It's not a strawman insofar as there are people who literally say exactly that, and those are the people he's addressing. I agree there are more reasonable discussions to be had about how to distribute wealth for the greatest benefit to society but there are people who believe that if we just tax Jeff Bezos more then the Water Authority in Flint, MI will somehow become more competent.
> It's not a strawman insofar as there are people who literally say exactly that
People oppose billionaires paying low taxes, and the related lack of public investment in bedrock services and infrastructure they need. When a rural area has no hospital, or a city has crumbling roads and transit, yes, people resent enormously wealthy people for whom those are not concerns. People do not, however, oppose their success at building companies that make money.
PG is picking a fight with the least sophisticated form of the anti-billionaire argument (i.e. "billionaires suck"), which is beneath him. I get that it's easier to do that than than argue over how the structural issues that allow massive wealth accumulation also undermine the foundations that markets and societies are built on, but it's really beneath PG to choose such a trite argument to oppose.
> if we just tax Jeff Bezos more then the Water Authority in Flint, MI will somehow become more competent.
That, however, is a strawman. Nobody suggests that at all. People who support more progressive taxation point to things like the New Deal and the strong progressive taxation coupled with public investment in infrastructure and education that propelled the United States forward.
> That, however, is a strawman. Nobody suggests that at all. People who support more progressive taxation point to things like the New Deal and the strong progressive taxation coupled with public investment in infrastructure and education that propelled the United States forward.
You're making that exact argument in fancier words. "strong progressive taxation coupled with public investment in infrastructure" implies that the problem is not enough money. So take more money from people who have lots of money and let the government spend it.
The US spends more per-pupil on education than almost every other country [1], with worse outcomes in most cases. The corrosion inhibitors that would have prevented the Flint water crisis cost $140 per day. That's not a misplaced decimal point. That's One Hundred and Forty dollars. Do we need to revamp the entire US tax system to come up with a 140 bucks? No. The money is there, what's needed is some competence in how it's applied.
Maybe the government has enough money, maybe it doesn't. It's the structural disparity that Jeff Bezos' wealth represents that is the problem. His wealth also gives him disproportionate power to shape the incentives of the government, the economy, and the media narrative. Taxation is the proper remedy for breaking this power. We won't know what's possible until we stop letting barons write the laws.
The general structure is that people are allowed to own the things they make. If you start a company, it belongs to you. Your company might become very valuable and mine might not, which might create some disparity.
There are other systems, like where everybody owns everything, but historically when you allow it so one person can own something that someone else has to create it doesn't work out very well. People don't have any incentive to make things if they can just own things that other people make.
The general structure is that all businesses rely on the government to maintain the courts and enforce contracts, and they are all built upon public commons. Taxation is not theft, pay your share.
Entrepreneurialism is at an all-time low in this low-tax, finance-happy environment, so I don't see how you can conclude that low taxes are good for creativity. It seems like it's been pretty good for concentration - low taxes means more money for acquisitions and buybacks.
I never said taxation was theft or that taxes shouldn't exist. I said that private ownership of property was good for creativity, this is independent of taxation. You can pay taxes and still own things. Indeed, we do.
You seem to be proposing that taxation is an unalloyed good and that more taxation is always better - that all problems are the result of insufficient taxation. Do you have any actual plan for how to spend all this money you propose to collect in taxes, or do you just want to throw more money at the people who are currently doing a bad job with the money they already have?
That seems like a straw man of my position. Suggesting that we tax the wealth of the richest person in the country is not a radical idea, nor is it equivalent to "taxation is an unalloyed good". Likewise, nothing I said conflicts with the idea that private ownership of property is good, generally. Just that inequality is bad, and taxation is a primary way to address it. If you don't think taxation is theft, then it's just negotiating the number, and I don't understand what point you are trying to make other than "government bad".
> Do you have any actual plan for how to spend all this money you propose to collect in taxes, or do you just want to throw more money at the people who are currently doing a bad job with the money they already have?
Sure, but I'm not running for office, because "small government conservatives" and their presumptions make it absolutely miserable for anyone who would do a good job of it. You can burn the money in a furnace for all I care, as long as the ratio between the richest and poorest goes down substantially.
> You can burn the money in a furnace for all I care, as long as the ratio between the richest and poorest goes down substantially.
How does making everyone worse off make things better? For example, inequality skyrocketed in China after they liberalized their economy [0]. Why would it be better for everyone to be equally miserable and starving? I really don't understand this mentality.
Why would burning some marginal percentage of the very wealthiest individuals' money make everyone worse off? Seems like it would just put a slight damper on the inflation rate of country estates and enormous yachts.
(Heck, for all intents and purposes given the high marginal tax rates in many countries and the enormous amounts of waste that those governments are guilty of we're already doing just that, and the last 80ish years of human history have been pretty darn good!)
