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The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate we

The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simple: tax the rich.

BobbyJo 2y ago
Im afraid you'd need to be pretty liberal with your definition of rich at this point to dig us out of this hole through taxes alone.
- hoseyor 2y ago
  Not really. The top 1% item roughly $50 Trillion in assets. In 2010…15 years ago…that was only $15 Trillion. If you look at the graph of the national debt and the graph of the money supply, i.e. money printing, you will find they basically overlap, correlate, track. I assume I don’t have to point out that 50-36 is 15, i.e., basically the whole growth of assets has been roughly fueled by “money printing” fraud. (Yes, I’m simplifying a bit) What has basically occurred, is a fraud, what is not really different than loan fraud. The people in charge of the bank also wrote themselves loans they didn’t have to pay back and left the bank with the $36 trillion debt as they pocketed the both the $36 Trillion in debt, as well as plundered all the assets, i.e., much of government spending not in excess of revenue. It’s basically been a plundering operation that has only escalated over the last 25 years and is the greatest national security threat to the US and arguably the security of the whole planet’s civilization. It’s short sighted greed. And yes, this whole community is heavily involved and engaged in it as the VC money has flown like water for 20 years now … backed by fraudulent government “money printing” that has plundered regular people. It will have consequences, one way or another. The devil always comes to collect when you don’t expect and in the worst way. That’s not a superstition, it’s a metaphor of human nature learned over unknown millennia of the same catastrophic patterns. Frankly, the only thing that could save anything is to constrain the and revalue currency by seizing the plundered assets of the roughly top 1%, maybe even 3%, and paying down the national debt. It would be painful like drug rehab, but the alternative is OD and death and far greater suffering.
  - marcosdumay 2y ago
    I just want to point that while yes, this is true, there's no physical or economical law that mandates that printed money goes to the finance system. This happens due to explicit government policy, one that has been relentlessly pushed all over the world since the 80s.
- SecretDreams 2y ago
  Tax wealth somehow, not just income. It's clear the accumulation has become a generational problem. Your great grandkids could cure cancer and bezo's could do nothing and yours would never have a fraction of the wealth his have.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    Even with their preposterous salaries, NBA stars would have to work for millenia without spending anything before getting Bezos-level wealth.
    - SecretDreams 2y ago
      Everything about this sentence makes me sad lol
  - libertine 2y ago
    > Tax wealth somehow, not just income. This is a critical point - in my opinion, wealth can't be at the same time a collateral to acquire more assets or to buy cheap money, and something that can't be taxed. Either tax it or make credit/debt to be considered income after a certain net worth value, like 100 million would be more than enough.
  - anonfordays 2y ago
    >Tax wealth somehow I don't unserstand how you can tax something that varies in value by double digit percentages every week. If Elon got taxed when TSLA was $450 per share, and six months later it's now $250 per share... How much should he be taxed? Should he be provided a tax refund?
    - SecretDreams 2y ago
      He can't eat with his shares. He can use them as collateral for debt. Presently, that's how he dodges taxes. You'd close that loophole.
      - 2y ago
- pnutjam 2y ago
  Taxing the rich will have all sorts of positive knock-on effects that will also go a long way towards fixing these issues.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  No, you are just underestimating how rich the rich are.
  - fooList 2y ago
    Could you be overestimating how easy it is to take possession of their money given global free trade? In 10 years, what are the odds you and others will have finally, after all these years, actually managed to have “taxed the rich” as has been proposed as the solution to current debt levels for many years now? If we cannot be certain of those tax revenues from finally “taxing the rich”, then they cannot solve the debt problem and we therefore need to look for other solutions. Not that the wreckless and irresponsible cuts from DOGE are the solution. They are likely to increase the size and scope of the government in the long run, after impairing it’s efficiency and operational capacity in the short. Hopefully the dems don’t blow the opportunity this time.
    - littlestymaar 2y ago
      The US government can (and regularly do) sanction entire countries, trade is only “global” and “free” to the extent permitted by Washington. Saying that the rich could somehow avoid the US government by moving abroad is a fallacy.
- grafmax 2y ago
  The top 11–12 richest individuals in the U.S. hold assets equivalent to the national budget deficit. Let’s not fool ourselves. The money is there.
