3 ms·

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

by ekianjo 1y ago

nolroz 1y ago
Actually tax the rich?
- dmitrygr 1y ago
  Insane take. Even if you confiscated ALL the money from all the billionaires (instant 100% wealth tax) and spread it to everyone worldwide, it would be a one time sum of under $2000. And what then?
  - hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
    Spend the money on things of actual value rather than distributing it equally among a group of people who will inevitably just spend it on an iPhone?
  - paulcole 1y ago
    You can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once. It seems like billionaires have a knack for making lots of money every year. Why don’t we just take a bit more of it than we do now and invest it into useful projects?
    - missedthecue 1y ago
      We're capable of taking the money but not of investing it into useful projects. Inherent system flaw.
    - Skgqie1 1y ago
      Billionaires generally do not have a knaxj for value creation. What they do generally have is an egregious amount of greed and a total lack of empathy which enables an incredible amount of exploitation.
  - stackbutterflow 1y ago
    Then the former billionaires won't have the ability to influence society to pass laws that favours them. We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
    - ianbutler 1y ago
      > We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone. I assure you this isn't the only blocker and its naive to think that [other_set_of_humans] will not try to consolidate power for themselves after you remove the current set. Most people are not in it for their fellow man and whoever sold you this idea that billionaires are the only impediment to, or even blocking now, a better society -- lied to you. By all means get rid of the billionaires, I don't particularly care; just don't be so surprised when it turns out that was just a side quest. I think there are other avenues here that are probably better spent to make society better.
      - conception 1y ago
        Maybe but society was more egalitarian when we did so maybe we start there.
      - majormajor 1y ago
        Everyone in the US misses the 50s, marginal tax rates were crazy high. "Oh, but people had lots of deductions and not many people actually paid the top rates" - yeah, that's exactly the point, it encouraged money to be spread around more. And a whole lot of people prospered, while government revenue was less lopsidedly concentrated too. Get people away from paycheck-to-paycheck debt loads and you've improved a lot of lives regardless of if those people are egalitarians who will then vote for utopian policies. We know that allowing more and more consolidation ain't the move.
        oceanplexian 1y ago
        We have 4-5x the normalized GDP per capita compared to the 1950s. The amount of taxes we collect isn’t the problem. Excessive government spending and inflationary pressures on things like housing is (Which, btw seems to always go up regardless of what political side you want to point fingers at)
  - jamiek88 1y ago
    [flagged]
- ekianjo 1y ago
  Even if you took all the money from the "rich" the goverment would shut down as usual the next year because the debt they create is way more than the private money available out there.
blurbleblurble 1y ago
https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fy-2023-fed-budget-pie-chart.jpg https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fy-2023-fed-bu...
- ashdksnndck 1y ago
  Defense is only 13% of federal spending: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Military spending has actually decreased a lot as a % of GDP in the US over time, so old narratives about this have become less true. So the anti-military-spending orgs have to abuse the numbers if they want to keep that narrative going: https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and-international-context https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and... Though, a reasonable person can still argue that the many billions we still spend on the military can be better used elsewhere. There’s no need to cook the numbers to make that point. Healthcare spending is now 4x higher than military in the US (across the whole economy, not just government). So it’s hard to claim the problem is we’re prioritizing the military over healthcare. In my opinion, we have a systemic issue where we get poor value for money across a variety of sectors. Healthcare, education, military, housing, transit…
  - roamerz 1y ago
    >> poor value for money across a variety of sectors Yup this. I went in for a cardiac stress test a few months ago. Less than 30 minutes in a room with a treadmill, an ekg machine and a low-mid level technician. $10k.
    - ipaddr 1y ago
      What's the pressure in the system keeping the price down? Many could supply a treadmill and ekg machine for a few hundred.
  - theossuary 1y ago
    If you include things directly related to, but not classified as defense spending, like veterans benefits, VA, and the cost of foreign bases; the military is about ~20% of the total US budget. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2025-PER/pdf/BUDGET-2025-PER-6-1-1.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2025-PER/pdf/BUDG...
layoric 1y ago
And who is on the other side of that debt? And how did it get there?
MattGaiser 1y ago
America spends a greater percentage of government money on healthcare than many systems with universal healthcare. Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Affairs and Military medical spending are about 7% of GDP. Add another 1-3% and you would be ahead of almost everyone. And that would still be a savings of 7% of GDP. Not providing universal healthcare is entirely a political cocktail of wasting the money, letting big corporations loot it with tactics like using many partial vials of medicine instead of a full vial, letting the medical professional groups stuff up the pipeline of medical practitioners, and electing members who did all of the above to Congress.
erentz 1y ago
Taxing the land and removing zoning limits on it is the big hurdle.
jibal 1y ago
That is not how macroeconomics works.
- ekianjo 1y ago
  What does that even mean? Care to elaborate?
jimnotgym 1y ago
Debt to who? If every country is in debt who is the creditor? Mars? But you actually said every major country is in debt, so do all the major countries owe money to um...minor countries? Perhaps it is not the country that is in debt at all, but the government? In which case it must owe money to entities like people and corporations. The government has powers to take money from entities in its jurisdiction and pay its debts, it is called taxation. In fact since the money is issued by the government in the first place, you could consider a token of government debt is actually a token meant to pay your taxes with. By lending money to the government you receive interest, or in other words a discount off your future tax. All very neat, and why a government being in debt is no reason for it to not be able to pay for things. In fact you might argue that government debt takes money out of the economy, so keeping inflation down. This means the government can spend more without causing inflation. If a government borrows a dollar and spends that dollar, there is the same amount of dollars circulating. However if it borrows it off someone who is hoarding it, and spends it then you create gdp growth. Magic. Perhaps it's time to get past puritanical hatred of debt?

