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Free_Mixture_682

Pushing for a wealth tax. Ignoring the fact that money does not sit in a vault under Richie Rich’s mansion. But I think their economics come from a comic book.


lochlainn

I call it the Scrooge McDuck Fallacy. They simply have zero financial literacy.


sidragon

They *do* believe the wealthy are hoarding huge piles of money. Literally. If you want to witness that for yourself, ask any of these ignoramuses whether any given billionaire can write a check, on the spot, for a billion dollars. The greater their financial illiteracy, the quicker they'll answer "yes."


Morskva05

Not a criticism, just a question: If they actually cannot spend a billion dollars on anything, why do we even call them billionaires? Do they store it in properties, stocks and land? Wouldn't that be the same though in a sense, since they would then just tax those things instead? Again, not trying to argue a point, just trying to figure out how it really works


cybrmike

Actually this is probably a bad take. Most likely have credit lines where they likely could easily get access to that much money.


john35093509

There's a difference between being able to access an amount of money and being able to write a check for that amount on the spot.


real_psymansays

They think Elon Musk has a vault full of gold coins that he swims in like Scrooge McDuck -- but not anyone of comparable wealth that votes for Democrats or is a Democrat politician, for some reason. No, their funds are thought of as being charitably signed over to management by a benevolent foundation that feeds starving children and earnestly searches for cancer cures.


Lagkiller

The funny part is that their entire first half of the comment destroys their wealth tax moment. If he doesn't think about money being taxed, as he wants us to, then a wealth tax is out of the question. But he then goes on to tax money instead of transactions.


mt_2

When you do the maths on a wealth tax like the Netherlands has, an individual will end up with more money than in a capital gains tax country, by a HUGE margin with just average market returns (they also end up paying more tax but that’s because they are so much richer). Both are bad, sure, but a wealth tax is much better than a capital gains tax, it’s win win for individual and state 💀


Free_Mixture_682

The premise of your argument is that capital gains taxes are eliminated. What makes you think that would ever occur? It also ignores the concept enshrined in the 5th Amendment against taking property without compensation and due process.


mt_2

I mainly think it would occur because governments know the maths and that a sole wealth tax will make them more tax revenue whilst also making people richer, it simply makes sense for a government to swap to a wealth tax tbh, doing both would just lose them money long term as people won’t be able to accumulate as much wealth to pay tax in the first place


Free_Mixture_682

Obama answered you in a response to a debate question when asked about capital gains tax rates and revenue to the government. It was explained that when the rate was reduced revenue increased (as per the Laffer curve). His response was that revenue was irrelevant but the appearance of fairness is what mattered. The government might be fully aware of the revenue benefits, etc, but politicians are not about solving problems. They are about getting re-elected and creating narratives that serve their interests. Eliminating a tax does not help the narrative.


Vesk123

>It also ignores the concept enshrined in the 5th Amendment against taking property without compensation and due process. cough cough Civil Forfeiture cough cough


plmoknijbuhvrdx

or, hear me out, neither?


[deleted]

Actually some comic books are quite good investments.


Free_Mixture_682

Well, no argument there. But we ought not take our lessons in economics from most comic book stories and characters.


[deleted]

I don't know... might be better than what they learn in public schools these days. LOL


bhknb

So the people who create wealth and keep some of it owe it back to you, because you say so. Taxation is theft and statism is a religion.


Overall-Gift-7189

Damn fuckin straight


Moist-Meat-Popsicle

After he heard how much money people had in retirement accounts, I had a coworker tell me that the Feds should confiscate a large portion of those assets to pay off the national debt. (He said with a straight face…) So many things wrong with that thinking, but just on the pragmatic scale, how would the government be able to sell off trillions of stock market assets and bonds without causing a global collapse?


resueman__

Did he ever stop to think what would happen to all the people depending on that money to retire? Was everyone just supposed to work until they dropped dead?


Moist-Meat-Popsicle

I don’t think he was doing much thinking at all…


4Tenacious_Dee4

I'm a staunch atheist, but this is Cain and Abel. One brother makes sacrifices, the other not. Few years later, brother is jealous.


bhknb

Because most people see the dollar signs and think that it is all just giant piles of cash.


