[bmitc]

I continue to be super concerned about this. I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc. Makes one realize just how bought out Congress is.

Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

[nightski]

Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with.

However it might be interesting to explore an option that required people who own a stake in a company that has grown beyond a certain size to be required to siphon off some of those shares to employees over time in a way where it was not conducted on the open market and would not affect share price.

I also question whether corporate entities should be allowed to own shares and what the benefits are of that. Should private investment firms be allowed to accumulate massive stakes in public companies?

[bmitc]

I don't think we should avoid something just because there are more problems. We should fix those other problems as well. The primary issue is that there is a single extremist party, not unlike those found in the Middle East, that is hell bent on undermining America for want of power. By systematically undermining education, public health and services, infrastructure, treating government projects as jobs programs, etc., they are creating a worse America and a sort of political Stockholm syndrome among their constituents. But there is indeed corruption across the board in America.

Local governments are starved for money, and almost all of their funding comes from local property taxes, that is, normal people. So, these mega-rich are allowed to get unboundedly wealthy, while normal people have to pay to keep society running as a minimal level. The mega-rich's money, as well as corporations', needs to flow back through the system. It does no good to let it concentrate so heavily and ultimately do nothing while it sits there.

[nightski]

Is it ironic I don't even know which party you are referring to because it accurately describes both in my opinion?

But I disagree in that I think we absolutely should avoid it because a larger federal government has been heavily correlated with less local funding (so much so that the SALT deduction was once a thing). It's given rise to globalization and large multi-national conglomerates. It creates a situation where power & money is too concentrated.

[bmitc]

I'm not sure it's ironic as much as it is either not paying attention or not being honest with the situation. One party being extreme does not make the other party the good party. It just means that one party is extreme, which is a fact. The Democrats are not a paragon of a political party. They are as inefficient, middle of the road moderate, corrupt, etc. as any political party. But the Republicans, or at least a powerful subset of them, have become an extremist group. And they are well-funded by conservative and libertarian ideologues who care about nothing other than power and money and can use their wealth to avoid any downsides in their quest.

Once you start looking into the ideologies of people like the Koch brothers, Robert Mercer and his family, Peter Thiel, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, Sheldon Adelson, Ronald Cameron, Steve Wynn, and others, you start seeing very weird and strange beliefs that are incompatible with a functional society. The primary thread is that these people do not care about others. Just look at the Koch brothers' political donations and the businesses they run. Is it then any surprise why the Republicans might not care so much about climate change and policies to mitigate it?

We have one extremist political party, and then the other, somewhat incompetent, party spends all their energy fighting back against the extremism of the other.

[nightski]

I just do not agree that one party is more extreme than the other, sorry. I also don't believe you are being honest with yourself over the situation either. It's clear you have dug your heels into a particular set of beliefs and have no interest in discussing real solutions (instead just want to play the blame game). Frankly it is just not interesting discussion.

[bmitc]

That can be your opinion, but I think it stands in disagreement with several events and facts of the Republican party. There are oodles of articles and books addressing the growing extremism of the Republican party, so I don't think it's even a controversial opinion. By just saying "oh, they're just another political party with different beliefs" is enabling their extremism. Any rational discussion with a Republican, at least those that I know, which includes family members, can often not be had. I understand that there are actual conservative political beliefs, but from what I can tell, they are not the ones driving the power dynamic of the Republican party. The discussions I have had quickly turn weird because it quickly becomes a case of religion, sexism, racism, or something else deep down affecting their political beliefs, which mainly consist of wanting everyone else to be like them and to do what they want (how they want).

A certain Republican sect literally tried to overturn the presidential election, threatening to hang the vice president, killed a capital cop, ransacked the capital, and only one Republican had the guts to vote against the president. Then that same party will decry people marching for human rights and supports violence against those groups. The Republicans are the same party that supposedly stand for small government but are hell bent on telling people what they can do with their own bodies and forcing religion to be taught in public schools. Republicans' reaction to mass shootings is more guns, while they are the ones that block any investigation into why these are happening or preventing people that should not be buying guns from buying guns. I happened to drive across the country during COVID. You could tell the Republican states from the amount of masks being warn. The Republicans blocked a third supreme court nomination by a two-term president in Obama that was 10 months ahead of the presidential election, meanwhile they rushed a third supreme court appointee by a one-term president just two months before an election, throwing out every reason they used to block Obama's nomination. These are all extreme positions that don't have analogs in the Democratic party.

> have no interest in discussing real solutions

Mind pointing that out? In fact, I've elaborated quite a decent amount. I'm not sure what you've brought to the discussion other than just stating disagreement and making bad faith statements. You are free to contribute or elaborate on what you mean by the Republican party not being extreme.

