"It’s Time for Major Wealth Redistribution — Yes, I Mean It."

[Trausti]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

If your aim is to take from the rich, that's what your doing. Don't focus on them. Focus on helping those in the lower margins.

 

[DBT]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

If your aim is to take from the rich, that's what your doing. Don't focus on them. Focus on helping those in the lower margins.

The aim is not to 'take from the rich' - the aim is to achieve fair pay for vulnerable workers, workers that do essential, productive work, building wealth for the company, yet workers who lack leverage, so are easily exploited.

Doing that would not make the rich suffer, would not crash the economy...in fact it would be a start towards building a better, a fairer world and a thriving economy because more workers would have money to spare.

 

[Axulus]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

If your aim is to take from the rich, that's what your doing. Don't focus on them. Focus on helping those in the lower margins.

The aim is not to 'take from the rich' - the aim is to achieve fair pay for vulnerable workers, workers that do essential, productive work, building wealth for the company, yet workers who lack leverage, so are easily exploited.

Doing that would not make the rich suffer, would not crash the economy...in fact it would be a start towards building a better, a fairer world and a thriving economy because more workers would have money to spare.

And yet just take one example: amazon. The vast majority of their profits are driven by their AWS division, which was primarily created by their highly paid programmers and engineers. Their online store has razor thin margins. Amazon profits very little from their warehouse workers, who will mostly be replaced by robots soon enough.

 

[Canard DuJour]

It is not a question of Microsoft stealing money from its customers but of corporations making huge profits and not paying the people responsible for the products, its employees, part of the profits. Like everything, this trend started in 1980 when we changed the political economics that governs our economic policies from one that favors the workers to one that favors the owners, the stockholders. The problem with this change is that eventually, the workers notice that they are being screwed over and they start striking-out irrationally and doing things like voting for a completely incompetent President like Donald Trump. And one-half of a million people die because of his incompetence. More people die in one year than the US lost in three and one-half years of World War II.

Indeed. Recent research shows that the rise in inequality since ~1980 has been driven overwhelmingly by wage suppression : Policies lobbied for by the ultra-rich, increasingly aggressive bargaining by employers, union busting, casualisation, subcontracting etc.

They weren't handed it, they took it.

 

[DBT]

The aim is not to 'take from the rich' - the aim is to achieve fair pay for vulnerable workers, workers that do essential, productive work, building wealth for the company, yet workers who lack leverage, so are easily exploited.

Doing that would not make the rich suffer, would not crash the economy...in fact it would be a start towards building a better, a fairer world and a thriving economy because more workers would have money to spare.

And yet just take one example: amazon. The vast majority of their profits are driven by their AWS division, which was primarily created by their highly paid programmers and engineers. Their online store has razor thin margins. Amazon profits very little from their warehouse workers, who will mostly be replaced by robots soon enough.

Highly paid programmers have leverage, that is the point. A business that has razor thin margins may not be viable in the long run unless it automates, and if that happens on a large enough scale, what happens to the spending power of customers and the viability of business in the long term?

 

[Harry Bosch]

The aim is not to 'take from the rich' - the aim is to achieve fair pay for vulnerable workers, workers that do essential, productive work, building wealth for the company, yet workers who lack leverage, so are easily exploited.

Doing that would not make the rich suffer, would not crash the economy...in fact it would be a start towards building a better, a fairer world and a thriving economy because more workers would have money to spare.

And yet just take one example: amazon. The vast majority of their profits are driven by their AWS division, which was primarily created by their highly paid programmers and engineers. Their online store has razor thin margins. Amazon profits very little from their warehouse workers, who will mostly be replaced by robots soon enough.

Agreed. Most of the companies doing very well and driving the "wealth gap" (Amazon, Apple, paypal, and ect) pay their workers very well. Even the Amazon warehouse jobs are significantly better than the alternative. A warehouse opened up in a small town in Oregon a couple years ago and literally thousands of workers applied.

