this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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The US government is sovereign, it can very much either take ownership of the stock, or estimate its value and construct a loan that the company owners needs to pay back because they owe this tax. Or probably 100s of more clever solutions as well.
It can definitely decide to tax wealth if it wanted to, it could also break up large companies to at least spread the wealth of these institutions wider. It mostly just doesn't "want" to.
This argument is so unnecessary defeatist pretending the most militarised and police ridden country in the world has no power to enforce laws it could write.
Opposite to that notion I think if the US had any interest in fairness in taxation, especially on a more global scale, it could easily get all the common tax havens/financial secrecy jurisdictions, to fold to essentially whatever demands if has. But again it seems like the US government strangely doesn't really want that either.
Which is still the central issue the US government is more captured by the billionaire class than a lot of people like to think they are, and it's never just the dem or just the reps, it's large portions of both parties that are essentially captured in this way, or just fall into it because preserving the status quo is easy.
If US government decides to take over private stocks or tax them, US companies will exit US and American economy will die instantly. You can't tax wealth, it's impossible and doesn't make any sense.
Yes, you can. Rush Limbaugh is dead and his argument is still wrong.
Let them leave, after they pay their fucking tax bill.
Meanwhile, most of the wealth that you claim doesnt exist is hidden in the form of private equity investments which contribute absolutely nothing to the economy and destroys business. Abolushing them will put businesses back in the hands of local owners who arent going to be fleeing the country because they're selfish psychopaths who despise freedom and want to live in dictatorships
No you can't tax wealth, it does not make any fucking sense. If I own a peice of land that, for some wild reason, is valued 1 billion, why the fuck would I pay taxes on 1 billion ??? especially if I just work at the starbuck for minimum wage. Like, it's only gonna make the wealthy even wealthier. Only rich people are gonna be able to pay taxes on nice things.
What do make sense is to pay taxes when I'm gonna sell that land 1 billion. That is sound. You pay tax on income, not on wealth. Maybe pay taxes on transactions.
If you wanna tax the rich, start by reforming how capital gains are taxed.
Funny that you should pick land, considering that property tax exists and is based on a valuation of your land. There's a very simple solution if you can't afford the tax on your wealth, which is to sell that wealth. If you can't afford the tax then you can't afford the wealth.
Then take a company that is highly valued ? You understand the point and won't engage with it. That is funny.
To expand on that, you should also pay tax on unrealized gains used as collateral for a loan.
Yeah, I'm with you there ... the whole "I'll wreck everything by not selling for capital gains!" thing is stupid.
And as soon as that happens, those companies will start generating massive profits and paying their pittance (still in the billions btw) to other countries. It will also destroy the American job market and leave millions of people destitute.
As much as it sucks, these billion (now trillion) dollar companies produce the lion’s share of America’s wealth. If they take their profits elsewhere, you can say ‘goodbye’ to the world order that the US is almost solely propping up.
I'm fairly sure in some way that's what most of this sub should want explicitly, but while you imagine that necessarily as a slide backwards, I'm fairly convinced if the US ever gets to a wealth Tax their world order is already collapsing, and we are collectively transitioning to a better one. A world order based on actual global democratic decisions, instead of US Neo-imperialist domination perhaps.
You assume that most of these companies wouldn't just move to a single destination that wouldn't do the same shit that America did, which is to cater to rich people so that they can generate massive wealth for themselves and the governments of that nation. Unless the entire population of the world decides on a system that's not like this one, it won't happen; period. It'll just shift elsewhere.
And no matter how bad America is, I can imagine worse alternatives (hint: China)
Wait, do you mean the China that American companies have already moved to and paid taxes to in order to avoid paying US taxes and employing American workers, thus never contributing to the creation of wealth in the US? THAT China?
...are you fucking serious right now? Do you really think that offshoring your manufacturing means 'moving out of America', or that it's done to 'avoid paying taxes'? Do you not understand that the vast majority of a company's value isn't created in the sweatshops where laborers are paid nickels and dimes, but in the boardrooms of megacorps where marketing departments put thousand-dollar labels on smartphones that cost a hundred dollars to make?
Yes. I totally get that. And if they dont want to pay workers and have a decent profit in favor of not paying workers for an obscene profit, they they can pack their asses up and move to China and let Xi tell them how to run their business.