The solutions I believe that could help things are: increasing tax on the wealthy, limiting the amount of political donations including to interest groups and think tanks (i.e., get private money out of politics and government), abiding by separation of church and state, and increasing primary and secondary education.

[uxcolumbo]

How about these, enabled by Republicans

- womens rights have been thrown back 50 years

- a legitimately won election was almost overturned by a violent mob incited by Trump at the time

Have the Democrats ever incited a mob to violently overturn an election?

The fact that people like Trump, Greene, Boebert and others with extremist and narcissistic values can rise to power / influence points to major systemic failures, which eventually destroys democracy if not stopped.

How do you avoid those destructive people rise to power?

[sokoloff]

IMO, neither party excels on educational topics and both 100% treat government projects as jobs programs.

[rlt]

> Meh the government doesn't need more money to conduct frivolous and corrupt spending with.

I agree with that, but they could just, you know, lower taxes on the lower and middle class to balance it out.

[dopidopHN]

Or do something useful and somewhat efficient with the money. Eg: good, reliable public school, roads, network infrastructures, renewable energy sources.

I’m a US tax payer since less than a decade. My experience is that I pay a significant portion of my incomes to taxes that only marginally benefit me or folks around me.

Recent uptick of direct distribution is nice.

But a leadership in the stewarding of the land would be tasteful and send the right message IMO.

It’s fascinating to see the Western European countries I’m familiar with being blinded by the economic might of the US but not realizing how little the average citizen benefit from it.

[xpe]

Even staunch libertarians agree that there are agreeable ways for a government to spend money.

With that said, the parent commenter subscribes to what political philsophies and/or ethics? ...

[rrrrrrrrrrrryan]

According to the Laffer curve it should probably be 70% or so to maximize government income, but yes.

If you tax them 100% they'll just stop working or bail to another country, and then you collect zero tax revenue from them. At 70% most of them will just suck it up and pay.

(I realize France is a counterpoint here, but I'd argue it was a half-assed attempt, and they have neighboring French-speaking tax havens that have no real U.S. equivalent.)

[PaulDavisThe1st]

The Laffer curve is a fact-free zone except for at it's two end points.

The reality is that nobody knows for sure what the curve of revenue vs. tax rate looks like other than at those two end points, which makes the entire concept completely useless.

[scarmig]

The most amusing thing about the Laffer curve folk is they mention it, and a breath later will talk about cutting taxes so they can drag the government to a tub and drown it in the bathwater: they don't even pretend to believe that we're at the point on the curve where cutting taxes will increase revenue.

[double_nan]

It’s fascinating. Not only that is fact free, but it’s based on an assumption that the purpose of the government is to collect maximum tax value from the citizens. Is it thought?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

It's not based on this assumption at all. In fact, the Laffer curve is named after an economist who did his best to provide "intellectual heft" to politicians who wanted to reduce taxation as far as possible (and maybe a little further than that), later summarized by one of them as "shrink[ing] the government to the point where we can drown it in the bathtub".

[bmitc]

Thank you for the reference to the Laffer curve.

[QuarterReptile]

>Once a person has wealth over, say, $500 million, then there should be a 100% tax.

Your inability to conceive of a useful purpose for such a quantity of money does not justify prohibiting its existence.

>I do not understand how the U.S. government does not view these billionaires as serious ideological threats to democracy, the court system, national security, etc

Cooperation. A government that can't handle the idea of powerful citizens has all the tools it needs to make almost all those people (hard to banish all the Christian missionaries, and martyring them is the surest way to grow more) leave or fall in line, but I don't think many people look at Venezuela or North Korea as ideal places to govern in terms of democracy, the court system, national security, etc.

[bmitc]

> Your inability to conceive of a useful purpose for such a quantity of money does not justify prohibiting its existence.

What inability and where was it demonstrated? Are you referring to a useful purpose if it was taxed or a useful purpose for individuals to have such wealth? If the latter, then I propose that an individual containing such wealth is less useful than it being returned.

Those things and countries you mentioned have nothing to do with this discussion.

[towaway15463]

It’s rather ironic that a discussion of Elon Musk prompted you to make that assertion.

[QuarterReptile]

It's so many layers of delightfully nested irony. Give more money to the federal government so they give more big tax credits for Tesla purchases, but Tesla can't exist any more in this fantasy world where nothing outside of the federal government can grow beyond $500 million in scope.

[bmitc]

I clearly referred to personal wealth.

[bmitc]

What is ironic?

[towaway15463]

You could examine your comment that I replied to for clues.