2 ms·

This opponents of this kind of discussion always argue assuming a binary. Either we keep the status-quo, or we will enter a socialist chaos. We are discussing

This opponents of this kind of discussion always argue assuming a binary. Either we keep the status-quo, or we will enter a socialist chaos. We are discussing making a fairer tax system were billionaires pay more of a fair share, we are not proposing full communism where we confiscate all their money. Is any marginal increase on taxes fatally destined to lead to capital flight? It looks like a lot of people are arguing exactly that. Well, in that case lets stop completely taxing the oligarchs! Trickle down stravaganza now!

robocat 2y ago
> we are not proposing full communism where we confiscate all their money. That's exactly what is usually being proposed - the difference is confiscating everything slowly over decades (rather than by immediate revolution). The deception is that a 2% tax sounds tiny. If you have a retirement portfolio and are withdrawing money to live (drawdown) then that 2% can easily take > 50% of your wealth over decades. Financial literacy is understanding the power of compounding - yet when it is in reverse it isn't obvious. And when the victims are somebody else (people wealthier than yourself) we conveniently shut our ears to any complaints. Ironically I think the core motivations of most proponents of wealth taxes are their own greed and envy. Tax anybody else but not moi... The systematic driver is our aging demographics. Our governments need new taxes to pay for the infinite demand of health services, and the demands of the voting 65yo+ welfare state beneficiaries
- elzbardico 2y ago
  If we are going to talk about fairness and greed and envy we should also be discussing how the billionaires benefit from government deficits, how a lot of our government investment is distorted by lobbying from the richest amongst us. Our years of fiscal irresponsability, of adventures like ZIRP, Quantitative Easings and Stymulus made the rich even richer. Asset Inflation for the rich and purchasing power corrosion for the pleb is all cool and dandy, but it is destroying our societies, and the way we have to fix it is by reversing decades of Lobby facilitated regressive tax policies. The billionaires benefit from having an educated society to work for them, infrastructure, the rule of law, security from thiefs as well as from foreign governments and organizations. The USMC existence is far more important for big oil magnates than for a public school teacher in Chicago. I was lucky, I am generation X and I still managed to have a fully paid mortage, a decent, albeit modest, retirement fund, but what about my kids? What world are we leaving them? How can I look him in the eyes and tell, well kid, you're doing great on school, but sometimes I wonder if you shouldn't be playing because our government thinks that you having your own house in the future is something to be decided by the "free"markets, but at the same time, let's subsidize Big Tech to the tune of billions so they can build AI to make sure you won't have a job and will forever live of whatever I manage to pass to you or be a UBI slave. Because you and I know that all this government money going to AI is motivated by the greed of oligarchs salivating at the prospect of shedding off whole mountains out of their payrolls. Inflation is never a problem for this system when it is mostly confined to asset inflation. But as soon as we have too little unemployment, and workers start having to mute linked-in recruiter notifications, the calls for austerity start immediatly. You complain about the poor acting politically for a more progressive taxation system, but why then the rich don't stop lobbying for subsides, why they don't stop lobbying for wars? Isn't it clear that they are they motivated by greed too and will use political power too to satisfy it?

robocat 2y ago

> we are not proposing full communism where we confiscate all their money. That's exactly what is usually being proposed - the difference is confiscating everything slowly over decades (rather than by immediate revolution). The deception is that a 2% tax sounds tiny. If you have a retirement portfolio and are withdrawing money to live (drawdown) then that 2% can easily take > 50% of your wealth over decades. Financial literacy is understanding the power of compounding - yet when it is in reverse it isn't obvious. And when the victims are somebody else (people wealthier than yourself) we conveniently shut our ears to any complaints. Ironically I think the core motivations of most proponents of wealth taxes are their own greed and envy. Tax anybody else but not moi... The systematic driver is our aging demographics. Our governments need new taxes to pay for the infinite demand of health services, and the demands of the voting 65yo+ welfare state beneficiaries

elzbardico 2y ago
If we are going to talk about fairness and greed and envy we should also be discussing how the billionaires benefit from government deficits, how a lot of our government investment is distorted by lobbying from the richest amongst us. Our years of fiscal irresponsability, of adventures like ZIRP, Quantitative Easings and Stymulus made the rich even richer. Asset Inflation for the rich and purchasing power corrosion for the pleb is all cool and dandy, but it is destroying our societies, and the way we have to fix it is by reversing decades of Lobby facilitated regressive tax policies. The billionaires benefit from having an educated society to work for them, infrastructure, the rule of law, security from thiefs as well as from foreign governments and organizations. The USMC existence is far more important for big oil magnates than for a public school teacher in Chicago. I was lucky, I am generation X and I still managed to have a fully paid mortage, a decent, albeit modest, retirement fund, but what about my kids? What world are we leaving them? How can I look him in the eyes and tell, well kid, you're doing great on school, but sometimes I wonder if you shouldn't be playing because our government thinks that you having your own house in the future is something to be decided by the "free"markets, but at the same time, let's subsidize Big Tech to the tune of billions so they can build AI to make sure you won't have a job and will forever live of whatever I manage to pass to you or be a UBI slave. Because you and I know that all this government money going to AI is motivated by the greed of oligarchs salivating at the prospect of shedding off whole mountains out of their payrolls. Inflation is never a problem for this system when it is mostly confined to asset inflation. But as soon as we have too little unemployment, and workers start having to mute linked-in recruiter notifications, the calls for austerity start immediatly. You complain about the poor acting politically for a more progressive taxation system, but why then the rich don't stop lobbying for subsides, why they don't stop lobbying for wars? Isn't it clear that they are they motivated by greed too and will use political power too to satisfy it?