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At a fundamental level, incomes (and wealth) have to rise proportionate to productivity. Average employee productivity has increased a lot since 1970s but wage

by NTDF9 7y ago

At a fundamental level, incomes (and wealth) have to rise proportionate to productivity. Average employee productivity has increased a lot since 1970s but wages (and thus wealth) hasn't. The top 1% on the other hand reaped the benefits of low capital gains taxation, rates of interest an economic downturn that didn't collapse them and hoarded wealth and political power. With this hoarded wealth (and political power) and low taxes for the govt to run, they have jacked up prices of healthcare, education and housing for the masses. At the same time, they are lending more to various governments who now have to cut benefits for the masses. To fix it, just reverse it. Take a few billions off of each billionaire and subsidizing state college education would be a good start. Redistribution is important for revolutions to not happen.

BadassFractal 7y ago
A couple of questions here, purely reasoning about the math: It takes something like 400k to be in the top 1%. That's a decent FAANG developer 10 years into their career, that's not exactly Andrew Carnegie level of wealth. Are those people to be taxed more? 35% federal + 10% state tax in CA. Will more taxes on that bracket make that much of a difference to the country as a whole? Let's say we were to skim a billion off of all the billionaires in the US. That's about 500 of them. Does that solve the problem altogether? The government makes 7 trillion every year, that's a one time increase of 7%. Does that make that much of a difference?
- cyphar 7y ago
  Federal taxes don't exist to raise revenue, because the USD is a sovereign currency (the federal government is the sole issuer of the USD). They exist to avoid inflation and disincentivise certain behaviour. The real solution is to simply spend more money to elevate people out of poverty. But then the question everyone asks is "how will you pay for it?" and instead of answering with the correct answer ("deficit spending is not the original sin, the reason why we are deficit spending is the important question") most political candidates instead say they'll tax rich people. It just so happens that reducing the amount of money and influence incredibly wealthy people have has its own benefits (less corruption and lobbying power for one), but revenue raising is not one of them.
- NTDF9 7y ago
  Good question. Let's just put things in perspective. In the 10 years that the FAANG developer took to reach 400k income, some born-with-a-silver-spoon asset holding trust fund kid made more than $1 million a year, with lesser taxes than the FAANG holder. The question is who was more productive? Why was the unproductive person taxed less for their income on that capital gains?

by NTDF9 7y ago

BadassFractal 7y ago

A couple of questions here, purely reasoning about the math: It takes something like 400k to be in the top 1%. That's a decent FAANG developer 10 years into their career, that's not exactly Andrew Carnegie level of wealth. Are those people to be taxed more? 35% federal + 10% state tax in CA. Will more taxes on that bracket make that much of a difference to the country as a whole? Let's say we were to skim a billion off of all the billionaires in the US. That's about 500 of them. Does that solve the problem altogether? The government makes 7 trillion every year, that's a one time increase of 7%. Does that make that much of a difference?

cyphar 7y ago
Federal taxes don't exist to raise revenue, because the USD is a sovereign currency (the federal government is the sole issuer of the USD). They exist to avoid inflation and disincentivise certain behaviour. The real solution is to simply spend more money to elevate people out of poverty. But then the question everyone asks is "how will you pay for it?" and instead of answering with the correct answer ("deficit spending is not the original sin, the reason why we are deficit spending is the important question") most political candidates instead say they'll tax rich people. It just so happens that reducing the amount of money and influence incredibly wealthy people have has its own benefits (less corruption and lobbying power for one), but revenue raising is not one of them.
NTDF9 7y ago
Good question. Let's just put things in perspective. In the 10 years that the FAANG developer took to reach 400k income, some born-with-a-silver-spoon asset holding trust fund kid made more than $1 million a year, with lesser taxes than the FAANG holder. The question is who was more productive? Why was the unproductive person taxed less for their income on that capital gains?