  - BobbyJo 1y ago
    The budget deficit so far. So yes, if we were to take all their money, the debt would go to zero for exactly one moment, then we would go back to spending more than we have immediately, but now with the chilling effect that taking wealth like that would have. Not super helpful.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
sgregnt 2y ago
>The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Could you share some sources to back this up? At least a sources to back up at least a few case studies would be curious. I'm interested in economics and never have been aware that free market self-correction is a well documented fantasy and would love to understand where is your claim coming from.
- woooooo 2y ago
  Libertarians took over a town in NH and abolished town wide garbage collection. The free market produced a bunch of trash in people's yards, which attracted bears, causing havoc all around town. True story. That's not to say you can't solve a lot of problems with markets. It just means waving your hands at "the free market" like it's a magic talisman is a childish thing to do.
  - potato3732842 2y ago
    Why didn't they just shoot the bears? You'd figure libertarians would be all for that.
    - generativenoise 2y ago
      Because they couldn't reach a consensus with their governance mechanisms. There were people feeding and encouraging the bears. I guess they could have shot all the bears. Eliminating all the bears because a sensible consensus can't be reached seems like a gross failure of humanity to coexist with the natural (uncontrolled) world.
      - potato3732842 2y ago
        Sounds like they just couldn't put their money where their mouths were and wanted daddy gov to manage the bears and couldn't agree on how. If the neighborhood has bears just store your stuff better and you won't have to shoot them causing problems with the neighbors. Easier than bickering and cheaper than paying for government to do it. Edit: I guess this works of thieves too.
AnthonyMouse 2y ago
> The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. > Markets don’t account for externalities Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. > they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power) You're describing regulatory capture. This is why governments are supposed to have limited powers. To keep them from passing rules that enrich cronies and entrench incumbents. > they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable) Markets are actually pretty good at providing all of those things. There are plenty of high quality private schools, high quality private medical facilities and high quality private research labs. The real problem here is that some people can't afford those things. But now you're making the case for a UBI so people can afford those things when they otherwise couldn't, not for having the government actually operate the doctor's office. > As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simple: tax the rich. Is it so simple? The highest marginal tax rate in the US is 50.3% (37% federal + 13.3% state in California). The highest marginal tax rate in Norway is 47.4%. Meanwhile most of what the rich own are investment securities like stocks and US treasuries. What happens if you increase their taxes? They have less to invest. The stocks then go to someone not being taxed, i.e. foreign investors, so more of the future returns of US companies leave the country. Fewer treasury buyers increase the interest rate the US pays on the debt. Fewer stock buyers lower stock prices, which reduce capital gains and therefore capital gains tax revenue. Fewer stock buyers make it harder for companies to raise money, which lowers employment and wages, and therefore tax revenue again. Increasing the proportion of tax revenue that comes from "the rich" causes an extremely perverse incentive whenever you ask the Congressional Budget Office to do the numbers on how a policy that would transfer wealth from the rich to the middle class would affect tax revenue, and the policy correspondingly gets shelved. TANSTAAFL.
- brokeAstronomer 2y ago
  >> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. Markets are a tool which can work extremely well if deployed carefully and within a sensible regulatory framework. Given that the world CO2 level keeps rising, we can't eat fish because of heavy metals and we all have forever microplastics in us, I think it's fair to question some of our assumptions. >> Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. Agreed - however taxing externalities doesn't seem to be working out in practice (in the US). >> You're describing regulatory capture. This is why governments are supposed to have limited powers. Wealth inequality can rise without regulatory capture. Government is not the source of all evil. Smaller govenrment would just lead to further concentration of wealth and power within the private sector. We need a balanced system, not blind devotion. >> Markets are actually pretty good at providing all of those things... The real problem here is that some people can't afford those thing So can the market provide those things or not? Clearly we want everyone to have an education not just the uber wealthy.
