At the thought of supporting a 70% marginal tax rate, the global elite at Davos burst into laughter

[Olaf]

Wouldn't it cause problems with inflation if copious amounts of money were suddenly released from the top 1% and put into circulation by the common folk? It's almost like printing more money, as the billionaires would have never actually used it, but the poor people certainly would.

 

[Barrel Cannon]

Most? Try all.
You cannot be that wealthy without the direct exploitation of someones labor.

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Untrue. You don't need to exploit others to become a multi millionaire. It sure is easier though.

 

[Keasar]

Wouldn't it cause problems with inflation if copious amounts of money were suddenly released from the top 1% and put into circulation by the common folk? It's almost like printing more money, as the billionaires would have never actually used it, but the poor people certainly would.

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The worth of money is determined by the total amount of it that exists. Releasing the money from the rich would therefore not increase the total amount, just the amount that is back in circulation by the people. That money has it's worth because of it existing already, it is if you printed new money that you would have inflation.

 

[Chairman Yang]

Wouldn't it cause problems with inflation if copious amounts of money were suddenly released from the top 1% and put into circulation by the common folk? It's almost like printing more money, as the billionaires would have never actually used it, but the poor people certainly would.

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Probably not. The rich do "use" their money. Instead of for direct consumption, for investment. These investments are lent out and typically go to companies, who in turn spend it on equipment, salaries, etc.

In other words, the money gets spent either way. It's a matter of who it gets spent on.

 

[bane833]

Probably not. The rich do "use" their money. Instead of for direct consumption, for investment. These investments are lent out and typically go to companies, who in turn spend it on equipment, salaries, etc.

In other words, the money gets spent either way. It's a matter of who it gets spent on.

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Apple is sitting on 200 billion in cash. They ain´t investing shit. And that is just one example. The rich don´t spend their money they are hoarding it.

 

[blakeseven]

Not sure how that's relevant at all.

On principle, I can't get behind asking someone to give up more than half of a dollar they've earned.

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Haha the country really is made up of temporary non-millionaires

 

[Deleted member 9305]

The rich don't get rich by giving away money. They dodge taxation as much as they legally can. Like parasites they profit off the public without giving back. It's about time to change that.

 

[bomma man]

A 70% marginal tax rate is utterly laughable. You can talk me into a 50% marginal rate, but once you're paying more tax per dollar than actually getting in pocket than it just becomes counter-intuitive. And please don't explain marginal tax rates to me, I know how it works.

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That's the point. To do it's job, which is to mitigate inequality, it really should be higher actually. There should be a disincentive to """"earn"""" (you should probably read Marx or just anyone not on the right to see that it's more complicated) that much.

 

[Brazil]

A 70% marginal tax rate is utterly laughable. You can talk me into a 50% marginal rate, but once you're paying more tax per dollar than actually getting in pocket than it just becomes counter-intuitive. And please don't explain marginal tax rates to me, I know how it works.

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What's laughable is looking at the world around you and somehow feeling concerned for the elites who are doing their best to destroy it.

70% is too low.

 

[Arttemis]

The economic direction of the country since the 70s has been negatively impact due to the removal of marginal taxes like these.

No one needs that much money, let alone per year. I would champion a return of 90% and lower the threshold to $5M. These taxes are for individuals, not businesses, so discouraging the elite from vacuuming all the wealth for themselves from the companies which generate it, and instead encouraging them to investing it in the company and labor force IS A NO BRAINER!

Single player healthcare is achievable for every citizen. Social security can survive. Wages would rise. And then there's the inevitable boost to the economy from the population finally earning (and spending) an appropriate share of the value they create.

 

[ExpandedKang]

I can't believe people think this is extreme. This hypothetical involves earning more than 10 million dollars in a year, we're talking about the kind of money that most people don't get to see in their entirely lifetime and people are acting as if they'd be hard done by. This kind of marginal tax rate was the fucking norm just a few decades ago, the level of entitlement of the rich has become so blatant that any attempt to curb their wealth is seen as an injustice inflicted upon them.

Extreme is that the wealth of a handful of people amounts to the same as billions upon billions of people.

