5 ms·

If you think income inequality is bad now - imagine how much power/money/prestige/knowledge a 400 year old Sergey Brin would have. The rich getting exponentiall

by defen 12y ago

If you think income inequality is bad now - imagine how much power/money/prestige/knowledge a 400 year old Sergey Brin would have. The rich getting exponentially richer.

josephschmoe 12y ago
We have a pretty strong reliance on the estate tax for situations like these. I imagine if longevity were discovered, that would change to another kind of wealth tax within 10 years.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  That depends to a large extent of who will be in a position to influence those laws and at a guess the uber-rich would be very well placed for that.
- Brakenshire 12y ago
  Does the estate tax actually work in the US? Our equivalent in Britain appears to be a joke - anyone with a reasonable amount of money can just hire accountants to find some trivial way around it. I think it's probably the most important tax, in terms of social equity - if you can easily pass down all your wealth from one generation to another, there are no wealth taxes, and capital reliably grows faster than the general economy, that is an obvious formula for the creation of an aristocracy - but I don't know whether it's compatible with the global financial system. Or perhaps it's just British politicians are particularly lackluster on cracking down on obvious avoidance schemes.
  - jhulla 12y ago
    Not really. Estate taxes on large inheritances represent a tiny fraction of the overall federal tax revenue. There are many techniques for circumventing/minimizing the tax. Law firms and accountants whose sole purpose it is to legally minimize this tax exist in every major American city.
  - nostromo 12y ago
    Estate tax in the US only hits the upper-middle class. The rich avoid it entirely. What makes my blood boil is that politicians that support raising the estate tax use trusts to avoid paying it. People like the Clintons: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-17/wealthy-clintons-use-trusts-to-limit-estate-tax-they-back http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-17/wealthy-cl... They're not alone... The Kennedys, the Pelosis, even Noam Chomsky is set up to avoid paying the estate tax! http://www.hoover.org/research/noam-chomsky-closet-capitalist http://www.hoover.org/research/noam-chomsky-closet-capitalis...
- copsarebastards 12y ago
  You have a pretty wild imagination there. The rich are making huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us now, and paying little taxes. What makes you think that longevity would change that?
  - Shivetya 12y ago
    People make this mistake all the time. The rich are paying the vast majority of all taxes paid, whether by income or property purchases. What isn't taxed is accumulated wealth and it should not be. The US has one of the most progressive systems in the world, one that harms competitiveness of businesses as well. The simplest solution is to move from income to taxing spending. We have had the technology for tens of years where we can send people assistance, pension, and medical payments. Hence the technology to refund a percentage below the tax threshold exists. I am loathe to use the name Fair Tax as it has been demonized by many, but note the bulk of this resistance is through political parties sponsoring groups and "think tanks" to do so. The reason is simple, a single flat/fair/etc tax on all purchases and service buys removes a lot of power from government. It would not be easy to switch too but in the long term it would remove the biggest burden to the countries economy which is the whimsy of those in charge. Estate taxes are just evil. You got me when I earned it, how dare you take it from family just because you decide it was no longer ours once one person dies. Hence a consumption tax replacing all these taxes would be far better.
    - copsarebastards 12y ago