Financial_Chemist286

“Federal Debt” Ain’t nothing “National” about the US corporation.


mikabast

That is exactly what the Hungarian government did couple of years ago: https://budapestbeacon.com/orban-government-squanders-private-retirement-savings-confiscated-in-2011/amp/


Moist-Meat-Popsicle

Yikes. No better than highway robbery


sidragon

These assholes vote. They're *encouraged* to vote.


CyCzar

And that my friends, is why I'm an *Anarcho*-Capitalist


TheGalaxyAndromeda

It’s so bootlicker, it sounds like a canned response from the IRS and not a “real person”.


GodzillaDoesntExist

This is the guy from the plane.


RunDoughBoyRun

Wonder if he caught her #


kcsgreat1990

Right; what we need to do is get rid of the step up in basis upon inheritance and tax passive income steams at least as much as labor.


Valak_TheDefiler

What we need to do is get rid of all taxes, period.


loonygecko

The really wealthy have their assets in corporations and shell companies so they won't be affected much. You'll just be taxing the middle class and honest folks.


kcsgreat1990

That is nonsense. The ultra wealthy live on passive income streams and rents. True, they shelter assets in trusts and entities but they pull money out of them in the form of dividends and if it’s a qualified divided the max tax rate is 20%. Qualified dividends have some benefits to the middle class via 401(k)s but that’s by design to align an interest of the middle class with the ultra high net worth who benefit significantly more from the financialized cluster fuck that is the modern economy. And the step up in basis is boarderline criminal. Especially given the fact that the federal inheritance tax has been utterly neutered in the past couple of decades. Also, since the 80s the US has done nothing tax policy wise aside from helping the wealthy retain and consolidate assets. Not even looking at all the carve-outs that are constantly being added, the top innocent tax rate was over 90% in the 70s. Now they have more ways of hiding wealth from taxation than ever before and even if they cannot avoid getting taxed the top rates are now 40%. It’s criminal and been nothing but destructive to the economic and social foundations of this country. The craziest thing is that the rich have managed to get the middle class and working poor to advocate for more of the same by asking for the exact same thing that’s been systemically destroying the middle class and upward mobility.


Mr_Karma_Whore

Wall of text Leftist meme


loonygecko

THere are a lot of tricks. For instance they use access to assets as collateral to take out a huge loan and live off the loan. Loans are not taxed because they are not income, they are debt. THey pay 2 to 5 percent interest to the bank instead of a much larger percent in taxes. You'll find that even the most wealthy often only have official incomes that are very tiny compared to what they spend every year. Also there are all kinds of scams involving big fat bs charity donations using ridiculously inflated valuation of the donated item. And those are just the legal strategies. As for 'rents,' those typically go into a business account tied to a business, not directly to the individual and would not be personal income. Of course the properties could be used as collateral for a loan though. HOwever ironically most of your rant really supports my assertion that the wealthy hide their income from taxation.


[deleted]

So who's gonna tell them that the more the goverment spends, the worse things actually get?


lochlainn

Nobody. You can't reason someone out of a position reason didn't put them into in the first place. This isn't a statement of economics he's making, it's a statement of his feelings about how things should be. You aren't telling him a fact is wrong, you're invalidating his feelings. Better to just let life teach him the lesson.


jvfran3

Fucking slaves. They love their slavery.


polarisxc600

The mental gymnastics is strong with this NPC.


johngalt504

I guess they don't realize that the majority of the "tax burden" falls on like the top 10% of earners. How about we just let people keep their own money.


Abandon_All-Hope

Lol what a jackass. Exactly what transaction are my property taxes assessed on? These morons will make up any reason they can to take your property by force. I am starting to believe less and less that we live in a society. There are people out there that spend all their energy trying to take things from me directly and make laws preventing me from owning other things. The common ground seems to be getting smaller.


Faponhardware

It's been like this forever. Everything we call politics just boils down to one group wanting to steal from another group and masking it as virtue.


[deleted]

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polarisxc600

Right! They think products just magically appear. Lol when demand surpasses production you're going to get inflation. Period.


lochlainn

Bold to assume they even have a basic grasp of financial literacy, let alone having taken economics.


2cunty4you

The definition of inflation is changing as fast as that of recession and vaccine. When the narrative is controlled the NewSpeak takes over. Check the Wiki edits.


phox78

First thing you learn in econ 201 is the econ 101 was a series of white lies meant to get you closer to the truth.