 

[Cocaloch]

I didn't say it would be easy, but first there needs to be actual people who can take leadership and have the capacities to follow up on real revolution. I was acknowledging the barriers revolutions face today were they to act in the US. None have appeared in the 21st century, otherwise we'd have discussing them right now. I'm not concern trolling, all that I've said was true - you're more than welcome to dissect my stances to test my thesis. I gave you plenty to pick apart.

This ignores the facts that currently there is no sign of a revolution boiling anywhere in the US at the moment, despite the shut down for weeks and Trump being Trump. There are no equivalent on the streets of the Yellow Vests even. Revolutions have to be revolutions in the real world otherwise all it is talk, which it usually ends up being in America. We haven't had a civil war on America's soil since the 1800's. The Socialists and anarchists certainly aren't leading any such organisations or movements today.



There have been successful revolutions which weren't improvised, like the Russian Revolution. That was like a rolling revolution of organised groups fighting each other to the death until the dust finally settled and Stalin took centre stage. Another was Mao taking over China. Pol Pot lead a successful revolution with the Khmer Rouge against the Cambodian government. What began the movement may be an unexpected development but when it gets to a civil war stage the side who isn't organising a legit army will lose because the other side has their own. These occurrences did not occur with riots and protesters, they were full blown civil wars. Coup d'état's are common, and many horrid regimes have been installed from Iran to Chile by actors from the military to intelligence agencies which don't improvise and get results with disturbing regularity. Meanwhile peaceful revolutions, like the Green Movement in Iran were slaughtered mercilessly and failed because they were unarmed college kids against armed, highly trained soldiers who destroyed them.

In the long term the French Revolution produced good results, but it wasn't instant. It caused immense destruction and death in its wake, like many revolutions do once they seize power. Supporting revolutions does not begin and end with how they began, that's one part of an long process which can include the aftermath when the victors aren't that different from their oppressors. The French revolution did have immense organisation, that's how they gained Louis XVI's favour when he refused their offers via the National Assembly. They didn't simply put the king's head in the guillotine and take over the government by force.

You've mentioned the iconic French revolution but what others are you using as a examples?

edit: I wasn't kidding about the police, military and mercenaries, either. Any US revolution that succeeds would have to put them down, which I'd say being skeptical would be an understatement. The US military are one of the most dangerous armies in the world, and was able to neutralise the Iraqi army during 2003 in just over a month. So if you intend to get between them and the wealthy I'll be sitting over here, safe, rather than being arrested or killed.

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I've posted at great length about all this already in the thread. I'd start by looking there. It's a bit pointless to dig too deep because you seem to ignore me a lot. Like I get the thing about leadership is your assertion, but it doesn't make much sense as a retort given that I said the opposite. Leadership tends to not emerge first, it emerges during, sometimes based on prior organisations. Ignoring Robespierre, Russia is actually a great example because the October Revolution is really only a part of the broadet Russian Revolution. It's mostly anachronistic thinking that finds later leaders to be crucially important.

Meanwhile you seem to have a myopic view of revolutions that seems to suggest that they only occure the day that power changes hands. My point is that they are much broader than that and vanguards only really emerge during the revolution itself.

You also seem to be conflating regime change with revolution which generally isn't what I or other social scientists tend to use the word to mean. That's a bit odd given that you mention coup d'etat.

The revolutionary context is potential build on sentiment. I agree with you that revolution seems unlikely in the immediate future, but that's about it. That there are not currently riots is not saying much about the possibility of it in the future.

I'd suggest reading a bit of social science work on the topic. As I mentioned earlier Hobsbawm is a classic starting place.

 

[III-V]

Income inequality is pretty disgusting right now. I don't think it is sustainable. We do live in a society where social welfare programs are critical, and when these folks are taking up all the money there are few other ways to get that money back into the society.

 

[Chairman Yang]

Apple is sitting on 200 billion in cash. They ain´t investing shit. And that is just one example. The rich don´t spend their money they are hoarding it.

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That's a corporation. I answered the question in reference to rich people, who definitely don't keep that much cash around.