Taxation to pay 1. “your fair share of the public commons”, which all big businesses benefit from, is very different from 2. taxation to reduce poverty, which is also different from 3. taxation to eliminate rich people.
Am I wrong in sensing that you believe in a bit of #3?
> Taxation is the proper remedy for breaking this power.
No, it's one possible remedy, and historically it doesn't appear to have worked very well. The fundamental problem with taxation is that governments are even worse than individual billionaires like Jeff Bezos at choosing what to do with large amounts of money.
Another possible remedy is to reduce the power of governments, so there is less value to be captured by influencing them. IIRC pg recommended this fix in one of his (fairly early) essays.
> We won't know what's possible until we stop letting barons write the laws.
If you think taxation stops this from happening, I have some sad news for you.
> The fundamental problem with taxation is that governments are even worse than individual billionaires like Jeff Bezos at choosing what to do with large amounts of money.
Citation needed. When Governments had lots of revenue, they assist the population with public services, which tend to benefit the lowest stratum of society the most. But the cumulative effect is to raise the quality of life of society as a whole. There is little evidence that billionaires have that kind of effect on society as a whole (outside of a few notable exceptions like Gates).
Having a billionaire class that has so much resources that they can influence public policy and Government... is an even worse outcome, and could be considered the only reason to dismantle this class. The Government is elected by the people (in a democracy) and having mini-kings is absolutely detrimental to the health of our democracy.
How Effective is Government Welfare Compared to Private Charity? [0]
“[Government] income redistribution agencies are estimated to absorb about two-thirds of each dollar budgeted to them in overhead costs, and in some cases as much as three-quarters of each dollar. Using government data, Robert L. Woodson (1989, p. 63) calculated that, on average, 70 cents of each dollar budgeted for government assistance goes not to the poor, but to the members of the welfare bureaucracy and others serving the poor. Michael Tanner (1996, p. 136 n. 18) cites regional studies supporting this 70/30 split.
“In contrast, administrative and other operating costs in private charities absorb, on average, only one-third or less of each dollar donated, leaving the other two-thirds (or more) to be delivered to recipients. Charity Navigator, www.charitynavigator.org the newest of several private sector organizations that rate charities by various criteria and supply that information to the public on their web sites, found that, as of 2004, 70 percent of charities they rated spent at least 75 percent of their budgets on the programs and services they exist to provide, and 90 percent spent at least 65 percent. The median administrative expense among all charities in their sample was only 10.3 percent.”
Later on Edwards adds: “In fact, the average cost of private charity generally is almost certainly lower than the one-quarter to one-third estimated by Charity Navigator and other private sector charity rating services…” and tells why.
The bottom line: Government spends about 70% of tax dollars to get 30% of tax dollars to the poor. The private sector does the opposite, spending about 30% or less to get 70% of aid to the poor.
> Citation needed. When Governments had lots of revenue, they assist the population with public services, which tend to benefit the lowest stratum of society the most. But the cumulative effect is to raise the quality of life of society as a whole.
> > Citation needed. When Governments had lots of revenue, they assist the population with public services, which tend to benefit the lowest stratum of society the most. But the cumulative effect is to raise the quality of life of society as a whole.
> Citation needed.
That's actually fairly uncontroversial. Small government fetishists insist that left unfettered the flourishing market and voluntary charity would more than make up the resulting gap, but any evidence to the contrary is generally taken as proof that we just haven't lowered taxes and deregulated enough.
The defense of Communism that it hasn't actually been tried for real yet doesn't make any more sense when applied in turn to laissez faire capitalism.
On the other hand, we have quite a bit of data about the broad middle ground, and it is pretty clear that the current settings for the US economy are that taxes are currently too low and not progressive enough (how much is a matter of some debate), and that we probably need to revert to Reagan-era levels if only to be able to afford to refresh and replace crumbling public infrastructure that has been a drag on the economy for a while (because putting off maintenance doesn't save money in the long run) and step up enforcement of existing regulations.
> Small government fetishists insist that left unfettered the flourishing market and voluntary charity would more than make up the resulting gap
I'm not making this claim. I'm making the claim that the government does not actually provide all the benefits you are assuming it does, so the "gap" you speak of, if it exists at all, is much smaller than you think it is.
I think most people simply aren't aware of how much inefficiency there is in government services or how much of their tax money does not actually go to benefit the people they think the government is helping.
If all we expected the government to do was to provide basic national defense (not aggressive foreign wars, just keep the US itself from being attacked), enforce basic common sense regulations (laws against obvious crimes like murder and regulations against obvious bad things like dumping toxic waste in rivers), and maintain basic public infrastructure (roads, bridges, public buildings, basic utilities, national parks), we would not have nearly as much inefficiency. The problem is that we expect the government to do much, much, much more than that, and the government does all those other things so inefficiently that, on net, it would be better if we left them to private entities.
