| >Why are you listening to news media outlets? You just have to look at the reality of the situation. Wealth taxes failed. This is indeed the prognosis you would assume consuming from those outlets. They might use subtle misdirection in order to achieve this. >A "simple" tax that had popular support It didn't sound like it was either one of those things, not that that would even be relevant even so since it wasn't a wealth tax. >Sure. Its comically the same exact tax (down to the %) that Bernie Sanders (a serious politician) is proposing though That was ~0.005%, not 0.5%. It was attacked vehemently by the financial industry/media on the basis that it wouldn't raise much in the way of money even though, of course, it wasn't supposed to (nice bit of misdirection). It was designed to kill off the largely parasitic HFT industry and leave regular old securities trading intact (unlike sweden's tax). It was a very well designed tax, actually, which is why a variant is used by Singapore and Hong Kong. None of this, of course, has much to do with the 98% tax rates of the 1950s, which presaged some of the highest levels of economic growth America has ever seen, fomenting the true birth of the modern middle class - a class with money in its pocket. Or, a socialist/communist that wrecked the economy for decades to come. Depending on whom you ask. |