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None, because you can't get around markets even if you try to regulate them out of existence. As seen in the article countries with good unemployment benefits a

None, because you can't get around markets even if you try to regulate them out of existence. As seen in the article countries with good unemployment benefits also have higher rates of unemployment during normal times. And don't forget every job being outsourced to China/Vietnam/Africa. If you confiscated all of Jeff Bezos' net worth you'd get something like $1000 for each American, once. The way to help the working class is to ensure economic growth happens, because a rising tide lifts all boats.

piva00 5y ago
> The way to help the working class is to ensure economic growth happens, because a rising tide lifts all boats. This is just trickle down economics. The same catchphrase as "grow the pie to share it". It simply fuels money to the rich as well, in a larger proportion than to workers. We are actually experiencing the results of 40 years of that ideology and it doesn't look pretty. Growth is also looking like a very unsustainable way to support civilization.
- e4e78a06 5y ago
  We haven't had real economic growth in the US since the 70's when deindustrialization first began. If you discount by the real estate market's return instead of CPI you have negative or flat real growth. CPI includes a lot of goods that are long run deflationary like TVs, food, and cars. I'd point you to China for an example of what "rising tide lifts all boats" actually looks like. And to add to that - it matters a lot what kind of growth is driving GDP increases. If you're just powering growth by increasing immigration (aka working population) that's not increasing per-capita GDP. > Growth is also looking like a very unsustainable way to support civilization. Again, depends what kind of growth you're talking about. > "grow the pie to share it" Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war.
  - dgb23 5y ago
    > Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war. What do you classify as wealth redistribution?
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    "Wealth redistribution has never worked in history." Are you sure about that? Do we still have kings and barons owning entire states as personal property?
    - e4e78a06 5y ago
      Maybe not, but we have no better a system than ancient Rome where votes were bought by wealthy politicians from the upper class. But even if you limit examination to recent history: - apartheid South Africa land redistributions led to "most of the farms [failing]" [1] - Great Leap Forward in China confiscated huge amounts of wealth from landowners, gave it to the government and peasants, and caused massive famine - "There is no wealth to distribute" in Venezuela [2] - USSR literally killed millions by forcing individual farmers to work in large scale collective farms - socialist reforms in other Latin American states coincided with periods of economic stagnation I will also leave you with this link [3] to a breakdown of Swedish government tax revenues. You'll see the majority comes from taxes on labor and products (VAT) rather than taxes on capital and corporate revenue. So even in so-called democratic socialist states there is not a lot of wealth redistribution happening. [1]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-south-africa-farms-20101121-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-so... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealth-to-distribute-venezuela-poverty-rate-surges https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealt... [3]: https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-sweden.pdf https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-swede...
asdff 5y ago
One need only to look at san fransisco to see how a rising tide lifts some boats but drowns many because there is no incentive to lift all boats, and all the incentives in the world to make sure a favorable few boats are lifted so very high
bpodgursky 5y ago
You wouldn't even get $1000 per person because confiscating Bezos's wealth involves no significant re-allocation of actual resources. You just bump inflation up for a quarter and then everything goes back to normal.
ineedasername 5y ago
A rising tide may lift boats that were sound and seaworthy to begin with. If your economic boat has holes in it then a rising tide will drown you. There are always people left behind by the rising tide. Sometimes you have to focus on fixing the boat instead of waiting for the tide.

piva00 5y ago

> The way to help the working class is to ensure economic growth happens, because a rising tide lifts all boats. This is just trickle down economics. The same catchphrase as "grow the pie to share it". It simply fuels money to the rich as well, in a larger proportion than to workers. We are actually experiencing the results of 40 years of that ideology and it doesn't look pretty. Growth is also looking like a very unsustainable way to support civilization.

e4e78a06 5y ago
We haven't had real economic growth in the US since the 70's when deindustrialization first began. If you discount by the real estate market's return instead of CPI you have negative or flat real growth. CPI includes a lot of goods that are long run deflationary like TVs, food, and cars. I'd point you to China for an example of what "rising tide lifts all boats" actually looks like. And to add to that - it matters a lot what kind of growth is driving GDP increases. If you're just powering growth by increasing immigration (aka working population) that's not increasing per-capita GDP. > Growth is also looking like a very unsustainable way to support civilization. Again, depends what kind of growth you're talking about. > "grow the pie to share it" Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war.
- dgb23 5y ago
  > Wealth redistribution has never worked in history. In every case where it has occurred there has been a flight of capital leading to underinvestment and poverty, or war. What do you classify as wealth redistribution?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  "Wealth redistribution has never worked in history." Are you sure about that? Do we still have kings and barons owning entire states as personal property?
  - e4e78a06 5y ago
    Maybe not, but we have no better a system than ancient Rome where votes were bought by wealthy politicians from the upper class. But even if you limit examination to recent history: - apartheid South Africa land redistributions led to "most of the farms [failing]" [1] - Great Leap Forward in China confiscated huge amounts of wealth from landowners, gave it to the government and peasants, and caused massive famine - "There is no wealth to distribute" in Venezuela [2] - USSR literally killed millions by forcing individual farmers to work in large scale collective farms - socialist reforms in other Latin American states coincided with periods of economic stagnation I will also leave you with this link [3] to a breakdown of Swedish government tax revenues. You'll see the majority comes from taxes on labor and products (VAT) rather than taxes on capital and corporate revenue. So even in so-called democratic socialist states there is not a lot of wealth redistribution happening. [1]: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-south-africa-farms-20101121-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-nov-21-la-fg-so... [2]: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealth-to-distribute-venezuela-poverty-rate-surges https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/7/8/there-is-no-wealt... [3]: https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-sweden.pdf https://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/revenue-statistics-swede...

asdff 5y ago

One need only to look at san fransisco to see how a rising tide lifts some boats but drowns many because there is no incentive to lift all boats, and all the incentives in the world to make sure a favorable few boats are lifted so very high

bpodgursky 5y ago

You wouldn't even get $1000 per person because confiscating Bezos's wealth involves no significant re-allocation of actual resources. You just bump inflation up for a quarter and then everything goes back to normal.

ineedasername 5y ago

A rising tide may lift boats that were sound and seaworthy to begin with. If your economic boat has holes in it then a rising tide will drown you. There are always people left behind by the rising tide. Sometimes you have to focus on fixing the boat instead of waiting for the tide.