5 ms·

> To solve all this, it's pretty simple, and the U.S. actually used to do it: heavily tax the super rich. That never happened. https://mises.org/library/good-o

> To solve all this, it's pretty simple, and the U.S. actually used to do it: heavily tax the super rich. That never happened. https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-90-percent https://mises.org/library/good-ol-days-when-tax-rates-were-9...

bmitc 4y ago
What is "that" that you're referring to? Tax rates have absolutely fallen. If you're referring the article's claim that the rich pay much more taxes in terms of dollar amount, that doesn't necessarily mean anything because the rich are wealthier and more concentrated than every before. For example: > According to investment bank Credit Suisse, the fraction of global household wealth held by the richest 1 percent of the world's population increased from 42.5 to 47.2 percent between the financial crisis of 2008 and 2018. To put it another way, as of 2010, 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the world's population combined—about 3.5 billion people; today Oxfam estimates that number as 26. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  Looking at the total world population is completely meaningless. This is because fertility rate in virtually every developed country is below 2, however there are extremely poor countries where the population is exploding with fertility rates above 8. > To put it another way, as of 2010, 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the world's population combined—about 3.5 billion people; today Oxfam estimates that number as 26. This is also completely meaningless, because that figure is largely imaginery and super illiquid. Rest assured, Jeff Bezos can't cash out of Amazon and expect to be paid the current market rate for all of his shares. It's also completely meaningless because the world's bottom 3.5 billion people control virtually no wealth whatsoever. Makes for a good headline though
  - bmitc 4y ago
    For the U.S. alone, I think the stat is something like out of every 10,000 people, it's something ridiculous like either 40 or even 4 people that own as much wealth as the bottom 6,000 combined. It may honestly be something worse like 1. I remember calculating this from a research paper I read, and I feel like 10,000 was the sample population needed to get a non-fractional rich person or persons. This is absurd.
  - rightbyte 4y ago
    Accumulated spending should be a better measurement than current wealth. Otherwise those with debt has negative wealth.
  - greedo 4y ago
    Bezos may not be able to sell his shares in significant amounts, but he can sure use them for collateral. This is a very basic strategy for the super rich...
    - prottog 4y ago
      It'll be interesting to see if that strategy continues to work in a rising-rates environment, where the value of AMZN or TSLA may not be infinitely appreciating.
      - mrep 4y ago
        It's even worse that that. As interest rates rise, equities generally fall as they have been as they need to compete with interest bearing assets so their costs are skyrocketing and their collateral is collapsing risking them for a margin call and loosing everything.
    - sgjohnson 4y ago
      Yes, I mentioned it above. There’s no way of stopping it, because the modern financial system is extremely dependent on such collaterization. Bezos uses it to spend his pile of money, but for one Bezos there are 100 businesses who use the same exact instrument as a perfectly legitimate way to borrow money. It’ll be extremely hard to draw the line between both use cases in a way Bezos couldn’t exploit it.
lozenge 4y ago
Your source doesn't address the amount of tax collected from the ultra wealthy in relative proportion to their wealth. It only addresses the amount as a percentage of the federal budget.
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  Do you seriously think that the ultra wealthy have ever paid the 90% tax rate?
  - naasking 4y ago
    The point is that the source you cited to claim they didn't doesn't actually prove that, so what reason do us random HNers have to believe you over the initial claim that the higher tax rate in the past actually addressed this problem?
netsharc 4y ago
Ha, Austrian school of economics... I'm sure they have a neutral point of view.. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School#Criticism

bmitc 4y ago

What is "that" that you're referring to? Tax rates have absolutely fallen. If you're referring the article's claim that the rich pay much more taxes in terms of dollar amount, that doesn't necessarily mean anything because the rich are wealthier and more concentrated than every before. For example: > According to investment bank Credit Suisse, the fraction of global household wealth held by the richest 1 percent of the world's population increased from 42.5 to 47.2 percent between the financial crisis of 2008 and 2018. To put it another way, as of 2010, 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the world's population combined—about 3.5 billion people; today Oxfam estimates that number as 26. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-inevitable/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-inequality-ine...

sgjohnson 4y ago
Looking at the total world population is completely meaningless. This is because fertility rate in virtually every developed country is below 2, however there are extremely poor countries where the population is exploding with fertility rates above 8. > To put it another way, as of 2010, 388 individuals possessed as much household wealth as the lower half of the world's population combined—about 3.5 billion people; today Oxfam estimates that number as 26. This is also completely meaningless, because that figure is largely imaginery and super illiquid. Rest assured, Jeff Bezos can't cash out of Amazon and expect to be paid the current market rate for all of his shares. It's also completely meaningless because the world's bottom 3.5 billion people control virtually no wealth whatsoever. Makes for a good headline though
- bmitc 4y ago
  For the U.S. alone, I think the stat is something like out of every 10,000 people, it's something ridiculous like either 40 or even 4 people that own as much wealth as the bottom 6,000 combined. It may honestly be something worse like 1. I remember calculating this from a research paper I read, and I feel like 10,000 was the sample population needed to get a non-fractional rich person or persons. This is absurd.
- rightbyte 4y ago
  Accumulated spending should be a better measurement than current wealth. Otherwise those with debt has negative wealth.
- greedo 4y ago
  Bezos may not be able to sell his shares in significant amounts, but he can sure use them for collateral. This is a very basic strategy for the super rich...
  - prottog 4y ago
    It'll be interesting to see if that strategy continues to work in a rising-rates environment, where the value of AMZN or TSLA may not be infinitely appreciating.
    - mrep 4y ago
      It's even worse that that. As interest rates rise, equities generally fall as they have been as they need to compete with interest bearing assets so their costs are skyrocketing and their collateral is collapsing risking them for a margin call and loosing everything.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    Yes, I mentioned it above. There’s no way of stopping it, because the modern financial system is extremely dependent on such collaterization. Bezos uses it to spend his pile of money, but for one Bezos there are 100 businesses who use the same exact instrument as a perfectly legitimate way to borrow money. It’ll be extremely hard to draw the line between both use cases in a way Bezos couldn’t exploit it.

lozenge 4y ago

Your source doesn't address the amount of tax collected from the ultra wealthy in relative proportion to their wealth. It only addresses the amount as a percentage of the federal budget.

sgjohnson 4y ago
Do you seriously think that the ultra wealthy have ever paid the 90% tax rate?
- naasking 4y ago
  The point is that the source you cited to claim they didn't doesn't actually prove that, so what reason do us random HNers have to believe you over the initial claim that the higher tax rate in the past actually addressed this problem?

netsharc 4y ago

Ha, Austrian school of economics... I'm sure they have a neutral point of view.. /s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School#Criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School#Criticism