Lefties trying to understand Smaug
(media.kotakuinaction2.win)
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It's not so simple. Since they almost always hold their money in stock, you can't just "tax" it without destroying the economy. Billionaires all having to sell off a large portion of stock to pay taxes would destroy the stock market.
Similar things have actually happened in history. There was I believe a Roman tax that was essentially a net worth tax on landowners. So what happened? All the land owners had to sell all at once, crashing the prices & destroying real estate values. A small number of ultra-rich were able to take advantage of the situation to vastly increase their wealth by buying low. There was enormous economic damage, the taxes raised were far less than expected, and the result was greater wealth inequality.
Liberals always think they can just make shit happen through force of will, but they're fucking stupid and they always fuck things up. And even though my story comes from over 2000 years ago, the socialist dumbfucks still try to do it today.
My solution is death & gift taxes. Let the billionaires have their money. Once they die, then the government can feast on the corpse of the estate. I couldn't give less of a shit that Paris Hilton doesn't get to inherit billions, and I don't think taking away dead hand control of money would negatively impact risk taking and innovation at all.
No. Fuck no. Jesus christ almighty NO. Death taxes are literally the worst form of tax. Corporations don't fucking die. But mom & pop sole proprietorship shop owners do. What you're suggesting is more of what is already killing small agriculture and consolidating power in the hands of less than a dozen agricultural conglomerates. It's incredible how you can bring up that story and not connect dots about what your proposal would do.
Corporations die all the time by going bankrupt, at around 25 years on average. So most of them die earlier than people do.
In capitalism a corporation is a measure of meritocracy; if it outcompetes other companies it continues, if it gets fat and inefficient and makes poor decisions then it dies.
Look at Disney or Anheuser-Busch - they're doing everything in their power to die by making bad decisions.
What you're objecting to is capitalism where the meritocracy has been removed, like ours today. For example, consolidation eats the small proprietors instead of the other way around because the small ones can't succeed by being better, higher quality, more efficient because the large players just keep them off the shelves. Even a medium sized RC Cola can't compete with Coca-Cola because anti-competitive practices keep it off the shelves or very limited quantity.
Corporations do not pay a death tax every time the farm changes hands. If you do not see the difference there is literally no point in conversing with you.
No shit. Corporations are not people, why should they be taxed the same?
Do you think people should have to pay capital gains on their net worth because some corporations do? We shouldn't have S corporations because people don't have shareholders?
What a dumb argument. There are problems with estate taxes like farmers' children having to sell land to pay for the tax, but there's also good sides at least discounting loopholes like fewer people with huge amounts of unearned wealth.
That sounds like a great opportunity.
Not that I support it, because I don't think it's good policy, even though it does hurt billionaires.
Yeah, it's not exactly unlikely. And I think that many on the left are economically illiterate. That said, the right calling billionaires 'job-creators' and decent people is also cringe. It is possible to oppose counterproductive policies without praising them.
That was the cancer that was introduced into politics by the French Revolution: the belief in forcing through social and historical development through violence and terror.
Interesting, because the GOP has always attacked the estate tax. But does this not replicate your earlier concern? Imagine if Elon owns 70% of Tesla and then drops dead. If the government seizes it and then sells it, wouldn't it cause Tesla to crash and burn?
Yes because rich old donors literally paid them to. I don't think the same dynamic exists now because the issues have shifted so much. Republicans have to contend with populism now, and death taxes only affect the rich. R donors have much bigger problems to worry about than death taxes.
That said, I don't expect any legislation on death taxes. One of the problems with death taxes is that unless you're a communist, it doesn't produce revenues immediately. You need to wait. Congress is likely to assfuck our economy & debt to the point where they need to raise taxes in an emergency fashion.
No because the Fed already has trillions in stock on its books & buys & sells them. The Government would not have to sell any stock immediately. It could slowly sell it off over time.
Since people don't all die at once, the government liquidating assets from death taxes would be a trickle, instead of a tsunami hitting all at once.
Ah, well, as much as I like to call you a GOP partisan, you dissent from the GOP elite on some important points - for the better.
The good thing about death taxes is that it deprives billionaires. The bad thing about them is that it gives money to the government.
It doesn't matter how much money the government sucks up - it's always looking for more. I know this from personal experience. Countries that raised the age of retirement just threw the savings into 'climate change' idiocy.
I'm not an 'End the Fed' kind of guy, but I was very shocked when I discovered that the Fed buys stocks. How much of the current economy is just a bubble?
GOP is going to need to be a hybrid populist party in order to win. Trump changed that. The Democrats are now a very elitist party, so their populist flank is very open to attack. DeSantis knows this & has been exploiting that in Florida.
This is what "quantitative easing" has always been. The Fed just prints money then uses that money to buy securities like stocks & bonds.
This is one of the main drivers of inflation. The other being just raw government spending of additional trillions.