Probably not how it works


Source: [url=https://oslo.town/@luftvaffel/115327708667457159]https://oslo.town/@luftvaffel/115327708667457159[/url]

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in reply to ekZepp

"tax the rich" is a scam?

The wealth tax typically proposed by these campaigns (like 2 or 3%) would raise money but it would not stop billionaires from getting richer. (That's why even billionaires advocate for it.)

The finish line should not be "raise money to fund public programs."

The finish line should be "billionaires don't exist."

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to earthworm

There literally should just be a cap. Make it something ridiculous like "billionaires are not allowed to exist, so everything you earn past $999,999,999.99 is public property" and I don't see any way how someone could disagree with this other than wanting to be a malicious parasite. That is more than enough money to buy a yacht for your yacht and is also an amount of money that cannot be legitimately obtained.
This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to Karyoplasma

I've always liked the idea of the cap being an immediate loss of any legal property protection.

This would not be through any process, they simply instantly legally cease to have any property rights anytime they cannot prove their net worth is below the limit.

Any member of the public can reclaim any piexe of their ex-property, until the not-quite-billiomaire gets a court ruling confirming their not-a-billionaire status.

Then the not-yet-billionaires can figure out how to constantly stay comfortably below the limit.

Or...they can file an updated wealth disclosure every time they attempt to keep anyone from walking away with any piece of their former property.

If they want to avoid the inconvenience of their yachts, cars, pets, plants, fences, lamps, and television sets being repossessed, they can
negotiate with their employees unions for collective ownership in good faith, instead.

It'll be fun to see how many of them are too stupid to take a good deal, and lose their stupid toys.

in reply to a_non_monotonic_function

Despite the headline tax rate being over 90% in the 1950s, the federal government collects about 3 times more real revenue per person today (with a top rate of 37%) than it did then.


The only reason it was ever that high is because the tax code at that time was so full of loopholes/deductions/etc. (that are closed today) that you could have that be the rate with practically no one actually paying it.

What I'm trying to say is, don't hold your breath for that to ever return in present day.

in reply to earthworm

in reply to ObjectivityIncarnate

Edit: That argument is just "trickle down economics" with extra steps.

I disagree.

Billionaires have outsize influence. They buy politicians to set public policies that affect the working class and divert billions of our dollars into their pockets.

If you put all of their money in a pit and set it on fire, it would have a greater impact than just taxing them 2% and spending all of it on public programs, because they would no longer be able to do harm on a billionaire scale.

The people could heal.

We'd still have other beasts to deal with, but the existence of billionaires is a cap on the lives of the working class.

This entry was edited (2 days ago)
in reply to earthworm

Edit: That argument is just “trickle down economics” with extra steps.


Trickle down economics is the argument that financial benefits given to the wealthiest will naturally make their way down to the rest, so there is no need to aid the impoverished directly.

There is literally nothing in what I said that suggests that course of action, at all. My talking about how taking direct action to eradicate poverty ought to be the top priority is literally the opposite of that. You're full of it.

the existence of billionaires is a cap on the lives of the working class.


Billionaires (inflation-adjusted, of course) per capita in the US increased by about 7x compared to 100 years ago, while the percentage of the population living in poverty is 4-6x lower today than it was 100 years ago, compared to what it is today.

The correlation is in literally the opposite direction as what you claim. How do you reconcile these facts with your assertion?

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in reply to ObjectivityIncarnate

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in reply to earthworm

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in reply to ObjectivityIncarnate

This entry was edited (7 hours ago)
in reply to ObjectivityIncarnate

The correlation is in literally the opposite direction as what you claim. How do you reconcile these facts with your assertion?


Its very easy to make an incorrect correlation like this when you are using faulty data like the FPL.

All it takes two seconds to find out the poverty line in the US is literally just 3 times the monthly minimum spend for food for one person. That doesnt factor in the extreme inflation on housing, medical, student debt, utilities, phone plan costs, taxes, etc. While food prices are inflated they are not nearly as inflated as the other areas critical to survival which are not calculated for the reporting of offical poverty figures. Once you actually account for all of this and look at what percentage of the population fails to meet basic needs you get to a more staggering 43% of the US living in poverty and even thats a rough estimate due to missing data points that might make it higher.

brookings.edu/articles/how-man…

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in reply to AlfredoJohn

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in reply to Nalivai

No, it's really not. It's actually inappropriate in polite society to talk about politics outside of certain contexts. Here on lemmy, folks will use every excuse to shoehorn US politics into every thread and every post. It sucks, it's like there's nowhere to go anymore online without politics folks throwing in their two cents. I spend more time doing irl activities just to get away from it which is a shame because I grew up on BBSs and the internet and I really like communicating with people this way. Just not about that.
in reply to FridaySteve

Careful now, my friend. These terminally online crazies are so thoroughly in the pit that they no longer realize that there is more in the world than politics. It's like talking to crazy religious people who will argue about how God is everywhere and in everything every chance they get. There's no point bringing normal reasonable perspectives into a discussion like this. XD if you don't have the same opinion as them you are a fascist or some shit xD the diversity of thought on Lemmy is as plentiful and fertile as the surface of the moon.