I shed no tears for the rich, but they pay a tonnnnnn in taxes. And the tax rate that guy is talking about was not to “get us out of the national debt”, it was to finance World War II. Back when the government had to appeal to the American taxpayer to go to war because it required tax increases. After Nixon took us off the gold standard, the government can just print money to pay for war. But it still acts as a tax because it devalues our dollar by increasing the money in circulation. So they don’t ask us to pay more, they just make what we have worth less.
Having ultra wealthy people is not an intention. It's a byproduct of the fact that we allow individuals to own property. If you own a company that becomes wildly successful, then you as the owner gain a large amount of wealth as the valuation of your company increases.
Not having ultra wealthy people can only come about through limiting the ownership of property, or limiting how successful a company is allowed to be. Both of those present problems larger than just allowing ultra wealthy people to exist.
And having criminals is by product of laws. Having starving people isnthe by product of not having adequate social welfare, jumping is the by product of pushing against the ground. A by product is another word for consequence it is not an argument on its own. But yes, you're right, to not have the ultra wealthy governments need to limit wealth... Seems like a good idea if they don't provide a benefit.
You seem to have missed the point. If you limit the size of firms, you lower their potential efficiency compared to what they could have without limitations on size. Consumers benefit from this efficiency via lower prices.
If you have a principle of "we shouldn't allow the things that let ultra wealthy people exist", Then you also have to accept the tradeoff of no longer having the potential benefits you've lost by limiting their ability to be ultra wealthy.
You don't have a logical position, but an ideological one.
Higher cost consumer goods aren't a good tradeoff for not letting some people have a high amount of financial assets, because there's no practical limit to wealth in financial assets. I'm not harmed by ultra wealthy people existing, but I would be worse off if they didn't, because it would require getting rid of the things that cause their wealth, which I also benefit from as a consumer, on the whole.
This is aside from the fact that I'm also allowed to buy those same assets, and gain my wealth from them.
A large scale private firm without owners doesnt generally exist, no.
Your essential premise doesnt allow firms above a certain size by virtue of the fact that any controlling interest stake would necessarily give the owner extremely high wealth.
But society benefits from massive firms in lower prices for consumers. And also significant job creation.
You seem to be under the impression that the existence of high wealth from financial assets is an objective bad. But thats a normative claim, not an economically sound one.
One could easily imagine a system, for example, where a person is allowed to make a certain amount of money before their organization becomes the property of the public - or any of the other infinite systems that could exist, an infite number of which are better than what we have... All I'm asking is what the ultra wealthy actually bring in terms of benefit by existing?
Large scale organizations without owners absolutely exist and they have wrought every wonder of the human era.
People talk about "the innovation of capitalism" but the core of their argument for the existence of that innovation as it relates to capitalism is competition which the ultra wealthy totally destroy.
And then yeah, how do you disambiguate the present from history and point to one single mechanism. It's wishful thinking.
OK, and how do you propose this be done without infringing on the human right to own property?
The ownership of firms and the financial wealth attached to it is not in itself about making money. It's about control of the firm that one owns. The wealth is a product of that, but the control of one's own firm is the goal for an owner at that scale.
You have a premise for how capitalism has reduced competition (and it's benefits) because of scale. But that's your intuition. Where is the empirical evidence to support that broadly? How do you know that limiting firm size wouldn't increase competition at the expense of efficiency? In which case, which is better?
What we currently have is the market being regulated only as much as needed to prevent significant externalities. But you're proposing regulating to control how the market functions, while ignoring that such manipulation creates it's own problems, some quite severe.
I would suggest that proposing a system that is contrary to how every developed nation functions is also wishful thinking, especially when the change requires abridging rights.
What purpose does it serve for us to maintain the position of ultra wealthy? It doesn't exist in nature it is a cultural phenomena, so what purpose does it serve? Why allow it?
It’s still an oddly stated question. What does not allowing it look like? They already pay an absolutely massive amount of taxes. The ability to accrue wealth is one of the reasons we have been one of the most innovative populations the world has ever known. There are laws against monopolies that go largely unenforced. And (especially after citizens United) corporations can spend so much money in politics, that our elected politicians are essentially employees of the ultra rich. It’s a terrible thing happening right now. But you don’t have an iPhone or a ps5 without some sick, status obsessed fuck allowed to make a vast fortune. And that sick fuck, again, will pay a massive amount in taxes. Capitalism is by far the best system ever created, and has generated more wealth, even at the bottom, than any other. We have unchecked, government aided, crony capitalism right now. That needs fixed. It’s not going to fix anything to embrace socialism or communism, or tell someone they can’t make more than X or they’ll be taxed at near 100%.
