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points by Varelion 1 day ago | 0 comments

Wealth inequality will destroy America. Tax wealth. Tax wealth violently.

each technological advance increases wealth inequality. Problem is not wealth inequality its things getting worse for ppl low on totem pole vs getting better. I am sure ppl wouldnt mind inequlity if things were getting cheaper, healthcare being more accesible ect. Thats what AI promised but never delivered. Nothing has gotten cheaper like predicted.

[–] malicka 1 day ago

No, it’s definitely the insane amounts of inequality we have today. The inequality is why there is less money flowing through the economy, why folks with incredible amounts of wealth can buy media outlets and attempt to buy elections to further their interests to hinder attempts to make things cheaper for average people. The inequality gives them their power, it’s the whole point.

[–] mrtesthah 1 day ago

Absolutely. Lack of effective enforcement of anti-trust and consumer protection laws are major factors in rising costs of everyday people. Corporations and oligarchs get to do whatever they want and suffer no consequences for it, because Citizens United gives power to those with the most wealth.

There’s a reason why half the country would vote for a democratic socialist now.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/6178694-voters-support...

[–] f1yght 1 day ago

People don’t mind mild inequality. Some people have more, that’s fine. When it’s extreme it’s a problem. 100% we need to make sure everyone is taken care of before we worry about if someone can have even more money than they will ever need.

[–] kelseyfrog 1 day ago

There was a demonstration of this asking people to divide a pie representing wealth among various low, middle, and upper classes in a way they felt was fair. The result was uneven, upper classes getting more, lower classes getting less. But when compared, the actual division of wealth as demonstrated using a pie resulted in the richest 10% getting 70% no one thought that a system that resulted in such inequality was fair.

[–] draygonia 1 day ago

Maybe raising the minimum wage was never a good idea and we should instead consider a wage cap that taxes heavily those that make above some insane figure everyone should be happy with... $10m a year? That seems generous enough for now until someone turns the money printer back on.

[–] gunalx 1 day ago

You could make it a function of a median income of some sorts.

[–] well_ackshually 1 day ago

But think about the poor people with only ten million dollars, how will they face inflation when in ten years their $5 carton of eggs that they don't purchase is $8? :(

[–] dyauspitr 1 day ago

I’m a little more nuanced on this. I personally think paradigm shifting changes come from having insane capital and being able to fund those large scale changes (and it’s not just the US. That’s literally how east Asia developed their economy. The analog for very rich people was the state in China and India is basically currently following the same model as the other Asian countries). Only billionaires or very large corporations have that sort of capital. All of that to say we definitely need very rich people in society but at the same time you cannot have one person literally have more wealth than 50% of the country that is insane. There needs to be some limit maybe 100 billion or 200 billion is all you can have or something like that something that literally applies to 10 people

[–] joquarky 1 day ago

I think we've had quite enough paradigm shifting changes recently to the point that we no longer need financial incentives to keep these changes happening.

Perhaps companies should be required to diversify their set of investors as they grow so that no individual investors have anything approaching a plurality.

[–] elevation 1 day ago

Confiscate all billionaire liquidity and distribute it as a dividend today and you get a one-time $$$ payment for every citizen. Liquidate all their assets and you get another $$$ payment, but you've dismantled businesses which have massively raise the standard of living accross the country (next day delivery of goods, ubiquitous home internet) and ended many jobs. You've also dis-incentivized a lot of people future ambitions.

[–] addaon 1 day ago

> Liquidate all their assets and you get another $$$ payment, but you've dismantled businesses

How does this follow? Liquidating assets means selling them to a buyer... who can continue to operate the business.

[–] elevation 1 day ago

> a buyer... who can continue to operate the business

I considered this route, but if the goal is to reduce wealth inequality, then leaving Amazon intact doesn't make sense. You leave it intact while selling to another wealthy buyer, you just traded Bezos for Bezos 2.

If you leave Amazon intact but nationalize it, giving every American own an equal share of the business, this doesn't give the average American any more control than the stock market does, except the new nationalized entity has government cover for fraud and mismanagement.

[–] addaon 1 day ago

> You leave it intact while selling to another wealthy buyer, you just traded Bezos for Bezos 2.

> If you leave Amazon intact but nationalize it

Sure. So leave it intact and sell it to a cooperative owned by the employees. Now you traded Bezos for a healthy incentive-aligned going concern with 1.6 million folks sharing the wealth. And Bezos still has his (one) vote!

[–] jmcqk6 1 day ago

Why are you assuming those are the only available options?

[–] nick_ 1 day ago

The ol' straw man with a side of false choice.

[–] Clent 1 day ago

> dis-incentivized a lot of people future ambitions.

Let's assume this is true. It must be compared to how many people's ambitions will have been awoken.

[–] cdrnsf 1 day ago

Tax any and all annual income after $5 million annually at 100%. Confiscate all existing wealth from anyone beyond that $5 million per year for each year they filed income taxes. Should they move their wealth offshore, seize it. Elections should be strictly publicly funded.

[–] well_ackshually 1 day ago

"if you redistribute in the most inefficient way possible, then things end up not being efficient" no shit sherlock

hell, even your dumbass suggestion isn't even considering second order effects. hundreds of millions suddenly being able to purchase products has a massive positive effect on the economy, more than anything Bezos could provide. It's VAT going in, it's smaller businesses seeing activity and providing more economcal activity in return, VAT that allows you to improve public services, rebuild roads, fix infrastructure, provide daycares and hospitals and social security so people can work.

But you're right, it's not enough: we must also seize land & properties from those owning 10+ to redistribute it, as well as build insane amounts of publicly managed housing to crash rental & purchase prices so people can live.