roenxi 2y ago
> Markets don’t account for externalities But on net the externalities are just as likely to be doing more good than bad. I've yet to see anyone in the public debate tallying up the positive externalities of markets. "They have externalities!" is likely to be an argument in favour of free markets, without the positive externalities a free market generates we would be poorer and more uncomfortable - it doesn't take much looking to find a whole raft of spinoffs where free market activity generates positive externalities. Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease where through no action of their own actors and musicians get a lot more money than in medieval times purely to represent the alternatives the market offers them.
- zelphirkalt 2y ago
  I mean, you can easily observe it. Look at Germany. Not investing sufficiently into education, public Infrastructure, hospitals, and probably more. Inefficient bureaucracy everywhere. Long term effects already visible and only becoming more pronounced. People have a 4y political memory and electing the same shit again. This apparently will continue until we hit rock bottom. I just hope others will be ready to face angry German mobs this time around. Of course there is also a chance that we will finally learn something as a society and prevent bad things from happening. An admittedly tiny chance, but it exists.
  - SirHumphrey 2y ago
    Blaming Germany’s problems on the free market is a wild conclusion to make. Germany’s underinvestment in public infrastructure is a combination of an obsession with minimising public debt at any cost, a wast and complicated bureaucracy that allows people to delay projects almost inevitably.
    - zelphirkalt 2y ago
      The money is there, it is being put into the wrong hands and into silly bureaucracy (for example by having to put out construction projects on the EU market, while local businesses collapse, ruining Germany's own economy). The market does not regulate that, and everyone who takes a look can see that, no matter how often some FDP or CDU wacko will claim otherwise. That is the point I am making. The market is very short sighted, oriented towards short term gain, at the cost of the general public. The general public needs to deal with the fallout of it all. Terrible train service, bad infrastructure, expensive public transport, too many cars, bad air quality, bad health, lacking education, the list goes on. All those matters are matters, where spending does not directly benefit some already wealthy group of people. It goes even further: The "market", consists also of lobbyists, who do everything they can to influence politicians and get policies implemented, that make people buy cars, even at the cost of worsening public infrastructure. They have delayed developing electric cars and are now clinging to the German market. They do not care about normal people having to get to work via public transport. Buy a frickin' car! Is their response. Instead of improving public transport, it gets noticeably worse every year. So the free market is not only responsible for not doing good things, it is also responsible for actively harming the population. Now it may be, that the free market also has its upsides. But the view that it will solve all the problems if we only let it is very naive and proven wrong again and again.
WalterBright 2y ago
There aren't enough rich people to fund the government at the levels it spends.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- bgwalter 2y ago
  According to https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/ https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... the top 0.1% hold $22.14 trillion and the top 1% hold $54 trillion. The total federal debt is around $35 trillion. So for sure the top 1% could pay off the debt in order to have a reset at least. I'm not saying it should be done, but it does not seem impossible.
  - Robotbeat 2y ago
    It’s paper wealth. If you forced a sell off, the value would plummet. Look at revenue.
    - kevinventullo 2y ago
      Maybe a direct transfer then. Don’t have to worry about share prices when the tax is a % of shares owned.
      - Robotbeat 2y ago
        Do you think the government should start owning shares? Seems problematic. Instead, we could tax realized gains and profits. I think in general this is all just a round about way of doing the taxation we already do, just more of it. Which I support (except for the needlessly antagonistic populist tone), for the same reason I support some cutting of government spending. We legitimately do have too much federal debt right now.
nurettin 2y ago
Tax the rich, the rich hike prices, inflation. Please find another magic wand, that one does not work.
nottorp 2y ago
> will self-correct and optimize outcomes It does self-correct and optimize. But as you said it below, it optimizes towards > they concentrate wealth Monopolies or oligopolies.
ekianjo 2y ago
> As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simple: tax the rich. The debt is so huge it does not even account for a fraction of it. People need to stop dreaming about easy solutions that fit on a piece of paper.
kensai 2y ago
We should be thankful you did not write: eat the rich.