Also, those Apple cash reserves aren't really "cash". Like, they're not stuffing bills in a giant mattress somewhere. They're putting it into very short-term investments, too.

 

[Kernel]

What's laughable is looking at the world around you and somehow feeling concerned about the elites who are doing their best to destroy it.

70% is too low.

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Just look at this:

In 2015, Wall Street Bonuses, not regular compensation, bonuses, seven years after they were bailed out with the public purse, totaled $29.4 billion dollars.

Total compensation paid to every single person in this country who makes minimum wage totaled $14 billion

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You hear all this talk about how the economy is doing great but that's where all the gains are going.

 

[nel e nel]

Lucky for us they don't have to support it for it to be law.

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Unlucky for us they have the money to lobby against it.

 

[random_polymath]

Pretty surprised to see people on Era that will rush to the defense of the mega elite.

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That's because they hope to become wealthy someday. The poor, delusional sods.

 

[Dennis8K]

In the prosperous rise of the US, the top marginal tax rate from 1932-1982 was between 50-94%.

And from 1936-1965 it was continuously above 70%, sometimes it was 90%.

A top marginal tax rate of 70% is not extreme at all. It is fair and decent.

 

[BassForever]

I will agree with one thing, slapping that 70% marginal tax with no plan how to properly allocate the influx of tax dollars is a recipie for disaster. As we've seen with this government shut down debacle where a large chunk of our government wants to throw billions at a vanity project, giving the government more money to blow on stupud shit doesn't help anyone. I feel the better solution would be a 70% or a loop hole where if your lowest earner in the company makes over a wage floor (say 35k) and the company average is over 50k you are eligible for a much lower tax rate. Essentially a "pay your employees a living wage with ample opportunity to grow, or we'll take money and give it to them in government programs" but actually codified and not this loosey goosey "cut taxes to trickle down" nonsense.

 

[Dandy]

Eat the rich.

 

[DrROBschiz]

That's because they hope to become wealthy someday. The poor, delusional sods.

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Its like we forget how far the rich will go to isolate themselves from the rest of us and keep us down

They literally spend billions to influence policies that lock in the status quo

They dont want anyone else to get rich. They want to sell you a book or packet telling you how to gamble blindly in the hopes of getting rich

 

[Ecotic]

There's adequate tax revenues in the U.S. to make the necessary investments in our future, our spending priorities though are generally pretty awful and the money we do spend on health care and education is wasted on poorly designed systems. I worry AOC's 70% proposal is going to make people gloss over the more urgent need for health care and education reform, and to believe the main problem behind our deficiencies is a lack of tax revenue.

 

[Apathy]

These people will never even be able to spend all this money even if they lived to be 500 years old. At some point it's just hoarding

 

[apocat]

We are fucking doomed.

The rich is gonna take all the money, keep ruining the environment, keep destroying societies for profit, and when things get too bad they are just gonna fuck off somewhere else to keep doing what they are doing. And it feels like it is too late to do anything meaningful to stop it, they are becoming too powerful for anyone to do anything. These tax rates mean that they would still have fucking millions of dollars to earn, but no, the greedy cunts wants ALL the money or I guess life aint just fuckin' worth it.

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Yup. That's the plan.

https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

 

[3bdelilah]

Of course they'll laugh. Do you think they'd part with such massive sums willingly? Pass the damn bill. And if they're caught evading tax, let's try fines with triple digits of million dollars. Let's see them laugh then. Fucking cunts.

 

[Palette Swap]

I'm all in favor of this and I'm glad the conversation is happening.

I'm not even surprised by the pushback, when really, I'm not gonna cry over giving back 70 cents to the community for every dollar you earn past 10 million a year, if only because that money has a terrible marginal utility anyway.

 

[Schreckweg 5000]

I will agree with one thing, slapping that 70% marginal tax with no plan how to properly allocate the influx of tax dollars is a recipie for disaster. As we've seen with this government shut down debacle where a large chunk of our government wants to throw billions at a vanity project, giving the government more money to blow on stupud shit doesn't help anyone. I feel the better solution would be a 70% or a loop hole where if your lowest earner in the company makes over a wage floor (say 35k) and the company average is over 50k you are eligible for a much lower tax rate. Essentially a "pay your employees a living wage with ample opportunity to grow, or we'll take money and give it to them in government programs" but actually codified and not this loosey goosey "cut taxes to trickle down" nonsense.