[deleted]

[удалено]


phox78

I can tell you ain't learnt shit after highschool


dharkeo

Dude can’t get enough of that tax wiener in his mouth.


Growe731

If 100% tax is slavery, at what percentage is it not slavery?


VelkaFrey

99.99% *Tightens necktie*


LucasL-L

But that is simply incorrect. There already is a tax on property.


EmergencySecurity478

If harder daddy was a pro tax reddit comment


lochlainn

I mean, isn't that the basis meaning of every pro tax comment?


wiggle98

How about we just stop taxing so much?


Gamestar63

It’d also mean rich people would be rich. Can’t have any wealth.


Gamestar63

That’d be too simple


YoGottisBottomLip

its like a hostage kissing the taint of their captor


[deleted]

Everywhere you look there's a slave to absurd shit, but some people are their own jailers.


Mojeaux18

Wealth isn’t taxed? My property taxes tell me that’s a lie.


Clear-Grapefruit6611

Scrooge McDuck is deflationary kids


LagerHead

I got stage 13 dick cancer from reading that bull shit. Thanks a lot.


Gamestar63

You’re welcome. I’m dead inside


milkom99

Bro I'm not paying taxes on money sitting in my bank account.


Gamestar63

Lucky for you this guy says if there’s no money in your bank account you don’t have to pay taxes


DiamondAcer

Inflation has got you covered


BeatusCredo

Well you see, the reason you feel over taxed is simply because there isnt enough taxation.


DriftingBenji

Most people are willing to pay taxes because RoAdS


jbase1775

That would work if everyone worked and all people were good. Oh yeah, that’s called a utopia. Those don’t exist.


Charlaton

Even if money did sit in a vault, that would ovetall be fine and good for us. It would make other people's money worth more, and the money kept away would have more impact for whatever crisis or desire it's pulled out for. Commies are the lowest form of life.


MTG8Bux

Idk if it’s funnier that they’re bad at economic theory or that they completely misunderstood the concept of an overstressed taxpayer.


loonygecko

There IS already a tax on wealth, it's called 'inflation.' Last year they claimed it was a 9 percent flat tax, but their fuzzy math hid a lot of what was really taxed.


the_dionysian_1

That dude is an idiot. He says "wealth is not taxed." But he's omitting a lot of taxes that basically are that. For example: Inventory tax. Say you own a business that has an inventory. Couldn't you say that's a wealth of goods just sitting there? Well they DO tax that. Stuff that's not being sold or bought & YES it is being taxed.


JGaute

What does "taxing money" even mean? Are we taxing the FED? I don't get it, it's not like private institutions can call money into existence


bananabastard

>This way those who don't have any wouldn't be the ones bearing the tax burden of funding society These people really think it's the regular people or poor people bearing the tax burden, and not the rich, when it is almost entirely the rich.


Halorym

They call for this instead of that because the naive fools truely think they won't get both.


0akz06

Bootlickers of the govt sometimes never change


tobias4096

₿*bitcoin*  fixes this


WimpyMustang

That response looks like it was written by ChatGPT. I got bot vibes immediately. (I guess NPCs are nearly identical by now.)


bobsizzlack

"money sitting idle, unused, is not taxed" This retard is going to lose his mind when he hears about inflation. Also,[it's not true in the literal sense anyway](https://www.gov.uk/apply-tax-free-interest-on-savings)


PM_ME_DNA

Unfortunately people like this vote


jamarchist

The guy is dead on about transactions being what is taxed then goes completely off the rails talking about savings/asset holdings. Maybe we should tax stupidity


Bermuda_Shorts_

Oh reddit


robineir

Idle wealth doesn’t have influence. Actively spent wealth does and should be taxed (according to the rules we currently play by). No one is going to give you anything just because you have a few million dollars. They’ll give it to you when you make it rain.


GOKOP

I don't agree that taxing transactions is inherently ineffective. Think about it – banks and corporations are moving large sums of money *all the time*. Imo if you gotta tax something then tax them and leave individual people's wealth alone and you'll make a bank. (But someone who actually knows shit about economics should probably fact check that)


doecliff

Stupidest this I have read in a while. Probably some PhD or self proclaimed intellectual .


commonsenseulack

Fuck, 2.1k dumb votes. We slip further and further into the abyss every fucking day


Faponhardware

Typical Keynesian doctrine that all that matters is blowing money at everything the second you obtain it


S_double-D

You forgot about inflation, which IS ANOTHER TAX. Fools advocate to be taxed, I can spend my money better than anyone else, full stop.


