7 ms·

We should have a billion dollar networth cap. If you pass it, it gets taxed extremely, like 95%.

by foxhop 8y ago

refurb 8y ago
So Bezos has $150B in Amazon stock. You want him to give the gov't $149B of that? Am I hearing you correct?
- zhoujianfu 8y ago
  $142.5B
  - david927 8y ago
    Absolutely. Remember: technology will make everything move to fewer and fewer sources. If you wanted a book 20 years ago, you went to your local bookstore; now you go to one company. And so the people that get to this place first put their flag on it and claim it as their own. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8) I'm glad Jeff was there first (essentially) but we can still decide the future we want.
oblio 8y ago
This in conjunction with: * if a business (or business conglomerate, no sneaking around this) is bigger than N billion, the state gets N% of the shares, with the percentage progressively bigger up to something like say 25%. At some point a company gets so big that it influences a country by its sheer size. In a democracy it's only fair that the state gets a say into what that company does. I think it would be fair that the state gets limited voting rights to prevent abuse. I'd say that it should get a vote regarding profit decisions. But probably no say in product decisions, for example.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
gatsby 8y ago
Why? You sincerely think the world would be any better off if governments managed hundreds of billions more?
- jimbofisher1 8y ago
  No you're right, I blindly trust Jeff Bezos to do the best thing for humanity.
  - flyingfences 8y ago
    Still better than blindly trusting Uncle Sam to do the best thing for humanity. At least Bezos doesn't have a track record of genocide.
    - jimbofisher1 8y ago
      Why you think giving what is basically unlimited power to an individual instead of a governing body that at least on paper is accountable to its citizens boggles the mind. Celebrity/Wealth worship has truly gotten out of hand.
      - malvosenior 8y ago
        That's his point. Bezos doesn't have unlimited power. The government does. Bezos can't go off and just start a war. Bezos can't throw you in prison and keep you there. Bezos can't take a chunk of your paycheck involuntarily. I think plenty of people would rather see the guy that has a good online store get the money vs. the people dropping bombs on various countries and imprisoning large swaths of our population.
  - gatsby 8y ago
    What has he done wrong in your opinion? I think my point is that if lots of money is being made, someone is going to have to spend it. You may disagree with how it is spent by Bezos, etc. but I can’t imagine capping net worth so that governments can spend more is the right solution.
colemannugent 8y ago
Why not a million dollar cap? Surely that would be more effective.
- drewmate 8y ago
  We already have a progressive tax system where higher income levels are taxed at a higher rate. The question is where to ratchet up those rates and by how much. In order to do that reasonably, we need to understand what the marginal utility [0] of money is for our society as a whole. Put simply, anyone could spend $100k a year, most people could find useful things to spend $1M or $10M on annually. But the higher you go, the harder it is to find meaningful things to spend money on. Each extra dollar is simply worth less than the last (and a lot less than the first!) So while a 90% rate on income above $3M[1] might seem insane today, it would not even be a historic high in the United States. Whether it is fair or moral to tax in such a way is another question, but practically speaking high taxes affect rich people less the richer they are, and we as a society have historically been willing to take more from them because of that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...
aaronbrethorst 8y ago
This would simply be a return to the tax code of the 1950s. (Which I think would be a good thing, to be clear.)
- refurb 8y ago
  The effective tax rate in the 1950's isn't that much different than it is now.[1] The tax code back then had some very generous deductions, so people rarely paid the 90% marginal rates. [1]https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/
defertoreptar 8y ago
Be prepared to see your top tax contributors move to another country.
- ilovetux 8y ago
  Let them go, we don't need them. Even though I don't really believe in the parent comment, I do not believe that we should ever be afraid of anyone leaving if we make decisions that they don't like. This way of thinking is the premise of many abusive relationships. If someone wants to leave, let them. Appeasement never helps.
  - flyingfences 8y ago