My question to DBT: what is fair pay? The real issue here is that there really isn't any deep conspiracy to hold down wages! The real issue is the competition and automation are driving down low skilled jobs. I'm not against unions and collective bargaining. But these act to really put a bandaid on the problem and don't solve anything long term. If we really wanted to help people in low skilled positions, we'd make it easier to get skills, encourage trade school and night school, lower barriers, encourage entrepreneurship and etc.

 

[Swammerdami]

Agreed. Most of the companies doing very well and driving the "wealth gap" (Amazon, Apple, paypal, and ect) pay their workers very well. Even the Amazon warehouse jobs are significantly better than the alternative. A warehouse opened up in a small town in Oregon a couple years ago and literally thousands of workers applied.

My question to DBT: what is fair pay? The real issue here is that there really isn't any deep conspiracy to hold down wages! The real issue is the competition and automation are driving down low skilled jobs. I'm not against unions and collective bargaining. But these act to really put a bandaid on the problem and don't solve anything long term. If we really wanted to help people in low skilled positions, we'd make it easier to get skills, encourage trade school and night school, lower barriers, encourage entrepreneurship and etc.

I agree with this post, and have underlined a key point. I am strongly in favor of reducing (but NOT eliminating) wealth inequality, but with the huge multi-trillion dollar cost of that, it behooves to do it in the most efficacious ways. There are many steps that would make more sense than a federal minimum wage hike. A high nation-wide wage ignores big regional differences in cost of living. Wage hikes are good for low-wage workers who keep their jobs, but not for the unemployed (and certainly not the unemployed who lose their jobs because of the hike). Aren't many minimum-wage employers the tiny businesses we want to encourage? Wouldn't Andrew Wang's proposal make more sense? Was something like that considered by the Ds instead of the wage hike? (Or — reacting to some of the sentiments in this thread — was it important to "punish" employers of low-wage workers?) Repeal of right-to-work laws should be a priority.

There are plenty of other ways to combat income inequality. Taxpayer-funded healthcare should be a very high priority. Taxpayer-subsidized education, childcare, housing, nutrition and care for the elderly all need to be pursued. Investment in infrastructure would have multiple benefits. It would be delightful to see progressives pursue such programs rather than brutish one-size-fits-all money schemes. (I do realize that minimum wage hikes are more practical politically since they don't directly increase government spending. To paraphrase Shakespeare, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the Republicans.")

 

[RVonse]

Instead of tearing down we could try to build up; by limiting immigration to protect American workers from wage deflation and encouraging an American first policy. Ah, whatever. Biden is president. American last.

 

[RVonse]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

If your aim is to take from the rich, that's what your doing. Don't focus on them. Focus on helping those in the lower margins.

I agree with both of you. Trausti has it right that we should focus on helping those in the lower margins. That will not happen very easily with Biden though. He wants to tear down everything Trump did with the fence.

But DBT (and the OP) are right about taking away from the filthy rich. At least until there is more equality in our society. And no it is NOT the moral thing to do, but it will work for our society.

I used to believe (as many libertarians do) that taxing our producers too much would cause them leave their business and make us all worse off. But that is not at all what happens in the real world. In the real world, high value producers like Musk and Bezos will continue to do what they find interesting regardless of how much our government punishes them. They do what they do not because of money but because they like what they do. I'm convinced from my own experience you simply can not change who your are. Not over such a long period of time. Yes, you can modify your behavior for a short period of time. You can learn and become more skilled. But in the long run you are who you are.

So the OP is correct, we should tax the shit out of billionaires even though it is highly immoral.

And Trausti is correct, we should help those at the lower rungs of society.

 

[Elixir]

Do you think Eisenhower, a Republican President, was a Bolshevik? Seriously, are you that obtuse?

