Wealth tax - any assets you hold over $2M is fair game.
Surely now people can see there is not much connect between how hard you work and how much wealth you have. It's a lottery, lets redistribute the proceeds.
Let me read what you said another way: “let’s tax old people”
Young people don’t have money compared to older people because old people have generally spent their lives saving it. So if you put that wealth tax in place, why the heck should any of them save.
What you suggest will lead to disaster. Getting old is not a lottery.
$2M was roughly based on a decent house and a comfortable pension. For most this is a pipe dream anyway.
Young people don't have money because the balance between return on labour and return on capital have shifted in the favour of capital. Near zero interest rates with consequent asset inflation is one mechanism by which this has been achieved.
Eventually the people actually doing the work will say enough is enough (or hit the opiates), and society starts to crumble. Go have a look at the nearest bridge or highway (in the US), you will see what I mean.
> because old people have generally spent their lives saving it.
Hah
My old man and his wife have a couple of million in real estate and paper assets. For the most part they didn't 'save' any of it. It's theirs due to policies that promote asset inflation.
Seriously. They bought houses in the early seventies for probably around $80k total. Adjusted for wage/price inflation, $500k. Financed natch. Now worth about $4 million. Yeah their 'savings' amounts to about 12% of their real estate wealth. Likely even less percentage of their paper wealth.
Wealth tax, so once someone is done paying ~40%+ of their income in taxes, between federal, state income, sales, vehicle and property tax, and after years or decades, they manage to build up $2M (which is just barely enough to retire on), you propose to double-dip and tax what they have left after feeding the government for decades? In my opinion that’s straight up immoral.
2M is far above the median net worth for Americans. If 2M is barely enough to survive on, then maybe Americans ought to tax wealth harder to build up a social safety net capable of taking care of them in their old ages.
> In my opinion that’s straight up immoral.
In comparison to the bottom 75/90 percent (rough estimate) not being able to survive their retirement.
Double dipping is immoral and the redistribution of wealth is theft. The ultra wealthy did not become ultra wealthy (think Bezos, Gates, etc) by paying the taxes we CURRENTLY have. Why do you propose adding more taxes would help?
I am reminded of Milton Friedman's "Social Security Myth".
Social security is a tax on the young, the group that should be saving money, to give to the old, the group that should _have_ saved money. Social security (and things like it) have to generally be forced down people's throats because the very premise they are based on is flawed. I highly recommend watching the above video.
It's not a great site but the only reference I could find related to the discussion. It would appear that for most states you would need at least 1M - 1.5M to retire. This includes social security.
Moreover, the money that you are proposing we tax has already been taxed. This not only is immoral on a fundamental level, it will encourage those of us who saved diligently in tax deferred accounts to spend some of that money either leaving the country, or hiding the money elsewhere. You can say "well the IRS will be left to enforce that" but the reality is the problem would be so wide spread you wouldn't be able to stop it. Think about how hard small business owners fight to keep money through various tax advantaged accounts, expenses, etc. Now everyone will be working just as hard, and better yet, be capitalized and motivated to do it.
If your proposal is "people can't make enough so naturally we need to tax the wealthy to pay for the poor" you are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. A more salient solution would be to propose pegging the minimum wage to inflation (which would have it around $12 nationally), or implementing a VAT tax that would directly effect the ultra wealthy by taxing the _production_ of goods.
However your proposal as it stands is reprehensible in the fact you are punishing a group of fairly average savers for the misdeeds of 1/10th of a percent of the wealthy people in America. It makes no sense.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 14.6 ms ] threadSurely now people can see there is not much connect between how hard you work and how much wealth you have. It's a lottery, lets redistribute the proceeds.
Let me read what you said another way: “let’s tax old people”
Young people don’t have money compared to older people because old people have generally spent their lives saving it. So if you put that wealth tax in place, why the heck should any of them save.
What you suggest will lead to disaster. Getting old is not a lottery.
Young people don't have money because the balance between return on labour and return on capital have shifted in the favour of capital. Near zero interest rates with consequent asset inflation is one mechanism by which this has been achieved.
Eventually the people actually doing the work will say enough is enough (or hit the opiates), and society starts to crumble. Go have a look at the nearest bridge or highway (in the US), you will see what I mean.
Hah
My old man and his wife have a couple of million in real estate and paper assets. For the most part they didn't 'save' any of it. It's theirs due to policies that promote asset inflation.
Seriously. They bought houses in the early seventies for probably around $80k total. Adjusted for wage/price inflation, $500k. Financed natch. Now worth about $4 million. Yeah their 'savings' amounts to about 12% of their real estate wealth. Likely even less percentage of their paper wealth.
> In my opinion that’s straight up immoral.
In comparison to the bottom 75/90 percent (rough estimate) not being able to survive their retirement.
I am reminded of Milton Friedman's "Social Security Myth".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCdgv7n9xCY
Social security is a tax on the young, the group that should be saving money, to give to the old, the group that should _have_ saved money. Social security (and things like it) have to generally be forced down people's throats because the very premise they are based on is flawed. I highly recommend watching the above video.
To attack your point directly:
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2020/01/06/what-it-cost...
It's not a great site but the only reference I could find related to the discussion. It would appear that for most states you would need at least 1M - 1.5M to retire. This includes social security.
Moreover, the money that you are proposing we tax has already been taxed. This not only is immoral on a fundamental level, it will encourage those of us who saved diligently in tax deferred accounts to spend some of that money either leaving the country, or hiding the money elsewhere. You can say "well the IRS will be left to enforce that" but the reality is the problem would be so wide spread you wouldn't be able to stop it. Think about how hard small business owners fight to keep money through various tax advantaged accounts, expenses, etc. Now everyone will be working just as hard, and better yet, be capitalized and motivated to do it.
If your proposal is "people can't make enough so naturally we need to tax the wealthy to pay for the poor" you are simply robbing Peter to pay Paul. A more salient solution would be to propose pegging the minimum wage to inflation (which would have it around $12 nationally), or implementing a VAT tax that would directly effect the ultra wealthy by taxing the _production_ of goods.
However your proposal as it stands is reprehensible in the fact you are punishing a group of fairly average savers for the misdeeds of 1/10th of a percent of the wealthy people in America. It makes no sense.