The other option is a lefty Jan 6. You forget these are our alternative avenues rather than violence. But violence seems like the only bell that makes any noise these days sense the rest is drowned out by the massive amounts of free speech pouring into politicians’ pockets.
It gets tricky when you get paid once and then never get paid again, but the original thing you were paid with (i.e. company stocks) goes up in value over time, effectively replacing wages. Do we count that value increase as well? What if you get paid in cash, you buy something with that cash (could be the same company stocks), and that thing goes up in value? Or you buy another asset that your company has a lot of influence over?
The company exists without the stock market. People will still own portions of that company. The value will just be harder for the general public to determine and can be more easily obfuscated for tax purposes.
People will still own portions of that company. The value will just be harder for the general public to determine and can be more easily obfuscated for tax purposes.
Companies shouldn’t have values placed on them. They shouldn’t be bought or sold. They should all be employee owned.
They are counted as income. When company grants stock, it appears in W2, for example.
The rub is when their extrapolated value changes, and this would be fine if they sold, as there is a tax system for handling that too, but there are gaps with borrowing where they can game the system by borrowing against the value instead of selling. By needlessly living in debt, they can manage their tax burden in ways unavailable to mere mortals.
Well, sure. Just have to accurately describe what to stop. Usually calls to action don’t understand the actual scheme in play, so folks ask for things that either don’t make sense or already exist. Within that context hard to fight when you don’t even know what to fight
I agree that the specifics are important, but it is honestly just tiring trying to keep track of the countless loopholes that the rich use. The end result is that I know there is horseshit going on, but I just don’t have the time to always give a thoroughly researched answer every time.
Sorry my intention was to convey my agreement with you but also point out a funny attribute of this avenue which could be interpreted to align with the overarching “tax the rich” theme of the OP
Yeah. Every bonus that I’ve ever seen has been raced at something like 40%. We really need to both make capital gains equally taxed to earned income and have a wealth tax.
(TL;DR: a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue, so if the goal is more taxes being paid, your suggestion is counter-productive)
The justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption.
First, the tax is not adjusted for inflation, so any appreciation of assets is taxed at the nominal instead of the real value. This means investors must pay tax not only on the real return but also on the inflation created by the Federal Reserve.
Second, the capital gains tax is merely part of a long line of federal taxation of the same dollar of income. Wages are first taxed by payroll and personal income taxes, then again by the corporate income tax if one chooses to invest in corporate equities, and then again when those investments pay off in the form of dividends and capital gains. This puts corporations at a disadvantage relative to pass through business entities, whose owners pay personal income tax on distributed profits, instead of taxes on corporate income, capital gains, and dividends. One way corporations mitigate this excessive taxation is through debt rather than equity financing, since interest is deductible. This creates perverse incentives to over leverage, contributing to the boom and bust cycle.
Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption. Future personal consumption, in the form of savings, is taxed, while present consumption is not. By favoring present over future consumption, savings are discouraged, which decreases future available capital and lowers long term growth.
Not only has a low capital gains tax rate worked to encourage savings and increase economic growth, a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue.
The goal in my mind is not to necessarily increase total revenue but to erode the capacity to hoard wealth. The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity, giving a distinct advantage to those who are already wealthy, over those who are not.
The wealthiest’s wealth is all invested in the economy, literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
“The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity” is false–they are that way to encourage entrepreneurship and the like, the things that keep the economy strong. The fact that those who create the things that strengthen the economy become wealthy faster than those who don’t is a feature, not a bug. A rising tide lifts all ships. And make no mistake, one’s assets appreciating in value takes nothing away from those who haven’t invested–the latter group’s level of wealth is not affected by the former’s. In other words, the wage my job pays me does not change based on how wealthy other people’s assets are, from the billionaires, down to even a neighbor whose house has appreciated in value.
Wealth disparity is not inherently a bad thing–a century ago, the ‘gap’ was much smaller, as was the number of billionaires, but the average person’s wealth was also MUCH lower.
The wealthiest’s wealth is all invested in the economy, literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
The economy is more than the NYSE and bought politicians.
“The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity” is false–they are that way to encourage entrepreneurship and the like, the things that keep the economy strong.
Don’t know what to tell you there. The money doesn’t buying legislation to keep workers in places of economic instability doesn’t really encourage entrepreneurship or reduce its inherent risks. Entrepreneurship is also pretty well dominated by the wealthy who can afford the Russia, largely due to inherited wealth.
The fact that those who create the things that strengthen the economy become wealthy faster than those who don’t is a feature, not a bug. A rising tide lifts all ships. And make no mistake, one’s assets appreciating in value takes nothing away from those who haven’t invested–the latter group’s level of wealth is not affected by the former’s. In other words, the wage my job pays me does not change based on how wealthy other people’s assets are, from the billionaires, down to even a neighbor whose house has appreciated in value.
Wealth disparity is not inherently a bad thing–a century ago, the ‘gap’ was much smaller, as was the number of billionaires, but the average person’s wealth was also MUCH lower.
Wealth disparity is the root of most crime and human suffering. Also, the years leading into the Great Depression may not be a good reference point on average wealth.
You know what, I didn’t think that we’re going to see eye to eye on these matters, regardless of how much back and forth we have. I hope you have a pleasant day and eventually see an increase in empathy that shifts your worldview.
Bonuses don’t get taxed any differently. What happens if your employers payroll software sees additional income above your wages and without any tax-exempt lines (like health insurance) subtracting from taxable income. It ends up calculating a higher tax withholding rate. Or it doesn’t and just calculates the maximum marginal rate by default because it’s a stupid program.
Come tax time a dollar of income is a dollar of income. Your tax burden is calculated in total income and bonuses are treated no differently than wages.
Your tax return is just leveling out with the government. You’re paying the same amount of tax over the whole course of the year, and when you file the taxes, any refund or payment is a surplus or deficit of what you paid versus what you owed.
The tricky part is that has implications for business control. Other people speculate the market cap into 50m and then they take over control of your company, because you are forced to sell off your stake. So an arbitrary coalition of 3 rich dudes can just take over your company on a whim, if it is vaguely important enough. A coalition of rich people is not likely going to treat the customers or employees better.
