The combination of wealth concentration, inflation, unaffordable education and health care, and the annihilation of entry-level knowledge work due to AI has created a crisis that really needs to be better appreciated by the few people that control most of the world’s capital. The society we live in can only exist if most of us buy into the social contract. If it appears to the overwhelming majority that the social contract no longer applies, then this story won’t end well for anyone, superwealthy included.
> this story won’t end well for anyone, superwealthy included
I think they believe they’ll be fine. And I tend to agree.
In the French Revolution—before private jets and wire transfers—most of the aristocracy escaped. It’s even debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos. (We can reject that they materially lost it.)
I think some figure they will die before any negative consequences hits them. And the hardliners are actively working on changing that social contract, where you will have no choice but to comply, because you will have no power. Many dictatorships still live on, in one form or another, with the elite doing just fine.
it's pretty scary to think that your last bastion of improving your self in this world (your mind) might get taken away too - then we'll essentially have fixed positions where capital owners and their offspring are perpetually the only ones allowed to make money.
We have a wealth tax in parts of Switzerland. It works for normal people like me where you can value my house and bank accounts easily. But it starts to have problems when you're ultra-wealthy and you have to value my artwork - paintings, sculptures, jewelry...
Overall I think it's fine. I think where I live it's .75%. But there's a giant hotel where the fifa executives live and the owner keeps getting in trouble for importing art and undervaluing it.
We already have those. We just tax regular folks’ homes and exempt shares, bonds and offshore trusts.
The value of a statistical life is about $14mm [1]. Let’s round that to the nearest $5mm and then have a progressive scale: $15mm 1%, $150mm 2%, $1.5bn 3%, $15bn 4%, $150bn 5%, $1.5tn 6%.
I think it's difficult to tax people on money they've earned and "paid" taxes on. The billionaire tax in CA is a good example. It makes sense that the ultra wealthy would rather move than to pay that tax - for lots of reasons ranging from greed to wanting to decide how their wealth gets used.
It reminds me of student loan forgiveness. It's too hard to retroactively forgive them. It may sound good in theory but it's not fair - i.e. for people who worked 2 jobs while going through college.
The laws for wealth accumulation moving forward need to be reformed and I think we have to accept that we let people run away with massive wealth and it turned out to be not the best thing for society.
> it's difficult to tax people on money they've earned and "paid" taxes on
We already have property tax across the country. Sales tax is charged on post-tax spending. Hell, one could argue income is taxed multiple times given the SALT exemption.
Somehow multiple taxation is only an issue for inheritance and the rich.
> Imagine tax reform which collects an extra 1% of sales tax for items you have already purchased
Literally property tax.
> I just don't know how to get there
Constitutionally authorize a national property tax that can only be increased by both an act of the Congress and affirmation in referendum alongside the next Presidential election. (It’s high time we brought plebiscite into our federal system.)
Politically: use its proceeds to cut taxes for the middle class. Double the income tax brackets. Provide a per-capita citizen’s dividend.
I understand what you're saying. What I was saying is difficult is introducing a new tax that would tax already taxed dollars. It's the "new" part - but I get that most new tax laws will do this.
Good. There's plenty of precedent for us peons - property taxes are a wealth tax. Generational wealth at the scale we see today is fundamentally incompatible with democratic principles. Billionaires are a policy failure.
People did vote for their property taxes to go up when they voted for republicans to cut taxes on billionaires. The republicans did not stop wars, foreign spending, or wasteful spending, they stopped domestic spending on things regular people needed.
Property taxes automatically goes up to cover the missing federal dollars, that is why property taxes are skyrocketing. Republicans cut federal income taxes and made it easier for CEOs to earn unlimited tax free money.
Property taxes have to pay for everything local that back in the 1950s was all taxpayer funded federally because we had a 90% federal income tax bracket and post-1929 financial regulations. Stock buybacks were illegal and CEOs could not pay themselves in stock and bubble the stock price to enrich themselves. When rich people shift money out of pockets of people who pay taxes to their own pockets where they pay no taxes, they defund the entire tax base and property taxes skyrocket. GDP is still at record highs and companies are posting record profits, but CEOs can run these companies so they and their insiders take all the money.
