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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#271

Post by ksec »

ryandvm wrote: post #101
ksec wrote: post #98

This may be off-topic. >Billionaires are like black holes. We deduce their existence from the fundamental laws of capitalism, see their gravity pull politics into their orbit, even detect signals of their existence in the public markets. I dont know about others. This is very beautifully put. But I am wondering if anyone has an counter argument. Because this basically means money > power; > "As gravity pulls politics…

The more money you allow into politics, the more politics becomes about money.

Thank You !

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#272

Post by pdonis »

jjav wrote: post #256
_bin_ wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, I don't actually believe in that form of democracy. Not all things that are legal are good, therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do. I'd describe your system as closer to mob rule. And no, that is not the premise of every system that incorporates democracy as an element, it's the premise of an absolute democracy.

> therefore we should set constraints on what the majority can do Which inevitably leads to the question: who should get the power to do that and why they, specifically?

You have it backwards. The actual question is, how did the majority magically get the power to enforce its will on the minority in the first place?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#273

Post by schneems »

M95D wrote: post #257
schneems wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we should probably celebrate gifts to the US government more than we do. I had the idea that we should put a donation box on tax forms. The 100 top donators get on the “US 100” list (like Forbes) but it’s based ONLY on how much you donate, not how much you claim to be worth. It’s one thing to claim to be rich to a Forbes reporter, it’s another to have the (tax) receipts to back it up.

Only the ones at the top of the list would be interested in donating and keep donating. If a rich person calculates that he could only reach the 57th place by donating a large part of his money, then he would have no incentive to donate. 57th place means nothing.

The key though is that you don't know how much everyone else puts in. There's a psychological effect of seeing the amount and saying "That's it? I can do better than that." It's basically a silent auction.

> 57th place means nothing.

It means you're on the board and got one higher than 56th place. I'm a top 50 rails contributor, that means something to me and to others.

It's kinda like F1. Some teams are racing for the constructors championship. Some teams are racing for the midfield. All of them are racing for even a single point and to stay in the game.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#274

Post by kelseyfrog »

cperciva wrote: post #226
kelseyfrog wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Help me understand why a family farm would have such an issue if the owner-operator dies, but Walmart didn't when Sam Walton died? Is it an issue of incorporation/business structure?

Leaving aside the fact that Sam Walton was an American and so his assets had no "deemed disposition" upon his death: Walmart is a publicly traded company, so if his heirs inherited a few % less of the company it wouldn't make a big difference. In the "family farm" (and "family business") scenario, we're talking about private companies -- whether incorporated or not, all the owners are related. If part of such a compa…

Couldn't family farms plan around such an event occurring, either by having the cash on hand to pay taxes or through some sort of insurance?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#275

Post by kelseyfrog »

cperciva wrote: post #241
consp wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The taxes are less than buying the farm outright so it would just be a very cheap buyout. I do not see the problem, you can get finance for that in civilized nations. It's not easy but neither is buying a farm normally. Inheritance, even with normal tax, is a cheap way of keeping money in the family and keeping rich people rich. It is not based on merit, capabilities or need and serves no purpose in a society based o…

[inheritance] serves no purpose in a society based on improving the lives of the entire population I would say that society is served well by the ability of widows to inherit and not be left destitute. Similarly for minor children. If you're talking specifically about inheritance by adult children, I agree the arguments in favour are weaker.

Is there no system which can provide for widows and minor children yet isn't able to be taken advantage of by the hyperwealthy?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#276

Post by bawolff »

xpe wrote: post #270
bawolff wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not. Which is why we have antitrust laws. If it was in the self-interest of the most succesful capitalists, we wouldn't have to have laws about it.

Right. Phrasing it as a question and waiting for the gears to turn can be a good strategy.

I still don't really understand your point. I don't think anyone disagrees that monopolies and other anticompetitive behaviour is a thing that exists.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#277

Post by kaibee »

jjav wrote: post #258
fallingknife wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Renters do not pay property tax in the US. That liability is entirely on the owner.

> Renters do not pay property tax in the US. There's a simple way to visualize why is not true: You're renting a property for $1000/mo. Whatever the owner is paying for property taxes, you don't know. Then, property taxes go up by $200/mo. Do you think your rent won't go up by at least $200/mo as a direct consequence of the tax increase? Because it will. Because the renter is of course paying for all costs, including…

> Then, property taxes go up by $200/mo. Do you think your rent won't go up by at least $200/mo as a direct consequence of the tax increase? Because it will. Because the renter is of course paying for all costs, including those taxes.

So, before property taxes went up, the landlord could have raised rents by $200/month, but hadn't because..?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#278

Post by oyashirochama »

_bin_ wrote: post #222
bruce511 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most tax dollars go to social security, health (including medicare) interest and defence. So on the one hand, very little of that is infrastructure. Mostly it seems to go on "keeping people alive". Now sure, the govt could invest the money instead, and let a bunch of (mostly old) people die. In our "money" equation, old people have little practical value (and there's no line in our fiscal analysis for measuring our h…

Nevertheless, welfare for olds is in no way an investment when those same individuals have reached the end of their productive years and have a decade or two to live. The point was that calling taxes "an investment" is largely untrue when most tax dollars don't go to anything of the sort. Social security and medicare are not means-tested in any way whatsoever. In fact, they are massive welfare programs that make our…

Social security, specifically is a mostly or was mostly a way to force retirement preparation on the masses who decided they didn't want or know how to before this. Most wealth is now held by middle aged people in the US actually, housing issues isn't even caused by old people but by multinational banking/holding corporations like BlackRock and its like.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#279

Post by mbrumlow »

consp wrote: post #235
_bin_ wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Trace the course of history and the natural state of man is much closer to what Hobbes described. In the wild, homo sapiens doesn't have a taxation system. As we built up civilizations, we created taxes as I described. And neither am I arguing for my preference to stick with how we mostly run our taxation regime (tax value when moved, not value at rest) without some justification for it.

No tax in the wild? In my view, sure there was: you get water and share it, the other guy hunts and shares it. The fact no centralised system existed does not mean no tax on the community was levied in some way.

I don’t believe sharing was all that common. But the difference in your story is voluntary sharing.

Once the hunter demands water for meat it becomes an exchange, and is the basis of our capitalist society.

Taxes in that system would be more like 10 men who did not hunt or gather demanded you give them food and water or they would beat your face in.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#280

Post by missedthecue »

cycomanic wrote: post #157
missedthecue wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you can consume your way to a higher standard of living. The only way to sustainably increase the standard of living is to increase productivity. This can only come from investment into hard capital and into human capital (education). So to me, it would be very hard to make an argument that it trickles up. It has to come from investment. And investment in the private sector is usually done by rich peopl…

Except for the fact wages and middle class wealth has not kept up with productivity for ages in most western countries. Also considering that the super-rich in developing nations are not that far behind the super-rich in developed nations, why hasn't their wealth trickled down and uplifted those developing nations? The reality is that developing nations have even higher wealth inequality, so refuting your argument.

Wages won't ever eat up 100% of the productivity gains. That defeats the point of investing in productivity gains. If you have ten ditch diggers, but then buy a steamshovel, the operator of the steamshovel earns more than the ditch diggers, but doesn't earn 10 salaries.

I am from a developing country. There aren't a lot of super rich here. In fact there isn't much wealth at all. Having some greater gini coefficient doesn't mean you have more wealth, inequality really isn't a relevant measure.

If raising wages was the only component to development, Somalia could simply set their minimum wage to $50 an hour and watch the country soar. Wages follow development, not the other around.

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