I think that’s a solvable problem. Theoretical value of a private company’s shares would need to be more flexible because the real worth won’t be known until selling your stake, or the company going public where there is a concrete value.
There are many options for a company that hits performance metrics. The big ones would be re-inveermemt back into the company after the employee and shareholder compensation reaches the limit. A company with several departments that see a growth in their budgets will improve the value of the company and at the same time will see improvements to quality of life for the employees.
More ideas for excise wealth:
spinning off functions from the parent company to become other companies
a flat, one time bonus for all employees
expansion of employee benefits
social program investments, like parks, schools, recreation centers, local sports teams, libraries, etc.
community improvement projects (which are constantly underfunded)
If the extra wealth was actually allowed to trickle throughout the people, it would be an explosion of improvements to community health and well being. Businesses would directly help the people who patronize it, leading to more recognition (ie free advertising) for the companies who contribute the most.
There are many, many options for how to weigh the value the of a company, the performance of its books, and find a way to keep the business thriving while not sucking out the money of its customers.
I don’t know what that means- but how do these options not still increase the wealth of the company and therefore increase the wealth of the owners of the company
Re-investment. I figured a typo like that would be safe to assume but oh well.
Measuring the value of a company would be valuations just like now with shares equaling the value of the company. The owner would be divested from the company as it increased in value to separate the two. The value of the company would then be independent of the owner’s share in it.
The loophole is that they aren’t paid that amount in maximum wage anyway. The actual wage is some degree of modest. They just get paid in bonuses and stock options, which don’t count for one reason or another.
Hell, I’d be okay with 100 million total in both liquid and non-liquid assets as a wealth cap. We could even tie it to inflation, so long as we also tie the minimum wage to inflation (let’s say, starting at $30/hr federally, then increasing as needed locally).
$100m can even be fine. Let them have their Bugatti and mansion. There’s big toys aplenty to have them motivated without being complacent and not milking the rest of the world for all it’s worth.
Even capping it at 1 billion would do wonders. That means, for example, Elon would have to pay more than 200 billions to the government. Imagine what we could do with 200 billions.
And yes, they could split it with family and friends, but I find it hard to believe he (or anyone actually) knows 200 people he can trust with 1 billion each.
Wealth is there to motivate people to do something more than dwell and ruminate. If there was a wealth cap or maximum amount of money you can have no one would have motivation to do all these things we have like companies and such.
It’s not so black and white.
Currently probably the best bleeding edge system is doughnut economy where power of capitalism is constrained to non essentials from one side and planet health from another. https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Netherlands if I remember correctly currently is doing something in that direction and generally eu capitalism is somewhat constrained
Cap it at 20m. That’s a great fucking motivation to me. That’s a couple nice houses, a boat or two, several over the top cars, and pretty much any possession you can think of within reason. You could lead a very comfortable life on 20m net worth.
Humanity does not need private jets, mega yachts, mega mansions, etc.
There would be no personal motivation to siphon every penny away from your employees if you’re at your wealth cap. Employees who should be sharing in the company’s success in meaningful terms.
There would be no motivation for enshitification to reduce costs to the bare minimum for every last penny.
Etc.
The extreme greed that “motivates innovation” is such a crock. Yeah, obscene wealth does fuel venture capitalism atm, but those investors are also who twist the knife on CEOs to make short term decisions that end up destroying companies at the detriment of employees and customers alike.
CEOs aren’t in it for the long haul. Investors aren’t in it for the long haul. It’s all rape and pillage under the current system.
But if you cap it there is no reason to improve things, make them more efficient etc. The world runs on greed, ambition and it’s very important for progress as long as it can be directed and constrained in a sensible manner.
Regulations need to constrain capitalism and make sure it stays within reasonable boundaries where it is a power of building things and not destructive.
Wealthy serve as a goal to the ambitious and as long as wealth can not be inherited (that needs to change) and everyone has equal opportunity to become one, it is fair.
Assuming you’re a working class person, are you motivated by the hope of becoming a billionaire? Is that what drives you to go to work or take a chance at starting a business of your own?
If that dream was capped at 20m, would that stop you from trying to be successful? Is there anything in the world that you covet that exceeds 20m? Or even 10m.
I won’t wait for your personal answer. I don’t think it’d far fetched to say that for most people, their answer would be that it doesn’t make a difference. Achieving 20m would be a dream and give them a far more comfortable life than they have now.
And if they reached that 20m, they’d either retire and give the next generation a chance at the reins, or keep working but necessarily focus more on their employee/customer happiness, because there’s no reason to be exceedingly greedy except as a ego scoreboard thing.
That doesn’t stop innovation, it just means that more will innovate and thrive because fewer will clutch onto their throne and kick others down.
And if they reached that 20m, they’d either retire and give the next generation a chance at the reins, or keep working but necessarily focus more on their employee/customer happiness, because there’s no reason to be exceedingly greedy except as a ego scoreboard thing.
I’ll end the conversation here though, it’s obvious you’re not interested in intelligent discourse if you’re cherrypicking like that. Enjoy your billionaire idolatry while you file your w-2
If it’s such great motivation, what is stopping you now? The potential to earn that is there for you, right now but from what I gather you’re not doing it. Why would you have MORE motivation to make 20M if it was capped but have no motivation in the current environment?
I think you’re missing the point. I am asserting that 20m cap or capless, people including myself are motivated to try to be monetarily successful. The American dream is everyone is a future million/billionaire.
The current wealth distribution and lobbying only serves to make the rich richer and kick the ladder out from behind them.
A wealth cap changes that. It means there’s little point for the rich to keep clutching to power for more money, because you can’t keep it. But the goal of 20m is still very appetizing to the working class, where they could retire in comfort for the rest of their lives.
In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, Amsterdam’s city government announced it would recover from the crisis, and avoid future ones, by embracing the theory of “doughnut economics.”
Amsterdam’s ambition is to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable. Guided by Raworth’s organization, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), the city is introducing massive infrastructure projects, employment schemes and new policies for government contracts to that end. Meanwhile, some 400 local people and organizations have set up a network called the Amsterdam Doughnut Coalition—managed by Drouin— to run their own programs at a grassroots level.
