Live data from Hacker News

Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

fastcompany.com

31–40 of 246 posts

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#31
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

Such idea excludes that progressive taxation can be used for the same purpose - and "wealth cap" is near to being a special case of progressive taxation (0..20%; 0..50%; 0..99% ...)

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#32
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

The problem with that is not really to do with equality, it's to do with who runs companies and where investment in the economy comes from, and how everyone's basic needs are met. This would take the ownership of huge swathes of the companies in the world out of the hands of the people who created them and operate them and into the hands of random executives with little or no track record. You're not going to meet anybody's basic needs to you destroy the economy that provides them.

For example, Elon Musk would be forced to sell all but a minuscule sliver of his shares in Tesla, SpaceX, etc and give the proceeds to the tax man. He'd be out on his arse and replaced by an executive hired by whoever bought the shares. It would be the death of Tesla and SpaceX as we know them.

That's just a highly visible example, but the effect would be to take tens of thousands of companies out of the hands of the people who currently run them, and into the hands of random investors. It's not clear to me this would actually be any good for those companies, or the economy, or the people working at those companies, or their customers.

Finally, if everyone who's currently an investor in these companies, but has more than $20m also get taxed down to $20m, who is going to buy all the shares? You'd also tax out of existence the vast majority of the source of investment and capitalisation in the economy. There's be functionally nobody left capable of making significant investments.

These things matter. It's nonsense like this that is why Marxist experiments the world over have caused such havoc and misery on unimaginably vast scales.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#33
post #11
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

That's a little authoritarian.

What we have now, with billionaires with toy rockets who pay no taxes and a voting system that allows you to choose between two candidates who will both perpetuate that, all while homelessness and destitute poverty are rampant -- that's a little authoritarian.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#34
post #6
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

What would this policy look like? Government seizing shares of companies from people if their valuation rises too much?

[deleted]

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#35
post #28
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

Such weird logic; we should level down everyone. I don't live in a nice house, so everyone should be stuck like me in an old flat until everyone can get nice house. I'm not happy -> Everybody should be unhappy

If a person is unhappy with $20m they are unlikely to be happy with any amount of money, surely?

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#36
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

Few more steps and you"ll reach communism.

No one is suggesting taking the means of production and distributing it to the proletariat, so no you won't. It is literally impossible to get to Marxist communism through taxation. Communism is much more than simple wealth redistribution. It's about collective power and collection ownership of the means of economic growth. Progressive taxation is absolutely not that unless maybe it's a 100% or higher ... but that kind of ceases to be a tax and starts looking a lot like the state seizing people's property.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#37
post #9
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

Most basic needs are or could be met already. Apart from Housing / Shelter. Which some how no government plans to tackle because the world economy is quite literally built or based on land and property prices. Even talks about UBI completely neglect housing prices. Which I came to the sad conclusion, those that understand housing wont talk about it, those that dont understand will never talk about it.

~700M people live in extreme poverty today (Homes are a luxury.

Re: Millionaires call for an emergency tax on billionaires

#38
post #28
post #3

Until there's a wealth floor -- until everyone is fed, sheltered and has access to education, there needs to be a wealth cap. We, as a collective humanity, should not allow anyone to have more than, say, $20 million, until the basic needs of others have been met.

Such weird logic; we should level down everyone. I don't live in a nice house, so everyone should be stuck like me in an old flat until everyone can get nice house. I'm not happy -> Everybody should be unhappy

You need more than $20 million to be happy? Only having $20 million per person means you need to live in an "old flat?" Such weird logic: I need billions when others have no food.
Post reply on HN