BobbyJo 2y ago

Im afraid you'd need to be pretty liberal with your definition of rich at this point to dig us out of this hole through taxes alone.

hoseyor 2y ago
Not really. The top 1% item roughly $50 Trillion in assets. In 2010…15 years ago…that was only $15 Trillion. If you look at the graph of the national debt and the graph of the money supply, i.e. money printing, you will find they basically overlap, correlate, track. I assume I don’t have to point out that 50-36 is 15, i.e., basically the whole growth of assets has been roughly fueled by “money printing” fraud. (Yes, I’m simplifying a bit) What has basically occurred, is a fraud, what is not really different than loan fraud. The people in charge of the bank also wrote themselves loans they didn’t have to pay back and left the bank with the $36 trillion debt as they pocketed the both the $36 Trillion in debt, as well as plundered all the assets, i.e., much of government spending not in excess of revenue. It’s basically been a plundering operation that has only escalated over the last 25 years and is the greatest national security threat to the US and arguably the security of the whole planet’s civilization. It’s short sighted greed. And yes, this whole community is heavily involved and engaged in it as the VC money has flown like water for 20 years now … backed by fraudulent government “money printing” that has plundered regular people. It will have consequences, one way or another. The devil always comes to collect when you don’t expect and in the worst way. That’s not a superstition, it’s a metaphor of human nature learned over unknown millennia of the same catastrophic patterns. Frankly, the only thing that could save anything is to constrain the and revalue currency by seizing the plundered assets of the roughly top 1%, maybe even 3%, and paying down the national debt. It would be painful like drug rehab, but the alternative is OD and death and far greater suffering.
- marcosdumay 2y ago
  I just want to point that while yes, this is true, there's no physical or economical law that mandates that printed money goes to the finance system. This happens due to explicit government policy, one that has been relentlessly pushed all over the world since the 80s.
SecretDreams 2y ago
Tax wealth somehow, not just income. It's clear the accumulation has become a generational problem. Your great grandkids could cure cancer and bezo's could do nothing and yours would never have a fraction of the wealth his have.
- littlestymaar 2y ago
  Even with their preposterous salaries, NBA stars would have to work for millenia without spending anything before getting Bezos-level wealth.
  - SecretDreams 2y ago
    Everything about this sentence makes me sad lol
- libertine 2y ago
  > Tax wealth somehow, not just income. This is a critical point - in my opinion, wealth can't be at the same time a collateral to acquire more assets or to buy cheap money, and something that can't be taxed. Either tax it or make credit/debt to be considered income after a certain net worth value, like 100 million would be more than enough.
- anonfordays 2y ago
  >Tax wealth somehow I don't unserstand how you can tax something that varies in value by double digit percentages every week. If Elon got taxed when TSLA was $450 per share, and six months later it's now $250 per share... How much should he be taxed? Should he be provided a tax refund?
  - SecretDreams 2y ago
    He can't eat with his shares. He can use them as collateral for debt. Presently, that's how he dodges taxes. You'd close that loophole.
    - 2y ago
pnutjam 2y ago
Taxing the rich will have all sorts of positive knock-on effects that will also go a long way towards fixing these issues.
littlestymaar 2y ago
No, you are just underestimating how rich the rich are.
- fooList 2y ago
  Could you be overestimating how easy it is to take possession of their money given global free trade? In 10 years, what are the odds you and others will have finally, after all these years, actually managed to have “taxed the rich” as has been proposed as the solution to current debt levels for many years now? If we cannot be certain of those tax revenues from finally “taxing the rich”, then they cannot solve the debt problem and we therefore need to look for other solutions. Not that the wreckless and irresponsible cuts from DOGE are the solution. They are likely to increase the size and scope of the government in the long run, after impairing it’s efficiency and operational capacity in the short. Hopefully the dems don’t blow the opportunity this time.
  - littlestymaar 2y ago
    The US government can (and regularly do) sanction entire countries, trade is only “global” and “free” to the extent permitted by Washington. Saying that the rich could somehow avoid the US government by moving abroad is a fallacy.
grafmax 2y ago
The top 11–12 richest individuals in the U.S. hold assets equivalent to the national budget deficit. Let’s not fool ourselves. The money is there.
- BobbyJo 1y ago
  The budget deficit so far. So yes, if we were to take all their money, the debt would go to zero for exactly one moment, then we would go back to spending more than we have immediately, but now with the chilling effect that taking wealth like that would have. Not super helpful.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