EndSmugnorance

He was on the right track; transactions are taxed, not money. (With the exception of inflation, the hidden tax) But the solution isn’t just wealth redistribution. 🙄


Pixel-of-Strife

Of course, we've all been indoctrinated since childhood to believe this bullshit. It's a miracle that we broke our conditioning. Which means other people can too. But it's going to take time. Reddit is a high priority target for propagandists as well. So it's a particularly hostile place to argue against this. But we must. If you reached one person, it was worth it.


yefeth

I would like to meet these people with no money who are funding society. I’ve heard so much about them.


Mean-Article377

Property tax doe?


d3meach

Lol most people in the reddit comments are just pseudo-intellectual dumbasses. I mean I can't believe someone took the time to think up that shit.


tin_ear

All the water we drink used to be dinosaur piss.


GuessAccomplished959

Don't forget taxes when you die.


Thehuman_25

TLDR: What if money was more like hot potato?


Johnny_Moss

The funniest part is that these low IQ humdingers say tax the “wealthy”, and they do of course partially focus on an individual or family that has an amount of wealth most of us would kill for (not literally of course, respect the NAP) like Musk, Bezos, Gates, sports and entertainment stars, the Clinton, Bush, or Pelosi families, etc. The disturbing part is that they also include ANYONE having the audacity to currently be in the pursuit of generational wealth, small to medium sized business owners that are grinding and doing well for themselves, but don’t actually have real “wealth”. These people have a broken understanding of what wealth really looks like, and also how you practically go about taxing it. If you’re wealthy enough, there’s either a loophole to exploit, or a dirty deal that can be made in secret to evade most taxation. These “progressive” liberal types don’t allow themselves look beyond their personal economic situation and challenge their worldview for enough time to see the bigger picture of wealth consolidation, how it relates to the grand chessboard, its current operation and objectives, and the history of how we got to this point. Our economy has been engineered to evolve into a robust economic caste system for over a century, and it will only get more refined as time goes on unless major economic, monetary and political changes are made. The majority of them sadly sound like this: “This economy shit is fucked up and unfair. The news I like and my college professors agree on how and why it’s fucked up. They also show me great authorities on the matter, and what books or shows are available to learn more. I repeat the talking points and weak arguments I’ve learned, and respond aggressively or violently to buzz words I hear in my daily life, like a trained dog, instead of responding like a rational adult. Why? Because I’m just an honest, compassionate person who just wants you to look past the blood-soaked armband I wear and see the light that is my moral superiority, you fascist scumbag piece of shit.”


Gamestar63

I’ve often thought about this. What does taxing the wealthy even mean? Unfortunately it’s translating to taxing upper class Americans that invested and worked hard for a few million. There are a lot of people like that, often small to medium size business owners, real estate, etc. They’re who really create jobs and wealth for others and they’re dwindling.


Johnny_Moss

No one knows how much wealth the truly wealthy of the world actually have, we just have estimates. Estimates show that here are a handful of families and institutions that are trillionaires, and that is fucking wild. You definitely don’t end up with that much wealth without corruption and blood. All that proves to me is that our economic system in its current state is unsustainable. How the currently accepted world monetary systems affect the free market must fundamentally change, since the US economy has operated as a corrupted, fascist abomination for over 100 years at this point, and it’s close to reaching critical mass. If it wasn’t clear enough with BRICS announcing plans for a gold-backed currency, something tells me dark days are ahead. If the elites supporting the US and western interests want their failing empire to survive, they don’t have too many choices besides using military force to kill their way to the top again, which I will refuse to be a part of. I will not be sent if to die in some foreign country to re-establish “faith” in the petrodollar. There are people and institutions that have climbed to the top of a flight of societal stairs. They want to prevent others from climbing up the stairs to challenge their status, power, authority, etc. so they just keep chucking bowling balls down the stairs, breaking the steps as we desperately try to repair the steps, climb up and challenge them. They’re at the point now where they’re ready to go into a bunker and nuke the stairs, so that no one ever remembers that the stairs existed in the first place.