4 ms·

Surprisingly weak article from such a strong economist. TLDR - "a one time tax of 10% or 20%" and "expat taxes". Agree with all of his points but wish that this

• n_ary 2y ago
  It is not really possible to tax the rich. If someone is in top 5% or higher in the society, they have numerous wealth to afford various loopholes for tax avoidance. Everytime I see a discussion of taxing the rich, we have some weird pseudo tax raise for poor and middle-class instead by defining the rich as some super minimum wage and putting the maximum squeen on anyone above poverty to lower middle class.
• alejohausner 2y ago
  I agree. Picketty is too tame. If those billionaires' wealth has risen from $200 billion to $1.2 trillion from 2010 to 2024, that implies an annual growth rate of 13%. Hence a YEARLY wealth tax of 10% would still leave room for growth.
• slowmovintarget 2y ago
  > ...such a strong economist. "Strong" economists don't need to fudge their data. The only real move to tax the wealthy is to end trusts... everywhere. Everything else spills over onto the middle class, and those who aren't mobile enough to get out of the way. But the middle class doesn't use trusts. You can try to regulate loans against securities, but you're right back to putting "regular folk" in the cross-hairs. This talk of taxing potential gains would create a mechanism through which governments could absolutely ruin ordinary individuals while never touching the purported targets.