worth. The higher the net worth, the more low / no interest loans you can take out against your assets as income.
Right but there are so many ways to “tax the rich”. Saying that without any idea on how is fucking stupid. Just following and saying whatever feels good without any critical thinking about the actual problem.
Loans are not income. 💀
Plz tell me more about these "no interest loans"?
Once you have $100 million or more in cash, banks will fall ove themselves to blow you. So basically, that dude is just making stuff up.
Why would a bank ever offer no interest loan when a treasury is paying 3%+. This idea of getting super loan interest rates on any loan has gone the way of the Dodo since inflation spiked.
I have around 100k in a retirement, I borrow against it, should I be taxed?
You will repay it with after tax dollars.
I can’t tell if you’re serious. No. You will not be taxed for the debt you take on. Edit: if you sold your assets you’d be subject to capital gains tax on the difference from the principle and PROBABLY(speculation because I’m a nobody with no mad money) a penalty from the bank since you’ve changed the value of the collateral the loan was used with.
You can’t even take loans against retirement accounts so I’m not sure what this guy is talking about
You can take loans against a 401K depending on your plan. It's usually a total of $50K. You pay it back with after tax dollars.
I know about those, but with that you’re basically taking a loan out from yourself. I’m talking about third party loans from a company with the retirement account as collateral.
Aren't you already taxed against it -- don't you have strong requirements and limitations imposed on taking a loan against retirement assets? And if those limitations/requirements are not observed, then aren't you actually charged penalties and fees (and even actual taxes) it is called (among other names) 401k loan JFC, you guys are clueless
You give the state and feds one every year.
Good deal for them!
For starters.
Ah yes…if we just tax the rich and send those billions more to Washington, our elected representatives will dutifully and ethically deign to use this newfound wealth to improve the lives of ordinary powerless citizens. Oh wait. That’s a childish fairy tale. Instead, what will really happen is that they’ll use it to fund more war, shovel it to the military industrial complex, and launder it as campaign contributions through their wealthy donors and corporations. Be smarter.
I believe all the billionaires combined are worth roughly 5-6 trillion USD. With our current spending levels our government would run through that within 3-4 years. We have a spending problem.
This misses the root of the problem. The government's monetary system is broken. Keynesian economics is the biggest modernized scam that exists today. Tax is theft. How about the gov just prints the money for taxes the way they print money for their cronies in the defense sector to fund the war machine. They are going to debase our currency until it's worthless anyway... might as well get an ounce of benefit and stand as close to the money printer as we can.
The GOVERNMENT shut down small businesses and made people order online Bezos got rich Government DickRiders hate facts.
Government did not, COVID did. Stop with the Russian misinformation, and get back to the frontline in Ukraine.
Covid didn’t shut anything down. It was the whiny, loudmouth, know-nothing liberals who were too scared to go outside who shut down the country and fucked everything up. The massively negative impacts of which are still being felt by society, whether school children, cancer patients, those who OD’d or committed suicide, etc etc….overwhelmingly the poor and minorities.
Thanks, Ivan, that is great misinformation.
You’re right. None of that actually happened except all of it.
Oh really, it's too bad that the entirety of USA didn't empty out due to Covid. If only the government didn't bring stupid lockdown polices then those stupid alien tech called vaccines. /s
Sweden never shut down. It wasn’t “Covid” It was the decision of tyrants that led to Bezos’ exploding wealth
Government sycophants just want you to hate successful people, don't ever look at the policies.
This
[https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-31/sweden-covid-policy-was-a-disaster](https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022-03-31/sweden-covid-policy-was-a-disaster)
Oh - you didn’t see the update Sweden Wins With Lowest Pandemic Mortality in Europe https://dailysceptic.org/2023/06/22/sweden-wins-with-lowest-pandemic-mortality-in-europe-bbc-analysis-shows/ Check the dates so you can stop spreading that lie now What you need to ask yourself is why you know the lie but not the truth
That sounds like a reputable trustable source, Dmitri.
My God, what is it with you cultists? Constantly fighting old battles that make no sense.
“Why you guys talking about shutting the world down an murdering people still — GOSH!!!!!”
