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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?

#321

Post by fakedang »

bawolff wrote: post #47
smilekzs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed consistently, is when politicians talk about "taxing the wealthy", they almost always follow that with "earning more than $xxxk a year". This is conflating wealth with income. Being within this tax bracket myself, I do not deny that I am biased, but I do hope this bullshit gets called out hard whenever someone brings up yet another underhanded measure to milk us (typical SFBay SWE) above and be…

As a practical matter, it is very difficult to tax wealth (and even harder to do it fairly.) I don't think the issue is lack of will but lack of plan that actually works in the face of assets with unclear value and/or difficult to liquidate. And this doesn't just affect the ultra rich but people like SWE too. How much is the stock you have in the non-public company you work at really worth? SWE are probably one of th…

Apparently Islamic principles have found a balance for this, so why can't we apply it directly?

Short term stock holdings - pay on the net gain of the sale.

Long term stock holdings - pay on the net value at that point in time. Non public companies are charged based on the last valuation round. Companies without funding aren't charged because the intrinsic value is zero.

Dividends - pay on the dividend amount received

All payments above are in cash, at 2.5% for all.

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

#322

Post by nomdep »

Yizahi wrote: post #114
lelag wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Buying a second, third, fourth home? It's too easy for the ultra-rich to find loopholes in any rules. If there is a tax on homeownership, they will simply not own any home but will own some corporate entity that own the asset. See ? No secondary residence. Just an investment in a corporation that happens to home a bunch of houses.

Make prohibitively expensive for corporations to own residential properties (cut off by square meters or land use type).

They would create a separated business for each property

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

#323

Post by jakupovic »

gabesullice wrote: post #271
flawn wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason why it isn't zero sum is because we get access to more resources, and this leads de facto to more money in the pool (money resources) right? If we assume the best case that these new resources are distributed equally and not depending on wealth, then the Yard Model still holds in place as we talk about relative percentages.

No, because new resources don't materialize like manna from heaven. Someone, somewhere needs to reorganize resources in a more efficient way or discover new ones. If you benefit "equally" from that change in dynamics to the person who actually catalyzed the change, then there would be less incentive to catalyze it in the first place. It may happen from time to time because people are curious and benevolent. But, in g…

>No, because new resources don't materialize like manna from heaven.

No, you're wrong. Me finding gold or pretty much anything of value does mean that it did materilize from heaven. Many more examples...

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

#325

Post by kelseyfrog »

klgkjghkjh wrote: post #249
bmitc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should corporations be allowed to purchase homes in the first place? Remove that or heavily tax it.

How would apartment complexes be sold then?

Sell them to land trusts, co-operatives, and housing unions. There are creative and viable alternatives.

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

#326

Post by serverholic »

Gareth321 wrote: post #108

I am a devout capitalist with an accounting degree and an MBA. I believe the theory and data indicates that wealth is a mix of (in order): luck, family wealth, social ability, attractiveness, height, intelligence, natural abilities which align well with making money (conscientiousness, ability to delay gratification, affinity for work in scalable professions like IT, etc), culture, place of residence, likelihood of s…

Do billionaires really create enough value to warrant obscene wealth? Sure they deserve some wealth, but do they really deserve a billion dollars?

Are you forgetting the thousands of employees that are enabling them to become obscenely wealthy?

And I don’t buy the “deterrent effect” argument. IMO discouraging billionaires from acquiring more is a good thing and opens the door for other people to step up.

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

#327

Post by kderbyma »

5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #223

Unless you come from a wealthy situation, the only way to get rich is luck. That's it. Hard work is worthless, just ask people in the third-world work 18 hours for a pittance to survive. Of course luck may require certain knowledge, wherewithal and timing. You don't win a lotto without waking up at the right time, driving to the right shop and buying the right ticket.

Yup. the rich were lucky when they were born. they have a surplus of luck...they can. afford to be unlucky for years and years.....it's the same as the money thing....they can afford to lose

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

#328

Post by kelseyfrog »

nomdep wrote: post #322
Yizahi wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make prohibitively expensive for corporations to own residential properties (cut off by square meters or land use type).

They would create a separated business for each property

I see this loophole brought up a lot. Is there really no way to prevent it?

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

#329

Post by dsfyu404ed »

oblio wrote: post #171
silisili wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because spending money on education doesn't equate to better outcomes. It creates more bureaucracy, bigger councils, etc. Teacher pay is still abysmal, especially considering the fact they are expected to act as guardians and even security these days. And you'll never get better outcomes if you can't attract smart people to actually teach, no matter how much you pay the superintendent. US public education should be c…

That's the thing I don't get. Most of those budgets should go to people. Rocks and bricks and concrete don't teach people, people teach people :-) Similar story for medical staff.

The bureaucracies demand quantifiable results. You can't quantify people. You can quantify material garbage.

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

#330

Post by prottog »

hestefisk wrote: post #235
bawolff wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a practical matter, it is very difficult to tax wealth (and even harder to do it fairly.) I don't think the issue is lack of will but lack of plan that actually works in the face of assets with unclear value and/or difficult to liquidate. And this doesn't just affect the ultra rich but people like SWE too. How much is the stock you have in the non-public company you work at really worth? SWE are probably one of th…

Why is it hard? Tax capital gains, tax inheritance, tax corporate super profits, tax consumption (vat), tax FX / currency / speculative securities trading (Tobin tax), etc. It’s not hard, our politicians just lack the will and would rather drive a race to the bottom (“tax reforms”).

I see you have a bottomless appetite for taxing more and lots of imagination on how to do so. Do you have any answers on how that taxed money will be spent? How we can ensure that it's not just lining the pockets of the politicians and bureaucrats in charge of disbursing the money? How we measure the successes and failures of any taxpayer-funded program, so that we can be reasonably confident that the money is being put to good use? How all of this would play out over generations, knowing that the less money (and therefore power) the people have and the more money (and therefore power) the politicians have, the more likely it is that we will slip into authoritarianism?
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