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This probably will be weaponised against him but as a proposition shorn of political intent, it has some good qualities. At root, he says the number of orders o
by ggm 1y ago
This probably will be weaponised against him but as a proposition shorn of political intent, it has some good qualities. At root, he says the number of orders of magnitude in society should be more constrained. Having a span of 10^6 (billions to thousands, so knock of 3 of the 10^9 digits) is too many. I would think thats a defensible propositon.
Arguing that some people demand aspirational goals as high as that in order to do what they do begs many questions: Not that their demand is invalid (as demands go, I've never found bargaining very easy, arguing for billions is beyond my comprehension) but I seriously doubt the ability to add that much value is a skill distinct enough that it can command that rate of return, against all other choices.
Not "they can't generate the ROI" as much as "others can generate that ROI just as well, it's contestable".
Fund managers (for example) vary in costs, and returns, in ways which I think undermine the proposition here.
Many people take remarkably "fundamentalist" views of peoples rights to limitless potential. "it's my right to accumulate billions if I want" is very strong in opposition to this, aside from the people who may plausibly earn billions who have an entirely rational reason to disclaim alignment here. We experienced this 6 orders of magnitude down the tree in an australian election around tax concepts called "franking credits" which were proposed to be ended by the labor party. Large number of pensioners voted against it, despite being repeatedly told they had none, and would lose none: The meme of "Labor is coming for your franking credits" was unstoppable.
Many people who will fail to become millionaires, will oppose constraint on becoming Billionaires.
A parallel but unrelated case: Tax on lottery winnings. Fair or unfair?
- Aurornis 1y agoThe problem with these constructions is that they’re a Motte and Bailey: As soon as anyone starts pointing out the numerous problems with analyses that assume zero-sum games and no second-order consequences (like business owners restructuring to move their companies to nearly any other country which wont seize their ownership) the person retreats to something like “I just think taxes should be slightly higher” or “Why do you hate feeding the poor” or something.
- viraptor 1y agoHow does it apply here? There is no retreat - Mamdani's plan is public and is "taxes should be slightly higher" among other things. Specifically higher corporate tax and top percentage wealth tax for the area.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ggm 1y agoIf the US hadn't argued so vociferously against normalised worldwide minimum tax standards, this argument would be significantly weaker. The root cause of "well I'll just take my wealth elsewhere" is that taking it elsewhere attracts a benefit against leaving it in the economy with the new taxes. It's certainly true that capital flight is a risk which has to be assessed, but at that point, we really can say (to re-enter the political domain) that the super rich are holding the rest of the economy to ransom. Apple sitting on $1T of funds deciding how to spend it best in apple shareholder interests needs to be set against apple re-distributing $1T to shareholders, who then incur tax consequences with capital gain, and the rest of the world gets to move on with things that tax can do. Keeping the money inside Apples safe harbour isn't actually useful. Remember, money is meant to be useful. Hoarding it, is not always helpful.