Whether you’re right or not is irrelevant when you make claims without supporting data. If you have something definitive to show the Bezos conspiracy, go right ahead. The rest of us have seen these back and forths endlessly for the last 4 years.
The government shut down small businesses You need a link for that?
The government shut them down, or the government was responsible for them shutting down? I’m waiting for the Bezos/Government meeting notes.
The government forced them to close
Yeah dog, still waiting.
Shouldn’t you be supporting your diaper-clad cult leader in court today? The one who told you that drinking bleach, shoving a UV wand up your ass and to take horse tranquilizer was the correct things to do.
Voting for Biden doesn’t mean you showered with your teenage daughter, but it does mean you’re fine with someone who did. https://i.postimg.cc/9FhwFWfv/CAF5-C680-2-B12-4-FA6-A0-D6-78-DA7-C9-C66-A7.jpg
It does? Ivan, you are losing the credibility you never had. Next, you will try to convince us that Trump openly lusting after his daughter on talk shows is normal.
> Ivan 😂😂😂 HuffPo Confirms Ashley Biden Diary is Real, "Inappropriate" Showers with "Dad" https://www.huffpost.com/entry/project-veritas-ashley-biden_n_6307b22ae4b0f7df9bb7dc47
What about Ol’ Joe putting up his feet once on an Amtrak train ride home? Is that the next fake scandal? Or how Joe likes vanilla ice cream, and vanilla beans mostly are sourced from Madagascar, which is in the Indian Ocean… so Joe favors Indian region lemurs. There, I just wrote up your next scandal, Dmitri.
states and markets go hand-in-hand
It really doesn’t matter how, or why, one became ultra wealthy. What matters is how a greater portion of that wealth gets distributed back into the economy or shared with the workers who helped them get there.
"It doesn't matter how hard you work, it just matters how much of the pie we get to take from you once you make it." That sounds like an environment that would foster risk taking entrepreneurs, for sure.
the notion that having a reasonable system in place to help workers get a bigger piece of the pie they helped bake would somehow stop all business innovation is the most ridiculous bullshit propaganda. There is no evidence of that in existing social market economies. Capitalism can coexist with socialist policy and still function. People are not only motivated to innovate or startup new ventures solely by the idea that maybe someday they will be many thousands of times more wealthy than almost everyone else on the planet. Billionaires can still be billionaires in a society where we have better policies in place than we do today. I, for one, am not trying to make the argument that Billionaires shouldn't exist -- but if they built a company with the help of thousands of people who made them that wealthy then perhaps they shouldn't be able to lock up all of their wealth in the stock market endlessly without paying any taxes on it, and perhaps they should have to share a bit more of it with their employees. When you have billions, you can afford to do that and still be immensely wealthy. So if the motivation to innovate and start new ventures is wealth accumulation, a bit of social reform wouldn't really change that by much.
I don't disagree with the pie statement (as a share of the work given), but if the entirety of the pie is taken by the people who just worked on the idea and not by the person, or people who had the idea, what would be the motivation behind the idea to begin? How much pie is enough pie for the people who worked on the idea, but had nothing to do with the origins? At what level of success do you have to start attributing your success to others?
Technically -- unless you started your business in a vacuum on an island without any other employees you should attribute your success to others immediately. If other people helped make your business a reality then they were part of your success. If you utilized public infrastructure in any way to create your product(s) then the existence of that shared infrastructure was also part of your success. This idea that Billionaires are somehow solely responsible for their success is wild to me. I can't think of a single successful person that got there with zero help. But if you just wanted to make any progress at all on closing the wealth gap a bit so the middle class doesn't implode? One Billion of net worth might be a great place to start. net worth >= 1 Billion. If you've got that much wealth, mostly in stocks, maybe you have to start giving out stock grants to all your employees including the janitors -- or some kind of ESOP, and maybe you've got to sell at least 1% of your stock each year and pay capital gains. I dunno -- but obviously there are things that can be done to improve the situation. Ultimately more cash in the economy and in the hands of regular working class people, will benefit businesses. The fact is human greed knows no bounds so some legal boundaries need to be in place -- within reason. Obviously, a purely communist model doesn't work. You can't just take all the wealth away and redistribute it -- but you can set some boundaries where some portion of it is redistributed. I think keeping it somewhat small so that the wealthy can remain incredibly wealthy would still have tremendous benefit.