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The primary reason why this US goverment is such a disaster is because corporate overlords and billionaires are sitting in the goverment.

 

[Bronx-Man]

Pretty surprised to see people on Era that will rush to the defense of the mega elite.

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"I'm definitely gonna make $10 mil in a year one day! This tax would be a huge inconvience for me!"

 

[mikehaggar]

There's adequate tax revenues in the U.S. to make the necessary investments in our future, our spending priorities though are generally pretty awful and the money we do spend on health care and education is wasted on poorly designed systems. I worry AOC's 70% proposal is going to make people gloss over the more urgent need for health care and education reform, and to believe the main problem behind our deficiencies is a lack of tax revenue.

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Yeah, I agree with this. We have the necessary money to take care of people now. We just don't have our priorities straight.

 

[Sulik2]

Why do a lot of people see the french revolution, the chaos, mass deaths, and absolute clusterfuck that it was, and think, even as a tongue-in-cheek joke, "hey, that's something that should be reproduced today"? Why is the french revolution being looked at as a desirable vehicle for reform?

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I was partly tongue in cheek and partly serious. The reform mechanisms are getting so broken it's hard to see a way to fix the inequality in the world right now within the system. Politicians are bought and paid for and multinational corporations are more powerful then many governments. I don't like it, but I honestly am starting to think we aren't many years away from the corruption being so bad it's going to take violence to reforn the system.

 

[Digital Dinosaur]

While it is true there is enough money going to the government to fix problems now, but it is poorly used, one of the reasons it is poorly used is because billionaires have the power to insure it goes to places that don't benefit society.

 

[Slim]

While it is true there is enough money going to the government to fix problems now, but it is poorly used, one of the reasons it is poorly used is because billionaires have the power to insure it goes to places that don't benefit society.

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Billionaires and incapable politicians who would do more harm even if it goes to 70%.

 

[thewienke]

Does such a tax plan require 60 senators or 51 senators to pass?

If it's 60 senators to override filibusters, then this is probably more of a philosophical debate since I'm not sure how we get 60 senators anytime soon.

 

[Keasar]

Yup. That's the plan.

https://medium.com/s/futurehuman/survival-of-the-richest-9ef6cddd0cc1

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And people were disgusted by the guillotines post, I am now having MUCH worse thoughts going through my head...

 

[apocat]

And people were disgusted by the guillotines post, I am now having MUCH worse thoughts going through my head...

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I'd argue that is a sane reaction.

 

[mrmoose]

I personally don't think that a lot of the upper middle class who oppose this notion of taking a higher percentage of marginal tax over a certain amount oppose it because they believe they will someday make over 10 million dollars a year. It's the fear that it will eventually come back to them, like this guy's proposal:

I desperately want to see AOC advocate for a 50% marginal tax rate on incomes over $100,000. That is when you start getting to real and effective redistribution and equality.

This $10MM and above provides political points but neither effective revenue generation or sufficient redistribution.

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Because that second part is probably true. How many people make over 10 million in income? Not the truly rich. The CEOs, sure, but a lot of that can be hidden away (stock options, etc.). Athletes, actors, but if we're talking about spending money, those guys probably spend a ton (sometimes to their own detriment).

So you're really going to have to start the tax brackets lower if you want to see some of this income distributed (or completely overhaul the tax laws, which I'm all for). But (really low)six figures seems like a dream to some, and it seems like barely getting by in a place like San Fran.

 

[Shake Appeal]

The rich do "use" their money. Instead of for direct consumption, for investment.

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At least 10% of global GDP is languishing in offshore tax havens. And that's very likely an underestimation because of the shadowy nature of the transactions involved.