      > People make this mistake all the time. The rich are paying the vast majority of all taxes paid, whether by income or property purchases. This is true, but when you compare the percentages of the taxes that they pay to the percentage of the income that they enjoy, you'll find that they are paying a smaller percentage of the taxes than they are enjoying the benefits of income. And that's reported income: there are plenty of legal loopholes that allow the rich to legally avoid reporting large portions of their income. > What isn't taxed is accumulated wealth and it should not be. I agree with this, but this is used as an excuse for not taxing investments as highly--which doesn't make sense. Income is income is income--it shouldn't matter if that income comes from work or capital gains. > The US has one of the most progressive systems in the world, one that harms competitiveness of businesses as well. The US is one of the least progressive systems in the developed world. Sure, we're more progressive than Somalia, but that's to be expected. > The simplest solution is to move from income to taxing spending. The richest spend the smallest percentage of their income and therefore would be taxed the least percentage. I'm not sure what mental gymnastics you're doing to make this make sense in your head but it doesn't make sense anywhere else. Also, income tax doesn't dis-incentivize anything: there will always be an incentive to make more money. But a spending tax would dis-incentivize spending--which would be terrible for the economy. For someone who earlier was complaining that our tax system hurts the competitiveness of business, I'm not sure what makes you think a tax system that encourages dragon-like hoarding of wealth would hurt the competitiveness of business: it would, if anything, mean that people simply avoid doing business at all. > We have had the technology for tens of years where we can send people assistance, pension, and medical payments. Hence the technology to refund a percentage below the tax threshold exists. Okay, this could work, but why would we tax people just to refund them? > The reason is simple, a single flat/fair/etc tax on all purchases and service buys removes a lot of power from government. That's true, but it moves that power squarely into the hands of large corporations that are even less answerable to the people who their actions affect. I don't like governments any more than the next person, but I do like them more than giant corporations whose only morality is greed. At least a democratic republic has incentives to appear somewhat moral some of the time. Corporations have no such incentive. > You got me when I earned it, how dare you take it from family just because you decide it was no longer ours once one person dies. Ah yes, it's really important that we keep the wealth in the hands of a few people who were born into it. We wouldn't want to incentivize work, innovation, or progress, now would we!
- bduerst 12y ago
  Somehow I doubt something like that would come to pass. Just look at the ineffectual polarization on eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy.
JoshTriplett 12y ago
And if this is the kind of problem they're wielding that power/money/prestige/knowledge to solve at 40, imagine what they could be working on at 400. If you're going to say that people ought to keep dying, by the billions, as they are today, go ahead and say that; don't dance around it.
- puranjay 12y ago
  For every Sergey Brin, don't forget that there is also a Rupert Murdoch and a Donald Trump. Do you really want an immortal Rupert Murdoch running around in 2550?
  - aetherson 12y ago
    If it means that I can also be running around in 2550? Fuck yeah I do. If I'm going to be long dead? Well, I guess that'll be someone else's problem. I agree that radical life extension will result in increased inequality and an ageless aristocracy. And that would be a problem. It's just much less of a problem than "everyone I know and love (and me) dying."
  - noir_lord 12y ago
    I don't really want a mortal Rupert Murdoch running around now. That dude is so close to evil they based a bond villain on him.
- rsync 12y ago
  "If you're going to say that people ought to keep dying, by the billions, as they are today, go ahead and say that; don't dance around it." People ought to keep dying, by the billions, if that is required to keep the organism of humanity alive and healthy. Cells in your body have programmed senescence - when that mechanism fails (cancer, etc.) the entire organism (you) is at risk. What if the species-level analogy is true ? I hope that's not the case because I, personally, would like to live a few hundred extra years. However it is ill conceived to frame the debate as a simple dichotomy between bright shiny extropians and grumpy luddites who are happy to die.
Dirlewanger 12y ago
Extremely simplified, but scenarios you described will effectively cause civilization's progress to slow (and probably stall) because the very people that have the means to invest in prolonging their lives are the very ones that should not be living forever. For humanity's sake anyway.