    > Let them go, we don't need them. People get to the top and stay there by being good at something. The fact that they're rich by definition means that their company is doing something that people find valuable and doing it better than the alternatives. Economic activity is not driven by the government; destroying the private sector is a recipe for instability. > if we make decisions Ah, "we". This must be the way to go because "we" made the decision together, right? "We" are right and "they" are wrong. No. Stop trying to weasel together some illusion of unity. The vast majority of Americans want no part in your delusions. > If someone wants to leave, let them. Sure, but why would you intentionally give them more reasons to leave? Speaking of "abusive relationships"...
    - ilovetux 8y ago
      > Ah, "we". This must be the way to go because "we" made the decision together, right? Yes, through democracy. Sure we can disagree with our government as well as with our governments structure, but the fact is that "we" make decisions. In short, "we" are in this together. > People get to the top and stay there by being good at something. The fact that they're rich by definition means that their company is doing something that people find valuable and doing it better than the alternatives. I agree, but I would argue that there is no person or company which would totally and permanently cripple the US economy by leaving. There are some examples which would cause a very difficult adjustment period, but we would overcome. > Economic activity is not driven by the government No, the government does not drive the economy but in the best scenario can act as a reliable GPS guidance system or in the worst an annoying backseat driver. The trick is to walk a thin line between the two. > destroying the private sector is a recipe for instability. Probably, but who wants to destroy the private sector? > Sure, but why would you intentionally give them more reasons to leave? I actually don't agree with the parent comment and would never suggest creating laws just to make people leave...there's enough of that going on now. I just think that _fear_ of someone leaving is unhealthy at best.
mbesto 8y ago
Ugh, this again. Net worth != income. I get the spirit of what you're saying but you can't tax net worth, you tax income.
- kungtotte 8y ago
  You can absolutely tax net worth. It's not difficult at all. You can add/increase property taxes. You can tax wealth above a certain amount. You can add/increase taxes on stock market speculation and holdings, and other financial instruments. Whether you'd want to is a different matter, but saying you can't do it is factually incorrect.
  - moate 8y ago
    right. The story told is that the money in the market (stocks, shares of companies, holdings, real estate, etc) is playing a part in creating wealth for everyone, and therefor better served by being left where it is. there's 0 reason you can't say "this person is reporting holding, assets and liquid wealth of 2 billion dollars, so he owes X% back to the state." The issue is that typically the wealthy have the most influence over tax code, and they use net worth as a way to keep their money out of play. But, like, you know, Amazon being worth so much money is really helpful to everyone because...reasons.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago
  > you can't tax net worth Sure you can, although not all at once. Both property and capital gains taxes are examples of this. Basically, the only way off the top of my head to hold capital and not have it taxed is to leave it at rest - either in something like precious metals (which is a very poor choice as a vehicle for growth) or long-term investment (which makes it available for use by others). Also, there's inflation. Inflation obviously devalues liquid capital, but it also impacts debts. If someone loans money at 1% APR, but inflation is 2.5%, then 1.5% of the value of the outstanding debt is being transferred from lender to the debtor each year.
- losvedir 8y ago
  That is explicitly the point. Taxing income is stupid; the richest people don't necessarily have incomes at all. To the extent that inequality is problematic, it's from inequality of wealth. In the U.S. you "can't" tax wealth without a Constitutional amendment, maybe you were getting at that. If we could administer a low wealth tax of ~3-5% or something, productive people like Bezos would continue to amass wealth, but you wouldn't have unproductive rentier family dynasties as over time their wealth would be taxed away. edit: I should add that Saudi and Oman already effectively tax wealth, since they have no income tax and Sharia requires donating a percentage of your net wealth to the community.
jeffreyrogers 8y ago
It's easy to fix income inequality in theory, but every policy creates incentives, and the incentive here is to have people making tons of money move their assets and businesses out of the country.