I'd like to point out that regulations against dumping toxic waste into rivers (or enforcement thereof) is exactly the sort of government service that is most often targeted by the folks who are pushing for deregulation.
Anyway, feel free to advocate for greater efficiency in government, by whatever means, including public-private partnerships or full-on privatization. More discussion of what services are needed by society and how best to provide them is generally a good thing.
Same exact line of thinking too. They figured if they taxed "the rich" they would get more money.
To this day they have probably lost untold amounts because it essentially killed their markets. You would have to do some modeling but all else holding true, they've missed out on decades capital gains taxes that just don't exist anymore because of that FTT.
> What happens if taxing the rich doesn't fix it and actually makes things worse?
How is it going to be worse if Jeff Bezos is worth $50,000,000,000 instead of $180,000,000,000? I don't get it - America doesn't have a Communist party, what are you picturing happening here?
> Disproportionate to what?
Me. If he wants a policy to change, he has lobbyists and the Washington Post. If I want to change a policy I have to spend my whole life building a coalition. That's unacceptable for a democracy or a fair capitalist economy.
> How is it going to be worse if Jeff Bezos is worth $50,000,000,000 instead of $180,000,000,000?
Hmm, how would it be if Amazon stock dropped in price by 73%? Actually, I think that would be pretty bad. Ironically, least of all for Jeff Bezos. How good would it be for you if your 401k dropped by that much?
Or maybe you're thinking we could just confiscate the stock, or force him to sell it. Sell it to whom? Other billionaires? And do you think this wouldn't have an effect on the stock prices (i.e. people's retirement funds) and availability of capital (i.e. money to pay people's salaries)?
I'd be fine, I'm not that rich. I'm also not that heavily invested in Amazon, so I'd be even more fine.
Again, how will things be worse if Jeff Bezos was worth $50,000,000,000 instead of $180,000,000,000? That's what was supposed - that it would make things worse if we made him pay a fair rate to the American people for helping maintain his wealth.
Jeff Bezos does not exist in a vacuum. There is no world in which you reduce Bezos' net worth by that much without affecting the rest of the economy. I already mentioned a couple possible effects. I'm sure there are many others including ones that nobody will think of until after they happen.
I also don't see how you talk about fair while proposing to enact a special tax to target one specific individual. That seems more like a personal vendetta than an economic policy.
It's strange you won't answer the question. I haven't prescribed what would happen to the money, simply that the rich need to take a haircut to make things more even. If you also pursue a more robust, less concentrated economy more generally, you could certainly invest the money in entrepreneurship, small farms, improved IT infrastructure, etc., etc. That would do more good for the economy than letting Jeff launch it into space. Again, we've done this kind of thing before, and the billionaires and their defenders ho-hummed the same tune, and all that happened was the emergence of the middle class and fairly broad economic prosperity. We've also see what happens when we let the concentration of wealth continue.
> That seems more like a personal vendetta than an economic policy.
Won't somebody please think of the poor billionaire! I'm using him as an example, because he's first on the list, but feel free to substitute whatever name or array of names you want if it makes it more palatable for you. FWIW, there is historical precedent for passing a tax law targeting the single richest person in the country (John D. Rockerfeller at the time).
> I haven't prescribed what would happen to the money, simply that the rich need to take a haircut to make things more even
Ah, we've reached the crux of the problem. You are not concerned with making things good only with making them even. This is just crab mentality[1]. Someone else has more than you, so you need to pull them down. Or perhaps you've conflated the two and think that if things are even, they will necessarily be good, or at least better than they are when they're uneven. Let me assure you, it is entirely possible for things to become more even and also have everyone be worse off than they were before.
> If you also pursue a more robust, less concentrated economy more generally, you could certainly invest the money in entrepreneurship, small farms, improved IT infrastructure, etc., etc.
Sure, we can invest in those things. We can also pursue policies (like antitrust enforcement) that would naturally result in less inequality without distorting the market by confiscating and destroying wealth when it reaches some arbitrary number.
> Won't somebody please think of the poor billionaire!
I stated early on that Bezos and other billionaires would be the people least hurt by what you're proposing. They're not who I'm concerned about. Bezos doesn't have $180,000,000,000 or however much he's currently worth. He has shares representing about 13% of Amazon. Now they're worth that much. Ten years ago they were worth a lot less. 20 years ago they were practically worthless. It's the same shares. The market just collectively decided they're worth a lot more now. He didn't take anything from you, do you see?
It's not clear when you're proposing that his shares should only be worth $50B instead of $180B whether that you mean you want to take away a portion of them, or just limit how much they can be worth, or what. Generally stocks are priced based on how much money investors think the company will make in the future. In the aggregate, the price of the stock market overall is our belief in how well the economy will do in the future. When you propose that the value of this should be limited, you're proposing that the economy - everyone - should be collectively poorer in the future. This does happen sometimes, we call it recessions, depressions, etc. It generally does not bode well for the poorest people (billionaires are usually fine though).
