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Why would the rich continue to create businesses and employ hundreds of millions of people if the end result was just to be taxed to oblivion. Yes there are ric
by wonderwonder 3y ago
Why would the rich continue to create businesses and employ hundreds of millions of people if the end result was just to be taxed to oblivion. Yes there are rich people that have more $ that they can spend in a lifetime, many of them also provide more to the economy than they take out. Also much of their wealth is imaginary as it exists in shares that they cannot sell without losing control of their company.
Musk is the obvious example. Tesla provides ~120k well paying jobs. Its the first electric car company that makes having an electric car cool thus putting tens of thousands of people in non polluting vehicles. SpaceX has fundamentally changed space travel plus employs 12k people directly. Should we have just capped his income after he sold paypal? Think of all that would have been lost.
Also who are we to decide what people should aspire to?
- hotpotamus 3y agoImagine if Elon Musk has $100 billion (I believe the number is somewhat higher), and the government takes $99 billion from him in taxes. Do you imagine that he would stop doing his thing? Do you think he would be materially less comfortable than he is now?
- wonderwonder 3y agoYes. He does not have $100 billion liquid. He would have to liquidate his ownership in spacex and tesla. Losing control of the companies. So yes I think he would be forced to stop doing his thing as he would no longer control the companies. It has nothing to do with comfort, dude lives in a 200 SqFt fabricated house or sleeps at work.
- wing-_-nuts 3y agoI'm sure if we implemented this, we could make accommodations such as making it possible to transfer share ownership 'in kind' and stripping voting rights from those shares. Musk would still be able to do his thing, the government would have a boatload more revenue to work with. Now, some might make the argument that without the possibility of becoming a multi billionaire some might not be motivated to start or run a business. That, I think would be a small enough loss to be worthwhile
- wonderwonder 3y agoWould it? Imagine every private company of a certain size just ceasing to exist as soon as its owner reaches a set net worth. What happens to all of the millions of jobs that exist at those companies? Companies would essentially go public and then all leadership would quit immediately. Why work for free?
- wing-_-nuts 3y agoWhy would the companies cease to exist? Why would leadership quit simply because they could no longer be multi-billionaires. I've always seen this as a very weak argument. With future automation we will have to figure out some form of collective ownership and dispersal of profits.
- wonderwonder 3y agolets say you are allowed a max net worth of 1 million. You hit it. Why would you keep working? You are now working for free. Every extra dollar you get is taken from you. Why do anything, shut the company down and leave, its not your responsibility any more
- JoeAltmaier 3y agoFor a paycheck.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago1M isn't what we're discussing here. It's 1B. Let's not strawman this discussion.
- wonderwonder 3y agoeven better, 1B, I painted myself in a corner with such a low number. So they will never have to work again, 1m they may have had to. I now have 1B. Why would i keep working? I would send a company wide email say hey guys I'm done. Good luck and shut it down. Why do anything else? You may argue there are reasons but they are all emotional / moral ones, not based on finance. I've peaked, going to go spend my life doing whatever I want, why incur the stress of anything else? Not to mention all the ancillary jobs that are going to be lost. Boat builders, private aircraft manufacturers, etc.