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

[Bomb#20]

Gnome: Phase 1 is power imbalance. Phase 3 is workers are paid less than their market value.

Kyle: Sooo, what's phase 2?

Gnome: Phase 1 is power imbalance.

Based on all these idiotic, historically inaccurate and plain cruel hypotheses,

Which idiotic, historically inaccurate and plain cruel hypotheses are you talking about? Your hypothesis that you can read minds, and your hypothesis that the world would be less cruel if your own economic hypotheses were put into practice?

the libertarian (does bomb admit to being a libertarian, I forget)

Does worldtraveller admit to being a wife-beater? (That he is a wife-beater is of course not a matter of uncertainty; all that's in question is whether he "admits to it".)

arguments about the free market would extend to pretty much any situation.

And? Was somebody advocating the free market? Wasn't me -- all I did was try to get DBT to explain why he hypothesized that a common-variety work-for-wages arrangement qualifies as theft.

So why shouldn't we:
- eliminate all environmental regulations?
- get rid of traffic regulations?
- Eliminate the FAA and let airplane manufacturers do what they want?
- etc....

If you want to hear the arguments for such policies, why don't you start by paying attention to what people say, and then ask somebody who advocates them? That's likely to work better than your current strategy, which appears to be to search out unbelievers who blaspheme against your sacred cows, and then impute to them whatever other random collection of blasphemies pop into your head.

 

[Bomb#20]

View attachment 32172

Any truth to this?

Nope. It's pure magical thinking, on a level with imagining that visualizing world peace will bring about world peace.

If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use, so there'd be no extra wealth to spend on hunger and climate change. If we did it illegally, that would involve abolishing rule of law and setting up a revolutionary government. A revolutionary government that found itself with 6 trillion dollars to play with would not use it to eradicate world hunger for 216 years or to halt climate change in 9 years; it would use that wealth to keep itself in power and eliminate threats to that power; and, finding there were still threats to its power after it spent the 6 trillion dollars, it would not continue to refrain from taking a penny from people with only 1 billion. It would confiscate the wealth of 1-billion-aires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of millionaires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of any thousandaires of suspect loyalty.

 

[Bomb#20]

I get your point but: it is immoral for those who have power and money to make all of the rules to place those who do not have power and money at such an extreme disadvantage.

That's make-believe. If it were true that those who have power and money make all of the rules to place those who do not have power and money at an extreme disadvantage, then we would not have a progressive income tax. When those who had power and money made all of the rules to place those who did not have power and money at an extreme disadvantage, it was the Ancien Regime. Commoners paid taxes and noblemen were exempt.

 

[Swammerdami]

Visualization aids.

A few days ago I heard mention of a Republioturd Congresscritter denouncing the $1.9T stimulus. He started by assuming the stimulus was all paid out in $1 bills; then assumed that only a single stack was allowed. He was interested in how tall that stack would be! And yet not a single Democrat asked him why he wanted to pay out the stimulus with $1 bills: They knew this was just a visualization aid. Just a "colorful" way to suggest that $1.9T is a lot of money.

I'd like to believe that TFTers are at least as smart as most Congresscritters. Somebody finds a way to help understand how much wealth America's billionaires have, and TFTers assume it's Antifa trying to make a bonfire of $6T to keep warm! Do we really need this sort of misdirection and confusion?

When someone says "The early bird gets the worm" do you answer "I'm not a bird"? Or "I'm not a seamstress" in reply to "Stitch in time saves nine"? Please, start a new thread if you don't understand metaphors and visualization tools.


And perhaps we need a thread to discuss taxation authority.

Nope. It's pure magical thinking, on a level with imagining that visualizing world peace will bring about world peace.

If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use, so there'd be no extra wealth to spend on hunger and climate change. If we did it illegally, that would involve abolishing rule of law and setting up a revolutionary government.

Isn't there a Third Way? Bring estate taxes and income taxes back to the levels they had in the 20th century under Marxists like Eisenhower or Nixon, and wait several decades?

But maybe Bomb#20 does have a point: SCOTUS has been crammed full of crooks who may be in the pockets of billionaires, eager to declare any Democratic tax hike unconstitutional. In future I will add a preface to my political proposals: "Assume for the purpose of discussion that maggots are feasting on the brain of a deceased Brett Kavanaugh."

 

[bilby]

View attachment 32172

Any truth to this?

Nope. It's pure magical thinking, on a level with imagining that visualizing world peace will bring about world peace.

If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use, so there'd be no extra wealth to spend on hunger and climate change.