Wow, rock solid argument. 'Yeah, idc if the US economy loses literal trillions if companies like MS and Apple move out! Who cares right?!'
Seriously, thanks for reminding me that, while things are already pretty fucking bleak, we're still not living in the worst-case scenario.
That is some serious corporate cuckery there, bro. Are you sure you arent three CEOs in a trenchcoat?
Better that than someone with no substantial argument to make. Maybe take some time to actually learn about how our economy functions? From books I mean, not YouTube videos
Our ecconomy does not function. It is wildly dysfunctional. It collapses on a regular basis by design. I for one am not going to defend it or the people who cause those collapses.
Complaining about capitalism isn't an argument.
Okay then how about the hoarding of wealth which removes money from the economy?
How much of it? The world's largest and most famous billionaires don't even make up a rounding error in the world's economy (hell, most countries blow Musk's entire fortune annually on the dumbest conceivable shit), nor is their money 'removed' from it. Hell, the richest people in the world have the vast majority of their wealth tied up in their own company's stocks, which by definition is money that's playing an active role in the economy.
Like seriously dude, there's good reasons to hate billionaires and the current state of the global economy, but at least come up with valid arguments and criticisms that can convince people; otherwise, you're just blowing hot air that only serves to paint legitimate critics as crazy people.
If all the money is going to singular people who cannot possibly spend it rather than to wage increases for workers and middle managers who can, then it is hurting the economy. Fiat currencies gain their value through the flow of money, not the stagnation of it. It's not complicated.
This entire fucking system is only 42 years old, and all the failures of it have become apparent in that time. There is no defense of it. We had proven in the decades before Reagan that economies grew when everyone could participate and economic power was not so outlandishly stratified. The only other difference between then and now was that blacks had no economic power at all then; today they are an entire economic demographic that could potentially contribute to the wealth of society as a whole.
Wealth hoarding is BAD. It is a BAD BAD THING. It is INDEFENSIBLE because it is a VERY BAD THING. Giving free things to rich people and charging everyone else is MORALLY WRONG. Doing favors for people because they are wealthy is MORALLY WRONG. Giving tax breaks to people who do not need them and do nothing with them is BAD ECONOMIC POLICY. This is a proven fact. It is not up for debate. The results are in.
Yes how about trying to imagine better alternatives instead of assuming everything impossible then.
If the US led world order collapses that might be bad temporarily for US residents and it would be a great win for almost everyone else, almost by necessity. Again many winners few losers, much like the wealth tax. And not everyone needs to actually take up a better system, this is completely true in our current system already.
That's such a narrow take. It won't just be 'bad temporarily for US citizens' if the only country that's a counter to China ceases to be a pre-eminent world player.
You know the world has other places than China and the US right. And that the us can still be a very powerful country without being the current hegemon. Certainly a welath tax wouldn't achieve such impressive collapse in less than a few decades. The only real problem with a complete downfall of us hegemony might actually be the Taiwan situation.
But literally all of africa and south America would be in a much better situation if the US wouldn't continue to have the power to protect some of its more historic foreign assets large parts of SEA and the middle east would also have much to celebrate.
You seem strangely scared of china while having little empathy towards anyone that might be suffering under US aligned rule. My take isn't narrow but your view of the world might be. If you are at least from the US I might understand somewhat, if not then yikes.
Oh shit, now I get it. Sorry, didn't know you were a tankie.
This system is propped up by UK and led US world order, so the US prevents other countries from feeling the benefit of their resources and labour, it's a really common complaint.
It also prevents proper tracing of the Stagering 1.8 trillion dollars in annual revenue of organised crime, and guess what most of the welath doesn't end up back in south America or SEA ...
All the nation states are garbage the US is currently the worst just simply because it is the most powerful and protects it's interests, naturally the second most powerful one seems threatening, but it's mostly a paper tiger, and yes it's still worse than anything but the us because it's the second most powerful and so on and so on...
I don't particularly care which modern empire is still raping Africa(...), I'm mostly just saying throw the greatest rapist out first and then continue until they are all gone.
Telling the world opposition against US ideals is a universally bad take is like telling Ukrainians that defending their country is a bad take.
China US and Russia can all be imperialistic assholes in different ways and relying on one for protection against another isn't actually a particularly good deal for any third party.
But the simple fact that I don't like US superiority gets you to label me tankie, it's simply a little bit of a US centric take.