But hey, who cares if we're all poor right? As long as nobody has any more than anybody else it must necessarily be good.
> Again, we've done this kind of thing before, and the billionaires and their defenders ho-hummed the same tune, and all that happened was the emergence of the middle class and fairly broad economic prosperity.
It's true the New Deal happened and then a strong middle class emerged some years later, that doesn't mean one caused the other. There was a little thing called World War II as well, and the rest of the productive capacity of the industrial world being destroyed with only America left may have contributed to the abundance of high-paying manufacturing jobs, just a little.
> FWIW, there is historical precedent for passing a tax law targeting the single richest person in the country (John D. Rockerfeller at the time).
Yeah, there's a historical precedent for burning witches at the stake too, that doesn't mean it's a good thing.
> Ah, we've reached the crux of the problem. You are not concerned with making things good only with making them even. This is just crab mentality[1]. Someone else has more than you, so you need to pull them down. Or perhaps you've conflated the two and think that if things are even, they will necessarily be good, or at least better than they are when they're uneven. Let me assure you, it is entirely possible for things to become more even and also have everyone be worse off than they were before.
That's another assumption, I'm concerned about both. You still haven't answered the question of what is going to be harmed by reducing the wealth of every billionaire by 73%. I see you have concerns about government ineptly wasting the money, but even if they did, it's not clear how that would be materially worse for the average American. The worst way the government could spend that money would be to hand it back to the billionaires, which would put us back in the current situation. I'm open to an alternative, but I don't want assurances. I want historical examples, preferably ones that occur in the United States. Raising the specter of Communism is useless demagoguery, since there is no serious constituency for it.
> Sure, we can invest in those things. We can also pursue policies (like antitrust enforcement) that would naturally result in less inequality without distorting the market by confiscating and destroying wealth when it reaches some arbitrary number.
War anti-trust enforcement! You have to do both though. You don't have to destroy wealth, you can also redistribute it in various ways. Even George W. Bush was a fan of the ole' stimulus check. I also hear the people would really like a public healthcare option - investing in that might spur some economic growth.
> It's true the New Deal happened and then a strong middle class emerged some years later, that doesn't mean one caused the other. There was a little thing called World War II as well, and the rest of the productive capacity of the industrial world being destroyed with only America left may have contributed to the abundance of high-paying manufacturing jobs, just a little.
Well, we tried doing it the way the laissez-faire way after Europe destroyed it's labor capacity in WW1, and it resulted in the Great Depression. We tried the New Deal, fought a Europe-destroying war, followed by more Keynesian policy, and it resulted in prosperity (including the areas rebuilt under the Marshall Plan). I'm just some guy, but I'm going to go with my gut and say we should do the thing that worked, over the economic ideology that has failed the average American every time it has been trotted out.
> Yeah, there's a historical precedent for burning witches at the stake too, that doesn't mean it's a good thing.
Now you are just being hysterical. Forcing Jeff Bezos to live on a mere $50,000,000,000 is hardly burning him at the stake.
> That's another assumption, I'm concerned about both.
Not an assumption at all. From your response to my other comment: "You can burn the money in a furnace for all I care, as long as the ratio between the richest and poorest goes down substantially." I'm really trying, and I can't find any other way to interpret that than your primary, if not only concern, is just making rich people poorer.
> You still haven't answered the question of what is going to be harmed by reducing the wealth of every billionaire by 73%.
You still haven't explained exactly how you would make this happen. Forced stock sales? Government mandated price caps on stocks? What? Is Bezos supposed to write a check for $130B? You realize it's not sitting in cash in a bank account, right?
But more importantly, you are the one proposing a radical change to the status quo. The onus is on you to prove, not only that the change is not harmful (not at all apparent from historical evidence) but that it will provide some benefit that will outweigh the cost to implement it. I mean a benefit besides "It makes me feel bad when people are richer than me, and I'll get to enjoy some schadenfreude if they get knocked down a peg".
> We tried the New Deal, fought a Europe-destroying war, followed by more Keynesian policy, and it resulted in prosperity (including the areas rebuilt under the Marshall Plan). I'm just some guy, but I'm going to go with my gut and say we should do the thing that worked, over the economic ideology that has failed the average American every time it has been trotted out.
What you are proposing is not the New Deal, nor the Marshall Plan, nor any economic policy that has been tried in the US before. The New Deal did not involve confiscating 73% of the wealth of billionaires (or the inflation-adjusted equivalent). It did not involve taxing unrealized gains on stocks. The US has never had a wealth tax before. Most countries that have had one ended up repealing it because it's expensive to enforce compared to the amount of revenue it brings in and wealthy people, unsurprisingly, are quite capable of moving to another country that doesn't have a wealth tax.
