6 ms·

> Any tax reform that fails to reduce luxury consumption by the rich will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. This is a weird one. I don't think the

> Any tax reform that fails to reduce luxury consumption by the rich will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. This is a weird one. I don't think the problem with rich people is that they consume luxury goods. That's actually a good thing overall. Let them have their megayachts, megacars, golden toilets, etc. Someone has to build those. I think the problem is when they use their unlimited funds to purchase stuff they shouldn't own. Newspapers, TV stations, social media, etc. That kind of power, often flaunted openly (see the bezos scandal when they literally wrote something along the lines of "if you screw with us we have wapo at our disposal") is not something that should be in the hands of one person. Or a family. That's way way way more dangerous to society than them snorting caviar off of models' bodies, or eat gold leaf you won't believe they're not burgers with truffles on top.

unstatusthequo 10mo ago
Do we think news outlets owned by the government or the “warm collective” would be any better at unbiased reporting or not disseminating fake news or unjust influence? Is there any organization or entity structure today that is trustworthy enough to even handle those sorts of organizations. It appears fraud is rampant in our government, so why trust them any more than some random dude? Frankly it seems the odds might be better with one random guy not being on the take.
- joshgachnang 10mo ago
  I think the odds are better if it's not a random guy who also already has a bunch of power (e.g. Bezos with his considerable influence buying up and weaponizing WaPo). I personally think that consolidation of power is a reasonable thing to prevent. I'm not sure how you could block someone like Zuckerberg who started his own new media, other than the government, which as you pointed out has its own issues.
- NitpickLawyer 10mo ago
  I'll be honest, I'm not an expert on this, and I don't have a perfect solution. I just think we should try to do something, even if it's not perfect. There are some professions with codes of conduct. Some are internal, some ar legislated (i.e. fiduciary duty for lawyers, financial advisors, etc). We also have some concepts like public utility and public interest. Maybe we should look there (again, ask the experts I'm sure there are people who study this for a living). Maybe slowly bring in duties for "public interest" related fields. Maybe at the management level. Maybe come up with ownership structures that decouple power from financial incentives (a la voting shares vs. normal shares) and impose them for such businesses. I fully agree with you that gov ownership of media would be a disaster. I'm not proposing that in any way. Just ... better ways to do it than we do today.
- fcantournet 10mo ago
  Historically news outlet run as public service (with sufficient guardrails for autonomy) such as the BBC, PBS, France Television, Arte (naming only those I know well) have produce much better news coverage than the privately owned ones. OTOH the concept of independent public institution and general checks and balances seems to have been entirely forgotten, so maybe that's not a solution for 21st century. An alternative would be communally owned media (50/50 by readership and journalists), with simple direct tax incentive to fund them (equal amounts of $ per person)
  - CaptainJack 10mo ago
    Having first hand experience of all of the named public services, I beg to differ heavily. These corporations tend to be heavily left-leaning, with no real guardrails preventing this. The consequence is pretty biased coverage, under the guise of a "trust-us, we are here for the greater good". Look at the handling of Middle-East by BBC, the Zucman tax at France Television, or the current allegations of fraud in some communities in the US. My current take is that it is really hard to get a fair unbiased coverage, unless you actually state that you will strive to hire and promote both sides. If these corporations had to publish the composition/promotion/pay of their newsroom across the political spectrum (as they do for example by gender), you may start to have fair unbiased coverage. But many journalists working there see it as their job to describe "not the reality as it happens, but rather as it ought to be" (to quote the CEO of France Television). We should acknowledge that people are biased, and measure the balance of biases rather than assert there is no bias because they serve the greater good.
    - tehjoker 10mo ago
      This is a very funny take since all of these stations are anti-communist. This is inter-right wing sectarianism.
      - zozbot234 10mo ago
        So everyone to the right of tankies gets lumped together as "right wing" in your view of the political spectrum? That's not very helpful.
threetonesun 10mo ago
I'm not sure megayachts have no economic downside. They create some jobs, certainly, but if the golden goose is catering to the whims of eccentric billionaires, then collectively we're losing smart and talented people who could be building things like better public transportation, or more reliable and sustainable infrastructure.
- xhkkffbf 10mo ago
