4 ms·

> Other than war or complete societal upheaval, what can actually be done to solve the problem? A wealth (not income) tax.

paulddraper 8y ago
Gut feel: Repeating taxing someone more for living frugally is wrong.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  I'd prefer a tax on increase in wealth. Which is to say a tax on income with a deduction for consumption. So you're taxing the act of becoming richer, rather than just owning stuff. I suppose you could still have a wealth tax, if you set the threshold high enough that it only affects the top 10%.
  - zanny 8y ago
    More like affects the top .02%. What a lot of discussions on economics miss out on is that for every order of magnitude less people you are talking about out of the whole (10%, 1%, .1%, .01%) you are talking about people who then also have orders of magnitude more wealth than the previous categorization. Your .001% is billionaires, your .01% is hundred millionaires, the .1% is tens millionaires, the 1% millionaires, the 10% is hundred thousandaires (of readily accessible capital, at least - a lot of people in the 10% push themselves into the millions on their consumable assets like their house). Beyond .01% it exponentiates up to Bezos levels of wealth. When talking about wealth taxes we shouldn't even be thinking about anyone but the 300,000 who have as much wealth as the bottom 292,000,000 - the .1% - at most.
malandrew 8y ago
That interferes with individual liberty. Robert Nozick did a great job illustrating this with his Wilt Chamberlain example: The font is terrible, but this is the shortest explanation of it that I could find easily: http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/jhubert/wiltchamberlainargument.html http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/jhubert/wiltchamberlainarg...
- munk-a 8y ago
  I find the denial of a healthy existence to those impoverished to be much more an interference in individual liberty than the denial of people's ability to hand over money for a particular service. I also think this example may be valid for some discussions but in the modern world where the acquisition of wealth is denied from a large portion of the population this example fails to provide value.

paulddraper 8y ago

Gut feel: Repeating taxing someone more for living frugally is wrong.

logfromblammo 8y ago
I'd prefer a tax on increase in wealth. Which is to say a tax on income with a deduction for consumption. So you're taxing the act of becoming richer, rather than just owning stuff. I suppose you could still have a wealth tax, if you set the threshold high enough that it only affects the top 10%.
- zanny 8y ago
  More like affects the top .02%. What a lot of discussions on economics miss out on is that for every order of magnitude less people you are talking about out of the whole (10%, 1%, .1%, .01%) you are talking about people who then also have orders of magnitude more wealth than the previous categorization. Your .001% is billionaires, your .01% is hundred millionaires, the .1% is tens millionaires, the 1% millionaires, the 10% is hundred thousandaires (of readily accessible capital, at least - a lot of people in the 10% push themselves into the millions on their consumable assets like their house). Beyond .01% it exponentiates up to Bezos levels of wealth. When talking about wealth taxes we shouldn't even be thinking about anyone but the 300,000 who have as much wealth as the bottom 292,000,000 - the .1% - at most.

malandrew 8y ago

That interferes with individual liberty. Robert Nozick did a great job illustrating this with his Wilt Chamberlain example: The font is terrible, but this is the shortest explanation of it that I could find easily: http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/jhubert/wiltchamberlainargument.html http://faculty.seattlecentral.edu/jhubert/wiltchamberlainarg...

munk-a 8y ago
I find the denial of a healthy existence to those impoverished to be much more an interference in individual liberty than the denial of people's ability to hand over money for a particular service. I also think this example may be valid for some discussions but in the modern world where the acquisition of wealth is denied from a large portion of the population this example fails to provide value.