 

[PanickyFool]

Because that second part is probably true. How many people make over 10 million in income? Not the truly rich. The CEOs, sure, but a lot of that can be hidden away (stock options, etc.). Athletes, actors, but if we're talking about spending money, those guys probably spend a ton (sometimes to their own detriment).

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Sure. Income should be income regardless of source. (Hello dead parents! Selling a home or any other asset.)

But (really low)six figures seems like a dream to some, and it seems like barely getting by in a place like San Fran.

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The bay area having such shitty local politics that they drive up cost of living to such an extravagant degree is strictly the problem of the bay area and should not be accommodated by the federal government. I am a huge fan of the repeal of SALT for this reason.

 

[Deleted member 50969]

I personally don't think that a lot of the upper middle class who oppose this notion of taking a higher percentage of marginal tax over a certain amount oppose it because they believe they will someday make over 10 million dollars a year. It's the fear that it will eventually come back to them, like this guy's proposal:




Because that second part is probably true. How many people make over 10 million in income? Not the truly rich. The CEOs, sure, but a lot of that can be hidden away (stock options, etc.). Athletes, actors, but if we're talking about spending money, those guys probably spend a ton (sometimes to their own detriment).

So you're really going to have to start the tax brackets lower if you want to see some of this income distributed (or completely overhaul the tax laws, which I'm all for). But (really low)six figures seems like a dream to some, and it seems like barely getting by in a place like San Fran.

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This won't happen.

 

[MasterSummerSmith462]

This can only work if the 'poor' get educated to make good financial decisions as well.

 

[Pomerlaw]

The rich don't get rich by giving away money. They dodge taxation as much as they legally can. Like parasites they profit off the public without giving back. It's about time to change that.

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They also burn ressources at a much higher pace than we (and to a greater extent poor people) do.

 

[Swauny Jones]

Although 70% marginal tax rate sounds nice and it works during the 50s, it will never happen or pass approval ever. These are not elites earning 10-15 mil a year, these are elites that earns 100+ mil per year, and thus why should they lose more than half of their earnings? Not everyone up there gets rich using underhanded methods.

The problem lies not with taxing the rich, other countries like Canada, Aus, Singapore are able to provide for good income opportunities and medical aid without resorting to such high marginal taxes, why? Because of the way they appropriate their spending.

The US government doesn't even believe that their citizens should get proper education and medical aid at reasonable rate, what makes you think that an additional tax money will go to fund it? If I am the elite, I will not be willing to pay the government that much money knowing that it won't be put into good use. This is why plenty of people in developing countries hide and evade their taxes, because most of them just go into corruption, not the country.

Corruption within the government is the biggest issue to be tackled in order to solve medical and social problem in the US. That is why kids get shot in kindergarden and US still promote it's gun and never did anything to curb it's distribution, because somewhere up there, people in power get money from these corporations.

As much as I like AOC and would like this to happen, it will not happen. US needs to solve it's corruption, legislation, and spending first, and the marginal tax rate isn't the solution.

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This person gets it. Look into how government spends their money and how much of it is pissed away on mindless shit every year for lobbying purposes instead of actually addressing issues that really need to be fixed. You guys keep bringing up that it worked in the past. It's a different day and age now and it simply wouldn't fly in today's generation. Considering the state of the current government let alone the transgressions of previous governments America really needs to find a way to put a system in place that oversees and stomps out corruption across all boards. Cut off all tax loopholes not only for the rich, but for everybody before they can even consider thinking about a 70% tax hike and even then it would be way too much.

 

[Deleted member 8752]

Why is it too much? Do you know what currently happens to that money right now? It stays dead (with minimal impact to economy) in real estate, company investments, etc for estate of the next generation of that wealthy person/family. It doesn't have the impact on the economy that the money would have spread over millions of people spending all their money in the economy.

Remember this is personal income, not corporate taxes.

And it wouldn't de-emphasize the person from making money - they are at the point of diminishing returns for their own lifestyle and everything else is about estates for after they die / status of amount of money you have then what you can actually spend it on.

I'm all for capitalism greed, but you can still have that greed and redistribute down.

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Theoretically, the money is invested which also helps the economy.

But honestly, I agree with you.