All the protections have been gutted by the republican party. We are back to the late 20s entering a new great depression. Removing the policies that ended the great depression is how you create a new great depression.
> People did vote for their property taxes to go up when they voted for republicans to cut taxes on billionaires.
> Property taxes automatically goes up to cover the missing federal dollars, that is why property taxes are skyrocketing.
All property taxes in the United States are at the state and local levels, not federal. I don't know what you're referring to.
> The republicans did not stop wars, foreign spending, or wasteful spending, they stopped domestic spending on things regular people needed.
Yes.
> Republicans cut federal income taxes and made it easier for CEOs to earn unlimited tax free money.
Also yes.
> Property taxes have to pay for everything local that back in the 1950s was all taxpayer funded federally because we had a 90% federal income tax bracket and post-1929 financial regulations.
I believe they’re saying that property taxes are making up for a gap in funding caused by lowered federal taxes. It’s not that property taxes are federal, it’s that lowering taxes in one area requires them to be raised in another, in order to achieve the same level of services.
Federal dollars to states and municipalities in Democratic-leaning states have been eviscerated. Since states can’t reasonably sunset a program with 6 weeks notice, the money has to come from somewhere else.
Yes and blue states also tend to have the least reliance on property taxes vs income tax for example. Debating this in the absence of real data is unlikely to be productive. Unfortunately trying to find good data on state/local tax rates is... more difficult than it should be.
The combination of wealth concentration, inflation, unaffordable education and health care, and the annihilation of entry-level knowledge work due to AI has created a crisis that really needs to be better appreciated by the few people that control most of the world’s capital. The society we live in can only exist if most of us buy into the social contract. If it appears to the overwhelming majority that the social contract no longer applies, then this story won’t end well for anyone, superwealthy included.
> this story won’t end well for anyone, superwealthy included
I think they believe they’ll be fine. And I tend to agree.
In the French Revolution—before private jets and wire transfers—most of the aristocracy escaped. It’s even debated if they increased their wealth share through the chaos. (We can reject that they materially lost it.)
I think some figure they will die before any negative consequences hits them. And the hardliners are actively working on changing that social contract, where you will have no choice but to comply, because you will have no power. Many dictatorships still live on, in one form or another, with the elite doing just fine.
it's pretty scary to think that your last bastion of improving your self in this world (your mind) might get taken away too - then we'll essentially have fixed positions where capital owners and their offspring are perpetually the only ones allowed to make money.
as well as the annihilation of non-cognitive work due to the computer over the last ~40 years
related: Building Pro-Worker AI https://www.nber.org/papers/w34854
We have a wealth tax in parts of Switzerland. It works for normal people like me where you can value my house and bank accounts easily. But it starts to have problems when you're ultra-wealthy and you have to value my artwork - paintings, sculptures, jewelry...
Overall I think it's fine. I think where I live it's .75%. But there's a giant hotel where the fifa executives live and the owner keeps getting in trouble for importing art and undervaluing it.
What if we called it a property tax?
We already have those. We just tax regular folks’ homes and exempt shares, bonds and offshore trusts.
The value of a statistical life is about $14mm [1]. Let’s round that to the nearest $5mm and then have a progressive scale: $15mm 1%, $150mm 2%, $1.5bn 3%, $15bn 4%, $150bn 5%, $1.5tn 6%.
[1] https://www.transportation.gov/office-policy/transportation-...
And we exempt bank accounts, and art, and gold and jewelry, and and and. Property taxes only cover real estate (and, in some states, cars).
When people are talking about a wealth tax, they're talking about taxing all of it, not just what is currently taxed.
I think it's difficult to tax people on money they've earned and "paid" taxes on. The billionaire tax in CA is a good example. It makes sense that the ultra wealthy would rather move than to pay that tax - for lots of reasons ranging from greed to wanting to decide how their wealth gets used.
It reminds me of student loan forgiveness. It's too hard to retroactively forgive them. It may sound good in theory but it's not fair - i.e. for people who worked 2 jobs while going through college.