Provide with what money? Every major country is an ocean of debt

nolroz 1y ago

Actually tax the rich?

dmitrygr 1y ago
Insane take. Even if you confiscated ALL the money from all the billionaires (instant 100% wealth tax) and spread it to everyone worldwide, it would be a one time sum of under $2000. And what then?
- hsbauauvhabzb 1y ago
  Spend the money on things of actual value rather than distributing it equally among a group of people who will inevitably just spend it on an iPhone?
- paulcole 1y ago
  You can shear a sheep many times but skin him only once. It seems like billionaires have a knack for making lots of money every year. Why don’t we just take a bit more of it than we do now and invest it into useful projects?
  - missedthecue 1y ago
    We're capable of taking the money but not of investing it into useful projects. Inherent system flaw.
  - Skgqie1 1y ago
    Billionaires generally do not have a knaxj for value creation. What they do generally have is an egregious amount of greed and a total lack of empathy which enables an incredible amount of exploitation.
- stackbutterflow 1y ago
  Then the former billionaires won't have the ability to influence society to pass laws that favours them. We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone.
  - ianbutler 1y ago
    > We'll finally be able to build a society for everyone. I assure you this isn't the only blocker and its naive to think that [other_set_of_humans] will not try to consolidate power for themselves after you remove the current set. Most people are not in it for their fellow man and whoever sold you this idea that billionaires are the only impediment to, or even blocking now, a better society -- lied to you. By all means get rid of the billionaires, I don't particularly care; just don't be so surprised when it turns out that was just a side quest. I think there are other avenues here that are probably better spent to make society better.
    - conception 1y ago
      Maybe but society was more egalitarian when we did so maybe we start there.
    - majormajor 1y ago
      Everyone in the US misses the 50s, marginal tax rates were crazy high. "Oh, but people had lots of deductions and not many people actually paid the top rates" - yeah, that's exactly the point, it encouraged money to be spread around more. And a whole lot of people prospered, while government revenue was less lopsidedly concentrated too. Get people away from paycheck-to-paycheck debt loads and you've improved a lot of lives regardless of if those people are egalitarians who will then vote for utopian policies. We know that allowing more and more consolidation ain't the move.
      - oceanplexian 1y ago
        We have 4-5x the normalized GDP per capita compared to the 1950s. The amount of taxes we collect isn’t the problem. Excessive government spending and inflationary pressures on things like housing is (Which, btw seems to always go up regardless of what political side you want to point fingers at)
- jamiek88 1y ago
  [flagged]
ekianjo 1y ago
Even if you took all the money from the "rich" the goverment would shut down as usual the next year because the debt they create is way more than the private money available out there.