We should have a billion dollar networth cap. If you pass it, it gets taxed extremely, like 95%.

by foxhop 8y ago

We should have a billion dollar networth cap. If you pass it, it gets taxed extremely, like 95%.

refurb 8y ago

So Bezos has $150B in Amazon stock. You want him to give the gov't $149B of that? Am I hearing you correct?

zhoujianfu 8y ago
$142.5B
- david927 8y ago
  Absolutely. Remember: technology will make everything move to fewer and fewer sources. If you wanted a book 20 years ago, you went to your local bookstore; now you go to one company. And so the people that get to this place first put their flag on it and claim it as their own. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTduy7Qkvk8) I'm glad Jeff was there first (essentially) but we can still decide the future we want.

oblio 8y ago

This in conjunction with: * if a business (or business conglomerate, no sneaking around this) is bigger than N billion, the state gets N% of the shares, with the percentage progressively bigger up to something like say 25%. At some point a company gets so big that it influences a country by its sheer size. In a democracy it's only fair that the state gets a say into what that company does. I think it would be fair that the state gets limited voting rights to prevent abuse. I'd say that it should get a vote regarding profit decisions. But probably no say in product decisions, for example.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

gatsby 8y ago

Why? You sincerely think the world would be any better off if governments managed hundreds of billions more?

jimbofisher1 8y ago
No you're right, I blindly trust Jeff Bezos to do the best thing for humanity.
- flyingfences 8y ago
  Still better than blindly trusting Uncle Sam to do the best thing for humanity. At least Bezos doesn't have a track record of genocide.
  - jimbofisher1 8y ago
    Why you think giving what is basically unlimited power to an individual instead of a governing body that at least on paper is accountable to its citizens boggles the mind. Celebrity/Wealth worship has truly gotten out of hand.
    - malvosenior 8y ago
      That's his point. Bezos doesn't have unlimited power. The government does. Bezos can't go off and just start a war. Bezos can't throw you in prison and keep you there. Bezos can't take a chunk of your paycheck involuntarily. I think plenty of people would rather see the guy that has a good online store get the money vs. the people dropping bombs on various countries and imprisoning large swaths of our population.
- gatsby 8y ago
  What has he done wrong in your opinion? I think my point is that if lots of money is being made, someone is going to have to spend it. You may disagree with how it is spent by Bezos, etc. but I can’t imagine capping net worth so that governments can spend more is the right solution.

colemannugent 8y ago

Why not a million dollar cap? Surely that would be more effective.

drewmate 8y ago
We already have a progressive tax system where higher income levels are taxed at a higher rate. The question is where to ratchet up those rates and by how much. In order to do that reasonably, we need to understand what the marginal utility [0] of money is for our society as a whole. Put simply, anyone could spend $100k a year, most people could find useful things to spend $1M or $10M on annually. But the higher you go, the harder it is to find meaningful things to spend money on. Each extra dollar is simply worth less than the last (and a lot less than the first!) So while a 90% rate on income above $3M[1] might seem insane today, it would not even be a historic high in the United States. Whether it is fair or moral to tax in such a way is another question, but practically speaking high taxes affect rich people less the richer they are, and we as a society have historically been willing to take more from them because of that. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginal_utility [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_State...

aaronbrethorst 8y ago

This would simply be a return to the tax code of the 1950s. (Which I think would be a good thing, to be clear.)

refurb 8y ago
The effective tax rate in the 1950's isn't that much different than it is now.[1] The tax code back then had some very generous deductions, so people rarely paid the 90% marginal rates. [1]https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-rich-1950-not-high/

defertoreptar 8y ago

Be prepared to see your top tax contributors move to another country.

