Wealth going to the 1%

[Babale]

@echoreply

At some point, yes. Like various -opolies, they’re a sign that something is going wrong. Because the money gives them lots of power, they can then be self perpetuating. In my (poorly-informed) opinion, I’d make the cutoff somewhere around $5 billion. Any more is swept by the government. No hiding things in wholly controlled “charitable” trusts, either. Even that may still be too much, as it is still essentially limitless amounts of money to be spent on lobbying and other political influences.

This anti-billionaire academic draws her line at about $2-4 million, which to me seems absurdly low. That’s “401k did great” levels of wealth, not robber baron levels.

I would strongly disagree with any kind of arbitrary cutoff line.

@echoreply

The answer is some level of limiting the influence money can have on politics, but I certainly don’t know how to do that from a fantasy or practical level.

I think there are two related points about income inequality that need to be addressed.

First is the argument about standard of living. I think that in a prosperous modern society like ours, we have a responsibility to ensure that all members of our society can have access to basic necessities - food, shelter, healthcare, education, etc - regardless of income level.

Second is the argument about undue influence over society. That one is tougher because while you can try to get money out of politics, the ultra wealthy have other ways to influence society. Owning media companies, for example, or social media sites. I think that in those cases, what we really need is regulation. TV and radio were heavily regulated because the air waves were a limited resource with an impact on the public good. The internet or cable TV aren’t limited in the same way, but they do impact the public good, and we must find ways to regulate them to stem the tide of misinformation.

As far as billionaires themselves… We will have to tax them more heavily to pay for a robust social safety net, and that’s good. We should be regulating them and their companies, to protect public welfare from externalities and bad actors, and to prevent anti competitive practices that prevent the market from functioning. So long as all that happens, I have no particular objection to someone amassing billions.

[DPRK]

@echoreply

I’d make the cutoff somewhere around $5 billion. Any more is swept by the government.

Good thing there is no way to obscure wealth other than as a countable pile of billions of dollars, or move it somewhere the government can’t reach.

[Dewey_Finn]

I know my cousin hides an unreported billion or two in his mattress, though that makes it kind of lumpy.

[silenus]

@DPRK

Good thing there is no way to obscure wealth other than as a countable pile of billions of dollars, or move it somewhere the government can’t reach.

Adopt a page or two from the Mob: “You owe $2 billion in taxes. You’ll sit in this prison cell until your attorneys deliver the funds to the Treasury. What’s that? It will take months to liquidate slowly enough to get any return at all on your money? Sucks to be you. BTW, dinner tonight is Nutraloaf.”

[msmith537]

Obviously you don’t know the first thing about concealing wealth. Mr. Moneybags doesn’t owe $2 billion in taxes because on paper (according to tax law) he doesn’t own anything and hasn’t earned any taxable income. So what are you taxing him based on?

[Stranger_On_A_Train]

@msmith537

Mr. Moneybags doesn’t owe $2 billion in taxes because on paper (according to tax law) he doesn’t own anything and hasn’t earned any taxable income. So what are you taxing him based on?

Better yet, he can take a tax break on the interest according to this expert.

Stranger

[silenus]

Wealth tax. “The paper value of all assets that can even remotely be tied to you is X. Pay us Y.” If they flee the country or try to conceal their ill-gotten booty, confiscate everything they’ve touched and exile them forever.

If you’re gonna dream, dream BIG!

[Slithy_Tove]

@silenus

do I think we ought to hang every mother-loving one of them from the lamp posts with piano wire? Sure do.

Diderot failed to foresee the current shortage of priests, and therefore their guts; so piano wire it must be.

[silenus]

Needs must when the Devil drives.

[Little_Nemo]

@msmith537

Obviously you don’t know the first thing about concealing wealth. Mr. Moneybags doesn’t owe $2 billion in taxes because on paper (according to tax law) he doesn’t own anything and hasn’t earned any taxable income. So what are you taxing him based on?

That’s because billionaires had a hand in writing the tax code. It was designed to contain breaks for wealthy people.

If we wanted to, we could just as easily design a tax code that doesn’t favor the wealthy.

[Little_Nemo]

@Babale

As far as billionaires themselves… We will have to tax them more heavily to pay for a robust social safety net, and that’s good. We should be regulating them and their companies, to protect public welfare from externalities and bad actors, and to prevent anti competitive practices that prevent the market from functioning. So long as all that happens, I have no particular objection to someone amassing billions.

I would also like to see some kind of intervention in the passing of wealth between generations. It’s one thing when a person is a multi-millionaire because they built up a business. But I see less justification when a person is a multi-millionaire because their grandfather built up a business.

I wouldn’t prohibit the intergenerational passing of money. But I’d have a large inheritance tax kick in. Let’s recycle some of that wealth back to the other ninety-nine percent.

[Slithy_Tove]

Not to bash too heavily on the mega mansions themselves. True, some tourist money is brought in by bottom-up attractions like the souk in Istanbul or those amazing rice terraces in the Philippines. But the big bucks come in, albeit unintended by their top-down originators, from attractions like Versailles and Biltmore.

And it wasn’t some capitalist artificial-scarcifier who said “too many useful things result in to many useless people.”

[Exapno_Mapcase]

Good grief, Occupy Wall Street had more realistic goals than you lot.

[Dewey_Finn]

Wait, are you saying that my dream of parking a guillotine in front of the NYSE and beheading all of the billionaires is somehow unrealistic?

[Babale]

@Dewey_Finn

are you saying that my dream of parking a guillotine in front of the NYSE and beheading all of the billionaires is somehow unrealistic?

What’s unrealistic is the idea that this would somehow improve the lot of the working and middle class, rather than putting us on the sort of trajectory that Russia has been on this last century.

[Dewey_Finn]

Improving the lot of the working class and the middle class was never the goal.

[Little_Nemo]

@Exapno_Mapcase

Good grief, Occupy Wall Street had more realistic goals than you lot.

I feel an increased intergenerational inheritance tax is a realistic proposal.

[Dewey_Finn]

Even though Republicans are going to complain endlessly about “death taxes”, even though 99% of the population is unaffected by them?

[Little_Nemo]

Do you want to see a miniaturized Venn diagram of “ideas which are realistic” and “ideas which are popular with Republicans”?

O O

[msmith537]

@Babale

@Stranger_On_A_Train

The mansions, superyachts, and other lavish expendatures of billionaires are aesthetically ostentatious and bring comparatively little value back into the economy beyond their employment for construction and maintenance, but—setting aside the grotesque individual environmental externalities of these possessions—they serve to signpost a more serious issue

The more serious issue is that the rich aren’t just buying yachts; they’re also buying up the means of production, the iron mines and the banana plantations and the oil fields and the microchip factories. They own the things that add value to the economy, and by doing so they can ensure that the profits of economic growth are concentrated back into their own hands, where they can use it to buy even more things that produce value. This is the self perpetuating cycle.

They also buy up a lot of debt.

So basically you have a lot of people with mortgages and school loans and credit card debt working for the 1% (or by extension the financial services industry) through interest on their debt obligations, whether they realize it or not.