  I don't think the lack of talent is preventing us from having good public transportation. Diverting smart folks from yacht building will not eliminate the problems with unions, zoning, or crime to name a few of the issues. These are difficult problems because people and their different desires are involved.
  - netrus 10mo ago
    One city has a millionaire who builds a yacht for 100M dollars in a local shipyard and uses it for holidays. The neighbor city has a millionaire who spends 100M dollars to build 10 ferries he gifts to the city. The general population is clearly better off in the second case, even if it does not matter for the workers in the shipyard.
    - gertlex 10mo ago
      That seems very lucky of the second city. Let's hope we get lucky with some generous billionaires soon! I don't claim that regulations are simple, and incentives couldn't be created to result in infrastructure investment by the wealthy... but I won't hold my breath.
    - xhkkffbf 10mo ago
      Cute gambit to talk about ferries, the one mode of transport that doesn't have insane land-use debates. (Although they do need waterfront property on both ends.) I'll give you a point for that one. But let's be serious. Ferries have a very limited use in only a few cities. Even then, the appeal is limited because they're relatively slow. I submit that the most common result of replacing one yacht with $100m of public transit spending is that the unions and the bureaucracy will eat up the $100m in a few minutes. The theory here is that diverting more smart people into "good" careers like urban planning will be great. But if we look at the last 100 years in the United States, the rise of careers like urban planning have been correlated with an explosion in construction costs. Yet back in the bad old days when there weren't urban planning degrees and only a few effete twits went to college, private capitalism was able to build two big urban transit systems in NYC. No book smart people. Just sandhogs and profit motive. How much did it cost to add just a few stops to the NYC subway over the last two decades?
Taxiomato 10mo ago
[dead]
mattmaroon 10mo ago
That isn’t what he is saying. He is saying that tax reform needs to be progressive, meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. A progressive tax will tax them more when they buy luxury items and thus make them buy fewer luxury items.
- pydry 10mo ago
  >tax reform needs to be progressive, meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. This misses the point. It needs to hit them when they own not when they spend. >A progressive tax will tax them more when they buy luxury items Which still wont be progressive it's the yield bearing assets Jeff Bezos buys which are the main problem not the fancy candlesticks he decorates his house with.
- bigbadfeline 10mo ago
  > meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. The parent of your comment made a pretty good case precisely against this. And it didn't talk about all spending, only about luxury one as exemplified by the following, rather misleading, quote from the OP: >> Any tax reform that fails to reduce luxury consumption by the rich will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. This is wrong and pointing it out is good.
  - zozbot234 10mo ago
    It's not a good argument at all. "Earning" is a socially productive activity, far more so than directing resources towards the making of a huge luxury yacht for private consumption (or similar kinds of luxury spending). There really isn't any good argument for taxing earnings or saved/invested assets per se, as opposed to consumption.
_ZeD_ 10mo ago
The whole idea is to make the rich people poorer, even if just a little. The money taken from 1000 or 2000 rich people may be used for the rest of the 130000 ones
Lendal 10mo ago
Bingo. The guy has a lot of things right, but I was floored when I read "progressive consumption tax" coming from an otherwise well written essay. Consumption taxes are regressive, and no amount of progressive lip stick will make them redistribute sufficiently to achieve the effect he wants. I would say that any tax reform that fails to reduce asset concentration will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. Let Bezos have his newspaper, if that's all he owns. Let him game the system to evade income tax. Fine. The problem is when a very small group of people own all the newspapers plus their original business empires plus their privately owned social media companies, plus their funded PACs, their psyops, etc. All assets must be taxed directly to such an extent that concentrated assets are redistributed naturally through market forces. Tax wealth, not work.
sharts 10mo ago
Why even make a distinction of category spend.
Joker_vD 10mo ago
> Someone has to build those. Well, yes? That means those "someones" are not building something else instead.
- ithkuil 10mo ago
  Yes, sometimes that's indeed an opportunity cost. But it's also a catalyst for making things possible or affordable that otherwise wouldn't be. Many technological progress are first explored in niche and luxury segments and only later fully developed for the masses with mass utility. Space exploration, motor racing sports, military, .... they all can seem like wasteful enterprises and yet a lot of new technologies come from these areas