 

[Cocaloch]

This person gets it. Look into how government spends their money and how much of it is pissed away on mindless shit every year for lobbying purposes instead of actually addressing issues that really need to be fixed. You guys keep bringing up that it worked in the past. It's a different day and age now and it simply wouldn't fly in today's generation. Considering the state of the current government let alone the transgressions of previous governments America really needs to find a way to put a system in place that oversees and stomps out corruption across all boards. Cut off all tax loopholes not only for the rich, but for everybody before they can even consider thinking about a 70% tax hike and even then it would be way too much.

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Harping on corruption is how the right got these rates lowered in the first place. It's political theater. You need wise revenue and expenditure and your normative statements about how much is too much simply don't factor into it. Frankly talking about corruption but ending on another normative statement reveals your hand here. Your real interest isn't in the gritty particulars of fiscal systems, it's just vulgar Lockeanism.

Your logic is simply how people justify doing nothing. But something is going to give at some point.

 

[tabris]

Theoretically, the money is invested which also helps the economy.

But honestly, I agree with you.

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It is invested into the economy and does have impact, but not at the same velocity as money on the lower income spectrum.

100k people buying new TV's (using this as example from setup thread) due to having more money has more impact on the economy than the Billionaire investing $100m in that tv company.

 

[luffie]

This person gets it. Look into how government spends their money and how much of it is pissed away on mindless shit every year for lobbying purposes instead of actually addressing issues that really need to be fixed. You guys keep bringing up that it worked in the past. It's a different day and age now and it simply wouldn't fly in today's generation. Considering the state of the current government let alone the transgressions of previous governments America really needs to find a way to put a system in place that oversees and stomps out corruption across all boards. Cut off all tax loopholes not only for the rich, but for everybody before they can even consider thinking about a 70% tax hike and even then it would be way too much.

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Finally somebody gets it too. As long as the corruption is in place, whatever "marginal tax" system will not pass, much less work. I provided examples of countries that have succeeded in implementing those policies without the tax solution. And why did they succeed? Because of the very low rate (almost non-existent) corruption, and thus they were able to carry out appropriate measure without too much difficulties. In fact, Singapore is one of those countries with the lowest personal income tax and corporation tax. They are also able to provide subsidies for education fees, even to foreigners, such that people don't graduate with huge debt.

The elites will rather pay the politicians much money (which is lesser than their tax anyway), and these corrupt assholes will do everything to hinder the tax, medical aid, loans and other things. Until the root of the problem is tackled, everything will be half-assed.

 

[Whitemex]

No individual on the planet can consume more than 10 million dollars per year of income. Above that level, taxes should be punitive as to dissuade absurd capital hoarding. And capital gains should be taxed as income.

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I dunno man. That kid in Blank Check spent $1 mil in like a week.

 

[Cocaloch]

Finally somebody gets it too. As long as the corruption is in place, whatever "marginal tax" system will not pass, much less work. I provided examples of countries that have succeeded in implementing those policies without the tax solution. And why did they succeed? Because of the very low rate (almost non-existent) corruption, and thus they were able to carry out appropriate measure without too much difficulties. In fact, Singapore is one of those countries with the lowest personal income tax and corporation tax. They are also able to provide subsidies for education fees, even to foreigners, such that people don't graduate with huge debt.

The elites will rather pay the politicians much money (which is lesser than their tax anyway), and these corrupt assholes will do everything to hinder the tax, medical aid, loans and other things. Until the root of the problem is tackled, everything will be half-assed.

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You get it so much you're under the impression we don't have marginal tax rates at the moment...

You really shouldn't be trying to make arguments about efficacy when you clearly don't understand the basics of any of this.

Liberals really need to start owning up to the fact that most of their arguments are normative and not based on utility analysis.

 

[Grouch Douglass]

A 50% tax on 100k or higher would affect a lot of families adversely IMO. That really isn't that high of a salary when talking about even a 3 person family.

 

[Ripcord]

"people on era" is a massive overstatement. There's a sampling of them.

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I should have said "some people on Era." I expect one or two in every thread, but this one has seen more support than I'm used to in this place.