I was exaggerating to make a point on a different comment you made about "government bad". I forgot I was on the internet for a second and couldn't use rhetoric. Rest assured, if you want to take the money from Bezos and invest it in Medicare for All and expanding fiber internet to rural Appalachia, I am 110% onboard.
> You still haven't explained exactly how you would make this happen. Forced stock sales? Government mandated price caps on stocks? What? Is Bezos supposed to write a check for $130B? You realize it's not sitting in cash in a bank account, right?
Assume that Congress can edit a database of every citizens' net worth by legislative fiat. Answer the question about how lessening economic inequality is going to negatively impact the average American.
> But more importantly, you are the one proposing a radical change to the status quo. The onus is on you to prove, not only that the change is not harmful (not at all apparent from historical evidence) but that it will provide some benefit that will outweigh the cost to implement it. I mean a benefit besides "It makes me feel bad when people are richer than me, and I'll get to enjoy some schadenfreude if they get knocked down a peg".
Disagree. I'm proposing a return to a previous status quo that was more broadly equitable. The onus was on the neoliberals to prove the changes they were making in the 80s and 90s weren't harmful. Turns out they were. Again, you are reducing my argument down to my feelings, but I don't personally give a fuck if Jeff Bezos is a ba-zillionaire, so it's not really hitting home - I'll be fine either way. I just think it's bad for society generally when a few jerks with money get to have private space programs in a country with millions in poverty and homeless. I'm not a huge fan of bloody prole revolutions or fascist coups, personally. That's just me.
> What you are proposing is not the New Deal, nor the Marshall Plan, nor any economic policy that has been tried in the US before. The New Deal did not involve confiscating 73% of the wealth of billionaires (or the inflation-adjusted equivalent). It did not involve taxing unrealized gains on stocks. The US has never had a wealth tax before. Most countries that have had one ended up repealing it because it's expensive to enforce compared to the amount of revenue it brings in and wealthy people, unsurprisingly, are quite capable of moving to another country that doesn't have a wealth tax.
Again, I'm not proposing any specific remedy, so you are assigning an argument I haven't made. I'm totally fine with re-appropriating the money, but you seem to really hate the idea of giving the government having any ability to direct funds. I'm diagnosing the problem, and asking what you think would be the negative impact if we simply took away 73% of the wealth each billionaire holds, which you won't answer, because you know the answer is "nothing bad". Many countries aren't the United States. If the billionaires want to try offshoring their money and renouncing their citizenship, I'll trust the (ideally, re-empowered) Treasury and the State of New York to get our money.
> Assume that Congress can edit a database of every citizens' net worth by legislative fiat. Answer the question about how lessening economic inequality is going to negatively impact the average American.
> I'm diagnosing the problem, and asking what you think would be the negative impact if we simply took away 73% of the wealth each billionaire holds, which you won't answer, because you know the answer is "nothing bad".
Ok, in a hypothetical fantasy land where the government has a magic database and they can manually edit anyone's net worth at will and it is further specifically stipulated that this causes nothing bad to happen, then yes, I agree nothing bad happens in that scenario.
Back in the real world, such a thing doesn't exist. So if you want to talk about real things that could actually impact the net worth of billionaires you have to consider what other secondary effects they might have. Here's one: stock market crashes. Billionaires lost a lot of wealth in 2008. In your opinion, was this a generally positive event for the rest of the country or not? Bezos's net worth could easily drop by 73% on Monday without any government intervention at all, do you think that would help anyone?
To the extent that governments do have the ability to manipulate people's net worth via printing money, this has a long history of disastrous consequences like the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, etc. In your hypothetical world where the value of anything can be changed at a whim by a bureaucrat, how would anyone even conduct any business at all? How am I supposed to sell you a bag of potatoes for $5 if tomorrow the government might decide it's "more fair" if my $5 is $0 instead?
> Disagree. I'm proposing a return to a previous status quo that was more broadly equitable.
Dude, literally one paragraph ago you're talking about a magic database that can edit anyone's net worth at will. That is not a status quo that has ever existed anywhere in human history.
Are there possible scenarios in which billionaires have less money and everyone else has more money and everyone is happier and healthier and better off? Sure. Is a wealth tax (the closest thing to a policy that you've mentioned) a path to get to any of them? I think probably not. Is a legislative fiat where the government just flat out declares that someone has less money a realistic thing that could happen that wouldn't be a tremendous overreach and huge magnet for corruption and abuse? I think definitely not.
If you want to theorize about potential policies and what their impacts might be, then cool, I'd love to brainstorm about what things might happen. If you just want to fantasize about "Like..what if rich people had like...less money...and we had like...more?" I mean, I'm not sure where to actually go with that.