How? Most people this rich have next to nothing in their bank accounts. The ridiculous numbers you see are not bank account balances or sports cars and yachts. Its primarily shares of the companies they manage. E.g. if you tax them conventionally, you force them to close the factories and everyone becomes poorer. If you just confiscate the company (shares), now the government owns companies, and we saw how that goes plenty of times: USSR, North Korea, Cuba, … Or you give the shares to people, but the company would still need to be managed by someone who no longer has a proportional incentive to make it succeed, causing the same result as if it was government run.
…or you have the workers communally run the factory and elect the person to run it and if they don’t do a good job, they lose the position. Which seems like a pretty good incentive to succeed. In fact, “do this right or you’re fired” rarely seems to apply to the person at the top.
Lets pretend they would not become corrupt. What about unpopular decisions, such as layoffs? As much as people hate them, they are sometimes necessary to keep peoples work productive.
Again, if they do a bad job, they can be taken out of office by the other workers. If they handle layoffs the right way, they won’t be taken out of office.
First off, if you think people will vote for unpopular things because they are handled correctly and the right thing to do, you are not paying attention to any elections.
Second of all, lets say I am elected to run this company. I have two options:
Operate the company to the best of my abilities and in the best case scenario, I will get a bit above average wage. More likely something out of my control will happen that I will be balmed for by the next guy who wants to run the company.
I give way overpriced contracts to people who will give something of value to me. Of course vaguely enough that you can’t prove it in court. Then I just lose my job in a year or two, when people figure it out. Of course by then, I gained more in that year than I would gain in my entire life working honestly.
What do you think the kind of people thick skinned enough to win a company election would do?
And if your solution is to lower the burden of proof in court, who would take normal salaried job with high chance of being falsely imprisoned? Not the honest ones…
Ignore that last part, just me writing ahead too much. I was trying to say this kind of corruption is incredibly hard to prove, so courts are not helpful.
I agree a wealth tax is difficult to implement, but that alone is not a reason to dismiss the idea. Also, for shares, you can always sell shares to pay the taxes that are due. The point of wealth tax is to wealth, not income. Much like a property tax. I don’t understand why they would be forced to limit their own income potential (by closing factories or decreasing production) in order to pay taxes on wealth they own.
Better than a wealth tax is a land value tax. Key properties are that it doesn’t cause capital flight (you can’t move land), it’s almost impossible to evade (you can’t hide land), it’s economically efficient (it literally doesn’t even harm the economy in the slightest to implement it), it can’t be passed on to tenants (both in economic theory and in observed practice), and it’s progressive.
Plus, it incentives denser, transit-oriented city development and disincentivizes wastage of prime real estate (which contributes to the housing crisis). All in all, a terrific policy that people aren’t talking nearly enough about imo.
At least in the US, most people already pay local and state property taxes that are higher in high population density areas. The problem with this tax is that it still disproportionately affects middle class home owners instead of only affecting the billionaire class. Also, land is just 1 aspect of wealth. Most of the wealthy in the US don’t keep any significant part of their wealth in land.
Most of the wealthy in the US don’t keep any significant part of their wealth in land.
This is really key. If it was 100 years ago, this would make more sense, but the vast majority of measured wealth created in the world today is in intangible assets, like stock prices.
Sell them to whom? You are taxing everyone rich enough to buy them.
They would close factories to sell them for parts and blow the cash on whatever before paying taxes: casinos, yachts, moving to a country without such taxes, …
You make it sound like factories don’t actually net them profit LMAO. Even after paying taxes they’re still making money. If they weren’t, it would be a terrible business. Also what do you mean sell them to whom? Other billionaires that still exist even with a wealth tax, non billionaire investors, international investors. If they can’t find someone to sell their shares to, then clearly their shares are overvalued and that’ll take care of some of the problem in itself.
Also shutting down factories won’t affect their wealth, which is actually what’s being taxed. And it won’t matter weather they sell $1 billion of whatever to buy $1 billion of something else. You’re taxing their wealth, not their business or cash in hand. If they’re holding on to $1 billion in one form or another, then they’re holding on to $1 billion that can be taxed.
Once again, billionaires don’t have large sums of money in their banks. It is all invested. So if all of them in the country have no money and need to sell to pay these massive taxes, who are they selling to?
And sorry to say this, but if you genuinely think selling a significant portion of a countries industry/businesses to foreign investors could be good for the people of the country, than I am wasting my time here.
In the only countries that still have a ‘wealth tax’, the thresholds are so broad that they are primarily a burden of the middle and lower classes, making it effectively no different than a more conventional/mundane tax, versus what everyone talking about a “wealth tax” in these kinds of discussions invariably expects; namely, a tax that only/primarily targets the wealthiest.
Before the income tax was implemented, there were promises it’d only be aimed at the rich, too.
Youre right about income tax and to some degree income tax does primarily effect the wealthy except the brackets haven’t been updated to reflect inflation and the new ultra wealthy class appropriately. The other thing is, many of the wealthy don’t have incomes in the traditional sense, and it makes no sense to differentiate capital gains from regular income. The argument that you don’t want retirement investment income taxed as regular income tax is a little moot since that’s why we have tax advantaged retirement accounts. If those accounts aren’t enough for all retirement investments, maybe those limits need to be increased or the way the tax advantage works for them needs to be changed.
Past failed attempts are also a good point, but to me they sound more like administrative failures rather than a failure of that type of policy. In the US we already have some wealth taxes on the value of homes and cars. Some of these failed European policies seemed to define wealth poorly and as a result either weren’t fully taxing wealth or spending more resources on administration than collections. But banks already do a great job of assessing an individual’s wealth. This is how the ultra rich are able to get huge lines of credit to play with rather than having to use their own capital directly. I don’t see how the government can’t use similar systems to calculate an individual’s total wealth. And the argument about the wealthy fleaing the country are also a little moot in the US. The wealthy in the US make money off of American tax dollars. Amazon/Bezos is rich because the US government started using AWS. Tesla is successful because the US uses their influence in South America to cost effectively obtain raw materials for batteries (not to mention those tax credits on EVs). There are all the military industrial companies, and the insurance companies. If the government had the backbone to say Americans who got wealthy using the American market have to pay taxes in America or they lose their right to sell to the American market (government or to the public), no one is going anywhere.
