4 ms·

Fortunately, once we impose a wealth tax on corporations we can solve this. Billionaire corporations should not exist.

pjc50 8mo ago
I don't think the problems of US corporations are due to being over-capitalized, they're all to do with interactions with the political and media sphere plus unnecessary conflict with the staff.
- renewiltord 8mo ago
  If no corporation is allowed more than 1 million dollars (10 years of median income) then 10 average people can counter a single corporation. That’s a good ratio.
  - pjc50 8mo ago
    It's also impossible to have a larger business than a restaurant, or almost any kind of technological or manufacturing industry. The limited liability corporation has existed for hundreds of years for a very good reason. Heck, even things like shipping, the oldest insured industry, become impossible. Corporations used to have minimum capital requirements that were roughly in the region of a year's average income. https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/media/Annual-Reports/English/DB14-Chapters/DB14-Why-are-minimum-capital-requirements.pdf https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/medi... ("corporation has too much money" and "individual has too much money" are different problems; Elon Musk is a problem in the way that Apple isn't)
    - renewiltord 8mo ago
      And has life gotten better in those years? These days Elon Musk and Sundar Pichai are stealing all of our work. Back in the day, a father could take his kids on a grand tour of Europe and discuss philosophy in the cafes of Vienna all on a single income.
      - tekla 8mo ago
        > And has life gotten better in those years? Almost immeasurably better
        renewiltord 8mo ago
        In the 1800s almost no one lived in their cars. These days thousands of people do.
b112 8mo ago
That's too arbitrary, and you say that as if a billion dollars is a lot of money. It's not. There was a time when millionaires were considered 'rich'. Now that's just a retiree, in most housing markets, who's paid off a house. Or even a townhome... and in some places, a condo! It doesn't matter "whether it should" cost that much, that's irrelevant for my example. The point is, being a millionaire isn't a big deal. It's common. It doesn't mean wealthy. Likewise when a company is large, and has infrastructure all over the world, and is worth much of a T, a B is nothing. Cash reserves in the billions is really not all that much, just fiscal prudence. An alternate is that "banks should get free money, by forcing all companies to borrow money for capital projects". Because if you tax companies for "wealth", then they'll just spend all that capital on loan payments. I feel people have such weird ideas about taxation. People see "oh no, someone has free money!" then get excited and want to tax. What? The goal of taxation isn't "take money from anyone we can", nor is it 'wealth redistribution', it's instead 'how to pay for joint projects' that all of society benefits from. Losing track of that last bit, is when people stop asking "should we tax" and instead say "they have money, so tax"
- mcherm 8mo ago
  You write: > The goal of taxation isn't "take money from anyone we can", nor is it 'wealth redistribution', it's instead 'how to pay for joint projects' that all of society benefits from. But I think the author of the comment you were replying to had a different goal in mind. I think their goal was "prevent corporations from getting too big". We can and should debate whether that is a goal we should be trying to achieve, but if it is then progressive taxation for companies might be a way to achieve it.
  - b112 8mo ago
    We might presume that was the goal, yet it wasn't explicitly stated. And many have a goal of generic wealth redistribution, and will inject such into any conversation about large companies. One might note the unrestrained concern about fluid capital acquisition, in the post I replied to. It's not having billions in infrastructure that was cited, nor having a large number of employees, both metrics of size, but instead having fluid, unused capital. If we wish to constrain upon size, there needs to be nuance, conjoined with the specific industry, and even sub-industry. Some capital equipment costs can be enormous. Should we work to prevent financing such via stored profit? Should we work to force companies to finance, then pay off, just to feed the banks, rather than store and then spend? Should we tax so that "big ideas" may never occur? I think far more would be gained by ensuring taxation just stays fair between smaller and larger company structures. There's a lot of book-keeping that can be done as a large company, to hide profits, that cannot be done when you're a small mom and pop.

pjc50 8mo ago

I don't think the problems of US corporations are due to being over-capitalized, they're all to do with interactions with the political and media sphere plus unnecessary conflict with the staff.

renewiltord 8mo ago
If no corporation is allowed more than 1 million dollars (10 years of median income) then 10 average people can counter a single corporation. That’s a good ratio.
- pjc50 8mo ago
  It's also impossible to have a larger business than a restaurant, or almost any kind of technological or manufacturing industry. The limited liability corporation has existed for hundreds of years for a very good reason. Heck, even things like shipping, the oldest insured industry, become impossible. Corporations used to have minimum capital requirements that were roughly in the region of a year's average income. https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/media/Annual-Reports/English/DB14-Chapters/DB14-Why-are-minimum-capital-requirements.pdf https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/medi... ("corporation has too much money" and "individual has too much money" are different problems; Elon Musk is a problem in the way that Apple isn't)
  - renewiltord 8mo ago
    And has life gotten better in those years? These days Elon Musk and Sundar Pichai are stealing all of our work. Back in the day, a father could take his kids on a grand tour of Europe and discuss philosophy in the cafes of Vienna all on a single income.
    - tekla 8mo ago
      > And has life gotten better in those years? Almost immeasurably better
      - renewiltord 8mo ago
        In the 1800s almost no one lived in their cars. These days thousands of people do.

b112 8mo ago

That's too arbitrary, and you say that as if a billion dollars is a lot of money. It's not. There was a time when millionaires were considered 'rich'. Now that's just a retiree, in most housing markets, who's paid off a house. Or even a townhome... and in some places, a condo! It doesn't matter "whether it should" cost that much, that's irrelevant for my example. The point is, being a millionaire isn't a big deal. It's common. It doesn't mean wealthy. Likewise when a company is large, and has infrastructure all over the world, and is worth much of a T, a B is nothing. Cash reserves in the billions is really not all that much, just fiscal prudence. An alternate is that "banks should get free money, by forcing all companies to borrow money for capital projects". Because if you tax companies for "wealth", then they'll just spend all that capital on loan payments. I feel people have such weird ideas about taxation. People see "oh no, someone has free money!" then get excited and want to tax. What? The goal of taxation isn't "take money from anyone we can", nor is it 'wealth redistribution', it's instead 'how to pay for joint projects' that all of society benefits from. Losing track of that last bit, is when people stop asking "should we tax" and instead say "they have money, so tax"

mcherm 8mo ago
You write: > The goal of taxation isn't "take money from anyone we can", nor is it 'wealth redistribution', it's instead 'how to pay for joint projects' that all of society benefits from. But I think the author of the comment you were replying to had a different goal in mind. I think their goal was "prevent corporations from getting too big". We can and should debate whether that is a goal we should be trying to achieve, but if it is then progressive taxation for companies might be a way to achieve it.
- b112 8mo ago
  We might presume that was the goal, yet it wasn't explicitly stated. And many have a goal of generic wealth redistribution, and will inject such into any conversation about large companies. One might note the unrestrained concern about fluid capital acquisition, in the post I replied to. It's not having billions in infrastructure that was cited, nor having a large number of employees, both metrics of size, but instead having fluid, unused capital. If we wish to constrain upon size, there needs to be nuance, conjoined with the specific industry, and even sub-industry. Some capital equipment costs can be enormous. Should we work to prevent financing such via stored profit? Should we work to force companies to finance, then pay off, just to feed the banks, rather than store and then spend? Should we tax so that "big ideas" may never occur? I think far more would be gained by ensuring taxation just stays fair between smaller and larger company structures. There's a lot of book-keeping that can be done as a large company, to hide profits, that cannot be done when you're a small mom and pop.