Richest 1% on target to own two-thirds of all wealth by 2030
129 replies, posted
It has affected standards of living in a very real and direct way.
If it wasn't for corporate lobbying, laws that would help to reduce the massive cost of healthcare could get through.
It's helped convince people that global warming isn't real, which may have already affected weather, and made legal other types of pollution which do decrease lifespans.
There are many examples.
Yes, lmao. Why are you talking down to me like that? Re-read the post. I was saying why income taxes (and all other taxes) help address wealth inequality. I was not saying that you should tax somebody for having a lot of money, nor that you should somehow reclaim money from the wealthy to somehow enforce equality.
We're already on a high speed collision course with a stock market crash given this administration just gave massive tax cuts to the ultra-wealthy and deregulated Wall Street even further. We can start with bringing back the aforementioned $30 trillion hiding offshore. Then you can reinvest it into education, infrastructure, housing, social safety nets etc. Nobody's saying give homeless people stocks, lol.
How
Wait, what do you mean? Unless you're proposing that we make all of the above publicly traded, it sounds like you're suggesting that our government steal all of the wealth that is being kept offshore and then spend it.
LVT (land value tax) might be one way of (sort of) taxing wealth. Oddly it's one of the few things market Liberals and socialists agree on being a good idea.
By fining those companies for tax dodging until they pay their taxes. If I don't pay my taxes I get thrown in jail. The government isn't stealing anything- they're legally owed that money.
Naw they use loop holes.
You'd need to change it so that companies are taxes on profits made inside your country. IE if apple makes $1bn in your country they pay tax on that $1bn. But then you get a thing like, if they reinvest that money can you still tax it? What if they reinvest all of their profits?
It's awkward. I agree tho we need to close those loop holes, ideally as a joint effort to stop a race to the bottom thing. Like in the EU they were planning on sorting out tax law to stop avoidance but then Euroskeptics barked. Oddly euroskeptics are the ones who vote against laws to stop corperate tax dodging... what a strange and interesting coincidence.
But any law that targets them would close the loopholes.
The issue isn't that they're breaking the law, the issue is that the law literally allows (most of) this behavior.
People calling for 'space communism now' are in an absolute minority. The (proper) far left sure has increased in size in recent years and understandably so, but they're still an absolute minority in the grand scheme of things. Tankies and their ilk are still idiots that no one else likes or takes seriously.
Look at Jeremy Corbyn in the UK. That isn't people rooting for a Marxist takeover. It's people rooting for generally sensible soc dem policy. You can definitely pick faults in the manifesto Labour put forward in the last election but it was certainly more sensible than the alternative and whatever we've had for the last however long.
Whatever else it is you're saying, you're assuming a lot about what I think. Even Marx acknowledged and was appreciative of Capitalism in terms of progress.
It is not a false premise that this level of wealth has created corruption. If you believe that to be true, please demonstrate it. As it is, I can show you the Reuters story proving 30 Trillion dollars is untaxed, and unused in the investment sense you've spoken of. I can show you multiple instances of companies playing ball and getting serious political favours in exchange for cash and time. It is a quantifiable fact that you are wrong on that element. Trust HAS been eroded, and if the trends continue, will be eroded faster and faster and in more severe forms. Your response to this is "Jolly good, full steam ahead". Your refusals to see the writing on the wall is just that. Your refusal.
Your second paragraph betrays your ignorance on the subject to a story I posted in this thread you could easily go and read. Those tax havens aren't functioning as investment banks as you insist they are.
The point is to incentivize the wealthy investing back into the US economy. The tax havens only exist because of the tax rate in the country as it is. If people are moving their assets offshore because we're punishing them for operating business in this country, I don't think the solution is to punish them more. Should tax loopholes be closed? Definitely. But people with large sums of money have no obligation to be here, and if we don't accompany it with tax cuts, those people are just going to relocate and grow the economy of some other country instead of our own.
