5 ms·

So what is your proposal if you own a company, or if some minerals are discovered on your heretofore low value land? It's not really all that uncommon for a co

by ch4s3 3y ago

So what is your proposal if you own a company, or if some minerals are discovered on your heretofore low value land? It's not really all that uncommon for a company with a sole owner or a partnership to be worth in excess of $15 Million.

thunfischbrot 3y ago
Pay your employees more, or be taxed near 100% on the excess gains?
- poncho_romero 3y ago
  Exactly. Tax the profits, thereby encouraging the company to invest internally in higher salaries, R&D, new equipment, etc.
  - ch4s3 3y ago
    How does that encourage more R&D and higher salaries? Or rather can you show an example of a country with high corporate taxes and higher relative wages and R&D spending? I’m not aware of one.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  But why? If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level?
  - naasking 3y ago
    > If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level? I think there are good "system stability" arguments to set limits. Roughly, states are dynamic multivariate systems whose objective function should ideally track citizen well being and state security, and taxes are one of the feedback loops that prevent individual actors from dominating or otherwise destabilizing the system. The mistake is thinking that the fictions we created to establish this system are fundamental moral imperatives in and of themselves.
  - ydlr 3y ago
    The goal wouldn't be confiscation. It would be to incentivize behavior to avoid confiscation. Charge less rent to mine minerals. Spread equity in business more broadly.
    - ahepp 3y ago
      Setting aside whether wealth should be capped, wouldn’t doing it in this manner cause massive price mis-signalling?
  - AgentOrange1234 3y ago
    Hrmn. I might ask the same question in reverse. What moral justification is there for them to hoard absurd sums of money, particularly when we have folks without homes and kids in poverty?
  - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
    Explain how to reconcile these two things: “ if some minerals are discovered on your heretofore low value land” And “ creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services” Where was the act of creation that led to the increase of the value? How did the land to acquire become yours? Most likely you didn’t discover the land, or do anything to find the materials (hiring people to do labor) so there’s no reason to think you should receive anything
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      It incentivizes people to find minerals that are valuable to the public. You can construct a hypothetical where someone gets lucky, and you can construct one where someone has reason to suspect the minerals are there and invests in the land.
      - mathgeek 3y ago
        > You can construct a hypothetical where someone gets lucky, and you can construct one where someone has reason to suspect the minerals are there and invests in the land. You don't even need to construct the scenario where someone with enough capital just buys up as much as possible, knowing they will get lucky with some subset of their property. That's both a modern problem and the plot of Blazing Saddles (yes, I'm choosing that example to focus on how widespread of an issue this has been for centuries).
      - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
        That doesn’t answer any of my questions though on how the assignment of creation happens
        wolverine876 3y ago
        Fair enough: > Where was the act of creation that led to the increase of the value? I'm not sure what you mean. Finding and extracting the asset adds a valuable, productive good to the economy (ignoring the enormous downside). Are you debating the word choice, "creating"? I guess I don't see that discussion as valuable. Are you using the word choice to make a point? Make it! > How did the land to acquire become yours? You know how; again, please make your point? > Most likely you didn’t discover the land, or do anything to find the materials (hiring people to do labor) so there’s no reason to think you should receive anything Is all of this an argument for communism - the only ones who do anything valuable are the workers? I think that's as self-serving and narrow-minded as the ultra-capitalists who think only they matter. Providing and allocating capital is essential and a valuable skill; if it's easy for you, I'm sure you have plenty of it by now.
  - mynjin 3y ago
    Because, someone doesn't just create millions of dollars of value, teams of people do. And in the current system someone does get to choose where to cut the "sandwich" and they get to choose which side they take. And with negligible repercussion, they choose the largest portion. It's basically incentive to steal. It's basically taking credit for someone else's work. But it's taking their share of wealth.
thefaux 3y ago
Personally I find private land ownership a kind of ridiculous concept. Our current system provides the convenient and necessary fiction of land ownership but ultimately to the extent there is an owner, it is always the state.
- rufus_foreman 3y ago
  Are you alluding to real estate taxes, or something else? I know that you have to pay property tax to keep your land, but you have to pay property tax to keep your car, and I don't see how that means that the state owns your car. I think the current system, and specifically the Supreme Court under Roberts has done an excellent job protecting individual property rights from the state. The Roberts court gets criticized for protecting those rights too much.
  - bradlys 3y ago
    You don’t pay property tax to keep your car. You pay registration fees to drive your car on public roads. You can still drive that car on racetracks and other such places. The car/house comparison doesn’t make any sense here. You don’t own the land and never will. You just lease it from the government and we all get that.
    - rufus_foreman 3y ago
      >> You don’t pay property tax to keep your car I pay property tax to keep my car. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my car, and I pay taxes based on that. I pay property tax to keep my house. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my house and I pay taxes based on that. The car/house comparison makes sense here because I get a bill in the mail for property tax on my house and I get a bill in the mail for property tax on my car, they are from the same locality in two different envelopes. I own the land. I own the car, I get property tax bills for both of them in the mail every year, they are precisely 100% the exact same.
      - bradlys 3y ago

by ch4s3 3y ago

thunfischbrot 3y ago

Pay your employees more, or be taxed near 100% on the excess gains?

