4 ms·

With over 35T in US retirement savings, an annual 10% tax would solve every problem facing humanity. The US wealth disparity vs the world is morally inexcusabl

• xscott 5y ago
  There's a lot of non-billionaire retirement money in that $35 trillion... Assuming market growth minus inflation is about 7% (yeah, the last 10 years have been crazy, but this is an accepted long term number [0]), you're killing people's retirement savings by about 3% per year. To put that in perspective, assuming a diligent and reasonably paid (i.e. non-FAANG salary) person puts $20k into their 401k and their company matches that, they can never save more than $1.3 million no matter how long they work. That's the point where 10% negates any new contribution of $40k. After 50 years (working from 22 until 72), they've paid $2 million in and only have $1 million to show for it. They're better off putting their money under a mattress and only suffering inflation losses. In other words you would ruin the 401k as an incentive to save or invest. [0] https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average-annual-return-sp-500.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042415/what-average...
  • hindsightbias 5y ago
    > There's a lot of non-billionaire retirement money in that $35 trillion That’s my point. Soaking billionaires is just virtue signaling. To 98% of the world, millionaires and billionaires might as well be the same thing.