General Billionaire cries over 2% wealth tax

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Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
45,412
57,814
How do you suppose it gets in their bank account?
They work for a living. Earn money. And save it.
Maybe I don't understand the question.

Again - I'm fine with taxing their earnings aggressively. But it's bullshit to tax their net worth year after year.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Couldn't agree more. Probably better to have a fair living wage and the abolition of classes.
you'll need a magic wand, but get to it. Living Wage is a minimum wage. Same sandwich, different name.
 

Rambo John J

Eats things that would make a Billy Goat Puke
First 100
Jan 17, 2015
71,541
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Historically, that's how it's worked.

I'm not quite sure how naive people have to be to think that another tax rate increase wouldn't result in the same thing.
I'm only talking panama papers
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Historically, that's how it's worked.

I'm not quite sure how naive people have to be to think that another tax rate increase wouldn't result in the same thing.
it's too expensive to audit rich people who have lawyers and know the tax code. So the IRS only goes after poor and lower-middle class citizens.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
it's too expensive to audit rich people who have lawyers and know the tax code. So the IRS only goes after poor and lower-middle class citizens.
and people wonder why I think tax codes need to be rewritten rather than ammended.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
23,026
They work for a living. Earn money. And save it.
Maybe I don't understand the question.

Again - I'm fine with taxing their earnings aggressively. But it's bullshit to tax their net worth year after year.
Let's assume for the sake of argument that no one on this forum is a billionaire. There may be one or two, who knows. There are some folks on here who may have a million dollars or a few million if you combine their assets and annual salaries, plus whatever financial investments they've made. There may also be some people who work in industries where they encounter billionaires or whose own business or professional interests have dealings with members of that class.

Aside from these limited dealings, a billion dollars is just an abstract idea. It's something we see as just a numerical symbol for a really big pile of wealth. But when you really look at it, a billionaire is an impossibility. There is no salary in America that will allow you to earn a billion dollars. The highest base salary in the United States is $3,000,000. It would take you 333 years to earn a billion dollars at that salary. But of course, executive compensation has a number of other compensation schemes besides base salary, and all of these rely on financialization. Bonuses, stocks, and options are all ostensibly predicated on meeting some arbitrary profit or solvency benchmarks (and we saw during the 2008 crash that even this wasn't a requirement) for the primary purpose of maximizing companies value in financial markets.

So to possess a billion dollars, individually, is to have exceeded the earning potential of a human lifetime, except through taking advantage of a game we invented called financialization. Starting up, acquiring, or leading any business whereby you could become a participant in this game of finance is predicated mostly on where you are born, how your intellectual gifts align with your local school system, the quality of care you receive when in ill health, and, generally, your race or gender. There are outliers, of course, but the majority of people in this class inherited their condition or at least a plausible chance of reaching it. These outliers usually sustain the mythology of anyone being able to climb the ladder and its accompanying values of what's mine is mine.

Besides the barriers to access, there's also a great deal of publicly owned capital, labor derived value, and geopolitical struggle baked into financial instrumentation. This is all put at risk daily by the speculative wagering that the market is subject to. This means the state, as the primary agent of brokering the international system of finance and as the principal insurance policy against default (again, see 2008), has a claim on extracting a portion of financialized wealth for its own maintenance of whatever it decides to be the public good. When people talk about limiting wealth, this is the thrust of the argument, not some poor guy hitting refresh on his mobile banking app to suddenly find he lost a million dollars he toiled 100 hour weeks for due to the conniving taxman. These are petit-bourgeois fantasies of what it's like to be in the top brackets, mostly nurtured by the billionaire class themselves who have an interest in making themselves seem like victims. Much of their wealth is carefully hidden in other vehicles to avoid what regulations do exist while most of their visible "earnings" come from manipulations of the rest of the money in the global economy by their financial and political agents.

This isn't money they worked for. It's literal sorcery. Taxes on sorcery are more palatable in my view than earnings, strictly speaking, though there's a place for both.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
But when you really look at it, a billionaire is an impossibility.
This statement is categorically false.

This isn't money they worked for. It's literal sorcery. Taxes on sorcery are more palatable in my view than earnings, strictly speaking, though there's a place for both.
This particular summation is telling of where you're coming from. You just don't like people more advantaged than you are.
 