ilovetux 8y ago
Let them go, we don't need them. Even though I don't really believe in the parent comment, I do not believe that we should ever be afraid of anyone leaving if we make decisions that they don't like. This way of thinking is the premise of many abusive relationships. If someone wants to leave, let them. Appeasement never helps.
- flyingfences 8y ago
  > Let them go, we don't need them. People get to the top and stay there by being good at something. The fact that they're rich by definition means that their company is doing something that people find valuable and doing it better than the alternatives. Economic activity is not driven by the government; destroying the private sector is a recipe for instability. > if we make decisions Ah, "we". This must be the way to go because "we" made the decision together, right? "We" are right and "they" are wrong. No. Stop trying to weasel together some illusion of unity. The vast majority of Americans want no part in your delusions. > If someone wants to leave, let them. Sure, but why would you intentionally give them more reasons to leave? Speaking of "abusive relationships"...
  - ilovetux 8y ago
    > Ah, "we". This must be the way to go because "we" made the decision together, right? Yes, through democracy. Sure we can disagree with our government as well as with our governments structure, but the fact is that "we" make decisions. In short, "we" are in this together. > People get to the top and stay there by being good at something. The fact that they're rich by definition means that their company is doing something that people find valuable and doing it better than the alternatives. I agree, but I would argue that there is no person or company which would totally and permanently cripple the US economy by leaving. There are some examples which would cause a very difficult adjustment period, but we would overcome. > Economic activity is not driven by the government No, the government does not drive the economy but in the best scenario can act as a reliable GPS guidance system or in the worst an annoying backseat driver. The trick is to walk a thin line between the two. > destroying the private sector is a recipe for instability. Probably, but who wants to destroy the private sector? > Sure, but why would you intentionally give them more reasons to leave? I actually don't agree with the parent comment and would never suggest creating laws just to make people leave...there's enough of that going on now. I just think that _fear_ of someone leaving is unhealthy at best.

mbesto 8y ago

Ugh, this again. Net worth != income. I get the spirit of what you're saying but you can't tax net worth, you tax income.

kungtotte 8y ago
You can absolutely tax net worth. It's not difficult at all. You can add/increase property taxes. You can tax wealth above a certain amount. You can add/increase taxes on stock market speculation and holdings, and other financial instruments. Whether you'd want to is a different matter, but saying you can't do it is factually incorrect.
- moate 8y ago
  right. The story told is that the money in the market (stocks, shares of companies, holdings, real estate, etc) is playing a part in creating wealth for everyone, and therefor better served by being left where it is. there's 0 reason you can't say "this person is reporting holding, assets and liquid wealth of 2 billion dollars, so he owes X% back to the state." The issue is that typically the wealthy have the most influence over tax code, and they use net worth as a way to keep their money out of play. But, like, you know, Amazon being worth so much money is really helpful to everyone because...reasons.
LyndsySimon 8y ago
> you can't tax net worth Sure you can, although not all at once. Both property and capital gains taxes are examples of this. Basically, the only way off the top of my head to hold capital and not have it taxed is to leave it at rest - either in something like precious metals (which is a very poor choice as a vehicle for growth) or long-term investment (which makes it available for use by others). Also, there's inflation. Inflation obviously devalues liquid capital, but it also impacts debts. If someone loans money at 1% APR, but inflation is 2.5%, then 1.5% of the value of the outstanding debt is being transferred from lender to the debtor each year.
losvedir 8y ago
That is explicitly the point. Taxing income is stupid; the richest people don't necessarily have incomes at all. To the extent that inequality is problematic, it's from inequality of wealth. In the U.S. you "can't" tax wealth without a Constitutional amendment, maybe you were getting at that. If we could administer a low wealth tax of ~3-5% or something, productive people like Bezos would continue to amass wealth, but you wouldn't have unproductive rentier family dynasties as over time their wealth would be taxed away. edit: I should add that Saudi and Oman already effectively tax wealth, since they have no income tax and Sharia requires donating a percentage of your net wealth to the community.

jeffreyrogers 8y ago

It's easy to fix income inequality in theory, but every policy creates incentives, and the incentive here is to have people making tons of money move their assets and businesses out of the country.