The laws for wealth accumulation moving forward need to be reformed and I think we have to accept that we let people run away with massive wealth and it turned out to be not the best thing for society.
Some lessons are learned the hard way.
> it's difficult to tax people on money they've earned and "paid" taxes on
We already have property tax across the country. Sales tax is charged on post-tax spending. Hell, one could argue income is taxed multiple times given the SALT exemption.
Somehow multiple taxation is only an issue for inheritance and the rich.
Multiple taxation is not the problem. It's reforming tax law and charging on things that have already paid taxes.
Imagine tax reform which collects an extra 1% of sales tax for items you have already purchased.
I'm all for reforming tax such that the wealthy cannot dodge them and pay a higher effective tax rate. I just don't know how to get there.
> Multiple taxation is not the problem
This is precisely the difficulty you cited.
> Imagine tax reform which collects an extra 1% of sales tax for items you have already purchased
Literally property tax.
> I just don't know how to get there
Constitutionally authorize a national property tax that can only be increased by both an act of the Congress and affirmation in referendum alongside the next Presidential election. (It’s high time we brought plebiscite into our federal system.)
Politically: use its proceeds to cut taxes for the middle class. Double the income tax brackets. Provide a per-capita citizen’s dividend.
I understand what you're saying. What I was saying is difficult is introducing a new tax that would tax already taxed dollars. It's the "new" part - but I get that most new tax laws will do this.
So I probably agree with you.
Good. There's plenty of precedent for us peons - property taxes are a wealth tax. Generational wealth at the scale we see today is fundamentally incompatible with democratic principles. Billionaires are a policy failure.
People did vote for their property taxes to go up when they voted for republicans to cut taxes on billionaires. The republicans did not stop wars, foreign spending, or wasteful spending, they stopped domestic spending on things regular people needed.
Property taxes automatically goes up to cover the missing federal dollars, that is why property taxes are skyrocketing. Republicans cut federal income taxes and made it easier for CEOs to earn unlimited tax free money.
Property taxes have to pay for everything local that back in the 1950s was all taxpayer funded federally because we had a 90% federal income tax bracket and post-1929 financial regulations. Stock buybacks were illegal and CEOs could not pay themselves in stock and bubble the stock price to enrich themselves. When rich people shift money out of pockets of people who pay taxes to their own pockets where they pay no taxes, they defund the entire tax base and property taxes skyrocket. GDP is still at record highs and companies are posting record profits, but CEOs can run these companies so they and their insiders take all the money.
All the protections have been gutted by the republican party. We are back to the late 20s entering a new great depression. Removing the policies that ended the great depression is how you create a new great depression.
> People did vote for their property taxes to go up when they voted for republicans to cut taxes on billionaires.
> Property taxes automatically goes up to cover the missing federal dollars, that is why property taxes are skyrocketing.
All property taxes in the United States are at the state and local levels, not federal. I don't know what you're referring to.
> The republicans did not stop wars, foreign spending, or wasteful spending, they stopped domestic spending on things regular people needed.
Yes.
> Republicans cut federal income taxes and made it easier for CEOs to earn unlimited tax free money.
Also yes.
> Property taxes have to pay for everything local that back in the 1950s was all taxpayer funded federally because we had a 90% federal income tax bracket and post-1929 financial regulations.
You're losing me again here.
I believe they’re saying that property taxes are making up for a gap in funding caused by lowered federal taxes. It’s not that property taxes are federal, it’s that lowering taxes in one area requires them to be raised in another, in order to achieve the same level of services.
> lowering taxes in one area requires them to be raised in another, in order to achieve the same level of services.
But where has that actually occurred?
Federal dollars to states and municipalities in Democratic-leaning states have been eviscerated. Since states can’t reasonably sunset a program with 6 weeks notice, the money has to come from somewhere else.
Yes and blue states also tend to have the least reliance on property taxes vs income tax for example. Debating this in the absence of real data is unlikely to be productive. Unfortunately trying to find good data on state/local tax rates is... more difficult than it should be.
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