That doesn't follow. Taxation is legal, and nobody's compensated for the loss of their 'private property' even if they have sell assets to cover their tax bill. Money isn't private property, it's a government scheme for keeping track of who owes what to whom, and governments already reserve the right to remove and destroy some of that money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate. They have an entire big department (in the USA it's called the IRS), that does nothing else except reduce the entitlement to goods and services assigned to each person and corporate entity.

If we did it illegally, that would involve abolishing rule of law and setting up a revolutionary government. A revolutionary government that found itself with 6 trillion dollars to play with would not use it to eradicate world hunger for 216 years or to halt climate change in 9 years; it would use that wealth to keep itself in power and eliminate threats to that power; and, finding there were still threats to its power after it spent the 6 trillion dollars, it would not continue to refrain from taking a penny from people with only 1 billion. It would confiscate the wealth of 1-billion-aires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of millionaires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of any thousandaires of suspect loyalty.

Cool story, bro.

 

[TV and credit cards]

View attachment 32172

I did not come to the conclusion that at midnight tonight 6.5 trillion dollars should be transferred to those starving people, some in the form of Microsoft stock. Nor did I come to the conclusion that my meager thousands would be used to buy a few dozen solar panels. Further, should such cockamamie action be taken, inflation would not be my first concern.
What I got out of this was to draw attention to inequity. That there are people starving while a select few sit on massive wealth. That perhaps it’s high time we reform the tax code to help decrease this inequity.

 

[laughing dog]

View attachment 32172

Any truth to this?

Nope. It's pure magical thinking, on a level with imagining that visualizing world peace will bring about world peace.

If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use, so there'd be no extra wealth to spend on hunger and climate change. If we did it illegally, that would involve abolishing rule of law and setting up a revolutionary government. A revolutionary government that found itself with 6 trillion dollars to play with would not use it to eradicate world hunger for 216 years or to halt climate change in 9 years; it would use that wealth to keep itself in power and eliminate threats to that power; and, finding there were still threats to its power after it spent the 6 trillion dollars, it would not continue to refrain from taking a penny from people with only 1 billion. It would confiscate the wealth of 1-billion-aires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of millionaires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of any thousandaires of suspect loyalty.

Since when does taxation require just compensation?

 

[Jarhyn]

View attachment 32172

Any truth to this?

Nope. It's pure magical thinking, on a level with imagining that visualizing world peace will bring about world peace.

If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use, so there'd be no extra wealth to spend on hunger and climate change. If we did it illegally, that would involve abolishing rule of law and setting up a revolutionary government. A revolutionary government that found itself with 6 trillion dollars to play with would not use it to eradicate world hunger for 216 years or to halt climate change in 9 years; it would use that wealth to keep itself in power and eliminate threats to that power; and, finding there were still threats to its power after it spent the 6 trillion dollars, it would not continue to refrain from taking a penny from people with only 1 billion. It would confiscate the wealth of 1-billion-aires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of millionaires, and then it would confiscate the wealth of any thousandaires of suspect loyalty.

Since when does taxation require just compensation?

IKR? "Take it from them illegally", illegal by what law?

It sounds like Bomb is trying to conflate "legally" with "ethically", in which case the right to the thing being taken has not been established in the first place.

Given that I reject the appropriateness and acceptability of the modern schema of ownership, Bomb would be hard-pressed to argue how taking abstracted authority (money) from people who have more on the ledger than is wise to cede to them, is unethical.

Certainly if we pass a tax law, it is clearly legal.

The question is, is it ethical. But is it ethical to allow ANYONE to leverage some thing indefinitely? I am under the impression that the cost of applying leverage ought be losing leverage.

 

[Bomb#20]

IKR? "Take it from them illegally", illegal by what law?

Good question, thanks for asking. Illegal by this law.

It sounds like Bomb is trying to conflate "legally" with "ethically"

No it doesn't; it sounds like you have a reading comprehension problem.

Since when does taxation require just compensation?

Nobody said it does. If it chose to, Congress could pass a taxation statute setting the income tax rate on Christians at 10% and the rate on Jews at 90%. If I were to point out that this violates the First Amendment, you'd reply "Since when is taxation unconstitutional?", would you?

That doesn't follow. Taxation is legal, and nobody's compensated for the loss of their 'private property' even if they have sell assets to cover their tax bill. Money isn't private property, it's a government scheme for keeping track of who owes what to whom, and governments already reserve the right to remove and destroy some of that money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate.

Thank you, O resident Philosopher-King. You appear to have subconsciously assumed I was talking philosophy, or theory of government, or, perhaps, Australian law.

They have an entire big department (in the USA it's called the IRS), that does nothing else except reduce the entitlement to goods and services assigned to each person and corporate entity.