poncho_romero 3y ago
Exactly. Tax the profits, thereby encouraging the company to invest internally in higher salaries, R&D, new equipment, etc.
- ch4s3 3y ago
  How does that encourage more R&D and higher salaries? Or rather can you show an example of a country with high corporate taxes and higher relative wages and R&D spending? I’m not aware of one.
ch4s3 3y ago
But why? If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level?
- naasking 3y ago
  > If someone is creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services what moral justification is there for it to be confiscated, particularly at your arbitrary level? I think there are good "system stability" arguments to set limits. Roughly, states are dynamic multivariate systems whose objective function should ideally track citizen well being and state security, and taxes are one of the feedback loops that prevent individual actors from dominating or otherwise destabilizing the system. The mistake is thinking that the fictions we created to establish this system are fundamental moral imperatives in and of themselves.
- ydlr 3y ago
  The goal wouldn't be confiscation. It would be to incentivize behavior to avoid confiscation. Charge less rent to mine minerals. Spread equity in business more broadly.
  - ahepp 3y ago
    Setting aside whether wealth should be capped, wouldn’t doing it in this manner cause massive price mis-signalling?
- AgentOrange1234 3y ago
  Hrmn. I might ask the same question in reverse. What moral justification is there for them to hoard absurd sums of money, particularly when we have folks without homes and kids in poverty?
- AndrewKemendo 3y ago
  Explain how to reconcile these two things: “ if some minerals are discovered on your heretofore low value land” And “ creating millions of dollars worth of goods or services” Where was the act of creation that led to the increase of the value? How did the land to acquire become yours? Most likely you didn’t discover the land, or do anything to find the materials (hiring people to do labor) so there’s no reason to think you should receive anything
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    It incentivizes people to find minerals that are valuable to the public. You can construct a hypothetical where someone gets lucky, and you can construct one where someone has reason to suspect the minerals are there and invests in the land.
    - mathgeek 3y ago
      > You can construct a hypothetical where someone gets lucky, and you can construct one where someone has reason to suspect the minerals are there and invests in the land. You don't even need to construct the scenario where someone with enough capital just buys up as much as possible, knowing they will get lucky with some subset of their property. That's both a modern problem and the plot of Blazing Saddles (yes, I'm choosing that example to focus on how widespread of an issue this has been for centuries).
    - AndrewKemendo 3y ago
      That doesn’t answer any of my questions though on how the assignment of creation happens
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        Fair enough: > Where was the act of creation that led to the increase of the value? I'm not sure what you mean. Finding and extracting the asset adds a valuable, productive good to the economy (ignoring the enormous downside). Are you debating the word choice, "creating"? I guess I don't see that discussion as valuable. Are you using the word choice to make a point? Make it! > How did the land to acquire become yours? You know how; again, please make your point? > Most likely you didn’t discover the land, or do anything to find the materials (hiring people to do labor) so there’s no reason to think you should receive anything Is all of this an argument for communism - the only ones who do anything valuable are the workers? I think that's as self-serving and narrow-minded as the ultra-capitalists who think only they matter. Providing and allocating capital is essential and a valuable skill; if it's easy for you, I'm sure you have plenty of it by now.
- mynjin 3y ago
  Because, someone doesn't just create millions of dollars of value, teams of people do. And in the current system someone does get to choose where to cut the "sandwich" and they get to choose which side they take. And with negligible repercussion, they choose the largest portion. It's basically incentive to steal. It's basically taking credit for someone else's work. But it's taking their share of wealth.

thefaux 3y ago

Personally I find private land ownership a kind of ridiculous concept. Our current system provides the convenient and necessary fiction of land ownership but ultimately to the extent there is an owner, it is always the state.

rufus_foreman 3y ago
Are you alluding to real estate taxes, or something else? I know that you have to pay property tax to keep your land, but you have to pay property tax to keep your car, and I don't see how that means that the state owns your car. I think the current system, and specifically the Supreme Court under Roberts has done an excellent job protecting individual property rights from the state. The Roberts court gets criticized for protecting those rights too much.
- bradlys 3y ago
  You don’t pay property tax to keep your car. You pay registration fees to drive your car on public roads. You can still drive that car on racetracks and other such places. The car/house comparison doesn’t make any sense here. You don’t own the land and never will. You just lease it from the government and we all get that.
  - rufus_foreman 3y ago
    >> You don’t pay property tax to keep your car I pay property tax to keep my car. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my car, and I pay taxes based on that. I pay property tax to keep my house. I get a yearly bill based on the value of my house and I pay taxes based on that. The car/house comparison makes sense here because I get a bill in the mail for property tax on my house and I get a bill in the mail for property tax on my car, they are from the same locality in two different envelopes. I own the land. I own the car, I get property tax bills for both of them in the mail every year, they are precisely 100% the exact same.
    - bradlys 3y ago