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People who think billionaires are so rich have never seen a federal budget. You could guillotine a billionaire a day and their money wouldn't pay for nought. (

People who think billionaires are so rich have never seen a federal budget. You could guillotine a billionaire a day and their money wouldn't pay for nought. (Not even considering that their "networths" are always tied up in stocks. As for using the term 1%, people rarely stay in the bracket for long, people change and move through different economic brackets all the time through their lives.The biggest indicator of wealth is age. Others have commented on it, but inter-generational wealth is important for various reasons. Cultures that plan for their children's children make a lot of sense. I'd wager the West has some weird hedonism/individuality and we rarely just stop thinking of ourselves. Adding further estate taxes just removes even more incentive to work towards creating an inter genertional family. Rich families are also just better with money because it's what they know. Redistributing that money to others could just make it end up in coin machines.

psychometry 6y ago
Clearly you didn't read the article, otherwise you'd know that even slight increases in this tax would fund important public services. You'd also know that the U.S. has among the lowest levels of class mobility among developed nations. People born rich stay rich; people born poor stay poor.
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
  This is simply not true, read the other comments on how much wealth is retained per generation. As for the your last sentiment, I'd also remind people that wealthy inequality is not a very big problem if the standards of living are also improving. Most "poor" people have plasma televisions, iPhones, fridges, their own living quarters and more choice of food than a king 300 years ago would have.
  - psychometry 6y ago
    Maybe try looking at objective indicators of wealth distribution instead of peering into people's windows and noting what kind of TVs they own...
Someone1234 6y ago
This seems like an attempt to side-track a discussion on individual wealth (and inherited wealth) with complete irrelevancies. The Federal budget, nor how many people move into/out of a definition, have anything to do with this topic. Discussing it won't add anything, nor does its existence undercut the problem raised in any meaningful way.
aqme28 6y ago
It might pay for some federal arts programs though
jacobush 6y ago
https://3pic.github.io/money https://3pic.github.io/money https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
koliber 6y ago
I don't think this article is about the 1%. It's about the 0.01%. In many cases, that wealth is inherited, hence not correlated with age.
PopeDotNinja 6y ago
The median earner in the USA makes ~60K USD per year Federal income taxes on 60K is ~6K USD per year. The F-35 costs ~30K per hour to fly. It takes 5 median workers to fly an F-35 for an hour. And that’s doesn’t account for firing a 1000K missile.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jeffbee 6y ago
This is quite incorrect. If you guillotined the 1000 richest Americans, or at least their bank accounts, none of the rest of us would have to pay any taxes at all. It's quite a lot of money. A good comparison was made in the early weeks of the pandemic. Instead of "reopening the economy" and killing a quarter million people, we can distribute the same amount of economic activity by just staying home and seizing all the money from the Forbes 500. Even if we had to kill them to get it, that's still a 1000x reduction in deaths.
- thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
  How long would none of you have to pay taxes for? Not even going to comment on that comparison... Is it meant to be a joke?
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    It's not meant to be a joke. The US administration has stated that there is an acceptable body count for a given level of economic activity. The natural response would be to find the minimum number of deaths that result in the same amount of economic activity.

psychometry 6y ago

Clearly you didn't read the article, otherwise you'd know that even slight increases in this tax would fund important public services. You'd also know that the U.S. has among the lowest levels of class mobility among developed nations. People born rich stay rich; people born poor stay poor.

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
This is simply not true, read the other comments on how much wealth is retained per generation. As for the your last sentiment, I'd also remind people that wealthy inequality is not a very big problem if the standards of living are also improving. Most "poor" people have plasma televisions, iPhones, fridges, their own living quarters and more choice of food than a king 300 years ago would have.
- psychometry 6y ago
  Maybe try looking at objective indicators of wealth distribution instead of peering into people's windows and noting what kind of TVs they own...

Someone1234 6y ago

This seems like an attempt to side-track a discussion on individual wealth (and inherited wealth) with complete irrelevancies. The Federal budget, nor how many people move into/out of a definition, have anything to do with this topic. Discussing it won't add anything, nor does its existence undercut the problem raised in any meaningful way.

aqme28 6y ago

It might pay for some federal arts programs though

jacobush 6y ago

https://3pic.github.io/money https://3pic.github.io/money https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/

koliber 6y ago

I don't think this article is about the 1%. It's about the 0.01%. In many cases, that wealth is inherited, hence not correlated with age.

PopeDotNinja 6y ago

The median earner in the USA makes ~60K USD per year Federal income taxes on 60K is ~6K USD per year. The F-35 costs ~30K per hour to fly. It takes 5 median workers to fly an F-35 for an hour. And that’s doesn’t account for firing a 1000K missile.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jeffbee 6y ago

This is quite incorrect. If you guillotined the 1000 richest Americans, or at least their bank accounts, none of the rest of us would have to pay any taxes at all. It's quite a lot of money. A good comparison was made in the early weeks of the pandemic. Instead of "reopening the economy" and killing a quarter million people, we can distribute the same amount of economic activity by just staying home and seizing all the money from the Forbes 500. Even if we had to kill them to get it, that's still a 1000x reduction in deaths.

thomasfromcdnjs 6y ago
How long would none of you have to pay taxes for? Not even going to comment on that comparison... Is it meant to be a joke?
- jeffbee 6y ago
  It's not meant to be a joke. The US administration has stated that there is an acceptable body count for a given level of economic activity. The natural response would be to find the minimum number of deaths that result in the same amount of economic activity.