In the USA, the IRS enforces the income tax law. The income tax isn't legal because taxation is legal. The income tax isn't legal because governments already reserve the right to remove and destroy some of that money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate. The income tax is legal because Congress enacted an Amendment to repeal the Constitution's prohibition of a federal income tax, and three quarters of the states ratified it. You can read that Amendment at the above link -- it's number 16. As you can see, the Amendment does not give Congress the power to lay and collect taxes on money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate, only on incomes. If Congress wants to legally stop America's billionaires from getting any richer, by seizing future accumulations of wealth, then it can simply enact a 100% tax bracket. But if it wants to legally seize the wealth they've already accumulated, that will require another constitutional amendment. This is not rocket science.

(It is of course true that we can legalize seizing 6 trillion dollars of wealth from the billionaire class. But that in no way implies that we can seize it legally. Enacting a constitutional amendment and getting it ratified by the states would take years, and it could not be done in secret. The billionaire class would have plenty of time to move their wealth out of the USA into saner countries. It should also be noted that much of the 6 trillion dollars of wealth isn't dollars, but stock. Stock is worth what it's worth primarily because it's ownership of a fraction of the future revenue stream of ongoing productive operations. Those productive operations rely on the continuing operations of a government that takes private property rights seriously. If the government ever tries to legalize mass confiscations of existing wealth, this will indicate that it no longer takes private property rights seriously. The stock market will crash and much of the 6 trillion dollars of wealth will promptly vanish in a puff of illogic.)

 

[ZiprHead]

Last night, the House passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. It’s the most sweeping labor legislation since the New Deal, and includes:

— Weakening state right-to-work laws

— Forbidding employee interference and influence in union elections, such as mandatory anti-union meetings

— Leveling fines against companies and executives that violate workers’ rights

— Giving independent contractors and gig workers the right to collectively bargain alongside full-time employees

The bill passed with bipartisan support, and even had three Republican co-sponsors. It couldn’t have come at a better time: Bessemer, Alabama Amazon warehouse workers are in the midst of an historic union drive and Amazon is deploying every anti-union trick in the book to stop them. Meanwhile, the passage of Proposition 22 in California has paved the way for gig-based app companies like Uber and Lyft to double down on exploiting their workers. The bill’s passage, coupled with Biden’s vocal support for the Amazon union drive, is a major boost for the labor movement. Now it’s up to Senate Dems to abolish the filibuster and get this enacted.

..

 

[Bomb#20]

Visualization aids.
...
I'd like to believe that TFTers are at least as smart as most Congresscritters. Somebody finds a way to help understand how much wealth America's billionaires have, and TFTers assume it's Antifa trying to make a bonfire of $6T to keep warm! Do we really need this sort of misdirection and confusion?

That's nice, but ZH didn't ask if it was a good visualization aid for how rich they are; he asked if there's any truth to it. There isn't. It's magical thinking, and it's exactly the sort of magical thinking ZH goes in for -- remember, he's the one who keeps claiming hunger exists because we can't satisfy the rich. It simply isn't true. There is no sane reason to believe that if we could satisfy the rich it would reduce hunger. You like visualization aids? Here's one:

If ZH cares about eradicating world hunger and not just about reciting hate-speech against his outgroup, then his best bet is to let unsatisfied capitalists go on doing what unsatisfied capitalists do.

 

[ZiprHead]

If ZH cares about eradicating world hunger and not just about reciting hate-speech against his outgroup, then his best bet is to let unsatisfied capitalists go on doing what unsatisfied capitalists do.

Wow, talk about magical thinking.

 

[laughing dog]

Visualization aids.
...
I'd like to believe that TFTers are at least as smart as most Congresscritters. Somebody finds a way to help understand how much wealth America's billionaires have, and TFTers assume it's Antifa trying to make a bonfire of $6T to keep warm! Do we really need this sort of misdirection and confusion?

That's nice, but ZH didn't ask if it was a good visualization aid for how rich they are; he asked if there's any truth to it. There isn't. It's magical thinking, and it's exactly the sort of magical thinking ZH goes in for -- remember, he's the one who keeps claiming hunger exists because we can't satisfy the rich. It simply isn't true. There is no sane reason to believe that if we could satisfy the rich it would reduce hunger. You like visualization aids? Here's one:

Post hoc ergo propter hoc much?

 

[DBT]

The presence of one poor person in a society of wealth and plenty is a poor reflection on that society and values. Where, from a position of plenty, they cannot seem bring themselves to help lift someone left behind.

