5 ms·

Policies like this will cause the rich, who have extreme mobility, to leave your country. Maybe to some people this sounds nice, but generally it will lead to w

Policies like this will cause the rich, who have extreme mobility, to leave your country. Maybe to some people this sounds nice, but generally it will lead to worse companies and less innovation.

arrosenberg 5y ago
Does it though? It seems to me that if the rich fled, the vacuum would probably be filled by smarter, more ambitious people who were being suppressed by incumbent wealth.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  It won't be just the rich. It will be people like me who are upper middle class and see the writing on the wall - who strongly suspect that, when taking wealth from the billionaires didn't give you enough money, you're going to start on the millionaires and then the hundred-thousandaires.
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    I generally take that as an empty threat for the following reasons: (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. (2) Where are you actually going to go? European countries already take higher taxes, and most other countries have higher inequality and lower general standards of living than the US. I don't doubt that some of the wealthy consider themselves "global citizens", but the majority of people aren't going to leave their home country over marginally higher taxes - especially at today's pitifully low rates. (3) Most of the upper middle class people I know will stop being hysterical about paying higher taxes after a moment, and recognize that a billion is 1,000x more than a million, and 10,000x more than 100K. American's don't hate wealth, they hate aristocrats, which is what the billionaire class has become. The same logic does not apply to people with "mere" eight-figure wealth.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. 2. If I understand correctly, this proposal is not an income tax, it is a wealth tax. I know of no European country that has such a thing. 3. See 1.
      - ghostwriter 5y ago
        > I know of no European country that has such a thing. Netherlands has a wealth tax system, just for reference. I agree with your 1. point
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - arrosenberg 5y ago
        > 1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. I guess that's somewhat true, yet the upper middle class only got stronger and stronger, which seems strange if they were all fleeing the jurisdiction because of high tax rates. It seems much stronger evidence that it's not a real threat that should concern the country - most high income Americans are reasonable and understand that we need to pay to maintain all this modern stuff we have, and hopefully improve upon it. It wouldn't seem to be a major concern if a small, selfish minority decided to pay the exit tax and go somewhere else.
    - ghostwriter 5y ago
      > (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. You should read history books more often.
civilized 5y ago
I've always assumed that this is why early socialist and communist ideology strongly emphasized internationalism. To properly soak the rich, there must be no place for them to escape to.
Workaccount2 5y ago
Except humanity and emotion kick in. People generally don't like to leave their country. I'd be confident in calling out the rich on this bluff.
- ben_w 5y ago
  Money makes things easier, and Musk isn’t originally an American. Even $1 million would’ve made me moving to Berlin completely trivial, $100 million means you can offer to bring your friends with you without any trouble, $musk-as-cash is “buy the entire sovereign nation of Cyprus and have $70 bn afterwards” levels of money. (But, as I said on another comment, his theoretical net worth isn’t real money, it’s how much other people reckon they could extract from the companies he controls).
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

Policies like this will cause the rich, who have extreme mobility, to leave your country. Maybe to some people this sounds nice, but generally it will lead to worse companies and less innovation.

arrosenberg 5y ago

Does it though? It seems to me that if the rich fled, the vacuum would probably be filled by smarter, more ambitious people who were being suppressed by incumbent wealth.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
It won't be just the rich. It will be people like me who are upper middle class and see the writing on the wall - who strongly suspect that, when taking wealth from the billionaires didn't give you enough money, you're going to start on the millionaires and then the hundred-thousandaires.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  I generally take that as an empty threat for the following reasons: (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. (2) Where are you actually going to go? European countries already take higher taxes, and most other countries have higher inequality and lower general standards of living than the US. I don't doubt that some of the wealthy consider themselves "global citizens", but the majority of people aren't going to leave their home country over marginally higher taxes - especially at today's pitifully low rates. (3) Most of the upper middle class people I know will stop being hysterical about paying higher taxes after a moment, and recognize that a billion is 1,000x more than a million, and 10,000x more than 100K. American's don't hate wealth, they hate aristocrats, which is what the billionaire class has become. The same logic does not apply to people with "mere" eight-figure wealth.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. 2. If I understand correctly, this proposal is not an income tax, it is a wealth tax. I know of no European country that has such a thing. 3. See 1.
    - ghostwriter 5y ago
      > I know of no European country that has such a thing. Netherlands has a wealth tax system, just for reference. I agree with your 1. point
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - arrosenberg 5y ago
      > 1. There's 0 precedent for taxes that are "only for the rich" being applied to everybody? Seriously? Start with the US income tax. I guess that's somewhat true, yet the upper middle class only got stronger and stronger, which seems strange if they were all fleeing the jurisdiction because of high tax rates. It seems much stronger evidence that it's not a real threat that should concern the country - most high income Americans are reasonable and understand that we need to pay to maintain all this modern stuff we have, and hopefully improve upon it. It wouldn't seem to be a major concern if a small, selfish minority decided to pay the exit tax and go somewhere else.
  - ghostwriter 5y ago
    > (1) Strongly suspect based on what? There's 0 precedent for the scenario you suggested, but plenty of examples of right-wingers using this idea to scaremonger. You should read history books more often.

civilized 5y ago

I've always assumed that this is why early socialist and communist ideology strongly emphasized internationalism. To properly soak the rich, there must be no place for them to escape to.

Workaccount2 5y ago

Except humanity and emotion kick in. People generally don't like to leave their country. I'd be confident in calling out the rich on this bluff.

ben_w 5y ago
Money makes things easier, and Musk isn’t originally an American. Even $1 million would’ve made me moving to Berlin completely trivial, $100 million means you can offer to bring your friends with you without any trouble, $musk-as-cash is “buy the entire sovereign nation of Cyprus and have $70 bn afterwards” levels of money. (But, as I said on another comment, his theoretical net worth isn’t real money, it’s how much other people reckon they could extract from the companies he controls).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]