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Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

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Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#91

Post by salawat »

algaeontoast wrote: post #25
dijit wrote: post #9

Wasn’t that always the case. Nobody cares about the guy earning 250k/y. It’s the handful of people who control 90% of all wealth. “1%” was a catchy soundbite but it was always the 0.0001%

Yeah, I really don’t understand why the bracket of “extreme wealth” is $250k? I’d be all for adding some bracket for earners over $1MM or over a certain amount of capital gains tax. However, a lot of people rely on capital gains for their retirement, so a tax on that money would negatively affect anyone who puts money in the stock market for retirement... Taxing the super rich is a great idea, but at the end of the d…

>Taxing the super rich is a great idea, but at the end of the day the govt just needs to spend less money on programs that don’t work or aren’t needed.

Translation:

>You could recover some of the wealth that is systemically siphoned (by inflation)/withheld (via wage suppression) from everyone, but you really should look at that whole wealth redistribution mechanism working against centralization of capital in private hands. That's the problem.

Not really buying it. The fact you're pushing these systems off as not working leads me to conclude you've not met the level of understanding to safely do away with Chesterton's fence. There is tons of room for improvement in the execution of these safety nets; but the Market doesn't want people feeling safe. Risk aversion from guaranteed stability makes exploitative employment/compensation schemes more difficult to sustain.

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#93

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

rklaehn wrote: post #74
swebs wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Fair Tax plan was a neat idea. Tax everyone at X percent, while giving everyone back Y dollars per month as a form of UBI. The values of X and Y are chosen so those below the poverty line gain more money than they are taxed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairTax

I was a huge fan of this concept. It has been invented independently by people on the right (Milton Friedman) and the left. But unfortunately that is not how politics works. Politics is selling a particular group an advantage over the majority in exchange for votes. That is true both for the left and the right, the only difference is which groups they target. And a fair tax is just too simple . Politicians wouldn't h…

> And a fair tax is just too simple. Politicians wouldn't have anything to sell anymore.

You’re right! Without the ability to carve out exceptions, why would a powerful lobby need to come with a proverbial suitcase a cash?

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#94

Post by abvdasker »

algaeontoast wrote: post #51
hannasanarion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proven when? Proven how? You think that the ultra-rich don't have an "us-vs-them" mentality? You think that they aren't lobbying and fighting and advertising and campaigning to keep their unearned wealth and power for themselves?

I’m not super rich but I wouldn’t call their wealth “unearned”. Why are you privy to their money? The rich have an us vs them mentality because the media demonizes them for working hard. I dislike rich people as much as anyone but the productive response isn’t rage. Rage gives the rich even more power and reason to look for more reasons to hide their wealth and exploit. If you’re so convinced the rich have “harmed” y…

Nobody earns a billion dollars.

People who take your view that billionaires deserve their money because they "work hard" -- and I'm sure some of them do work hard -- usually don't realize how much money a billion dollars really is. An individual could never work hard enough or long enough or smart enough to deserve that amount of money.

- A million seconds ago was 12 days ago. A billion seconds ago was the 80s.

- With a 5% return on their wealth -- most billionaires actually make closer to 10% returns -- you make $137,000 a day if you have a billion dollars. So the poorest billionaires make more money in a day than 99% of Americans make in an entire year.

- https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/you-have-no-idea-how-m...

Nobody should have that much money. Nobody.

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#95

Post by hailwren »

georgeburdell wrote: post #88

As the article notes, an increasingly common path to the 1% is through skilled labor. I think this type of earner would have more in common with a 50%er than a 0.1%er. My family has been in the 1% for a few years and we’re just bottom-rung individual contributors at FAANGs. 50% of our net worth is in our house. We don’t run or have stakes in any private businesses. No investment properties. The only thing that sets u…

I was skeptical, then I checked [1] and apparently even if you separate by state you only need a household income of $512k to be in the top 1%. High, but certainly not unfathomably so to HN readers.

1 - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/27/how-much-you-have-to-earn-to...

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#96

Post by ghouse »

The tax code enables and reinforces outlier wealth using tired arguments like "encouraging investment" and "double taxation." United States centric observations:

For example, charging lower tax rates on capital gains than ordinary income promotes a concentration of wealth to people with wealth. Suggesting this is purposeful policy for society to encourage investment is comical -- what else would wealthy people do with the wealth? Store it under the mattress? Or spend it (in which case that would accelerate the velocity of money, also good for society). Capital gains taxes are only on the gains -- income that had not yet been taxed. Actual double taxation is a wealth tax.

Similar tax policy that results in concentration of wealth are: 1) 1031 transfers (where income on sale of real property isn't taxed so long as the proceeds are used to purchase real property), 2) Qualified Small Business Stock (where federal tax isn't paid on gains of sale of small business stock) 3) Economic Opportunity Zones (where tax is deferred on gains so long as the gains are invested in an Opportunity Zone, and all additional gains aren't taxed).

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#97

Post by opportune »

georgeburdell wrote: post #88

As the article notes, an increasingly common path to the 1% is through skilled labor. I think this type of earner would have more in common with a 50%er than a 0.1%er. My family has been in the 1% for a few years and we’re just bottom-rung individual contributors at FAANGs. 50% of our net worth is in our house. We don’t run or have stakes in any private businesses. No investment properties. The only thing that sets u…

That may be true now, but if you are saving/investing any appreciable amount of money (say, $100k/yr) then in 30 years you will also likely have generational wealth, which is another big difference.

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#98

Post by Razengan »

Having a guaranteed basic income, free money, or whatever you want to call it, would assuage a lot of the resentment surrounding the perceptions of effort, luck, opportunity, merit, worth, earnings, taxes, parentage, connections etcetera that inevitably come up in these discussions, as they have on this post.

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#99

Post by hailwren »

blunte wrote: post #83
allovernow wrote: post #36

>Smith, Yagan, Zidar, and Zwick find that the 1 percent’s income is being driven by owner-managers, mostly of small and medium-sized companies—specifically S corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies. These are talented managers: the researchers find that profits of companies run by these 1 percent-ers are far higher than those of businesses owned by people in the top 5-–10 percent >“The demand for…

> disproportionate contributions Do you really argue that the people in the top 0.01% are contributing to society at a rate hundreds or thousands of times higher than the rest of the people? And in the case of heirs, such as the Walton family, are they contributing so vastly more than the guy who mows people's lawns during the day and cooks their dinners in a restaurant at night? Or how about the Renaissance folks. T…

Why should it be a linear relationship? If talent is normally distributed then supply should decrease exponentially. Assuming that a company can afford it, wouldn't this make a linear demand produce an exponential forcing on salary?

Re: Never mind the 1 percent Let's talk about the 0.01 percent (2017)

#100

Post by ghouse »

nnnmnten wrote: post #45

Here in Denmark the highest tax bracket applies to almost 10% of the Danish population. The Top 1%, Top 0.01% and billionaires are not taxed more than the Top 10%. I belong to the Top 10% and I'm fine with that. Why do Americans focus so much on the "ultra-rich" and the billionaires when you can build a successful welfare state by just taxing the Top 10% a little more?

> Here in Denmark the highest tax bracket applies to almost 10% of the Danish population. The Top 1%, Top 0.01% and billionaires are not taxed more than the Top 10%.

Because in America, the top 0.01% makes their wealth through investment income, which is taxed at a lower rate. So, the top 0.1% pay a considerably lower rate than the balance of the top 1%.

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