unstatusthequo 10mo ago

Do we think news outlets owned by the government or the “warm collective” would be any better at unbiased reporting or not disseminating fake news or unjust influence? Is there any organization or entity structure today that is trustworthy enough to even handle those sorts of organizations. It appears fraud is rampant in our government, so why trust them any more than some random dude? Frankly it seems the odds might be better with one random guy not being on the take.

joshgachnang 10mo ago
I think the odds are better if it's not a random guy who also already has a bunch of power (e.g. Bezos with his considerable influence buying up and weaponizing WaPo). I personally think that consolidation of power is a reasonable thing to prevent. I'm not sure how you could block someone like Zuckerberg who started his own new media, other than the government, which as you pointed out has its own issues.
NitpickLawyer 10mo ago
I'll be honest, I'm not an expert on this, and I don't have a perfect solution. I just think we should try to do something, even if it's not perfect. There are some professions with codes of conduct. Some are internal, some ar legislated (i.e. fiduciary duty for lawyers, financial advisors, etc). We also have some concepts like public utility and public interest. Maybe we should look there (again, ask the experts I'm sure there are people who study this for a living). Maybe slowly bring in duties for "public interest" related fields. Maybe at the management level. Maybe come up with ownership structures that decouple power from financial incentives (a la voting shares vs. normal shares) and impose them for such businesses. I fully agree with you that gov ownership of media would be a disaster. I'm not proposing that in any way. Just ... better ways to do it than we do today.
fcantournet 10mo ago
Historically news outlet run as public service (with sufficient guardrails for autonomy) such as the BBC, PBS, France Television, Arte (naming only those I know well) have produce much better news coverage than the privately owned ones. OTOH the concept of independent public institution and general checks and balances seems to have been entirely forgotten, so maybe that's not a solution for 21st century. An alternative would be communally owned media (50/50 by readership and journalists), with simple direct tax incentive to fund them (equal amounts of $ per person)
- CaptainJack 10mo ago
  Having first hand experience of all of the named public services, I beg to differ heavily. These corporations tend to be heavily left-leaning, with no real guardrails preventing this. The consequence is pretty biased coverage, under the guise of a "trust-us, we are here for the greater good". Look at the handling of Middle-East by BBC, the Zucman tax at France Television, or the current allegations of fraud in some communities in the US. My current take is that it is really hard to get a fair unbiased coverage, unless you actually state that you will strive to hire and promote both sides. If these corporations had to publish the composition/promotion/pay of their newsroom across the political spectrum (as they do for example by gender), you may start to have fair unbiased coverage. But many journalists working there see it as their job to describe "not the reality as it happens, but rather as it ought to be" (to quote the CEO of France Television). We should acknowledge that people are biased, and measure the balance of biases rather than assert there is no bias because they serve the greater good.
  - tehjoker 10mo ago
    This is a very funny take since all of these stations are anti-communist. This is inter-right wing sectarianism.
    - zozbot234 10mo ago
      So everyone to the right of tankies gets lumped together as "right wing" in your view of the political spectrum? That's not very helpful.

threetonesun 10mo ago

I'm not sure megayachts have no economic downside. They create some jobs, certainly, but if the golden goose is catering to the whims of eccentric billionaires, then collectively we're losing smart and talented people who could be building things like better public transportation, or more reliable and sustainable infrastructure.