by defen 12y ago

If you think income inequality is bad now - imagine how much power/money/prestige/knowledge a 400 year old Sergey Brin would have. The rich getting exponentially richer.

josephschmoe 12y ago

We have a pretty strong reliance on the estate tax for situations like these. I imagine if longevity were discovered, that would change to another kind of wealth tax within 10 years.

jacquesm 12y ago
That depends to a large extent of who will be in a position to influence those laws and at a guess the uber-rich would be very well placed for that.
Brakenshire 12y ago
Does the estate tax actually work in the US? Our equivalent in Britain appears to be a joke - anyone with a reasonable amount of money can just hire accountants to find some trivial way around it. I think it's probably the most important tax, in terms of social equity - if you can easily pass down all your wealth from one generation to another, there are no wealth taxes, and capital reliably grows faster than the general economy, that is an obvious formula for the creation of an aristocracy - but I don't know whether it's compatible with the global financial system. Or perhaps it's just British politicians are particularly lackluster on cracking down on obvious avoidance schemes.
- jhulla 12y ago
  Not really. Estate taxes on large inheritances represent a tiny fraction of the overall federal tax revenue. There are many techniques for circumventing/minimizing the tax. Law firms and accountants whose sole purpose it is to legally minimize this tax exist in every major American city.
- nostromo 12y ago
  Estate tax in the US only hits the upper-middle class. The rich avoid it entirely. What makes my blood boil is that politicians that support raising the estate tax use trusts to avoid paying it. People like the Clintons: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-17/wealthy-clintons-use-trusts-to-limit-estate-tax-they-back http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-06-17/wealthy-cl... They're not alone... The Kennedys, the Pelosis, even Noam Chomsky is set up to avoid paying the estate tax! http://www.hoover.org/research/noam-chomsky-closet-capitalist http://www.hoover.org/research/noam-chomsky-closet-capitalis...
copsarebastards 12y ago
You have a pretty wild imagination there. The rich are making huge amounts of money compared to the rest of us now, and paying little taxes. What makes you think that longevity would change that?
- Shivetya 12y ago
  People make this mistake all the time. The rich are paying the vast majority of all taxes paid, whether by income or property purchases. What isn't taxed is accumulated wealth and it should not be. The US has one of the most progressive systems in the world, one that harms competitiveness of businesses as well. The simplest solution is to move from income to taxing spending. We have had the technology for tens of years where we can send people assistance, pension, and medical payments. Hence the technology to refund a percentage below the tax threshold exists. I am loathe to use the name Fair Tax as it has been demonized by many, but note the bulk of this resistance is through political parties sponsoring groups and "think tanks" to do so. The reason is simple, a single flat/fair/etc tax on all purchases and service buys removes a lot of power from government. It would not be easy to switch too but in the long term it would remove the biggest burden to the countries economy which is the whimsy of those in charge. Estate taxes are just evil. You got me when I earned it, how dare you take it from family just because you decide it was no longer ours once one person dies. Hence a consumption tax replacing all these taxes would be far better.
  - copsarebastards 12y ago
    > People make this mistake all the time. The rich are paying the vast majority of all taxes paid, whether by income or property purchases. This is true, but when you compare the percentages of the taxes that they pay to the percentage of the income that they enjoy, you'll find that they are paying a smaller percentage of the taxes than they are enjoying the benefits of income. And that's reported income: there are plenty of legal loopholes that allow the rich to legally avoid reporting large portions of their income. > What isn't taxed is accumulated wealth and it should not be. I agree with this, but this is used as an excuse for not taxing investments as highly--which doesn't make sense. Income is income is income--it shouldn't matter if that income comes from work or capital gains. > The US has one of the most progressive systems in the world, one that harms competitiveness of businesses as well. The US is one of the least progressive systems in the developed world. Sure, we're more progressive than Somalia, but that's to be expected. > The simplest solution is to move from income to taxing spending. The richest spend the smallest percentage of their income and therefore would be taxed the least percentage. I'm not sure what mental gymnastics you're doing to make this make sense in your head but it doesn't make sense anywhere else. Also, income tax doesn't dis-incentivize anything: there will always be an incentive to make more money. But a spending tax would dis-incentivize spending--which would be terrible for the economy. For someone who earlier was complaining that our tax system hurts the competitiveness of business, I'm not sure what makes you think a tax system that encourages dragon-like hoarding of wealth would hurt the competitiveness of business: it would, if anything, mean that people simply avoid doing business at all. > We have had the technology for tens of years where we can send people assistance, pension, and medical payments. Hence the technology to refund a percentage below the tax threshold exists. Okay, this could work, but why would we tax people just to refund them? > The reason is simple, a single flat/fair/etc tax on all purchases and service buys removes a lot of power from government. That's true, but it moves that power squarely into the hands of large corporations that are even less answerable to the people who their actions affect. I don't like governments any more than the next person, but I do like them more than giant corporations whose only morality is greed. At least a democratic republic has incentives to appear somewhat moral some of the time. Corporations have no such incentive. > You got me when I earned it, how dare you take it from family just because you decide it was no longer ours once one person dies. Ah yes, it's really important that we keep the wealth in the hands of a few people who were born into it. We wouldn't want to incentivize work, innovation, or progress, now would we!
bduerst 12y ago
Somehow I doubt something like that would come to pass. Just look at the ineffectual polarization on eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthy.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

And if this is the kind of problem they're wielding that power/money/prestige/knowledge to solve at 40, imagine what they could be working on at 400. If you're going to say that people ought to keep dying, by the billions, as they are today, go ahead and say that; don't dance around it.

puranjay 12y ago
For every Sergey Brin, don't forget that there is also a Rupert Murdoch and a Donald Trump. Do you really want an immortal Rupert Murdoch running around in 2550?
- aetherson 12y ago
  If it means that I can also be running around in 2550? Fuck yeah I do. If I'm going to be long dead? Well, I guess that'll be someone else's problem. I agree that radical life extension will result in increased inequality and an ageless aristocracy. And that would be a problem. It's just much less of a problem than "everyone I know and love (and me) dying."
- noir_lord 12y ago
  I don't really want a mortal Rupert Murdoch running around now. That dude is so close to evil they based a bond villain on him.
rsync 12y ago
"If you're going to say that people ought to keep dying, by the billions, as they are today, go ahead and say that; don't dance around it." People ought to keep dying, by the billions, if that is required to keep the organism of humanity alive and healthy. Cells in your body have programmed senescence - when that mechanism fails (cancer, etc.) the entire organism (you) is at risk. What if the species-level analogy is true ? I hope that's not the case because I, personally, would like to live a few hundred extra years. However it is ill conceived to frame the debate as a simple dichotomy between bright shiny extropians and grumpy luddites who are happy to die.

Dirlewanger 12y ago

Extremely simplified, but scenarios you described will effectively cause civilization's progress to slow (and probably stall) because the very people that have the means to invest in prolonging their lives are the very ones that should not be living forever. For humanity's sake anyway.