sgregnt 2y ago

>The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Could you share some sources to back this up? At least a sources to back up at least a few case studies would be curious. I'm interested in economics and never have been aware that free market self-correction is a well documented fantasy and would love to understand where is your claim coming from.

woooooo 2y ago
Libertarians took over a town in NH and abolished town wide garbage collection. The free market produced a bunch of trash in people's yards, which attracted bears, causing havoc all around town. True story. That's not to say you can't solve a lot of problems with markets. It just means waving your hands at "the free market" like it's a magic talisman is a childish thing to do.
- potato3732842 2y ago
  Why didn't they just shoot the bears? You'd figure libertarians would be all for that.
  - generativenoise 2y ago
    Because they couldn't reach a consensus with their governance mechanisms. There were people feeding and encouraging the bears. I guess they could have shot all the bears. Eliminating all the bears because a sensible consensus can't be reached seems like a gross failure of humanity to coexist with the natural (uncontrolled) world.
    - potato3732842 2y ago
      Sounds like they just couldn't put their money where their mouths were and wanted daddy gov to manage the bears and couldn't agree on how. If the neighborhood has bears just store your stuff better and you won't have to shoot them causing problems with the neighbors. Easier than bickering and cheaper than paying for government to do it. Edit: I guess this works of thieves too.

AnthonyMouse 2y ago

> The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. > Markets don’t account for externalities Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. > they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power) You're describing regulatory capture. This is why governments are supposed to have limited powers. To keep them from passing rules that enrich cronies and entrench incumbents. > they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable) Markets are actually pretty good at providing all of those things. There are plenty of high quality private schools, high quality private medical facilities and high quality private research labs. The real problem here is that some people can't afford those things. But now you're making the case for a UBI so people can afford those things when they otherwise couldn't, not for having the government actually operate the doctor's office. > As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simple: tax the rich. Is it so simple? The highest marginal tax rate in the US is 50.3% (37% federal + 13.3% state in California). The highest marginal tax rate in Norway is 47.4%. Meanwhile most of what the rich own are investment securities like stocks and US treasuries. What happens if you increase their taxes? They have less to invest. The stocks then go to someone not being taxed, i.e. foreign investors, so more of the future returns of US companies leave the country. Fewer treasury buyers increase the interest rate the US pays on the debt. Fewer stock buyers lower stock prices, which reduce capital gains and therefore capital gains tax revenue. Fewer stock buyers make it harder for companies to raise money, which lowers employment and wages, and therefore tax revenue again. Increasing the proportion of tax revenue that comes from "the rich" causes an extremely perverse incentive whenever you ask the Congressional Budget Office to do the numbers on how a policy that would transfer wealth from the rich to the middle class would affect tax revenue, and the policy correspondingly gets shelved. TANSTAAFL.

brokeAstronomer 2y ago
>> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. Markets are a tool which can work extremely well if deployed carefully and within a sensible regulatory framework. Given that the world CO2 level keeps rising, we can't eat fish because of heavy metals and we all have forever microplastics in us, I think it's fair to question some of our assumptions. >> Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. Agreed - however taxing externalities doesn't seem to be working out in practice (in the US). >> You're describing regulatory capture. This is why governments are supposed to have limited powers. Wealth inequality can rise without regulatory capture. Government is not the source of all evil. Smaller govenrment would just lead to further concentration of wealth and power within the private sector. We need a balanced system, not blind devotion. >> Markets are actually pretty good at providing all of those things... The real problem here is that some people can't afford those thing So can the market provide those things or not? Clearly we want everyone to have an education not just the uber wealthy.