This is a problem for me. These companies will dodge the tax regardless. If they have a better method to squirrel it away they will do so. They invest but this is one step away from saying “trickle down” will work in all honesty.
The point is to cut taxes enough that it's profitable to store money back in the US. The wealthy are generally going to store their money in such a way that it generates more money for them. Any sort of cash hording is a pretty crappy return on investment because the money just sits there doing nothing. Pooling money into the fastest growing sectors of the economy are a pretty good way to stimulate job growth, and taking resources away from that is just idiotic.
What are those tax rates though? The companies in the US haven't had to pay functional tax rates above 25%(iirc) for quite some time.
And none of this does anything to dispell fears about the power of that level of wealth to corrupt goverments that erodes the overall trust in the systems you're asking everyone to be placated with
If you look at this historically, that's partially because if you take away enough wealth from a US company and wealthy folks so that they no longer get the supermajority of their earnings, they will immediately begin to aggressively dodge taxes and fly through loopholes. This is historically super evident during wartime when taxes for the wealthy rose near 90%, while the income from those groups didn't even remotely pan out.
Can't us rational countries just agree that their money doesn't count.
If the richest 1% gave all of their money to the world we'd each get like 5 dollars each or something. And then that 5 dollars would be worthless.
What the fuck kind of math did you use that gave you ~37 billion as the entire wealth of the 1%
Jeff Bezos alone has around 3 times that. That's just one fucking person.
Did you even think about what you were posting before you posted it?
Who cares about the specific numbers because point being is that it's going to do fuck all to help the world. The demand for goods and services would increase and those who supply those items would charge a higher amount. Instead of worrying about how people are wealthy how about worrying about what specific individuals are doing with that wealth? For example George Soros has spent millions interfering in the politics of dozens of foreign nations.
It's like you're so close to making the connection that this wealth disparity leads to an imbalance of power which is dangerous for democracy but the closest you can get is George Soros conspiracy theories.
And what kind of system would you employ in order to keep everyone poor and miserable? Intelligent people will almost always get ahead and have more than your average joe no matter what system you come up with.
OK I think I'm done responding to your posts.
Because I exposed your true desires? You socialist types are nothing more than jealous children. But instead of crying to mommy and daddy about how little Chad in your elementary school classroom has the cool wheely shoes (or anything you really wanted as a child for that matter) and you don't you cry to big daddy government about how scrooge mcduck doesn't pay his fair share despite the 1% paying 80% of federal income tax collected. You are all wasting your time complaining about this issue when you could be focusing on the shady activities of specific individuals instead.
That sounds like a terrible idea. Starving would be better than eating something so disagreeable.
Why would you ever waste your time responding to seano of all people anyways? He's only ever been a gimmick troll and it's only a matter of time before he gets himself permabanned again for being a total moron.
Have fun with the US dollar, the currency that currently backs trade, going out the window.
Have double fun with no US exports and no imports from the US, either.
As opposed to having fun with a non-elected elite of inbred morons dominating your economy and by extension, external- increasingly your internal governance.
There are worse things you can experience than a world where we lop off the increasingly big tumor that is the US. The way that country is going, that's becoming something we'll have to do eventually anyway.
You have literally no idea how economics function and it's extremely obvious that you don't.
You do realize that the rich eating the poor over here effectively doesn't affect your economy at all, right?
Yeah okay honey. I'm such a dunce, i must have imagined how the entire fucking world economy imploded when irresponsible lending-practises ran amok thanks to your lack of legislation.
Get the fuck out of here with that 'Olol you a dumb' shit.
Something needs to be done about off-shore bank accounts. The Panama papers showed this was a huge issue, but because the system is difficult to understand for the average Joe, the rich end up paying far less tax than they should and governments end up shoving the bill over to everyone else.
These tax loopholes need to be closed, but because the rich buy political influence, it never will be.
Yeah, I didn't call you stupid at all, but you're clearly taking personal offense to this for some reason, so have fun with that.
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