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.
> 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).