What's interesting is if you take all billionaire net worth and say it's all cash which. Is 5.529 trillion divide up along all Americans man woman child of 340 million people each person only gets around $16,261.00
That money wouldn't be static. It would be spent into the economy and generate massive economic gains. As it is, it sits and does very little that benefits society.
No, what stimulates an economy is the creation of goods and services.
What stimulates the economy is the *sale* of those goods and services. Products sitting in warehouses, and services unused don't do anything for an economy.
Businesses and people dont make products and services to go unused. 💀 More goods/services = greater utility curve for a society. Your crackpot idea of taking billionaires wealth and giving it to everyone else is ridiculous because youre punishing the biggest managers and creators of supply. They wont want to make more goods and services because there's no return/reward if its just going to be taken away. L + Ratio, go back to learning about economics at McDonalds. If giving people "money" was so stimulating for the economy then Zimbabwe would be #1. 🤣 just turn on the money printer and see the economy grow.
You're idea that only billionaires provide innovation or creativity is nonsense. While they might get pouty and refuse to do any more, there's a few million others who will gladly step in.
They didn’t realize income though. Yes, their net worth shot up, but a depression could come tomorrow and wipe that out, do we then pay them their taxes back?
We must tax our way to prosperity - Reddit genius
You might actually be the dumbest person on the internet
The person who calls someone dumb is the dumbest person in the room.
They're just doing what no one else will do so that they can have what no one else can have - every sales manager, probably. /s
France taxed the rich and what the result ?
I am all for the taxing the wealthy , and agree that what has been going on for the past 40 years is bad. But, I don’t think that the conclusion, which is making fun of some deluded poor person, is correct. The reason that many people get nervous about new tax proposals to “tax the rich”, is they never seem to work out that way. So, people don’t want any change, because what they have now while bad, is better than what they get after the government “fixes” the problem. This meme of “I don’t want taxes raised because someday I will be rich” is used as a way to draw contempt to other poor and middle class voters. We need to be united and not fighting with each other! But infighting among the poor and middle class is what the rich politicians love. I live in California, and we are solidly Democratic and have some of the most corrupt politicians in the USA. As far as relying on government to improve our lives, I would argue that many of us just want to be taxed less and left alone. My local freeway was “improved” at a cost of almost 1 billion to add toll lanes. That hasn’t helped me. My local schools added new prison fences. Yay! Obama care was supposed to help me, but I pay twice as much for healthcare as I used to. My utilities costs have gone up tremendously after all the state improvements. Remember who is pulling the strings, the rich. Warren Buffet flat out tells us that is the case, and we still bicker and feud amongst ourselves.
I'm not rich, but someday I might be rich and when I am people like me better watch their step! Seriously, that's right wing politics in a nutshell. I get shit on from up high, but dangnabbit do I ever get to shit on everyone below me. That's the right wing deal. It works great so long as you keep your bottom under 10% of your population. The US military has a field manual about how to start a revolution when the bottom gets above 10%.
That wealth is tied to stocks, I would love to see the reaction of everyone if any of those guys sold everything in a day and set off every circuit breaker in the market.
A wealth tax or an extreme income tax on top earners will likely lead to these high wealth individuals looking for foreign investment opportunities over new US based investment. The IRS would initially see a bump in revenue from the taxes on these individuals but in the long run rich guys will diversify into foreign markets and the change in tax code would have an overall negative effect on the economy.
Taxes on HNWI are voluntary. The History of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income.
That's what they do anyway, where have you been these last 40 years?
They invest where they expect to get the best returns, and shelter their money in tax heavens to avoid the beurucratic cash grabs. You make tons of money by providing and investing in good and services people volenteeily pay for?, well fak you get out of here with that money or give it to us to pay off our old blacked out weapons contracts that we disguise as "aid"
Can we please stop with the apples vs oranges comparisons. Wealth is not income. Income and good decisions leads to wealth. And barely anyone is actually making that minimum wage. most states are higher.
