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Just look at growth rates before Reagan/Thatcher in the US/UK and after. If you take the 30 years before and the 30 years after, you'll see growth actually decr

Just look at growth rates before Reagan/Thatcher in the US/UK and after. If you take the 30 years before and the 30 years after, you'll see growth actually decreased. Obviously this is correlation, but it's somewhat damning to the conservative gospel (dogma?) that lowering taxes somehow automatically produces more growth. Given that we have no clear indicator that raising taxes on wealthy people would reduce growth (really, we have the opposite signal from the historical record), there seems little reason not to pursue greater equality.

rahimnathwani 2mo ago
In most rich countries, the % of income people pay already goes up with income. When you say 'pursue greater equality' do you mean we should keep making the tax system more progressive until everyone's after tax income is equal? If not, what should the shape of the curve be?
- danny_codes 2mo ago
  > In most rich countries, the % of income people pay already goes up with income. Right. But rich people don't have income, so they don't pay any taxes. Our tax code is not progressive at the top. It is progressive for income at the top, but income != accumulation of wealth in a year. Bezos can make $10B in a year and pay $0 tax. In fact he has done literally that for many years. Under the current tax code, he can effectively actually never pay taxes ever. So at the very least we should have a progressive tax code for everyone. I think that's not controversial? As for trying to rebalance wealth, that's a broader discussion. It's pretty clear though that the current system will continue to concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people, until the general population either rebels or becomes effectively peasants. I mean if the growth rate is 2% and capital returns 5% a year.. eventually you're going to get all the assets concentrated in the 0.0001%.

rahimnathwani 2mo ago

In most rich countries, the % of income people pay already goes up with income. When you say 'pursue greater equality' do you mean we should keep making the tax system more progressive until everyone's after tax income is equal? If not, what should the shape of the curve be?

danny_codes 2mo ago
> In most rich countries, the % of income people pay already goes up with income. Right. But rich people don't have income, so they don't pay any taxes. Our tax code is not progressive at the top. It is progressive for income at the top, but income != accumulation of wealth in a year. Bezos can make $10B in a year and pay $0 tax. In fact he has done literally that for many years. Under the current tax code, he can effectively actually never pay taxes ever. So at the very least we should have a progressive tax code for everyone. I think that's not controversial? As for trying to rebalance wealth, that's a broader discussion. It's pretty clear though that the current system will continue to concentrate wealth into the hands of fewer and fewer people, until the general population either rebels or becomes effectively peasants. I mean if the growth rate is 2% and capital returns 5% a year.. eventually you're going to get all the assets concentrated in the 0.0001%.