Conservotards think that living in a Nazi State would be great, as long as they were among the ruling class. And they believe they would be, since they are so much "smarter" than commies like Eisenhower.
They mouth platitudes like "America First!" when they mean "ME first!", and flaunt Nazi symbolism thinking that if only they can keep slaves working on the edge of starvation everything will be great.
The fear of re-distribution of wealth doesn't have to do with being afraid of losing what they have, or losing the opportunity to have even more - it's about losing their margin of a "superiority" (which they measure in dollars or gold) over others.
In fact, we could have a robust economy without becoming an isolationist authoritarian State. And we could have an equitable economy without depriving anyone of opportunity. We could have a world-class infrastructure, a thriving middle class, virtually zero poverty AND still have billionaires. But not as long as power hungry authoritarians are given license to pointlessly accumulate more wealth and hoard more resources than they, their offspring or their offspring's offspring could ever need.

 

[Elixir]

And yet just take one example: amazon.

What has been said is true (afaik). But what is also true in my own experience, is that Amazon is a viciously predatory entity.
Try starting a Company with a proprietary consumer product/product line. The climb is much steeper if you choose NOT to offer your product(s) through Amazon, due to their market dominance.
But if you DO offer that product through Amazon, you will need whole layers of protection that are expensive and that you would otherwise not need. Why? Because Amazon will demand access to every resource needed to create or re-create your product. If you have contracted a factory somewhere to manufacture it, Amazon will demand to know what factory that is. You can refuse to tell them and they will cut you right off. Or you can tell them, they will approach that factory, and knock off your product. (Not often under their name but under a a third party contractor.) The savvy vendor will refuse to divulge anything about their novel product beyond the basics like an MSDS to absolve them from liability, let them cut you off and then wait them out; they will eventually waive their requirement that you divulge your sources so they can have a piece of your action. But many, if not most of the entrepreneurs who try to use their platform as a growth vehicle get eaten alive for their efforts. They can't wait for Amazon to come back to them after refusing their demands. And they don't have reserves to wage endless court battles, even if they hold patents.
I have been through the cycle myself and watched several others go through it as well. Those who failed may have failed regardless of Amazon's predatory practices, but in at least a couple of instances I am pretty sure that's not the case.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Did Bill Gates rob people every time they purchased a PC with a copy of Windows in the 90's? Programmers at Microsoft certainly got paid quite well (in fact, they got paid so much that people were protesting the gentrification that resulted to accomodate high numbers of wealthy workers).

Does Jeff Bezos rob me every time I use Amazon to save money and access more variety?

They get wealthy from the large number of customers. Revenue is their main driver of profit. The profit margins for Amazon are razor thin.

I don't get robbed each time I buy something. In fact, I'm made better off. You lose extreme credibility when you call a normal transaction akin to theft or slavery.

The nature of business is to maximize profits and minimize costs. Charge the consumer according to demand, which is not necessarily value, while keeping production cost down. Workers who have little or no leverage (except through collective action and bargaining) are open to cost cutting.

The workers have a very powerful weapon that you persist in not seeing: their feet. A company that pays below market rate finds it's workers disappearing. The fundamental problem here is that you want the workers to receive more than market rate without addressing the issue of where that money is supposed to come from. Hint: It's not that mythical infinite pool of profits you always want to use.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

The OP does. You just don't recognize the destruction you're asking for.

 

[DBT]

Has anyone suggested 'tearing down?'

The OP does. You just don't recognize the destruction you're asking for.

Redistribution is not necessarily a case of 'tearing down' or making the rich poor. If done properly, productive work, fair pay for all, it is a means of improving society, the economy and the human condition. A positive thing. A building up.

 

[steve_bank]

Same question I always ask. Sounds good, how exactly do you enact it and who sets how it is redistributed.

A worse case scenario was the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

The Russian and Chinese communist attempts at forcing an equality failed catastrophically. Large scale famine in both cases.

In practcal terms what is a quantifiable definition of redistribution? What is the endpoint? Without tat it will just be anoter slippery slope into the unknown.

The problem with progressives is they are never able to precisly articulate details. It ends up being political sound bites and propaganda.

 

[bilby]

Here's a precisely articulated detailed idea: Highly progressive taxation using a formula that produces a smooth curve whereby increasing income leads to an increasing tax rate, such that the tax rate approaches 100% as taxable income approaches infinity.