Hauler

Been fallin so long it's like gravitys gone
Feb 3, 2016
45,412
57,814
Let's assume for the sake of argument that no one on this forum is a billionaire. There may be one or two, who knows. There are some folks on here who may have a million dollars or a few million if you combine their assets and annual salaries, plus whatever financial investments they've made. There may also be some people who work in industries where they encounter billionaires or whose own business or professional interests have dealings with members of that class.

Aside from these limited dealings, a billion dollars is just an abstract idea. It's something we see as just a numerical symbol for a really big pile of wealth. But when you really look at it, a billionaire is an impossibility. There is no salary in America that will allow you to earn a billion dollars. The highest base salary in the United States is $3,000,000. It would take you 333 years to earn a billion dollars at that salary. But of course, executive compensation has a number of other compensation schemes besides base salary, and all of these rely on financialization. Bonuses, stocks, and options are all ostensibly predicated on meeting some arbitrary profit or solvency benchmarks (and we saw during the 2008 crash that even this wasn't a requirement) for the primary purpose of maximizing companies value in financial markets.

So to possess a billion dollars, individually, is to have exceeded the earning potential of a human lifetime, except through taking advantage of a game we invented called financialization. Starting up, acquiring, or leading any business whereby you could become a participant in this game of finance is predicated mostly on where you are born, how your intellectual gifts align with your local school system, the quality of care you receive when in ill health, and, generally, your race or gender. There are outliers, of course, but the majority of people in this class inherited their condition or at least a plausible chance of reaching it. These outliers usually sustain the mythology of anyone being able to climb the ladder and its accompanying values of what's mine is mine.

Besides the barriers to access, there's also a great deal of publicly owned capital, labor derived value, and geopolitical struggle baked into financial instrumentation. This is all put at risk daily by the speculative wagering that the market is subject to. This means the state, as the primary agent of brokering the international system of finance and as the principal insurance policy against default (again, see 2008), has a claim on extracting a portion of financialized wealth for its own maintenance of whatever it decides to be the public good. When people talk about limiting wealth, this is the thrust of the argument, not some poor guy hitting refresh on his mobile banking app to suddenly find he lost a million dollars he toiled 100 hour weeks for due to the conniving taxman. These are petit-bourgeois fantasies of what it's like to be in the top brackets, mostly nurtured by the billionaire class themselves who have an interest in making themselves seem like victims. Much of their wealth is carefully hidden in other vehicles to avoid what regulations do exist while most of their visible "earnings" come from manipulations of the rest of the money in the global economy by their financial and political agents.

This isn't money they worked for. It's literal sorcery. Taxes on sorcery are more palatable in my view than earnings, strictly speaking, though there's a place for both.
Good post and I agree with a lot of what you said, but I still think taxing wealth (not income) is a slippery slope. I work hard for my money and I live modestly with the goal being retirement at an early age. This has been a mindset of mine since I entered the work force when I was 15. That all goes to shit if the gov't starts taking a slice of saved money every single year. No I'm not a billionaire and they aren't targeting guys like me at the moment, but this "rich man bad" feels like a pandora's box.

I guess I can always buy a yacht like Splinty @Splinty. Maybe run a brothel out of it as a retirement gig. kneeblock @Kneeblock, your first visit is free.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
You spastics know less about economics than you do about MMA.
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
I think I'm against a wealth tax...not increased taxes on income or capital gains.


Change my mind.
You can’t make someone understand something when their own personal wealth and status is dependent upon not understanding it.

But if your class keeps collectively not understanding it, one day a mob of poor folks might change your mind by running a guillotine through it.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
91,095
But if your class keeps collectively not understanding it, one day a mob of poor folks might change your mind by running a guillotine through it.

I have often paid a third of my income in taxes and I'm okay with my investments being taxed higher as thats a common way to hide income gains.

Again, sell me on the idea of why I should be incentivized to spend more instead of save after I gave up 1/3. Why is wealth tax a good idea after income tax increases??? What behavior are you trying to enhance?

Your post has done nothing other than very bluntly and ineffectively made nod towards class divide issues. It doesn't at all suggest why taxing post tax holdings is a good idea.
Someone shouldn't save? We should further push people to spend and hide?
 

Sheepdog

Protecting America from excessive stool loitering
Dec 1, 2015
8,912
14,237
I have often paid a third of my income in taxes and I'm okay with my investments being taxed higher as thats a common way to hide income gains.

