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One thing that at least some rich people will pay for is status symbols (expensive watches, sports cars that will never exceed 100mph, mansions with rooms that
by frankus 16y ago
One thing that at least some rich people will pay for is status symbols (expensive watches, sports cars that will never exceed 100mph, mansions with rooms that are used only a couple of times a year, $500 t-shirts). Status signaling is ultimately a zero-sum positional arms race that can lead to some pretty ridiculous conclusions(1) and doesn't really leave anyone better off (other than, perhaps, luxury goods suppliers).
The bad version of this idea would be a special ID card and/or bumper sticker or t-shirt or watch that was given to top-bracket taxpayers. It would have to be reasonably hard to forge (or at least as hard to forge as, say, a Rolex) and able to be either displayed publicly or flashed discreetly in situations where one wants to assert status.
Another variation could be some kind of property tax where certain sub-neighborhoods would have exceptionally rates, say 100x what the ordinary tax on the land and improvements would be. Then people could signal status by living or staying in those areas. (This is actually not too different than somewhere like Manhattan or San Francisco currently, except the windfall is going to existing property owners rather than the government).
The nice thing about status symbols is that, like fiat currency, they can be rather cheaper to produce than what their value to the status-seeking public is. That is the government could potentially retain a very high seignorage, as it were, on this stuff.
Ultimately it would have to be determined whether the status symbols could be legally transferrable, and what, if any, penalty there would be for forging them.
As an aside, it strikes me that this sort of thing would be extremely similar to fiat currency, maybe identical.
[1](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls=en&q=watch+winder&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&cid=15774647568013127762&ei=8U5ETfn9LpL2swOnueCSCg&sa=X&oi=product_catalog_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CF0Q8wIwAg#ps-sellers http://www.google.com/products/catalog?client=safari&rls...)
- TomOfTTB 16y agoAmerican Express has built an empire on your "bad idea"
- yummyfajitas 16y agoThe problem is that it's hard to create a high status item. Say you invent the "US Govt. Certified Top 0.1% Badge" - do you really think Peter Thiel, John Paulson or Alex Rodriguez will really give a crap? Taxing existing luxury status symbols could work, and is very likely a good idea. Creating new status symbols is likely to fail horribly. Also, the tax on certain neighborhoods neglects the very large non-status reason why those neighborhoods are valuable: proximity to something cool. Manhattan is expensive not just because it raises your status to live there, but also because if you work at Goldman Sachs, you are willing to pay $3000/month rent + ridiculous NYC income taxes to avoid a 1 hour commute. I suppose we could also bring back the Sumptuary laws: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law
- awakeasleep 16y agoWould they give a crap? Possibly, when you consider that the badge would symbolize an investment in the infrastructure that supports everyone's lives.
- justin 16y agoA special ID that gives you status isn't so hard to imagine: it is basically like the Black Card, which is actually pretty shitty in terms of benefits but rich people (and people who want to appear rich) want anyways because it is a status symbol you can whip out when ever you want.
- nostrademons 16y agoOne could imagine an ID card that gives you the right not to be violated & degraded in TSA screening lines...
- alsomike 16y agoMy tax plan is to eliminate income tax up to $90,000. After that, income is taxed at 100%. The government awards tax credits for everyone making less than that, so that everyone's salary + tax credits = $90,000. "But wait," you say "How will we incentivize entrepreneurs if they can't earn more money?" For everyone making over $90,000 (approx. 11% of the population), their pretax salary is used to assign them national ranking that's publicly available, much like a ladder tournament, which could be subdivided into regions, industries, etc. The rationale for this system is that we use one system - money - for two unrelated social purposes: reducing suffering and establishing status which incentivizes production. In my system, these purposes are less coupled. The $90,000 number was calculated by dividing the total US income by the number of workers, so this would need to be adjusted yearly. If this system was applied globally, the average salary would be $25,000 which is quite a step up for billions of people. It means that today, humans create enough wealth annually so that every two-parent household on the planet could live like the American middle class.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
- draz 16y agosounds like knighthood titles and special last name salutations (I don't speak Polish, but my understanding is that last names ending with a "tzky" indicate some royal/lord designations). Some of these are transferrable.