Or you give the shares to people, but the company would still need to be managed by someone who no longer has a proportional incentive to make it succeed, causing the same result as if it was government run.
Would it? Give the shares to the workers and they have a huge incentive to run a company well. Right now a CEO’s only priority is to maximise shareholders return. A workers led company would maximise both shareholder return AND have an incentive and pride in doing a job properly instead of the low morale and poorly built crap we have today.
History has shown anytime control is in the hands of the few, it’s run into the ground in order to maximise the wealth for the few so giving control to the masses of workers in companies would lead to more compromises and might sound bad at first but would likely work better the more people required to make drastic changes.
And as said many times, no billionaire has ever ‘earned’ that. They’ve all gained it through exploitation and wage theft either directly or indirectly!
So how do the workers run the company? A vote on every little decision? If not, you have to still have a CEO, for whom it is now far more profitable to make decisions that profit them rather than the company. And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Also, what about layoffs? While everyone loves to hate layoffs, they are part of keeping peoples work productive. Are the workers going to vote/approve them?
No, I am saying that often, company may need to downsize to remain productive. For example, lets say we have a company that makes headphone jacks. For obvious reasons, they are no longer able to sell as many as they used to, but maybe half.
The company now needs to layoff half the workers. Is the elected CEO going to promptly do it? Or will he delay it and causing both financial damage to the company and productivity damage to the economy?
And also, do the fired employees still get to vote? Is just firing malcontents the tyrant CEOs weapon?
then that’s for the workers to decide on. If 51% of the workforce agrees, thats the decision! If that doesn’t ‘fit’ with the workers, make it 60% or 75%, or whatever number the majority agree on!
It really isn’t that difficult. There are plenty of voting systems, the issue comes down to people and a change of thinking how companies are run.
You can make any argument why it wouldn’t work when you don’t want something to work but given the current system is working soooo well… new ideas are better than no ideas! 😎
You say that ironically, but average people in developed nations have arguably better lifestyle and more resources than kings used to. And living standard in developing nations have been steadily improving. The system is incredibly flawed because the humans it is made of are incredibly flawed. Considering how flawed it is, it is working astonishingly well.
Thankfully, workers are deciding every day they would rather work in the current system, then stop working based on some hopeless dreams of flying castles.
then that’s for the workers to decide on. If 51% of the workforce agrees, thats the decision!
But the vast majority of workers don’t have the slightest idea how to run a business effectively. A very large proportion of them mismanage their own finances, let alone a larger responsibility like that.
And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Yeah because 32hrs would become 40 and we would discard another 8. 6hrsx4. When that happens we are no longer deprived of time edilucate and discuss the matter with the relevant folks.
And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Yes. Because of the above.
Also, what about layoffs? While everyone loves to hate layoffs, they are part of keeping peoples work productive
No. They aren’t. They actually doing the exact opposite. Your statement to contrary of the obvious is a sucker delusion. Stop consuming sugar to begin with and finish by stopping to listen to money.
Are the workers going to vote/approve them?
Yup. Your delusion is thinking that mass is any kind of importance. Its not when it is compared to life because shit might come from the magick of people but there will never be life as a part of them unless they were to begin with and in that case, you were never the creator. Workers MUST have the right to make decision where they work or the entire planet will die. No fucking exceptions with any financial delusions because ALL of it is doing and being exactly that.
Why should we have a stock market in the first place? Seems like all it does is act as a means for the rich to shuffle their wealth around, funnel it to the top and claim they have next to no liquidity.
First of all, it matters if the stock market is fulfilling its original intention. Which it obviously is. Second of all, some of the biggest traders on the stock market are pension funds of common workers, appreciating their retirement money. Fuck over how exactly?
And third, let’s say none of what I wrote is true. Why are we somehow better of not having a stock market at all instead of fixing it to fulfill its purpose? Or making a new one if it is easier? Do you regularly throw away things without getting a replacement when they stop working? Never replaced your car and phone after they got old and broke?
Second of all, some of the biggest traders on the stock market are pension funds of common workers, appreciating their retirement money.
“The rich now own a record share of stocks,” Axios reported on January 10, noting that the top 10 percent hold about 93 percent of U.S. households stock market wealth.
You’re being misleading, or have been misleading about the allocation of wealth within the stock market.
Retirement should be a public service, not a form of gambling within a system set up for the rich.
Why are we somehow better of not having a stock market at all instead of fixing it to fulfill its purpose?
Because it would be one less way for the rich to obfuscate their wealth growth, because the original purpose of distributing ownership through shares is an inherently flawed idea.
Do you regularly throw away things without getting a replacement when they stop working?
“Why would we get rid of the orphan killing machine!?!?!? We would have to replace it with a new one.”
Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion. The population of 15 years and above is about 273.85 million. That gives about $102,000 annually per person in this category. The median personal income is about $40,500 annually. So almost 40% of the entire economy goes to wages and other income of normal people alone. And yes, it is median (not average) so we are talking normal people wages, not CEO wages. According to wikipedia, about 17.3% of the GDP is government consumption and 17.2% is capital investment. That leaves little over 25% unaccounted for. This will include everything not accounted above. Charities, rich people wages, lottery winnings, … and of course, stock market gains and dividends.
I can’t account for more of the 25% right now (it is late, maybe someday), but even if it all went to the filthily rich along with a proportional part of government consumption and capital investment, then the normal people still get 61% of the economy. In the absolute worst case. Seems to me like lot of the “ultra-wealthy own most of america” is just misinformation.
Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion.
You shouldn’t be using GDP for this, as GDP is a notoriously bad metric for understanding the flow of wealth. If I pay you $100 to wash my car and you pay me $100 to wash your car, the GDP of our actions is $200 even though both of our wealth is unchanged. GDP is simply a measure of how fast money is circulating.
You need to be looking at that actual allocation of the wealth, as the rich like to use a myriad of loopholes to obfuscate their acquisitions.
