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Eventually all wealth will end up with fewer and fewer people until the system completely collapses. Debt burden is just another instance of the rich making the

Eventually all wealth will end up with fewer and fewer people until the system completely collapses. Debt burden is just another instance of the rich making themselves even richer at the expense of working people - this year tax payers are expected to pay over $660bn to rich people in interest payments. There needs to be some way of taxing the ultra rich effectively to be able start balancing the books. Every time this is discussed people start talking about high earners and never about the types of people lending the government hundreds of millions of dollars. For example the average tax rate paid by the top 400 wealthiest people in the US was just 8.2% (2010-2018) and that is on additional income not the billions they already have. Let's not get started with Trusts handed down generationally to avoid inheritance tax completely.

carlosjobim 3y ago
You do realize that it is not billionaires in top hats buying the government treasuries? It is pension funds and other institutional investors mostly.
- andy_ppp 3y ago
  You do realise who makes profits from owning the companies who own the pension and hedge funds that invest in these things? I have no idea what the best solution is but the road to serfdom we are all on is unsustainable.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    How many pension funds are private and how many are owned by governments? I ask because I don't know, and it's a global market with foreign funds buying treasuries (or from the other perspective local funds buying foreign treasuries). I completely agree with your second sentence.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    I'd say the best solution is to not let power accrue where responsibility is not. Allowing incumbants, be they companies, regulators, legislators, or anything, get too entrenched and the system calcifies around fakeable outcomes. Keeping productivity and personal choice at the forefront means people have to keep getting value. I can switch away from Netflix at any time. I can't switch away from my local council or choose to stop paying them. And so my local council is allowed to have a terrible track record and keep on existing. I also don't know the detailed answer, but I think more choice where people individually decide where to spend their money is a big part of building useful things that don't result in crippling expense on an economy.
robertlagrant 3y ago
This mindset is backwards to me. Of course we don't tax things people have that have already been taxed. Why should we? We need to balance the books by not having unsustainable vote-buying policies that cost outsize amounts of money. > For example the average tax rate paid by the top 400 wealthiest people in the US was just 8.2% Citation needed. What does "average" mean? What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage? Thinking if only we could take other people's money forever to pay for things is pointless. If it's expensive to do things, for whatever reason, then inflation goes up for everyone. If it's pointless to start things, because the government will dip in whenever it likes, then the endless progress-train will stop.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- RugnirViking 3y ago
  > What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage? 100. That's what "per cent" means, percentages are a way of comparing ratios without needing to worry about scaling both numbers. The % sign is shorthand for /100 . As for the citation im not the op but it was the 400 richest families and it was the white house itself https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/what-is-the-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-on-the-wealthiest-americans/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/...
  - onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
    No. The numerator is theoretically their tax bill. The denominator is not 100. It should be their income - but that's complicated to count.
  - robertlagrant 3y ago
    The silliness aside, the answer is in the link: > For the denominator, we use changes in the reported wealth of the Forbes 400 to estimate the income of the 400 wealthiest families.

carlosjobim 3y ago

You do realize that it is not billionaires in top hats buying the government treasuries? It is pension funds and other institutional investors mostly.

andy_ppp 3y ago
You do realise who makes profits from owning the companies who own the pension and hedge funds that invest in these things? I have no idea what the best solution is but the road to serfdom we are all on is unsustainable.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  How many pension funds are private and how many are owned by governments? I ask because I don't know, and it's a global market with foreign funds buying treasuries (or from the other perspective local funds buying foreign treasuries). I completely agree with your second sentence.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  I'd say the best solution is to not let power accrue where responsibility is not. Allowing incumbants, be they companies, regulators, legislators, or anything, get too entrenched and the system calcifies around fakeable outcomes. Keeping productivity and personal choice at the forefront means people have to keep getting value. I can switch away from Netflix at any time. I can't switch away from my local council or choose to stop paying them. And so my local council is allowed to have a terrible track record and keep on existing. I also don't know the detailed answer, but I think more choice where people individually decide where to spend their money is a big part of building useful things that don't result in crippling expense on an economy.

robertlagrant 3y ago

This mindset is backwards to me. Of course we don't tax things people have that have already been taxed. Why should we? We need to balance the books by not having unsustainable vote-buying policies that cost outsize amounts of money. > For example the average tax rate paid by the top 400 wealthiest people in the US was just 8.2% Citation needed. What does "average" mean? What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage? Thinking if only we could take other people's money forever to pay for things is pointless. If it's expensive to do things, for whatever reason, then inflation goes up for everyone. If it's pointless to start things, because the government will dip in whenever it likes, then the endless progress-train will stop.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
RugnirViking 3y ago
> What is the denominator on the fraction that generated the percentage? 100. That's what "per cent" means, percentages are a way of comparing ratios without needing to worry about scaling both numbers. The % sign is shorthand for /100 . As for the citation im not the op but it was the 400 richest families and it was the white house itself https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/what-is-the-average-federal-individual-income-tax-rate-on-the-wealthiest-americans/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/23/...
- onlyrealcuzzo 3y ago
  No. The numerator is theoretically their tax bill. The denominator is not 100. It should be their income - but that's complicated to count.
- robertlagrant 3y ago
  The silliness aside, the answer is in the link: > For the denominator, we use changes in the reported wealth of the Forbes 400 to estimate the income of the 400 wealthiest families.