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Are super-rich people just better at making money?

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Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#181

Post by anovikov »

mschuster91 wrote: post #155
anovikov wrote: post #84

What's wrong about it? Unless you also "defund the police", that is. If law enforcement is well-funded and works well - which isn't all that expensive or hard on a national scale - than what's the problem about extreme inequality?

> If law enforcement is well-funded and works well - which isn't all that expensive or hard on a national scale - than what's the problem about extreme inequality? Law enforcement in the US is insanely well funded. The NYPD, for example, has 5 billion dollars of budget for 50k employees and serves about 8.8 million citizens. In contrast, in the German state of Bavaria, a budget of 3.8 billion euros [1] supports 45.00…

Something is wrong here, 500M for 45K people means ~850 euros per month per employee which is less than German minimum wage (1584 eur per month). Plain mistake.

$100K per year per employee in NYC sounds about right: around half are probably salaries plus payroll tax on them, resulting in just-over-poverty wage for low level employees and barely-middle-class for the higher ups; and the other half for supplies, building maintenance, etc.

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#182

Post by vladvasiliu »

maccard wrote: post #152
vladvasiliu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as far as I understand, the stocks, and other difficult to liquidate assets, as log as you hold them in that form, are worth "nothing". You can't go buy bread with that, not even a house. At some point, you need to sell and get your local currency in exchange. That can be considered income, and taxed at that value. It doesn't matter whether you had 1M which melted to 1000 or if you bought it for peanuts and got l…

> you need to sell and get your local currency in exchange. This isn't exactly true. For things like bread, yes it _is_ true, nobody will let you take out an asset backed loan. For someone with significant assets, large purchases can be funded by asset backed loan. These are available from high street banks, e.g. [0]. > That can be considered income No, here's where you're wrong. It's considered capital gains and you…

That's how it works in France, too. But my point is that maybe this could be changed to be more in tune with income taxes. In France, however, they have instituted a "flat tax" at 30% on capital gains. Before, it was taxed as income after an abatement.

So changes can be made, they just did it the wrong way.

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#183

Post by Yizahi »

ls15 wrote: post #169
Yizahi wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is reasonably easy. Step 1. The country creates a law forbidding any financial interactions with "offshore" countries (list is populated manually by lawmakers) and also with companies working with such offshore companies (shell intermediaries) in "good" countries. Step 2. Country forbids its citizens from owning any assets or be incorporated in the same "offshore" countries. Step 3. Blanket ban of cryptotokens. St…

You lost me at step 1. Punishing people because their families live in what some people deem "offshore" is heartless. Also, forget modern technology like smartphones if you only can do trade with "good" countries.

I should have clarified - I don't propose to "ban" half the planet because they the not optimal with their laws or prosecution. Offshore usually means tax heavens, usually the tiny island countries with small native population and incredibly lax financial regulation or none at all. Those are the primary targets.

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#184

Post by creakingstairs »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #138
creakingstairs wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At some point, you need to sell and get your local currency in exchange. But ultra rich people actually don’t. They can just incur debts using their wealth and use that instead.

So what? If banks will be taxed when selling collateral, debt costs will adjust accordingly and pass on to wealthy still.

So we get to pay 40%+ tax on our income on a yearly basis while they get to pay a mystery amount that may or may not be factored into debt costs that can also be deferred for a while? Yeah that sounds fair.

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#185

Post by robertlagrant »

Yizahi wrote: post #145
robertlagrant wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will be the downsides of these moves?

If any single country will try this alone - devastating. For the country :) . If USA alone will try it - maybe it will work, idk. If USA plus EU plus major Asian economies will do it collectively - it will work.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. Assuming you get what you want, what will be the downsides?

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#186

Post by chii »

imgabe wrote: post #91
gjulianm wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some counterpoint thoughts: > - consensual trades are win win (you want a sandwich, I want $5 let’s trade! And we both win) Not all trades are exactly "consensual". The sandwich seller can probably live without selling a sandwich, I can't live without food, so the seller has far more power to set the price. Existing power imbalances make trades less fair, specially with essential goods (and that includes jobs, which…

In the real world, there is more than one sandwich seller and they compete with each other. When was the last time you non-consensually bought a sandwich? Even homeless people on the street will sometimes refuse free food, so the idea that sandwich-sellers can set any arbitrary price they want or people will starve is just not something that happens in practice. Indeed, sandwiches are abundant and affordable.

Switch sandwiches out with internet service provider, and do you get the same story?

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#188

Post by ls15 »

Yizahi wrote: post #145
robertlagrant wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What will be the downsides of these moves?

If any single country will try this alone - devastating. For the country :) . If USA alone will try it - maybe it will work, idk. If USA plus EU plus major Asian economies will do it collectively - it will work.

But what are the downsides?

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#189

Post by ben_w »

Yizahi wrote: post #139
simonswords82 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree with this stance but at a practical level it's interesting to think about. Let's say life is a computer game, and once you max out at $1bn in earned wealth (presumably this includes liquid and illiquid assets such as properties, cars etc), you cannot accumulate more wealth. How does a government enforce this stance? You cannot stop say Bill Gates shorting Tesla and earning millions…

You make "almost illegal" financial activities really illegal in the law, prosecute people, and I suspect that 90% of the problems will disappear automagically. Number of people who can become billionaires without committing borderline illegal and completely illegal activities are vanishingly small I suspect, probably only founders of megacorporations and those are often doing illegal stuff too to stay ahead. USA is…

Not to defend corruption, and I'll agree absolutely that there's a lot if room for improvement, but far too many people break far too many laws for full enforcement of any of them; and even outside egregious violations, law itself is too esoteric for most people to understand either their obligations or their rights.

With regard to the first part, the normal examples I give of this are road traffic offences (which if fully enforced would mean the only people allowed to drive would be those who didn't); and drug laws — ignore weed for now, nobody defends heroin, full enforcement of UK heroin laws would treble the UK prison population all by itself, while enforcing the laws on cocaine would more than double the US prison population and increase the British one by a factor of 20.

With regard to the second, look at how confused people get about copyright, trademarks, how they work, what the penalties are for violating them, what counts as "fair use", and so on.

Re: Are super-rich people just better at making money?

#190

Post by imgabe »

bmitc wrote: post #3

To solve all this, it's pretty simple, and the U.S. actually used to do it: heavily tax the super rich. Heavy taxation and then appropriate use of those funds for education, R&D funding, infrastructure, etc. is actual trickle-down economics. And mega corporations should be heavily taxed instead of holding the country economically hostage. They jumpstart their companies off of government funding and R&D and then act a…

There is no “this” to solve because this is a wildly inaccurate simulation and not the real economy.
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