> Back in the real world, such a thing doesn't exist. So if you want to talk about real things that could actually impact the net worth of billionaires you have to consider what other secondary effects they might have. Here's one: stock market crashes. Billionaires lost a lot of wealth in 2008. In your opinion, was this a generally positive event for the rest of the country or not? Bezos's net worth could easily drop by 73% on Monday without any government intervention at all, do you think that would help anyone?
By what mechanism would the stock market crash? I mean sure, if Bezos dumped 73% of his stock on one day, yes, temporarily. No one would actually propose that though. What about Jeff's ownership is holding up the economy?
I don't think 2008 was good for the country, because inequality increased. All those distressed homes that average people lost are now owned by private equity funds. Over 12 years, those billionaires have almost all gotten wealthier relative to the rest of us. I've already stated my preference for increased anti-trust regulation to protect against that kind of outcome. What was the point of that question?
> Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, etc
Yeah, you know, those storied 230-year capitalist republics in Weimar Germany and post-colonial Zimbabwe. The US Government printed trillions (!!) of dollars this year and gave the majority of it to the wealthy. We can start by taxing that right back, with no obvious consequence.
> Dude, literally one paragraph ago you're talking about a magic database that can edit anyone's net worth at will.
It was a device to overcome your obstinance, not a literal prescription.
> If you want to theorize about potential policies and what their impacts might be, then cool, I'd love to brainstorm about what things might happen.
I don't, because it took like, 12 messages to get you to acknowledge that simply having the wealthy be less wealthy wasn't the literal apocalypse. It's exhausting.
Your contention that a wealth tax won't work is ridiculous, we already have property taxes in most states and state and federal estate taxes. We already successfully tax wealth, the rest is just about setting the right incentives, and removing the insane raft of tax avoidance loopholes that the barons have paid to place in the tax code.
>How is it going to be worse if Jeff Bezos is worth $50,000,000,000 instead of $180,000,000,000?
on the inverse, how much worse has it gotten since Jeff Bezos went from $50b to $180b?
It keeps coming back to the fact that there is such a focus on "wealth" or whatever.
That's like asking "how is this tax bad if it literally makes more tax revenue?" - the answer is that it will have unforeseen consequences (or even foreseen by a lot).
>what are you picturing happening here?
You're the one even implying its possible, I figured you would have the answer lol
>Me.
Oh, so anyone with more power than you is bad?
What about people that don't even have the privilege of arguing on HN?
>That's unacceptable for a democracy or a fair capitalist economy
Why? I would probably agree there's limits that should be imposed so that anyone can't just push around whatever law they want but at the same time, how else would you suggest these things work?
It literally says here:
The bill imposed an income tax of 79% on incomes over $5 million. Since that was an extraordinary high income in the 1930s, the highest tax rate actually covered just one individual—John D. Rockefeller. The bill was expected to raise only about $250 million in additional funds, so revenue was not the primary goal. Morgenthau called it "more or less a campaign document". In a private conversation with Raymond Moley, Roosevelt admitted that the purpose of the bill was "stealing Huey Long's thunder" by making Long's supporters of his own. At the same time, it raised the bitterness of the rich who called Roosevelt "a traitor to his class" and the wealth tax act a "soak the rich tax".
Which essentially only lasted 3 years...
If you're not talking about these things, then I would ask you don't just send a wikipedia link with over 100 subsections lol.
>We've also seen some really gruesome examples of what happens when concentrated wealth is allowed to run amok for too long
How do you reason all these things are "caused by concentrated wealth"?
>Keep nitpicking individual policies, you are missing the bigger picture.
The big picture is made up of individual policies... that is actually my entire point. I gave you clear example of what happens when one fails to remember the big picture.
You gave me links to wikipedia pages covering topics as broad as WWI and left it at that...
Jeff Bezos' net worth was ~$33,600,000,000 at the beginning of 2017. I would argue things are considerably worse for the average American since then. It's not the wealth, it's the level of inequality that the wealth is indicative of. If every American had healthcare and access to quality education, housing, and food, it would not matter to me how wealthy Jeff Bezos gets. It's about the floor, not the ceiling, but the floor comes first.
> Oh, so anyone with more power than you is bad? What about people that don't even have the privilege of arguing on HN?
Snore. If you really want to reduce things to personal jabs, that's cool I guess. I was using myself as a stand-in for an average person - feel free to substitute any name that makes your heart warm.
> I would probably agree there's limits that should be imposed so that anyone can't just push around whatever law they want but at the same time, how else would you suggest these things work?
Sever the links between money and political power. Limit private ownership of news organizations. Take away the tools that are being abused.
> Since we're talking about taxes... I checked out the section called "Tax Policy"
Social Security taxes and Medicare Taxes; and most New Deal programs were financed by the Revenue Act of 1932 [1] passed in the year FDR was campaigning on the New Deal. Again, I didn't realize you were going to be a pendant, otherwise I would have linked more specifically. My b.