So what's your solution to all this? Because if the US is down, you know China will emerge as the next hegemon and they're magnitudes worse.
I just fundamentally don't believe there needs to be a Hegemon and also don't agree that china will necessarily be able/willing to actually assume that role. There is at best circumstantial evidence for that scenario. Especially because the US doesn't cease to exist and is likely able to oppose china when it matters. Why is there no future where the power distribution is more diffuse, where there are other significant players, where decision making in the context of the world is actually made through good dialogue, or god forbid super national democratic institutions.
Where is the evidence for china becoming a Hegemon being the only possible conclusion of the US not being one. I fundamentally don't see it except the few times a year where i stumble over a piece written by the US military industrial complex.
They have already destroyed the American job market. And on top of that, they dont create wealth. That's WHY WE ARE HAVING THIS DISCUSSION.
Please don't tell me you actually believe any of that. How does a company like Apple, which essentially vacuums up consumer money around the globe, converts it into American profit, and then directly injects it into the American economy through high-value employment in software/marketing/sales etc to pump up the values of American stock exchanges through its stock valuation (stocks that, btw, make up the bulk of 401k's of American citizens) not generate wealth for the US? Do you not know how this whole chain works?
Also, these companies do pay billions in taxes annually. Sure, they use loopholes to not pay their fair share, but they do pay taxes that they otherwise wouldn't need to pay if they weren't operating within America.
Okay, everyone, do what he says, STFU, and lick those boots. It is time to embrace corporatacracy and show gratitude for the only three entities that are holding all of our lives together
Yeah, either lick boots or keep hoping for the downfall of America! No middle ground here, no sir!
Why do countries have wealth taxes and completely reasonable economies when it's supposedly impossible. I'm not saying let me design a US wealth tax I'm saying wealth taxes do make sense, do exist and at least do something and the US could certainly implement them given sufficient political will.
Two of the 5 OECD countries that have wealth taxes are neighboring countries to mine, they do have industry, services etc. certainly not dead places.
Also I've never seen any (proposed) wealth tax start at anywhere lower than 1M in assets and with higher than 1% taxation so I just don't see how any of the opposition is genuine. Why would there be such opposition to a topic that only impacts a few percent of the countries population. And that at the same time is actually properly understood by even fewer people.
Also have you ever moved country with a several billion dollar company, with the US federal government after you for taxes, I don't imagine it'd be particularly easy or cheap, the US has many massive subsidies for local companies, and some otherwise tax favorable conditions in some of it's states, I doubt it would be an easy decision for many of these owners.
Countries were trying to tax wealth since Ancient Rome times and it NEVER worked. 12 OECD countries had some kind of wealth tax. As of 2021 only 5 have it. I bet you that in 20 years none will.
The thing is that asset value is not money. It's just a number someone got out of their ass. And this value is volatile, it can change in any direction any day. And you have pretty much zero control over it. Here's an example from UK where I live. A lot of people bought homes to live in London in 1990-s for tens of thousands pounds. Today these houses are valued at over a million. You want to target those who have over 1M in assets? Well, most of London is now fucked for no reason and without any wrongdoing. How do you expect a nurse in retirement to pay such tax?
OK, you put a limit higher to target Bezos. But Bezos doesn't have cash to pay 1% from his billions. He will have to sell shares. That will tank Amazon share prices and potentially destroy the business. And who would want to buy shares and invest with taxes like that?
By the way, the five countries are Colombia, France, Norway, Spain and Switzerland. France is already abandoning this stupid tax, Norway started to think about it. Economies of Colombia and Spain are in ruins partially thanks to this tax. And Switzerland... Well, Swiss are gonna Swiss. Their economy is very non-standard.
Yes I've read the Wikipedia article as well thank you very much but you still don't seem to accept that taxes can and should be used to regulate the economy. That's the entire point frankly. Some business should be destroyed because it's bad for the people at large. Some people should need to get rid of one of their houses so that it doesn't remain empty half the year. That's the point.
And even if Norway and France abandon this policy and Spain and Columbia are supposedly in ruin couldn't their collective healt and happiness not be better even despite a smaller economy. Is it impossible for you to imagine a world where a smaller economy is better for it's people than a larger one.
And on the other side of the coin wouldn't you think not being sovereign over the world reserve currency and the largest economy in the world make it a lot harder to protect yourself effectively from capital flight.