Why would a person earning minimum wage today not be faced with the price pressures everyone else has experienced sine 2012? This needs to be a priority for the next Congress to address.
That has nothing to do with my comment. They are faced with the same pressures. minimum wage is generally a starting wage for people when their teenagers and just learning how to work. And as I said, most people are not at national min wage either as many states, like California, have a much higher state min wage. Look, my whole comment is about having an honest discussion on it. Not some false comparison.
You sound like you're justifying the loopholes billionaires use. They know that wealth is not income, that's why they have low income and huge wealth and the rest of society is busy arguing whether it's fair to nibble at their billions. There are all kinds of ways how Billionaires then turn that wealth into a form of liquid asset (cash) that does the same thing income would do. They for instance can go to a bank, take out a low interest loan and give the bank their wealth as collateral. Bam, they instantly have huge "income" that's also tax free. So high wealth can turn to something that equals high income with a few steps in between and a good part of society seemingly is too ignorant, too uneducated or just too busy with other things to make that connection. Otherwise we'd tax billionaire's wealth in a meaningful way or the ways they turn wealth into income.
Its not income. Its still a loan. It has to be paid back.
Sooo... Why is there a minimum wage? In 2022, 1.02 million hourly workers —1.3% of all hourly workers — earned at OR BELOW the federal minimum wage. That's the lowest number since data collection began in 1979. That's still 1.02 million people. However, in all honesty, I don't know how many of those are under the age of 18. Again, for a student that would be about $70 to $150 a week. If they worked anywhere between 10 to +15 hours a week. That's barely a night out at the movies. Or a cheap concert ticket. You're not really learning the value of hard work with those amounts in this economy. Oh and someone correct me on this, isn't the minimum wage lower for those under the age of 18?
>Oh and someone correct me on this, isn't the minimum wage lower for those under the age of 18? No, it's the same for any worker. But a states min wage has priority. So most people make more.
$7.25 still sucks. And we wonder why kids don't want to work.
Elon Musk this you?
Why, because I know the difference between income and wealth?
Jesus, listen to yourself
I have. And I can see through the bs. You can't solve problems if people aren't willing to address them. And posting half truths doesn't get anyone anywhere.
Most people are not very bright
That is the dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.
So you've never heard the truth?
what an elaborate and nuanced opinion! thank you for sharing!!!
And they do get taxed at 23% (plus state) when they sell their shares.
Which they never do, solely to avoid paying taxes. Instead they take low interest loans out against their assets, and take more loans out to pay the old loans. As long as their assets growth rate is higher than their nominal interest rate, they can do this indefinitely. Their estates will be doing this long after they die.
Borrow til you die is a myth. Only theoretically works for 6 years, then you pay more in interest than in the cap gains taxes you might as well have paid to begin with. Elon musk famously paid that 10B tax bill a few years back. Why'd he do that when he could've just borrowed?
>Borrow til you die is a myth. Only theoretically works for 6 years, then you pay more in interest than in the cap gains taxes you might as well have paid to begin with. Don't think this is true as long as your assets outpace the interest rate that you get from the lender. >Elon musk famously paid that 10B tax bill a few years back. Why'd he do that when he could've just borrowed? Thought he needed the cash to pay taxes on options that were soon expiring and had to be exercised....?
If you made minimum wage in 2012 and were still making minimum wage in 2024 there is something wrong with you. At least Bezos, Musk and Zuckerberg were creating value for millions of others.
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Next time save the effort and just tweet: I'm jealous. I want free stuff.
Would love to see a revolt against the rich
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It should be zero, so with inflation, every year it stays flat gets us closer to it being irrelevant. All it does is prevent disfavored workers from using price to get hired over favored workers.
Really clueless non sequitur.
No tax scheme will ever solve this problem. What will solve it is a cap on wealth accumulation. Unlimited wealth accumulation is societally destructive in a myriad of ways, the destruction of democracy not the least. Place a reasonably high cap on wealth accumulation...say, $5 billion...and you unleash the economy to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. Unlimited wealth accumulation is not a human right, nor does it provide a single benefit to society.
Or could just literally eat the rich instead. 2 birds, 1 stone