 

[bilby]

Good question, thanks for asking. Illegal by this law.


No it doesn't; it sounds like you have a reading comprehension problem.

Since when does taxation require just compensation?

Nobody said it does. If it chose to, Congress could pass a taxation statute setting the income tax rate on Christians at 10% and the rate on Jews at 90%. If I were to point out that this violates the First Amendment, you'd reply "Since when is taxation unconstitutional?", would you?

That doesn't follow. Taxation is legal, and nobody's compensated for the loss of their 'private property' even if they have sell assets to cover their tax bill. Money isn't private property, it's a government scheme for keeping track of who owes what to whom, and governments already reserve the right to remove and destroy some of that money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate.

Thank you, O resident Philosopher-King. You appear to have subconsciously assumed I was talking philosophy, or theory of government, or, perhaps, Australian law.

I assumed you meant what you said, and that you weren't expecting me to read your mind about any assumptions you didn't bother to mention. Apparently that was a mistake.

They have an entire big department (in the USA it's called the IRS), that does nothing else except reduce the entitlement to goods and services assigned to each person and corporate entity.

In the USA, the IRS enforces the income tax law. The income tax isn't legal because taxation is legal.

Yes, it is. Very obviously so.

The income tax isn't legal because governments already reserve the right to remove and destroy some of that money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate.

Although they do, nevertheless; Indeed there's no mechanism to prevent them from reserving such a right.

The income tax is legal because Congress enacted an Amendment to repeal the Constitution's prohibition of a federal income tax, and three quarters of the states ratified it.

That's another reason. It may be the reason you are thinking about. But it's not THE reason, to the exclusion of any other.

You can read that Amendment at the above link -- it's number 16. As you can see, the Amendment does not give Congress the power to lay and collect taxes on money from anywhere in the economy that they feel is appropriate, only on incomes. If Congress wants to legally stop America's billionaires from getting any richer, by seizing future accumulations of wealth, then it can simply enact a 100% tax bracket.

A 100% income tax would certainly lead to a (presumably gradual) reduction in their wealth, assuming that they cannot live free, gratis and for nothing. Is there a provision in US law that prevents the enacting of a tax bracket of greater than 100%? A 120% tax on income in excess of a million dollars would presumably have a significant impact on the wealth of billionaires, and I would guess wouldn't require any further constitutional amendments - though I may well be wrong on that point, as my familiarity with the details of your country's constitution is pretty small.

But if it wants to legally seize the wealth they've already accumulated, that will require another constitutional amendment. This is not rocket science.

(It is of course true that we can legalize seizing 6 trillion dollars of wealth from the billionaire class.

So we are in agreement.

But that in no way implies that we can seize it legally. Enacting a constitutional amendment and getting it ratified by the states would take years, and it could not be done in secret. The billionaire class would have plenty of time to move their wealth out of the USA into saner countries.

Good luck with that.

It should also be noted that much of the 6 trillion dollars of wealth isn't dollars, but stock. Stock is worth what it's worth primarily because it's ownership of a fraction of the future revenue stream of ongoing productive operations. Those productive operations rely on the continuing operations of a government that takes private property rights seriously. If the government ever tries to legalize mass confiscations of existing wealth, this will indicate that it no longer takes private property rights seriously. The stock market will crash and much of the 6 trillion dollars of wealth will promptly vanish in a puff of illogic.)

Taxation is legal. A steady erosion of wealth through taxation is unremarkable, and needn't imply "mass confiscations" of anything. Though I concur that there would be a significant reduction in stock values once stocks ceased to be a guaranteed way to turn too much money into far too much money.

As governments don't need revenue in order to spend, it's really not important whether the money disappears from the economy as taxes, or as the result of a stock market crash. The spending can occur without risking runaway inflation in either case.

Amending the constitution of the United States is legal (and has been done many times).

The USA is not the only tax jurisdiction in the world, nor does it host all of the world's billionaires (though it does host most of them). Nothing in this conversation to date indicates that the discussion is limited to the USA, and excludes the other ~95% of the world. But even if it were, my points would still stand. That it would not be easy to change the law is completely beside the point. The law could be changed to introduce a wealth tax and/or a 100% income tax with the goal of eliminating billionaires.

And doing so would neither be illegal, nor lead inevitably to the taxing out of existence of people at lower levels of wealth.

 

[Swammerdami]

You like visualization aids? Here's one:

Interesting graph, but without links to specific date, it's almost useless. It appears to be cherry-picked. A graph showing hunger might be more useful than cherry-picking a particular dollar figure. The presentation tells us nothing of wealth and income inequality, which is the topic of this debate.