F that. Shave then down to a few million, tops. There needs to be a wealth cap.
A wealth cap and a maximum wage in my opinion. The idea of a minimum wage without a maximum wage is odd to me to begin with.
What the ultrarich just heard: “So you’re okay with us getting rid of minimum wage, then!”
You’re probably right, sadly.
Sorry guys, I checked the legislative schedule and they said they don’t have anything for a maximum wage or wealth cap.
But they did say if we can get 200 million to sign a petition they will ignore it indefinitely. Hope that helps.
Don’t forget to protest vote in November ensuring nothing ever changes.
The other option is a lefty Jan 6. You forget these are our alternative avenues rather than violence. But violence seems like the only bell that makes any noise these days sense the rest is drowned out by the massive amounts of free speech pouring into politicians’ pockets.
They’ll just claim aren’t paid in wages, see it’s a performance bonus. Totally not a wage. That’s for the poors.
We also need to end bullshit loopholes like that. Bonuses, benefits, stocks, everything and anything in-between needs to be counted as income.
Doesn’t matter if your employer pays you in bananas or bitcoin, everything the employer does to reward an employee must be counted.
It gets tricky when you get paid once and then never get paid again, but the original thing you were paid with (i.e. company stocks) goes up in value over time, effectively replacing wages. Do we count that value increase as well? What if you get paid in cash, you buy something with that cash (could be the same company stocks), and that thing goes up in value? Or you buy another asset that your company has a lot of influence over?
Seems to be another good reason to abolish the stock market. The difficulty of tracking that stuff vanishes if it doesn’t exist in the first place.
The company exists without the stock market. People will still own portions of that company. The value will just be harder for the general public to determine and can be more easily obfuscated for tax purposes.
Companies shouldn’t have values placed on them. They shouldn’t be bought or sold. They should all be employee owned.
They are counted as income. When company grants stock, it appears in W2, for example.
The rub is when their extrapolated value changes, and this would be fine if they sold, as there is a tax system for handling that too, but there are gaps with borrowing where they can game the system by borrowing against the value instead of selling. By needlessly living in debt, they can manage their tax burden in ways unavailable to mere mortals.
That’s the exact kind of shit we need to end.
Well, sure. Just have to accurately describe what to stop. Usually calls to action don’t understand the actual scheme in play, so folks ask for things that either don’t make sense or already exist. Within that context hard to fight when you don’t even know what to fight
I agree that the specifics are important, but it is honestly just tiring trying to keep track of the countless loopholes that the rich use. The end result is that I know there is horseshit going on, but I just don’t have the time to always give a thoroughly researched answer every time.
Thankfully bonuses are already taxed very highly.
That’s so missing the point, I can’t help but think you’re a cheerleader for the billionaire class.
If there is a maximum wage but no maximum bonus their income would be all bonus to get around the maximum. The thing we’re discussing.
Sorry my intention was to convey my agreement with you but also point out a funny attribute of this avenue which could be interpreted to align with the overarching “tax the rich” theme of the OP
Yeah. Every bonus that I’ve ever seen has been raced at something like 40%. We really need to both make capital gains equally taxed to earned income and have a wealth tax.
The capital gains tax isn’t lower than income tax just because. There are very specific reasons:
(TL;DR: a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue, so if the goal is more taxes being paid, your suggestion is counter-productive)
The goal in my mind is not to necessarily increase total revenue but to erode the capacity to hoard wealth. The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity, giving a distinct advantage to those who are already wealthy, over those who are not.
Wealth disparity is not inherently a bad thing–a century ago, the ‘gap’ was much smaller, as was the number of billionaires, but the average person’s wealth was also MUCH lower.
The economy is more than the NYSE and bought politicians.
Don’t know what to tell you there. The money doesn’t buying legislation to keep workers in places of economic instability doesn’t really encourage entrepreneurship or reduce its inherent risks. Entrepreneurship is also pretty well dominated by the wealthy who can afford the Russia, largely due to inherited wealth.
Wealth disparity is the root of most crime and human suffering. Also, the years leading into the Great Depression may not be a good reference point on average wealth.
You know what, I didn’t think that we’re going to see eye to eye on these matters, regardless of how much back and forth we have. I hope you have a pleasant day and eventually see an increase in empathy that shifts your worldview.
Bonuses don’t get taxed any differently. What happens if your employers payroll software sees additional income above your wages and without any tax-exempt lines (like health insurance) subtracting from taxable income. It ends up calculating a higher tax withholding rate. Or it doesn’t and just calculates the maximum marginal rate by default because it’s a stupid program.
Come tax time a dollar of income is a dollar of income. Your tax burden is calculated in total income and bonuses are treated no differently than wages.
Your tax return is just leveling out with the government. You’re paying the same amount of tax over the whole course of the year, and when you file the taxes, any refund or payment is a surplus or deficit of what you paid versus what you owed.
Doesn’t Section 31.3402(g)-1(a)(1)(i) state otherwise?
Bonuses are supplemental wages and are taxed at 25% unless you net over 1 million.
Section 904(b) of the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-357, 118 Stat. 1418)
That’s why it’s a wealth cap. That’s net worth, not income.
You exceed the 20m cap, you have to pay the excess to taxes. If it’s locked in company shares, you have to sell them and pay that in taxes.
The tricky part is that has implications for business control. Other people speculate the market cap into 50m and then they take over control of your company, because you are forced to sell off your stake. So an arbitrary coalition of 3 rich dudes can just take over your company on a whim, if it is vaguely important enough. A coalition of rich people is not likely going to treat the customers or employees better.
I think that’s a solvable problem. Theoretical value of a private company’s shares would need to be more flexible because the real worth won’t be known until selling your stake, or the company going public where there is a concrete value.
While I have nothing against a “maximum wage”, the wealth tax is much more important.
Not a maximum wage, a maximum controled assets. On the board of 100 billion dollar company, no one can own more than 1% of the voting shares.
Find yourself with more assets than you can split among owners? Better start reinvesting it into the company and your employees.
Not a max wage. A max multiple of minimum wage.