> How do you reason all these things are "caused by concentrated wealth"?
Slavery was propagated by the concentrated wealth of the southern aristocracy. They rebelled when they felt that their wealth was threatened. Similarly, in Europe, World War 1 was a war of prestige and conquest fought between a bunch of wealthy (largely related) families who had built huge empires.
> The big picture is made up of individual policies... that is actually my entire point. I gave you clear example of what happens when one fails to remember the big picture.
You mocked me a bit and told me I should have the answers, but I didn't see any clear examples. You are wrong about the first point - you can nitpick implementations and individual policies all day. I'm not claiming that 100% of policies that tax the wealthy are good, or will succeed. The big picture is important because it abstracts those smaller points away - the bigger picture is that inequality is driving our societal issues, and taxing the wealthy is an obvious, primary way to help remedy that. Talking about a Swedish wealth tax from 1990 is a joke.
>Jeff Bezos' net worth was ~$33,600,000,000 at the beginning of 2017. I would argue things are considerably worse for the average American since then
Based on what metrics?
>If every American had healthcare and access to quality education, housing, and food, it would not matter to me how wealthy Jeff Bezos gets
These aren't mutually exclusive though...
>Snore. If you really want to reduce things to personal jabs, that's cool I guess. I was using myself as a stand-in for an average person - feel free to substitute any name that makes your heart warm.
If you're arguing on HN you're most likely not the average person. Even then, how would you quantify how much political "power" someone should/could have?
>Sever the links between money and political power. Limit private ownership of news organizations. Take away the tools that are being abused.
Sure. You're just going to run into problems trying to define "tools" and "being abused". And I'm saying that as someone that agrees there are problems with abuse of power.
>otherwise I would have linked more specifically
Yes, cause otherwise you'll link to something and when I do "ctrl+F taxes" it wouldn't lead me to something that argues against your point ;)
It doesn't say there how much revenue it generated. Do you have something you trust showing numbers for the revenue targets and how much it made? I find conflicting information.
>Slavery was propagated by the concentrated wealth of the southern aristocracy. They rebelled when they felt that their wealth was threatened. Similarly, in Europe, World War 1 was a war of prestige and conquest fought between a bunch of wealthy (largely related) families who had built huge empires.
You can have both slavery and wars without a "concentration of capital" as the driving factor. I'll say sure, its a factor. So is the "ability to own land" and half a million other things.
>You mocked me a bit and told me I should have the answers, but I didn't see any clear examples.
I linked to the wiki page detailing how a FTT pretty much destroyed swedish financial markets and did the opposite of what it intended to do.
>Talking about a Swedish wealth tax from 1990 is a joke.
...? Literally everything you have mentioned is several times older than something from 1990. Also... it was introduced in 1984, 1990 is when they reversed it because it was so bad.
> Yes, cause otherwise you'll link to something and when I do "ctrl+F taxes" it wouldn't lead me to something that argues against your point ;)
Yep, I underestimated your unmitigated pendantry. I suppose shouldn't have assumed that you would know that the New Deal involved raising revenue. Concise data from the 1930s isn't super easy to come by, you are going to have to look at broader economic trends and make your own conclusions.
> Literally everything you have mentioned is several times older than something from 1990. Also... it was introduced in 1984, 1990 is when they reversed it because it was so bad.
* Sweden GDP, 1984 (2020 dollars): $108,000,000
* US GDP, 1984 (2020 dollars): $4,000,000,000,000
The U.S. also has much greater reach into the financial markets since we control a lot of them. Older is better - more time to see the long-tail effects of policy.
Regardless of whether FTT would work or not, it's a single tactic (small picture), when we already successfully tax wealth in various ways (estate, property taxes). The big picture is breaking the power of concentrated financial power, and taxation is an obvious method. Nit picking specific policies seems to be a favorite bad-faith tactic to avoid acknowledging that the issue is an issue, which would then require the nitpickers to suggest ideas themselves, instead of just criticizing.
> I suppose shouldn't have assumed that you would know that the New Deal involved raising revenue. Concise data from the 1930s isn't super easy to come by, you are going to have to look at broader economic trends and make your own conclusions.
I don't really need concise data, just some rough numbers. How much did they project the revenue act would raise, how much did it actually raise. How much did it impact investments, spending, choices etc.
Without so much as numbers its really hard to argue its impact. You could say going off the gold standard was much more impactful.
>Regardless of whether FTT would work or not, it's a single tactic (small picture), when we already successfully tax wealth in various ways (estate, property taxes).
Man... it isn't regardless. If an FTT doesn't work we're taking one step forward and several steps back.
>The big picture is breaking the power of concentrated financial power, and taxation is an obvious method.
Yea... and sometimes obvious things are not the best things.