xhkkffbf 10mo ago
I don't think the lack of talent is preventing us from having good public transportation. Diverting smart folks from yacht building will not eliminate the problems with unions, zoning, or crime to name a few of the issues. These are difficult problems because people and their different desires are involved.
- netrus 10mo ago
  One city has a millionaire who builds a yacht for 100M dollars in a local shipyard and uses it for holidays. The neighbor city has a millionaire who spends 100M dollars to build 10 ferries he gifts to the city. The general population is clearly better off in the second case, even if it does not matter for the workers in the shipyard.
  - gertlex 10mo ago
    That seems very lucky of the second city. Let's hope we get lucky with some generous billionaires soon! I don't claim that regulations are simple, and incentives couldn't be created to result in infrastructure investment by the wealthy... but I won't hold my breath.
  - xhkkffbf 10mo ago
    Cute gambit to talk about ferries, the one mode of transport that doesn't have insane land-use debates. (Although they do need waterfront property on both ends.) I'll give you a point for that one. But let's be serious. Ferries have a very limited use in only a few cities. Even then, the appeal is limited because they're relatively slow. I submit that the most common result of replacing one yacht with $100m of public transit spending is that the unions and the bureaucracy will eat up the $100m in a few minutes. The theory here is that diverting more smart people into "good" careers like urban planning will be great. But if we look at the last 100 years in the United States, the rise of careers like urban planning have been correlated with an explosion in construction costs. Yet back in the bad old days when there weren't urban planning degrees and only a few effete twits went to college, private capitalism was able to build two big urban transit systems in NYC. No book smart people. Just sandhogs and profit motive. How much did it cost to add just a few stops to the NYC subway over the last two decades?

Taxiomato 10mo ago

[dead]

mattmaroon 10mo ago

That isn’t what he is saying. He is saying that tax reform needs to be progressive, meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. A progressive tax will tax them more when they buy luxury items and thus make them buy fewer luxury items.

pydry 10mo ago
>tax reform needs to be progressive, meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. This misses the point. It needs to hit them when they own not when they spend. >A progressive tax will tax them more when they buy luxury items Which still wont be progressive it's the yield bearing assets Jeff Bezos buys which are the main problem not the fancy candlesticks he decorates his house with.
bigbadfeline 10mo ago
> meaning it hits rich people more, and it hits them when they spend not when they earn. The parent of your comment made a pretty good case precisely against this. And it didn't talk about all spending, only about luxury one as exemplified by the following, rather misleading, quote from the OP: >> Any tax reform that fails to reduce luxury consumption by the rich will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. This is wrong and pointing it out is good.
- zozbot234 10mo ago
  It's not a good argument at all. "Earning" is a socially productive activity, far more so than directing resources towards the making of a huge luxury yacht for private consumption (or similar kinds of luxury spending). There really isn't any good argument for taxing earnings or saved/invested assets per se, as opposed to consumption.

_ZeD_ 10mo ago

The whole idea is to make the rich people poorer, even if just a little. The money taken from 1000 or 2000 rich people may be used for the rest of the 130000 ones

Lendal 10mo ago

Bingo. The guy has a lot of things right, but I was floored when I read "progressive consumption tax" coming from an otherwise well written essay. Consumption taxes are regressive, and no amount of progressive lip stick will make them redistribute sufficiently to achieve the effect he wants. I would say that any tax reform that fails to reduce asset concentration will completely fail to reduce economic inequality. Let Bezos have his newspaper, if that's all he owns. Let him game the system to evade income tax. Fine. The problem is when a very small group of people own all the newspapers plus their original business empires plus their privately owned social media companies, plus their funded PACs, their psyops, etc. All assets must be taxed directly to such an extent that concentrated assets are redistributed naturally through market forces. Tax wealth, not work.

sharts 10mo ago

Why even make a distinction of category spend.

Joker_vD 10mo ago

> Someone has to build those. Well, yes? That means those "someones" are not building something else instead.

ithkuil 10mo ago
Yes, sometimes that's indeed an opportunity cost. But it's also a catalyst for making things possible or affordable that otherwise wouldn't be. Many technological progress are first explored in niche and luxury segments and only later fully developed for the masses with mass utility. Space exploration, motor racing sports, military, .... they all can seem like wasteful enterprises and yet a lot of new technologies come from these areas