You can only ever make more than 5x/10x/etc… the minimum wage. They want more money? Then everyone needs to make more money.
They can feel free to increase their riches, but tie it exclusively to the rest of the population.
i mean technically your maximum wage is what you earn - number of employees * minimum wage
What does a maximum wage and wealth cap even mean? What happens when you start a company and it gets too successful?
Probably a bit extreme but taxes could scale up in a way that the more you earn, the harder it is to earn even more, so your wealth reaches a plateau
or maybe minimum wage has to scale to the wealth of a company
But wealth isn’t a wage. The value of the company goes up, do you have to sell the company?
There are many options for a company that hits performance metrics. The big ones would be re-inveermemt back into the company after the employee and shareholder compensation reaches the limit. A company with several departments that see a growth in their budgets will improve the value of the company and at the same time will see improvements to quality of life for the employees.
More ideas for excise wealth:
spinning off functions from the parent company to become other companies a flat, one time bonus for all employees expansion of employee benefits social program investments, like parks, schools, recreation centers, local sports teams, libraries, etc. community improvement projects (which are constantly underfunded)
If the extra wealth was actually allowed to trickle throughout the people, it would be an explosion of improvements to community health and well being. Businesses would directly help the people who patronize it, leading to more recognition (ie free advertising) for the companies who contribute the most.
There are many, many options for how to weigh the value the of a company, the performance of its books, and find a way to keep the business thriving while not sucking out the money of its customers.
I don’t know what that means- but how do these options not still increase the wealth of the company and therefore increase the wealth of the owners of the company
Re-investment. I figured a typo like that would be safe to assume but oh well.
Measuring the value of a company would be valuations just like now with shares equaling the value of the company. The owner would be divested from the company as it increased in value to separate the two. The value of the company would then be independent of the owner’s share in it.
I thought that, but that doesn’t change the wealth of the person assuming the investment is successful.
Valuations are often very wrong, and missing for privately held companies.
Divested and given to who?
I’m gonna be completely honest I don’t know enough about economics to answer that question
The loophole is that they aren’t paid that amount in maximum wage anyway. The actual wage is some degree of modest. They just get paid in bonuses and stock options, which don’t count for one reason or another.
If there’s a minimum wage, there should be a maximum wage
Billionaires: ok no more minimum wage then. /s kinda
Billionaires don’t have wages.
Hell, I’d be okay with 100 million total in both liquid and non-liquid assets as a wealth cap. We could even tie it to inflation, so long as we also tie the minimum wage to inflation (let’s say, starting at $30/hr federally, then increasing as needed locally).
$100m can even be fine. Let them have their Bugatti and mansion. There’s big toys aplenty to have them motivated without being complacent and not milking the rest of the world for all it’s worth.
Even capping it at 1 billion would do wonders. That means, for example, Elon would have to pay more than 200 billions to the government. Imagine what we could do with 200 billions.
And yes, they could split it with family and friends, but I find it hard to believe he (or anyone actually) knows 200 people he can trust with 1 billion each.
F that. Shave them down to a loincloth and a bouncing ball
Wealth is there to motivate people to do something more than dwell and ruminate. If there was a wealth cap or maximum amount of money you can have no one would have motivation to do all these things we have like companies and such.
It’s not so black and white.
Currently probably the best bleeding edge system is doughnut economy where power of capitalism is constrained to non essentials from one side and planet health from another. https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Netherlands if I remember correctly currently is doing something in that direction and generally eu capitalism is somewhat constrained
Cap it at 20m. That’s a great fucking motivation to me. That’s a couple nice houses, a boat or two, several over the top cars, and pretty much any possession you can think of within reason. You could lead a very comfortable life on 20m net worth.
Humanity does not need private jets, mega yachts, mega mansions, etc.
There would be no personal motivation to siphon every penny away from your employees if you’re at your wealth cap. Employees who should be sharing in the company’s success in meaningful terms.
There would be no motivation for enshitification to reduce costs to the bare minimum for every last penny.
Etc.
The extreme greed that “motivates innovation” is such a crock. Yeah, obscene wealth does fuel venture capitalism atm, but those investors are also who twist the knife on CEOs to make short term decisions that end up destroying companies at the detriment of employees and customers alike.
CEOs aren’t in it for the long haul. Investors aren’t in it for the long haul. It’s all rape and pillage under the current system.
But if you cap it there is no reason to improve things, make them more efficient etc. The world runs on greed, ambition and it’s very important for progress as long as it can be directed and constrained in a sensible manner.
Regulations need to constrain capitalism and make sure it stays within reasonable boundaries where it is a power of building things and not destructive.
Wealthy serve as a goal to the ambitious and as long as wealth can not be inherited (that needs to change) and everyone has equal opportunity to become one, it is fair.
Ok. Let’s do a little exercise, then.
Assuming you’re a working class person, are you motivated by the hope of becoming a billionaire? Is that what drives you to go to work or take a chance at starting a business of your own?
If that dream was capped at 20m, would that stop you from trying to be successful? Is there anything in the world that you covet that exceeds 20m? Or even 10m.
I won’t wait for your personal answer. I don’t think it’d far fetched to say that for most people, their answer would be that it doesn’t make a difference. Achieving 20m would be a dream and give them a far more comfortable life than they have now.
And if they reached that 20m, they’d either retire and give the next generation a chance at the reins, or keep working but necessarily focus more on their employee/customer happiness, because there’s no reason to be exceedingly greedy except as a ego scoreboard thing.
That doesn’t stop innovation, it just means that more will innovate and thrive because fewer will clutch onto their throne and kick others down.
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Very selective reading you have there.
I’ll end the conversation here though, it’s obvious you’re not interested in intelligent discourse if you’re cherrypicking like that. Enjoy your billionaire idolatry while you file your w-2
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If it’s such great motivation, what is stopping you now? The potential to earn that is there for you, right now but from what I gather you’re not doing it. Why would you have MORE motivation to make 20M if it was capped but have no motivation in the current environment?
I think you’re missing the point. I am asserting that 20m cap or capless, people including myself are motivated to try to be monetarily successful. The American dream is everyone is a future million/billionaire.