>Nit picking specific policies seems to be a favorite bad-faith tactic to avoid acknowledging that the issue is an issue, which would then require the nitpickers to suggest ideas themselves, instead of just criticizing.
Then why would you bring up the Revenue Act? That is literally a "specific policy".
Do you want me to show dozens of examples of FTTs failing? Do you simply need more?
I'm "nit picking" this because 1) I have knowledge on it as I've researched it. 2) It would personally impact me. 3) It is a ridiculous policy because it has been tried so many times and never in its history has it raised as much money as it has projected to raise. They are constantly repealed shortly after they are enacted because people realized they messed up.
Its hardly nit picking when its pretty much one of the major policies of politicians wanting to "redistribute wealth" or "fix inequality" - Bernie Sanders has talked about it at great length. Andrew Yang proposed it as one of his policies. There's nothing to nit pick. Every single time it has been tried it has been repealed after terrible results.
I'm saying I see a very high chance of the wealth tax doing the same exact thing.
> Then why would you bring up the Revenue Act? That is literally a "specific policy".
You were being pedantic about how the New Deal raised revenue. Literally the only reason I linked it.
> Do you want me to show dozens of examples of FTTs failing? Do you simply need more?
If you have examples in the United States or the United Kingdom, sure I'll take a look at them. Otherwise, I don't really see the point, when no other country has had global financial controls comparable to the US/UK in the last 100 years. Further, I've already said that FTT is only one approach, and not one which I have specifically advocated for at any point in this thread. You are arguing against yourself on that one.
We already tax wealth, so it's not clear at all why you think it's so catastrophic. It sure doesn't seem like you've done real research if you haven't been able to come around on the existence (and non-apocalyptic nature of) property and estate taxes.
>You were being pedantic about how the New Deal raised revenue.
How is it pedantic. It's completely relevant. I want to know if it was successful, where the money came from and how it got there...
Much in the same way people preach a wealth tax would bring in "billions" without realizing that probably wouldn't put a dent in anything considering the overall budget.
>If you have examples in the United States or the United Kingdom, sure I'll take a look at them. Otherwise, I don't really see the point, when no other country has had global financial controls comparable to the US/UK in the last 100 years.
ahaha man, isn't that kinda ironic though? Maybe because the US/UK has seen the consequences of an FTT and realized that maybe its not a good idea. This is like saying "I don't want to see anything unless its from the last 50 years, since so much has changed since then"
>Further, I've already said that FTT is only one approach, and not one which I have specifically advocated for at any point in this thread. You are arguing against yourself on that one.
Where did I ever say you were? I'm using FTT as an example of an "effort to tax the rich" that completely backfired because the people behind it assumed they were dealing with a vacuum.
>We already tax wealth, so it's not clear at all why you think it's so catastrophic.
Because it is a waste of energy at best and something that could have catastrophic consequences at worst.
>It sure doesn't seem like you've done real research if you haven't been able to come around on the existence (and non-apocalyptic nature of) property and estate taxes.
I'm not a fan of those either for the most part. However, there's a big difference between property tax and trying to tax something worth $50b one day and then $100b a half a year later.
The problem in Flint and in countless American cities is not incompetence but the invasion of private equity into government. The truism that somehow capital is better at unprofitable public goods like water, prisons etc than the evil lazy government ignores the fact that the steep decline in competent management stems from the clientelist willingness to sell off public properties to private equity under "city managers" who are unaccountable and hold more power than elected officials.
The right-wing strategy is consistently to smear competent government systems while working tirelessly to undermine them with the final goal to sell them for cheap to private interests.
There is a LOT that competent legislation could do to rein this in. But it isn't in the interests of the investor class. So no, the $140 missing part is not the problem, it was a thoroughly corrupt city management that was the problem, and it's brought to you by the same ideology that sees taxing the rich as "unproductive."
> PG is picking a fight with the least sophisticated form of the anti-billionaire argument (i.e. "billionaires suck"), which is beneath him. I get that it's easier to do that than than argue over how the structural issues that allow massive wealth accumulation also undermine the foundations that markets and societies are built on, but it's really beneath PG to choose such a trite argument to oppose.
PG has good ideas and experience in programming and startups, and some fresh perspectives that I enjoyed reading in the early days of HN. His essays today seem to be devoid of that. I can speculate on the reasons why, but that's not useful. He has a huge following, and like any thought leader they will consider his word as gospel. I just wish he would do better.
Serious question: You say that engaging with the least sophisticated form of the argument is beneath him, but if that's the form of the argument he chooses to engage in, is it?
I think it is understood from the context that PG is assumed to be a person of above average intellect and is thus expected to use more sophisticated and less lazy forms of arguments. That expectation sets the bar for the kind of argument he is expected to make. I believe the logical fallacy your statement is exhibiting is called "Begging the question" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question.