roenxi 2y ago

> Markets don’t account for externalities But on net the externalities are just as likely to be doing more good than bad. I've yet to see anyone in the public debate tallying up the positive externalities of markets. "They have externalities!" is likely to be an argument in favour of free markets, without the positive externalities a free market generates we would be poorer and more uncomfortable - it doesn't take much looking to find a whole raft of spinoffs where free market activity generates positive externalities. Things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baumol's_cost_disease where through no action of their own actors and musicians get a lot more money than in medieval times purely to represent the alternatives the market offers them.

zelphirkalt 2y ago
I mean, you can easily observe it. Look at Germany. Not investing sufficiently into education, public Infrastructure, hospitals, and probably more. Inefficient bureaucracy everywhere. Long term effects already visible and only becoming more pronounced. People have a 4y political memory and electing the same shit again. This apparently will continue until we hit rock bottom. I just hope others will be ready to face angry German mobs this time around. Of course there is also a chance that we will finally learn something as a society and prevent bad things from happening. An admittedly tiny chance, but it exists.
- SirHumphrey 2y ago
  Blaming Germany’s problems on the free market is a wild conclusion to make. Germany’s underinvestment in public infrastructure is a combination of an obsession with minimising public debt at any cost, a wast and complicated bureaucracy that allows people to delay projects almost inevitably.
  - zelphirkalt 2y ago
    The money is there, it is being put into the wrong hands and into silly bureaucracy (for example by having to put out construction projects on the EU market, while local businesses collapse, ruining Germany's own economy). The market does not regulate that, and everyone who takes a look can see that, no matter how often some FDP or CDU wacko will claim otherwise. That is the point I am making. The market is very short sighted, oriented towards short term gain, at the cost of the general public. The general public needs to deal with the fallout of it all. Terrible train service, bad infrastructure, expensive public transport, too many cars, bad air quality, bad health, lacking education, the list goes on. All those matters are matters, where spending does not directly benefit some already wealthy group of people. It goes even further: The "market", consists also of lobbyists, who do everything they can to influence politicians and get policies implemented, that make people buy cars, even at the cost of worsening public infrastructure. They have delayed developing electric cars and are now clinging to the German market. They do not care about normal people having to get to work via public transport. Buy a frickin' car! Is their response. Instead of improving public transport, it gets noticeably worse every year. So the free market is not only responsible for not doing good things, it is also responsible for actively harming the population. Now it may be, that the free market also has its upsides. But the view that it will solve all the problems if we only let it is very naive and proven wrong again and again.

WalterBright 2y ago

There aren't enough rich people to fund the government at the levels it spends.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
bgwalter 2y ago
According to https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/ https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr... the top 0.1% hold $22.14 trillion and the top 1% hold $54 trillion. The total federal debt is around $35 trillion. So for sure the top 1% could pay off the debt in order to have a reset at least. I'm not saying it should be done, but it does not seem impossible.
- Robotbeat 2y ago
  It’s paper wealth. If you forced a sell off, the value would plummet. Look at revenue.
  - kevinventullo 2y ago
    Maybe a direct transfer then. Don’t have to worry about share prices when the tax is a % of shares owned.
    - Robotbeat 2y ago
      Do you think the government should start owning shares? Seems problematic. Instead, we could tax realized gains and profits. I think in general this is all just a round about way of doing the taxation we already do, just more of it. Which I support (except for the needlessly antagonistic populist tone), for the same reason I support some cutting of government spending. We legitimately do have too much federal debt right now.

nurettin 2y ago

Tax the rich, the rich hike prices, inflation. Please find another magic wand, that one does not work.

nottorp 2y ago

> will self-correct and optimize outcomes It does self-correct and optimize. But as you said it below, it optimizes towards > they concentrate wealth Monopolies or oligopolies.

ekianjo 2y ago

> As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simple: tax the rich. The debt is so huge it does not even account for a fraction of it. People need to stop dreaming about easy solutions that fit on a piece of paper.

kensai 2y ago

We should be thankful you did not write: eat the rich.