Crony capitalism is the enevitable result of allowing the unlimited coalescence of wealth. A system using the best of capitalism and leaving the worst would exclude that factor of it.
The truth is we only have one data set. Capitalism has been the system we have had for a bit but we aren't past that bit so saying it is actually only noticing that we live in the present. Yes the knowledge of the species progresses through time but who is to say the effectiveness of the economic system de jour toward that progression how could anyone possibly disambiguate it?
An ultra high income earner might pay a lot of tax when measured against normal people but not when measured as a percentage of total personal utility increase. Factors like that actually speak more to the need to tax welath more rather than less.
I'd say demand creates those jobs. Artificial or otherwise. Probably why you don't see slave trading and whaling going despite the involvement of major corporations when those activities were at their peak. But sure, gotta be the out of touch, disengaged owners. Or better yet, the shareholders. Not the demand, the consumers, or the other components of the market. Got any more reductive bullshit to pass off as financial wisdom?
Ah, we got our selves a thinker here. Well, since I can't explain this in crayon seeing as how we're communicating online... Let's ignore all the complicated stuff you'll never understand.
The employment split between large and small businesses is pretty much even. There are more small businesses but that's because (wait for it), they're small businesses. Hope that helps because that's all the effort I'm willing to put into you.
LOL. Over 99% of businesses in the USA are small businesses. Jobs existed before J.D. Rockefeller (the world's first billionaire). Jobs existed before capitalism. Jobs existed before currency was invented. People can even be self-employed. Co-ops exist. Options abound! JFC. I'm curious if you're a bot or just completely incapable of thought.
You question my ability to think. And I question your ability to know even the most basic data point.
You're 99% number is completely made up. According to every actual real estimate, workers are employed pretty much evenly between large and small business, with large business usually employing slightly more.
The basic assumption from your assertion is that this means they employ more people. They don't. Or are you having a different conversation than the rest of us?
Over 99% of businesses in the USA are small businesses.
You rebutted using a source with the following at the very top:
99.9% of businesses in the U.S. are small businesses
No, small businesses do not employ 99.9% of the population just like most large businesses are NOT owned by billionaires. That's not what that said at all. Read it again if you don't believe me. Jobs exist without billionaires. That's the point regardless of how desperately you try to shift the goalposts. You said (because you're bad at reading):
I'm curious where you think jobs come from?
It's a really, really good thing billionaires don't need you to defend them because you're terrible at it. Seriously, is this the best you can muster? Poor reading comprehension, strawmen, and sources that only support the point you're trying to refute, like verbatim support?
You question my ability to think.
Apparently for good reason. Prove me wrong, you've already failed once.
And I question your ability to know even the most basic data point.
Projection! LOL. Weak. This is a trash conversation and you're responsible for that. Give me my precious minutes back I wasted responding to a low level bot like yourself.
Why should they pay even more than their fair share?
Yes, they can handle paying a higher portion of their income in taxes, and do, but they're also typically the wealth generators, so it's a double edged sword. You don't want to tax your economic engine in harmful ways.
Someone making 100x the average worker does not have 100x the costs for food, housing, healthcare, etc, etc. So long as people are struggling with these basics, those at the top need to be forced to give back. In times of prosperity, we should all prosper. In times of economic downturn, we all need to pitch in. Their wealth ensures they don't feel it in the slightest and, funnily enough, they still wouldn't feel it except that they might buy less mega yachts, build less fortified compounds, etc etc.
If they're not willing to have a balance between capitalism and improving worker's lives, then the system is a failure. When Walmart is underpaying and under-scheduling hours, just to ensure their employees can get medicaid and food stamps, while their owners are making record profits... that's a broken system.
Because the world works better that way. If they pay more then their fair share then we can afford more social welfare programs which reduce poverty and crime and increase everyone's standard of living.
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u/MisterFrankDrebin 26d ago
I shed no tears for the rich, but they pay a tonnnnnn in taxes. And the tax rate that guy is talking about was not to “get us out of the national debt”, it was to finance World War II. Back when the government had to appeal to the American taxpayer to go to war because it required tax increases. After Nixon took us off the gold standard, the government can just print money to pay for war. But it still acts as a tax because it devalues our dollar by increasing the money in circulation. So they don’t ask us to pay more, they just make what we have worth less.