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What would your solution to rising wealth inequality be? Or perhaps you don't think there's a problem?

mlindner 5y ago
This isn't even a solution to wealth inequality so I think your question isn't relevant. Wealth inequality is a complex problem and you can't fix it by just taxing people more. To actually answer your question, I don't have a solution, but I also don't think the problem is as bad as people make it out to be. For this article's specific case I'd just patch the simple hole that you can't skip taxes by passing your shares on after you die. As long as the tax basis date isn't reset on inheritance, everything still works. Someone will pay the taxes eventually. It's an easy change and doesn't really change anything for the lives of most people and it makes more rational sense that way. It's basically fixing a bug in the current law.
- danny_codes 5y ago
  > This isn't even a solution to wealth inequality so I think your question isn't relevant. Wealth inequality is a complex problem and you can't fix it by just taxing people more. Why not? Redistributive wealth tax seems like a reasonable way to accomplish this, along with raising marginal tax rates, closing tax loopholes, and a 100% inheritance tax. Use the excess money for direct investment in material infrastructure, social benefits, and (most importantly) education, and I would imagine the wealth distribution would look quite different in 20 years. We design the economic system we live in. We can change it any time. Capitalism is a human invention: we create the rules to the game. This isn't some law of physics or some truth of the universe.
beamatronic 5y ago
$15/hour federal minimum wage to start, combined with Medicare for all, funded via cuts to the military budget.
- mlindner 5y ago
  More of the US budget already goes to medical care and social services than military. The problem is how inefficiently it's used.
  - splix 5y ago
    I've got an anecdote on this. I've requested some paper documents, a simple thing that should not take a long time to process. It's literally just to look at the request, check a database, and print a response; the only reason for human involvement is that it's on paper. I don't see how it can take more than 15 minutes, but it's been in processing for 14 months now, and I paid $200 for that service. So in a frictionless world, it produces $800/hr. But I'm sure that the end worker receives something like mentioned $15/hr, which looks like extreme inefficiency. They lose at like 98% of it somewhere just because of that inefficiency. So it's not about taxes, but about the effective use of money. They can easily 2x the wage, and maybe even 10x, if someone would spend some time to figure out where the leak is.
- sleepysysadmin 5y ago
  >$15/hour federal minimum wage to start, Typically not effective at solving any problem, while also causing new problems. > combined with Medicare for all, funded via cuts to the military budget. Largest and most insane military ever built and if you cut it completely and doubled income taxes(in addition to forcing everyone to pay, no low income exception) you wouldn't put a dent in your proposed plan. You would have so much debt the subsequent inflation would be beyond control.
ohCh6zos 5y ago
Remove progressive taxation and other obstacles to generating generational wealth. Forcing equality through pushing downwards has been disastrous so instead let’s remove barriers to moving upwards.
- mohanmcgeek 5y ago
  This is the mindset that people on the whole lack. Why are people obsessed with taking the wealth away from the billionaires? if the social mobility is high all the undeserving billionaires are going to squander their wealth away!
- medvezhenok 5y ago
  Countries with less progressive taxation (i.e. Russia, Brazil, etc) have even worse wealth/power inequality than the U.S. The U.S. was at its most "equal" with strong unions and high inflation (1970s). Perhaps that's what we need again. Strong labor bargaining and run inflation hot for a while. Also raise the non-primary home property tax so that the rich can't shelter their wealth in real estate.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    If inequality were the only problem, then your solution would work. Unfortunately, there are other problems as well, and your solution would make some of them worse.
VirusNewbie 5y ago
rising wealth inequality is caused by the FED printing money, it's that simple. Expansionist monetary policy transfers wealth from everyone to those who are leveraged into assets with debt. That's mortgage holders, people who take out business loans, large companies and those who hold equities in large companies.

This isn't even a solution to wealth inequality so I think your question isn't relevant. Wealth inequality is a complex problem and you can't fix it by just taxing people more. To actually answer your question, I don't have a solution, but I also don't think the problem is as bad as people make it out to be. For this article's specific case I'd just patch the simple hole that you can't skip taxes by passing your shares on after you die. As long as the tax basis date isn't reset on inheritance, everything still works. Someone will pay the taxes eventually. It's an easy change and doesn't really change anything for the lives of most people and it makes more rational sense that way. It's basically fixing a bug in the current law.

danny_codes 5y ago
> This isn't even a solution to wealth inequality so I think your question isn't relevant. Wealth inequality is a complex problem and you can't fix it by just taxing people more. Why not? Redistributive wealth tax seems like a reasonable way to accomplish this, along with raising marginal tax rates, closing tax loopholes, and a 100% inheritance tax. Use the excess money for direct investment in material infrastructure, social benefits, and (most importantly) education, and I would imagine the wealth distribution would look quite different in 20 years. We design the economic system we live in. We can change it any time. Capitalism is a human invention: we create the rules to the game. This isn't some law of physics or some truth of the universe.

beamatronic 5y ago

$15/hour federal minimum wage to start, combined with Medicare for all, funded via cuts to the military budget.

mlindner 5y ago
More of the US budget already goes to medical care and social services than military. The problem is how inefficiently it's used.
- splix 5y ago
  I've got an anecdote on this. I've requested some paper documents, a simple thing that should not take a long time to process. It's literally just to look at the request, check a database, and print a response; the only reason for human involvement is that it's on paper. I don't see how it can take more than 15 minutes, but it's been in processing for 14 months now, and I paid $200 for that service. So in a frictionless world, it produces $800/hr. But I'm sure that the end worker receives something like mentioned $15/hr, which looks like extreme inefficiency. They lose at like 98% of it somewhere just because of that inefficiency. So it's not about taxes, but about the effective use of money. They can easily 2x the wage, and maybe even 10x, if someone would spend some time to figure out where the leak is.
sleepysysadmin 5y ago
>$15/hour federal minimum wage to start, Typically not effective at solving any problem, while also causing new problems. > combined with Medicare for all, funded via cuts to the military budget. Largest and most insane military ever built and if you cut it completely and doubled income taxes(in addition to forcing everyone to pay, no low income exception) you wouldn't put a dent in your proposed plan. You would have so much debt the subsequent inflation would be beyond control.

ohCh6zos 5y ago

Remove progressive taxation and other obstacles to generating generational wealth. Forcing equality through pushing downwards has been disastrous so instead let’s remove barriers to moving upwards.

mohanmcgeek 5y ago
This is the mindset that people on the whole lack. Why are people obsessed with taking the wealth away from the billionaires? if the social mobility is high all the undeserving billionaires are going to squander their wealth away!
medvezhenok 5y ago
Countries with less progressive taxation (i.e. Russia, Brazil, etc) have even worse wealth/power inequality than the U.S. The U.S. was at its most "equal" with strong unions and high inflation (1970s). Perhaps that's what we need again. Strong labor bargaining and run inflation hot for a while. Also raise the non-primary home property tax so that the rich can't shelter their wealth in real estate.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  If inequality were the only problem, then your solution would work. Unfortunately, there are other problems as well, and your solution would make some of them worse.

VirusNewbie 5y ago

rising wealth inequality is caused by the FED printing money, it's that simple. Expansionist monetary policy transfers wealth from everyone to those who are leveraged into assets with debt. That's mortgage holders, people who take out business loans, large companies and those who hold equities in large companies.