The current wealth distribution and lobbying only serves to make the rich richer and kick the ladder out from behind them.
A wealth cap changes that. It means there’s little point for the rich to keep clutching to power for more money, because you can’t keep it. But the goal of 20m is still very appetizing to the working class, where they could retire in comfort for the rest of their lives.
It’s not. Nothing remotely like that is going on here.
So it was Amsterdam only
How? Most people this rich have next to nothing in their bank accounts. The ridiculous numbers you see are not bank account balances or sports cars and yachts. Its primarily shares of the companies they manage. E.g. if you tax them conventionally, you force them to close the factories and everyone becomes poorer. If you just confiscate the company (shares), now the government owns companies, and we saw how that goes plenty of times: USSR, North Korea, Cuba, … Or you give the shares to people, but the company would still need to be managed by someone who no longer has a proportional incentive to make it succeed, causing the same result as if it was government run.
…or you have the workers communally run the factory and elect the person to run it and if they don’t do a good job, they lose the position. Which seems like a pretty good incentive to succeed. In fact, “do this right or you’re fired” rarely seems to apply to the person at the top.
Lets pretend they would not become corrupt. What about unpopular decisions, such as layoffs? As much as people hate them, they are sometimes necessary to keep peoples work productive.
Again, if they do a bad job, they can be taken out of office by the other workers. If they handle layoffs the right way, they won’t be taken out of office.
Where does the corruption enter into it?
First off, if you think people will vote for unpopular things because they are handled correctly and the right thing to do, you are not paying attention to any elections.
Second of all, lets say I am elected to run this company. I have two options:
What do you think the kind of people thick skinned enough to win a company election would do?
And if your solution is to lower the burden of proof in court, who would take normal salaried job with high chance of being falsely imprisoned? Not the honest ones…Lower the burden of proof in court? What?
Ignore that last part, just me writing ahead too much. I was trying to say this kind of corruption is incredibly hard to prove, so courts are not helpful.
Okay, well CEOs and other executives are incredibly corrupt now, so I’m not sure why this is a complaint.
Money.
Guy want companies to become the government
No, guy wants companies to be owned and run by workers rather than just be wealth machines for the investor class.
I agree a wealth tax is difficult to implement, but that alone is not a reason to dismiss the idea. Also, for shares, you can always sell shares to pay the taxes that are due. The point of wealth tax is to wealth, not income. Much like a property tax. I don’t understand why they would be forced to limit their own income potential (by closing factories or decreasing production) in order to pay taxes on wealth they own.
Better than a wealth tax is a land value tax. Key properties are that it doesn’t cause capital flight (you can’t move land), it’s almost impossible to evade (you can’t hide land), it’s economically efficient (it literally doesn’t even harm the economy in the slightest to implement it), it can’t be passed on to tenants (both in economic theory and in observed practice), and it’s progressive.
Plus, it incentives denser, transit-oriented city development and disincentivizes wastage of prime real estate (which contributes to the housing crisis). All in all, a terrific policy that people aren’t talking nearly enough about imo.
At least in the US, most people already pay local and state property taxes that are higher in high population density areas. The problem with this tax is that it still disproportionately affects middle class home owners instead of only affecting the billionaire class. Also, land is just 1 aspect of wealth. Most of the wealthy in the US don’t keep any significant part of their wealth in land.
This is really key. If it was 100 years ago, this would make more sense, but the vast majority of measured wealth created in the world today is in intangible assets, like stock prices.
Sell them to whom? You are taxing everyone rich enough to buy them.
They would close factories to sell them for parts and blow the cash on whatever before paying taxes: casinos, yachts, moving to a country without such taxes, …
You make it sound like factories don’t actually net them profit LMAO. Even after paying taxes they’re still making money. If they weren’t, it would be a terrible business. Also what do you mean sell them to whom? Other billionaires that still exist even with a wealth tax, non billionaire investors, international investors. If they can’t find someone to sell their shares to, then clearly their shares are overvalued and that’ll take care of some of the problem in itself.
Also shutting down factories won’t affect their wealth, which is actually what’s being taxed. And it won’t matter weather they sell $1 billion of whatever to buy $1 billion of something else. You’re taxing their wealth, not their business or cash in hand. If they’re holding on to $1 billion in one form or another, then they’re holding on to $1 billion that can be taxed.
Once again, billionaires don’t have large sums of money in their banks. It is all invested. So if all of them in the country have no money and need to sell to pay these massive taxes, who are they selling to?
And sorry to say this, but if you genuinely think selling a significant portion of a countries industry/businesses to foreign investors could be good for the people of the country, than I am wasting my time here.
What about the fact that it’s been tried and failed a ton of times already in a bunch of countries? That’s a pretty good reason, I think.
In the only countries that still have a ‘wealth tax’, the thresholds are so broad that they are primarily a burden of the middle and lower classes, making it effectively no different than a more conventional/mundane tax, versus what everyone talking about a “wealth tax” in these kinds of discussions invariably expects; namely, a tax that only/primarily targets the wealthiest.
Before the income tax was implemented, there were promises it’d only be aimed at the rich, too.
Youre right about income tax and to some degree income tax does primarily effect the wealthy except the brackets haven’t been updated to reflect inflation and the new ultra wealthy class appropriately. The other thing is, many of the wealthy don’t have incomes in the traditional sense, and it makes no sense to differentiate capital gains from regular income. The argument that you don’t want retirement investment income taxed as regular income tax is a little moot since that’s why we have tax advantaged retirement accounts. If those accounts aren’t enough for all retirement investments, maybe those limits need to be increased or the way the tax advantage works for them needs to be changed.
Past failed attempts are also a good point, but to me they sound more like administrative failures rather than a failure of that type of policy. In the US we already have some wealth taxes on the value of homes and cars. Some of these failed European policies seemed to define wealth poorly and as a result either weren’t fully taxing wealth or spending more resources on administration than collections. But banks already do a great job of assessing an individual’s wealth. This is how the ultra rich are able to get huge lines of credit to play with rather than having to use their own capital directly. I don’t see how the government can’t use similar systems to calculate an individual’s total wealth. And the argument about the wealthy fleaing the country are also a little moot in the US. The wealthy in the US make money off of American tax dollars. Amazon/Bezos is rich because the US government started using AWS. Tesla is successful because the US uses their influence in South America to cost effectively obtain raw materials for batteries (not to mention those tax credits on EVs). There are all the military industrial companies, and the insurance companies. If the government had the backbone to say Americans who got wealthy using the American market have to pay taxes in America or they lose their right to sell to the American market (government or to the public), no one is going anywhere.
