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Inflation des not necessarily target rich people. In some cases the wealthy will have significant land holdings. These act as a store of wealth. Inflation is d

Inflation des not necessarily target rich people. In some cases the wealthy will have significant land holdings. These act as a store of wealth. Inflation is damaging to ants who keep money aside in case of medical emergency or unemployment or retirement. It also eliminates short term debt interactions, such as where a business buys goods with 30 days to pay. This adds friction across the economy.

ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago
I did not mean that inflation is a means of taxing. Just as a byproduct of printing money. If it is a problem that rich people sit on their land holdings and do not use the land to serve the public good, why not simply tax land holdings?
- jakub_g 5y ago
  That's the thing. When govs talk about increasing taxes to "tax the rich" they end up changing income tax at high brackets. Which effectively taxes people who are not yet rich, but trying to be. The real rich people own land and assets, but wealth taxes are not popular - because real rich people effectively lobby against it.
- usrusr 5y ago
  Because that's when they'll get upset and use all their connections and money (which they also have) to fight that tax. Worst thing that can happen to them is that they need to feign defeat in some income tax hike battle as a pawn sacrifice to pull more non-owners on the "taxes are theft" side that protects them. Add to that the practical problems of land ownership tax (how do you assess something that hasn't been on the market in decades or even centuries?) which make it easy play the "why not tax something that is easier to tax" game. Historically, the solution has been violent upheaval every couple of generations. A nonviolent alternative might be an occasional "inverse bankruptcy" lottery or poll cutting off randomly selected and/or particularly unpopular tall poppies. With the right dosage (not too often to not stifle ambition, perhaps aiming for hitting one in ten outliers in their lifetime?). The goal would be to prevent concentration approaching the infinite, not to make people equal (and the victims could still receive a very generous stipend, or wouldn't have to be hard on them at all, at least in day to day material terms)

ArtTimeInvestor 5y ago

I did not mean that inflation is a means of taxing. Just as a byproduct of printing money. If it is a problem that rich people sit on their land holdings and do not use the land to serve the public good, why not simply tax land holdings?

jakub_g 5y ago
That's the thing. When govs talk about increasing taxes to "tax the rich" they end up changing income tax at high brackets. Which effectively taxes people who are not yet rich, but trying to be. The real rich people own land and assets, but wealth taxes are not popular - because real rich people effectively lobby against it.
usrusr 5y ago
Because that's when they'll get upset and use all their connections and money (which they also have) to fight that tax. Worst thing that can happen to them is that they need to feign defeat in some income tax hike battle as a pawn sacrifice to pull more non-owners on the "taxes are theft" side that protects them. Add to that the practical problems of land ownership tax (how do you assess something that hasn't been on the market in decades or even centuries?) which make it easy play the "why not tax something that is easier to tax" game. Historically, the solution has been violent upheaval every couple of generations. A nonviolent alternative might be an occasional "inverse bankruptcy" lottery or poll cutting off randomly selected and/or particularly unpopular tall poppies. With the right dosage (not too often to not stifle ambition, perhaps aiming for hitting one in ten outliers in their lifetime?). The goal would be to prevent concentration approaching the infinite, not to make people equal (and the victims could still receive a very generous stipend, or wouldn't have to be hard on them at all, at least in day to day material terms)