By eliminating brackets, this approach eliminates bracket creep, eliminates poverty traps, and eliminates the upper bound on the rate of tax to be paid.

There should also be a similarly progressive tax on wealth above twelve times median annual income; At that level, this tax would be very small, but would also rise towards 100% as net worth approaches infinity.

In a democracy, nobody should have sufficient wealth as to be able to singlehandedly dictate things that are properly a function of the government. If Elon Musk wants to explore Mars, his vote on whether to do so shouldn't carry any more weight than anyone else's. He can vote for candidates who will increase NASA's budget, and pay plenty of taxes so that they can do so without inflationary impact on the economy.

I happen to agree with Musk that space exploration is a worthy endeavour; But I didn't see his name on any ballots, so why should he be the one to decide?

It shouldn't be up to Bill and Melinda Gates to eradicate malaria. It should be a function of a well funded government, not a well funded individual or family.

Democracy shouldn't subordinate itself to an aristocracy, whether or not that aristocracy is hereditary. And make no mistake, billionaires are defacto aristocrats.

None of this is going to prevent anyone from becoming wealthy; Nobody's going to be prevented from earning big house, fast car, frequent foreign vacation levels of wealth. But that kind of wealth is qualitatively, not just quantitatively, different from explore Mars, cure malaria, buy entire governments ultra-wealth. And that ultra-wealth needs to be eliminated, while retaining the incentive value of mere wealth.

If hyper-wealthy people want to reduce their personal tax burden, make it so that this is only achievable by increasing median income. Stop waiting for trickle down, and start pumping.

And stop pretending that billionaires are similar to mere multi millionaires. Nobody's suggesting that we eat the rich, or tax merely wealthy people into poverty. I am recommending that we tax obscenely wealthy people into mere great wealth.

And that's going to make possible the provision of a decent basic income to all those whose jobs were destroyed by automation. Low skilled jobs are history; So we need to stop insisting that low skilled people have to work or starve, and give them both a handout, and a hand up (in the form of free at point of use training and education, funded by government, along with the government funded healthcare; government funded natural monopoly services such as telecommunications, electricity, and water; and government funded infrastructure).

 

[laughing dog]

People think about the all that seed corn you will be stealing via redistribution.

 

[DBT]

Same question I always ask. Sounds good, how exactly do you enact it and who sets how it is redistributed.

A worse case scenario was the Chinese Cultural Revolution.

The Russian and Chinese communist attempts at forcing an equality failed catastrophically. Large scale famine in both cases.

In practcal terms what is a quantifiable definition of redistribution? What is the endpoint? Without tat it will just be anoter slippery slope into the unknown.

The problem with progressives is they are never able to precisly articulate details. It ends up being political sound bites and propaganda.

No mystery at all. Basically fairer pay scales and social security systems in place (leave no one too far behind). Scandinavia, Norway, Finland, etc, reportedly the happiest people on Earth.

 

[Bomb#20]

And the income of Wall St. traders is a better target than the income of top surgeons and entertainers. NOT because Wall St. traders are "evil", but simply because their activities do not benefit society.

Why do you believe that? Of course their activities benefit society. Deployment of resources away from immediate consumption in favor of increasing productive capacity and thus of increasing long-term consumption happens because Wall St. traders make it happen.

Every time a country gets rid of its investor class, production plummets; curiously, this seldom if ever causes people convinced investors are parasites to question their own articles of faith.

 

[Bomb#20]

It is not a question of Microsoft stealing money from its customers but of corporations making huge profits and not paying the people responsible for the products, its employees, part of the profits.

That's not a question; that's a tautology. Regardless of how much Microsoft pays its employees, you will label every dollar of that payment "wages" rather than "profit". So you always get to say "They aren't paying their employees part of the profit". Businesses are damned if they do and damned if they don't pay their employees well, based on ideologues' word games. You are peddling unfalsifiable metaphysics.