blurbleblurble 1y ago

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fy-2023-fed-budget-pie-chart.jpg https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fy-2023-fed-bu...

ashdksnndck 1y ago
Defense is only 13% of federal spending: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder... Military spending has actually decreased a lot as a % of GDP in the US over time, so old narratives about this have become less true. So the anti-military-spending orgs have to abuse the numbers if they want to keep that narrative going: https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and-international-context https://econofact.org/u-s-defense-spending-in-historical-and... Though, a reasonable person can still argue that the many billions we still spend on the military can be better used elsewhere. There’s no need to cook the numbers to make that point. Healthcare spending is now 4x higher than military in the US (across the whole economy, not just government). So it’s hard to claim the problem is we’re prioritizing the military over healthcare. In my opinion, we have a systemic issue where we get poor value for money across a variety of sectors. Healthcare, education, military, housing, transit…
- roamerz 1y ago
  >> poor value for money across a variety of sectors Yup this. I went in for a cardiac stress test a few months ago. Less than 30 minutes in a room with a treadmill, an ekg machine and a low-mid level technician. $10k.
  - ipaddr 1y ago
    What's the pressure in the system keeping the price down? Many could supply a treadmill and ekg machine for a few hundred.
- theossuary 1y ago
  If you include things directly related to, but not classified as defense spending, like veterans benefits, VA, and the cost of foreign bases; the military is about ~20% of the total US budget. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2025-PER/pdf/BUDGET-2025-PER-6-1-1.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BUDGET-2025-PER/pdf/BUDG...

layoric 1y ago

And who is on the other side of that debt? And how did it get there?

MattGaiser 1y ago

America spends a greater percentage of government money on healthcare than many systems with universal healthcare. Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Affairs and Military medical spending are about 7% of GDP. Add another 1-3% and you would be ahead of almost everyone. And that would still be a savings of 7% of GDP. Not providing universal healthcare is entirely a political cocktail of wasting the money, letting big corporations loot it with tactics like using many partial vials of medicine instead of a full vial, letting the medical professional groups stuff up the pipeline of medical practitioners, and electing members who did all of the above to Congress.

erentz 1y ago

Taxing the land and removing zoning limits on it is the big hurdle.

jibal 1y ago

That is not how macroeconomics works.

ekianjo 1y ago
What does that even mean? Care to elaborate?

jimnotgym 1y ago

Debt to who? If every country is in debt who is the creditor? Mars? But you actually said every major country is in debt, so do all the major countries owe money to um...minor countries? Perhaps it is not the country that is in debt at all, but the government? In which case it must owe money to entities like people and corporations. The government has powers to take money from entities in its jurisdiction and pay its debts, it is called taxation. In fact since the money is issued by the government in the first place, you could consider a token of government debt is actually a token meant to pay your taxes with. By lending money to the government you receive interest, or in other words a discount off your future tax. All very neat, and why a government being in debt is no reason for it to not be able to pay for things. In fact you might argue that government debt takes money out of the economy, so keeping inflation down. This means the government can spend more without causing inflation. If a government borrows a dollar and spends that dollar, there is the same amount of dollars circulating. However if it borrows it off someone who is hoarding it, and spends it then you create gdp growth. Magic. Perhaps it's time to get past puritanical hatred of debt?