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Wait, what? You say you're not arguing for favoritism, and then you say that it's a false equivalence because the government doesn't have a responsibility to a

Wait, what? You say you're not arguing for favoritism, and then you say that it's a false equivalence because the government doesn't have a responsibility to act in your specific interest. Acting in your specific interest is favoritism. You're not being consistent here. I see what you're thinking on GDP, but the things a wealth tax would go to fund (and does go to fund where it exists today) are percentage of GDP services. Things like healthcare, education, and a social safety net. These services naturally rise in cost in accordance with GDP because standard of living is supposed to rise with GDP per capita as well. This is why topics like healthcare cost are just about always framed in per capita or % of GDP terms. It's just that in the US our inequality distorts things considerably. You're also implicitly conflating averages with medians. It is 100% possible that a high GDP reflects that monetary value is being produced by a small portion of the population (possibly by exploiting workers), while the rest of the population needs more government assistance. There's a strong case that the US embodies this situation more and more over time.

imgabe 6y ago
Yes, it's a false equivalence. That does not imply that the two things should be equivalent. Nowhere did I state that they should be equivalent. I'm just saying they're not. So your argument that "a wealth tax is good because it's the same thing as a management fee" is not valid, because the premise is false. A wealth tax is not the same thing as management fee. That doesn't mean that they should be the same thing. It means you cannot draw conclusions based on them being the same thing, because they are not. > Things like healthcare, education, and a social safety net. These services naturally rise in cost in accordance with GDP because standard of living is supposed to rise with GDP per capita as well. They don't have to. A more efficient and advanced economy should produce basic necessities with less effort and therefore less cost than less productive economies. The costs of things like healthcare and education in the US are vastly distorted for a number of reasons. I don't think siphoning off wealth from productive areas of the economy and pushing into areas that are already overpriced is going to help. Education, for example, already receives massive Federal subsidies via guaranteed loans. That hasn't made it less expensive. It's made it more expensive as college raise prices to match the amount of capital available to pay them.

imgabe 6y ago

Yes, it's a false equivalence. That does not imply that the two things should be equivalent. Nowhere did I state that they should be equivalent. I'm just saying they're not. So your argument that "a wealth tax is good because it's the same thing as a management fee" is not valid, because the premise is false. A wealth tax is not the same thing as management fee. That doesn't mean that they should be the same thing. It means you cannot draw conclusions based on them being the same thing, because they are not. > Things like healthcare, education, and a social safety net. These services naturally rise in cost in accordance with GDP because standard of living is supposed to rise with GDP per capita as well. They don't have to. A more efficient and advanced economy should produce basic necessities with less effort and therefore less cost than less productive economies. The costs of things like healthcare and education in the US are vastly distorted for a number of reasons. I don't think siphoning off wealth from productive areas of the economy and pushing into areas that are already overpriced is going to help. Education, for example, already receives massive Federal subsidies via guaranteed loans. That hasn't made it less expensive. It's made it more expensive as college raise prices to match the amount of capital available to pay them.