Again, sell me on the idea of why I should be incentivized to spend more instead of save after I gave up 1/3. Why is wealth tax a good idea after income tax increases??? What behavior are you trying to enhance?

Your post has done nothing other than very bluntly and ineffectively made nod towards class divide issues. It doesn't at all suggest why taxing post tax holdings is a good idea.
Someone shouldn't save? We should further push people to spend and hide?
The masses shouldn't be concerned with convincing the ultra-wealthy why it's a good idea for them to pay more taxes from technocratic standpoint, they should be cocerned with convincing the ultra wealthy that if they don't start to pay more, eventually they'll be dragged into the streets and slaughtered. Appeal to self-preservation, not self-sacrifice.

It's fundamental to functioning society to reduce inequality and you do that through heavy taxation. It's better for those at the top and the bottom. There's plenty of Wonderlands you can go live in if you think that there are no long-term consequences to extreme inequality. May I suggest South Africa?
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
91,095
The masses shouldn't be concerned with convincing the ultra-wealthy why it's a good idea for them to pay more taxes from technocratic standpoint, they should be cocerned with convincing the ultra wealthy that if they don't start to pay more, eventually they'll be dragged into the streets and slaughtered. Appeal to self-preservation, not self-sacrifice.

It's fundamental to functioning society to reduce inequality and you do that through heavy taxation. It's better for those at the top and the bottom. There's plenty of Wonderlands you can go live in if you think that there are no long-term consequences to extreme inequality. May I suggest South Africa?

So no answer on why wealth tax instead of increased income tax or any other. Got it.

There's plenty of Wonderlands you can go live in if you think that there are no long-term consequences to extreme inequality.
You really never actually say anything. It's not clever. You're just empty.
 

RaginCajun

The Reigning Undisputed Monsters Tournament Champ
Oct 25, 2015
36,970
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Social and economic inequality is a huge issue. We just keep repeating history time and time again
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
91,095
Social and economic inequality is a huge issue. We just keep repeating history time and time again

But that's an easy statement. No one is arguing that except those in the thread that would rather divert than discuss.

I can tell you why you shouldn't just tax income.
You should tax capital gains but even then there's limits because you harm middle class retirements.
Sales tax ,etc same thing. Limits and uses. And harm.


They all have their place and I can maturely explain to you why I see some benefits or risks. But no one has answered a simple open ended question without personal attacks. Just tell me why a family that has saved should then constantly have their wealth removed yearly. The estate tax is already an effective mechanism to disrupt generational wealth concentration. Why not increase it? And at least it hits those that would just benefit without wealth creation in the first place (offspring).

So why an interest in making sure you aren't penalized for spending on intangibles, but are penalized for holding tangibles? Wealth tax says I can blow 10k on vacation but if I buy 10k of Car or other asset I now owe yearly. It incentivizes loans over purchase (assuming you only tax net wealth???). I shudder at Americans having one more reason to take more loans and buy more via lease instead of purchase.
It is risky for those at retirement as they have the largest holding of life long assets, interest in stable assets, and low income as they shift out of their production years. All of these seem like bad things in a goal of middle class economic stability at a vulnerable time.
 

RaginCajun

The Reigning Undisputed Monsters Tournament Champ
Oct 25, 2015
36,970
93,839
But that's an easy statement. No one is arguing that except those in the thread that would rather divert than discuss.

I can tell you why you shouldn't just tax income.
You should tax capital gains but even then there's limits because you harm middle class retirements.
Sales tax ,etc same thing. Limits and uses. And harm.


They all have their place and I can maturely explain to you why I see some benefits or risks. But no one has answered a simple open ended question without personal attacks. Just tell me why a family that has saved should then constantly have their wealth removed yearly. The estate tax is already an effective mechanism to disrupt generational wealth concentration. Why not increase it? And at least it hits those that would just benefit without wealth creation in the first place (offspring).

So why an interest in making sure you aren't penalized for spending on intangibles, but are penalized for holding tangibles? Wealth tax says I can blow 10k on vacation but if I buy 10k of Car or other asset I now owe yearly. It incentivizes loans over purchase (assuming you only tax net wealth???). I shudder at Americans having one more reason to take more loans and buy more via lease instead of purchase.
It is risky for those at retirement as they have the largest holding of life long assets, interest in stable assets, and low income as they shift out of their production years. All of these seem like bad things in a goal of middle class economic stability at a vulnerable time.
Listen man, I just wanted to post tits in your economy thread.