Even if you took all the money from the "rich" the goverment would shut down as usual the next year because the debt they create is way more than the private money available out there.
Insane take. Even if you confiscated ALL the money from all the billionaires (instant 100% wealth tax) and spread it to everyone worldwide, it would be a one time sum of under $2000. And what then?
You can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once.
It seems like billionaires have a knack for making lots of money every year. Why don’t we just take a bit more of it than we do now and invest it into useful projects?
Billionaires generally do not have a knaxj for value creation. What they do generally have is an egregious amount of greed and a total lack of empathy which enables an incredible amount of exploitation.
Then the former billionaires won't have the ability to influence society to pass laws that favours them. We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
> We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
I assure you this isn't the only blocker and its naive to think that [other_set_of_humans] will not try to consolidate power for themselves after you remove the current set.
Most people are not in it for their fellow man and whoever sold you this idea that billionaires are the only impediment to, or even blocking now, a better society -- lied to you.
By all means get rid of the billionaires, I don't particularly care; just don't be so surprised when it turns out that was just a side quest.
I think there are other avenues here that are probably better spent to make society better.
Everyone in the US misses the 50s, marginal tax rates were crazy high. "Oh, but people had lots of deductions and not many people actually paid the top rates" - yeah, that's exactly the point, it encouraged money to be spread around more. And a whole lot of people prospered, while government revenue was less lopsidedly concentrated too.
Get people away from paycheck-to-paycheck debt loads and you've improved a lot of lives regardless of if those people are egalitarians who will then vote for utopian policies. We know that allowing more and more consolidation ain't the move.
We have 4-5x the normalized GDP per capita compared to the 1950s.
The amount of taxes we collect isn’t the problem. Excessive government spending and inflationary pressures on things like housing is (Which, btw seems to always go up regardless of what political side you want to point fingers at)
While the economic output per person has indeed increased 4-5x, the inflation adjusted median household income has only increased by 50% (1.5x). Government spending is not the issue here.
The things you mentioned are always a problem because even the far left in America is incredibly right-wing.
Even if you took all the money from the "rich" the goverment would shut down as usual the next year because the debt they create is way more than the private money available out there.
Insane take. Even if you confiscated ALL the money from all the billionaires (instant 100% wealth tax) and spread it to everyone worldwide, it would be a one time sum of under $2000. And what then?
Spend the money on things of actual value rather than distributing it equally among a group of people who will inevitably just spend it on an iPhone?
You can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once.
It seems like billionaires have a knack for making lots of money every year. Why don’t we just take a bit more of it than we do now and invest it into useful projects?
We're capable of taking the money but not of investing it into useful projects. Inherent system flaw.
Billionaires generally do not have a knaxj for value creation. What they do generally have is an egregious amount of greed and a total lack of empathy which enables an incredible amount of exploitation.
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Then the former billionaires won't have the ability to influence society to pass laws that favours them. We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
> We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
I assure you this isn't the only blocker and its naive to think that [other_set_of_humans] will not try to consolidate power for themselves after you remove the current set.
Most people are not in it for their fellow man and whoever sold you this idea that billionaires are the only impediment to, or even blocking now, a better society -- lied to you.
By all means get rid of the billionaires, I don't particularly care; just don't be so surprised when it turns out that was just a side quest.
I think there are other avenues here that are probably better spent to make society better.
Everyone in the US misses the 50s, marginal tax rates were crazy high. "Oh, but people had lots of deductions and not many people actually paid the top rates" - yeah, that's exactly the point, it encouraged money to be spread around more. And a whole lot of people prospered, while government revenue was less lopsidedly concentrated too.
Get people away from paycheck-to-paycheck debt loads and you've improved a lot of lives regardless of if those people are egalitarians who will then vote for utopian policies. We know that allowing more and more consolidation ain't the move.
We have 4-5x the normalized GDP per capita compared to the 1950s.
The amount of taxes we collect isn’t the problem. Excessive government spending and inflationary pressures on things like housing is (Which, btw seems to always go up regardless of what political side you want to point fingers at)
While the economic output per person has indeed increased 4-5x, the inflation adjusted median household income has only increased by 50% (1.5x). Government spending is not the issue here.
The things you mentioned are always a problem because even the far left in America is incredibly right-wing.
Maybe but society was more egalitarian when we did so maybe we start there.