When comparisons are made between 1800 and the present, it must be remembered that productivity has increased by a factor of about 15 or 20 times in the U.K. over that interval. (No, I didn't "cherry-pick" U.K. — it's just a country where data is readily available.) All else equal this would imply inflation-adjusted $2 changing into $30 or $40; yet your graph considered only $2 throughout.

 

[bilby]

You like visualization aids? Here's one:

Interesting graph, but without links to specific date, it's almost useless. It appears to be cherry-picked. A graph showing hunger might be more useful than cherry-picking a particular dollar figure. The presentation tells us nothing of wealth and income inequality, which is the topic of this debate.

When comparisons are made between 1800 and the present, it must be remembered that productivity has increased by a factor of about 15 or 20 times in the U.K. over that interval. (No, I didn't "cherry-pick" U.K. — it's just a country where data is readily available.) All else equal this would imply inflation-adjusted $2 changing into $30 or $40; yet your graph considered only $2 throughout.

It says right in the middle of the graph that it's inflation adjusted.

 

[laughing dog]

o
Nobody said it does.

I responded to "If we seized 6 trillion dollars worth of assets from the billionaire class, there are two ways we could do it: legally or illegally. If we did it legally, we'd have to pay them just compensation for taking their private property for public use. Many view taxation as seizures of property or income. So, forgive me for actually reading your actual words.

 

[Toni]

The presence of one poor person in a society of wealth and plenty is a poor reflection on that society and values. Where, from a position of plenty, they cannot seem bring themselves to help lift someone left behind.

I don't entirely agree with you.

Some people really are in poverty because they make poor, self destructive choices. IMO, any decent society allows for its people to have free will to make poor, even horrible, self destructive choices. An alcoholic CEO who refuses to get help and eventually loses his/her position, family, home, etc. should be free to make such horrible decisions---and to suffer the consequences of those terrible decisions. AND also should be provided the help they need in order to regain their sobriety and hopefully work their way out of poverty if that's their desire. For one example. I think we will always have addicts, thieves and other criminals. I think we need to treat them all as though they can make better choices, conquer their addictions and live a more stable life, including more economically stable life. I do not think that society should enable addicts to continue their self destructive and destructive behavior (It's rare that an addict's addiction only directly harms the addict.)

Some people are in poverty because of positive choices they make to live simply, without much in the way of possessions or income.

What I believe is incumbent upon any decent society is that the legal rights of those who are in poverty are not less than the legal rights of those of more means, including those with extreme wealth. Laws should apply equally to billionaires and the homeless.

I also believe that any decent society should provide for all the best possible health care, access to decent and affordable housing (even if affordable means at no cost to the resident) and food, access to the best possible education, clean air and water, basic safety from crime and protection/help in the case of natural disasters or other events that cause people to tumble from stability into precarious positions.

We've got a long ways to go.

 

[DBT]

The presence of one poor person in a society of wealth and plenty is a poor reflection on that society and values. Where, from a position of plenty, they cannot seem bring themselves to help lift someone left behind.

I don't entirely agree with you.

Some people really are in poverty because they make poor, self destructive choices. IMO, any decent society allows for its people to have free will to make poor, even horrible, self destructive choices. An alcoholic CEO who refuses to get help and eventually loses his/her position, family, home, etc. should be free to make such horrible decisions---and to suffer the consequences of those terrible decisions. AND also should be provided the help they need in order to regain their sobriety and hopefully work their way out of poverty if that's their desire. For one example. I think we will always have addicts, thieves and other criminals. I think we need to treat them all as though they can make better choices, conquer their addictions and live a more stable life, including more economically stable life. I do not think that society should enable addicts to continue their self destructive and destructive behavior (It's rare that an addict's addiction only directly harms the addict.)

Some people are in poverty because of positive choices they make to live simply, without much in the way of possessions or income.

What I believe is incumbent upon any decent society is that the legal rights of those who are in poverty are not less than the legal rights of those of more means, including those with extreme wealth. Laws should apply equally to billionaires and the homeless.

I also believe that any decent society should provide for all the best possible health care, access to decent and affordable housing (even if affordable means at no cost to the resident) and food, access to the best possible education, clean air and water, basic safety from crime and protection/help in the case of natural disasters or other events that cause people to tumble from stability into precarious positions.

We've got a long ways to go.

People don't necessarily make poor or self destructive choices because they know their choices are poor or self destructive. Something may be wrong mentally, socially, poor education, inability to reason clearly, etc, etc.

Does society just say "fuck them, they made their bed, let them lie in it" or does it try to remedy the problem? What kind of a society do we want?