Yeah, and this tracks with what I was saying as well:
An average of 1.2 million, which means there are a LOT of people over that. And that tracks with your 6.71% number.
You’re looking at the mean, not the median. In that link the mean net worth of those 65-74 is $1,215,920, but the median net worth of that same group is just $266,070. What that indicates is that there is tremendous disparity in wealth within that group. Some rather small portion of them possess the a vast majority of all the wealth held, for the mean and median to skew so far from each other.
If we are talking taking away every thing over 999 million, then yes, we are taking away their companies. Or did you not see the post I was replying to?
Again, look at your post I was replying to, which suggests confiscating all their billions.
Yes, but your post suggested confiscating $274 billion of that.
Fortunately, most of that $274 billion is pure hot air, inflated by the flames of errant speculation.
Stranger
Nevermind…(can’t delete this post)
Nobel Laureate in Economics Paul Krugman says it well:
“There is a level of harshness in our debate mostly coming from the people who are actually doing very well. So, you know, we’ve had a parade of billionaires whining about the incredible injustice that people are actually criticizing them, and then comparing anyone who criticizing them to the knowledge, and then comparing anyone who criticizes them to the Nazis. It’s almost a tic that they have. This is very strange, and it’s kind of scary because, you know, it’s one thing if someone without a lot of power seems to be going of into a rage for no good reason, but these are people who have a lot of influence because of the amount of money they control.”
Stranger
Couldn’t that be said of all stocks?
Do you even pay property taxes? It’s an unrealized gains tax which has nothing to do with income transfers, my house value is determined by the government (Bexar county), I don’t even have to sell the thing to be taxed on its (government) appraised value, if my house value goes down I don’t feel like I deserve a refund on my taxes,
and I pay my unrealized gains tax without whining like a bitch and having the poor defend my whining.
Eh, this point has been made, I see. Good job!
Anyway, this bullshit about ‘YoU cAnNoT tAx UnReAlIzEd GaInS’ is, as many noted, belied by the existence of property taxes.
I didn’t know that this Mikel Jollet was part of this thread.
I don’t know if they can see that you replied to them.
What you were saying was that “lots of everyday people have net worths in the low-single digit millions”, which is only true if you consider lots to be a few percent, and consider to not be lots the other 93%.
And sure, some people close to retirement have net worths in the low millions, but still only a pretty small fraction, so still not “everyday” people.
And if we are talking of a tax starting at a few or ten million of net worth, then we are talking about a percent or less of the population who would be affected by such a tax.
Sure the government can tax you for whatever they want. To a penny for each blonde hair would be fine. But just as every old person bitching about losing their home due to property taxes going up discovers its stupid to charge taxes on the value of an asset that doesn’t put cash in your pocket.
In fact, having such a wealth tax could end up being a good thing to stabilize speculative investments like these. If you have to pay tax on the hot air in the bubble, then you are going to be less inclined to want to pump it up as much.
There’s already too much capital chasing too little demand. What we need is to get money in the hands of consumers so that they can increase demand, and justify the use of capital in productive enterprises, rather than just pumping it into raising prices.
A big use of this excess capital right now is real estate investment. You can’t buy a house around here for any reasonable amount. As soon as a house goes on the market, it is snatched up by these holding companies, then rented out for significantly more than a mortgage would cost a homeowner. All this is doing is allowing the wealthy to use their wealth to extract wealth from the less wealthy.
Most stocks on the market right now, probably. The price to earnings and price to book ratios are pretty ridiculous across the board. You can probably find some companies here and there that are reasonably valued, but they are going to be few and far between.
There were other times when these ratios were more realistic. That’s the whole problem here, lots of capital with nothing to use it for, just blowing up speculative markets.
And the notion that the problem is that the wealthy just don’t have enough money is contraindicated by the actual facts on the ground.
So, are you saying that the ultrawealthy are on fixed incomes, and they will end up homeless and eating cat food if we dare tax them?
The problem with taxes going up on the elderly is that their income usually barely keeps up with inflation. This has been an issue ever since we stopped kicking them out of their homes when they were no longer a productive member of the workforce. If you actually were concerned about this, then you’d probably want to give them a more robust safety net, and pay for it by taxing those who could afford to pay.
But to analogize a pensioner to a billionaire is just a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?
Yes, those are the words I used exactly. Either that or I said it’s dumb to tax things that don’t put cash in your pocket.
So, you are against property taxes altogether then?
And do you really think that having billions of dollars in capital isn’t something that can put cash in your pocket?
Nope, equally stupid taxes. I’d rather abolish property taxes in general since they do more harm than good.
It would be much better to tax doing something with you wealth. Buy a yatch pay a 50% tax, buy a politician pay 100% tax. Buy a tract of land you sit on and jerk off, only taxed on the cost of getting there and caring for your self while you’re there.