Would it? Give the shares to the workers and they have a huge incentive to run a company well. Right now a CEO’s only priority is to maximise shareholders return. A workers led company would maximise both shareholder return AND have an incentive and pride in doing a job properly instead of the low morale and poorly built crap we have today.
History has shown anytime control is in the hands of the few, it’s run into the ground in order to maximise the wealth for the few so giving control to the masses of workers in companies would lead to more compromises and might sound bad at first but would likely work better the more people required to make drastic changes.
And as said many times, no billionaire has ever ‘earned’ that. They’ve all gained it through exploitation and wage theft either directly or indirectly!
Winco
So how do the workers run the company? A vote on every little decision? If not, you have to still have a CEO, for whom it is now far more profitable to make decisions that profit them rather than the company. And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Also, what about layoffs? While everyone loves to hate layoffs, they are part of keeping peoples work productive. Are the workers going to vote/approve them?
Bro what.
Are you saying we need to lay off workers to scare the rest into line?
No, I am saying that often, company may need to downsize to remain productive. For example, lets say we have a company that makes headphone jacks. For obvious reasons, they are no longer able to sell as many as they used to, but maybe half.
The company now needs to layoff half the workers. Is the elected CEO going to promptly do it? Or will he delay it and causing both financial damage to the company and productivity damage to the economy?
And also, do the fired employees still get to vote? Is just firing malcontents the tyrant CEOs weapon?
then that’s for the workers to decide on. If 51% of the workforce agrees, thats the decision! If that doesn’t ‘fit’ with the workers, make it 60% or 75%, or whatever number the majority agree on!
It really isn’t that difficult. There are plenty of voting systems, the issue comes down to people and a change of thinking how companies are run.
You can make any argument why it wouldn’t work when you don’t want something to work but given the current system is working soooo well… new ideas are better than no ideas! 😎
You say that ironically, but average people in developed nations have arguably better lifestyle and more resources than kings used to. And living standard in developing nations have been steadily improving. The system is incredibly flawed because the humans it is made of are incredibly flawed. Considering how flawed it is, it is working astonishingly well.
Thankfully, workers are deciding every day they would rather work in the current system, then stop working based on some hopeless dreams of flying castles.
But the vast majority of workers don’t have the slightest idea how to run a business effectively. A very large proportion of them mismanage their own finances, let alone a larger responsibility like that.
Yeah because 32hrs would become 40 and we would discard another 8. 6hrsx4. When that happens we are no longer deprived of time edilucate and discuss the matter with the relevant folks.
Yes. Because of the above.
No. They aren’t. They actually doing the exact opposite. Your statement to contrary of the obvious is a sucker delusion. Stop consuming sugar to begin with and finish by stopping to listen to money.
Yup. Your delusion is thinking that mass is any kind of importance. Its not when it is compared to life because shit might come from the magick of people but there will never be life as a part of them unless they were to begin with and in that case, you were never the creator. Workers MUST have the right to make decision where they work or the entire planet will die. No fucking exceptions with any financial delusions because ALL of it is doing and being exactly that.
Why should we have a stock market in the first place? Seems like all it does is act as a means for the rich to shuffle their wealth around, funnel it to the top and claim they have next to no liquidity.
If you think that, you obviously don’t know what the stock market was created to do. Just google it. No point for me to write it here.
Original intention isn’t relevant when the current purpose is to fuck over anybody who isn’t the rich.
First of all, it matters if the stock market is fulfilling its original intention. Which it obviously is. Second of all, some of the biggest traders on the stock market are pension funds of common workers, appreciating their retirement money. Fuck over how exactly?
And third, let’s say none of what I wrote is true. Why are we somehow better of not having a stock market at all instead of fixing it to fulfill its purpose? Or making a new one if it is easier? Do you regularly throw away things without getting a replacement when they stop working? Never replaced your car and phone after they got old and broke?
“The rich now own a record share of stocks,” Axios reported on January 10, noting that the top 10 percent hold about 93 percent of U.S. households stock market wealth.
https://ips-dc.org/the-richest-1-percent-own-a-greater-share-of-the-stock-market-than-ever-before/
You’re being misleading, or have been misleading about the allocation of wealth within the stock market.
Retirement should be a public service, not a form of gambling within a system set up for the rich.
Because it would be one less way for the rich to obfuscate their wealth growth, because the original purpose of distributing ownership through shares is an inherently flawed idea.
“Why would we get rid of the orphan killing machine!?!?!? We would have to replace it with a new one.”
Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion. The population of 15 years and above is about 273.85 million. That gives about $102,000 annually per person in this category. The median personal income is about $40,500 annually. So almost 40% of the entire economy goes to wages and other income of normal people alone. And yes, it is median (not average) so we are talking normal people wages, not CEO wages. According to wikipedia, about 17.3% of the GDP is government consumption and 17.2% is capital investment. That leaves little over 25% unaccounted for. This will include everything not accounted above. Charities, rich people wages, lottery winnings, … and of course, stock market gains and dividends.
I can’t account for more of the 25% right now (it is late, maybe someday), but even if it all went to the filthily rich along with a proportional part of government consumption and capital investment, then the normal people still get 61% of the economy. In the absolute worst case. Seems to me like lot of the “ultra-wealthy own most of america” is just misinformation.
You shouldn’t be using GDP for this, as GDP is a notoriously bad metric for understanding the flow of wealth. If I pay you $100 to wash my car and you pay me $100 to wash your car, the GDP of our actions is $200 even though both of our wealth is unchanged. GDP is simply a measure of how fast money is circulating.
You need to be looking at that actual allocation of the wealth, as the rich like to use a myriad of loopholes to obfuscate their acquisitions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_States