[gruez]

> No one suffers from taxing windfall profits. Windfall , by definition, being unexpectedly high profits.

1. This is objectively false. Shareholders of the bank suffer, because they get less profits. This may not be a crowd that solicits a lot of sympathy, but they still exist.

2. How do you feel about VCs and startups? Their entire business model is investing in 100 companies, knowing that 99 will fail but 1 will make astronomical returns. How would this work if there were windfall taxes?

[cykotic]

I think you don't understand what the word suffer means. Those entities don't lose anything. It's not possible to lose something you don't have. In an alternate universe where the windfall tax did not occur those entities have more money. But in this universe they don't lose anything. They don't suffer.

To call it a loss means that money was taken from them. If someone promises to leave me $1 million when they die and then they decide to change their mind I do not suffer. Nothing was taken from me. I did miss out on having $1 million but have suffered no loss. I never had the $1 million to begin with.

[gruez]

>I think you don't understand what the word suffer means.

1. You haven't heard of the saying "suffering a loss" in the context of finance?

2. see definition 3: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/suffer#Verb

> Those entities don't lose anything. It's not possible to lose something you don't have. In an alternate universe where the windfall tax did not occur those entities have more money. But in this universe they don't lose anything. They don't suffer.

That's a strange way of putting it. Suppose you were at the casino and won a few thousand dollars. When you decide to cash out they informed you there was a "winnings surcharge" (that they didn't previously tell you about) and took 50% of your winnings. Would you say that you didn't "lose anything"?

[cykotic]

According to the definition you linked to no suffering occurs because no one lost anything. You can’t lose something you never had.

[cykotic]

I made an edit to my comment above. It may explain more my position.

We live in a society and there aren winners/losers in a financial sense. But we all have to live together. That 10 people have as much wealth as 150 million people is obscene and immoral. Taxing such wealth to use for the betterment of us all is right, just, and sound policy. Obviously we disagree on this. I hope your view does not win out in the long run. It has won out in the U.S. in the present and the effects have been bad. Such is my view.

[robocat]

> there aren winners/losers in a financial sense

That sounds like zero-sum thinking.

I believe that if you think of the world using zero-sum thinking (that winners are balanced by losers), you will end up with a very skewed view.

[cykotic]

I said nothing of the sort nor implied anything of the sort. In a financial sense, winners=rich and losers=poor. This has nothing to do with zero sum.

[fock]

> knowing that 99 will fail but 1 will make astronomical returns. How would this work if there were windfall taxes?

the same way it works now: counterbalance losses with gains.

[gruez]

Right, but the windfall taxes in this case is applied on individual companies, rather than on the portfolio as a whole.

[boringg]

I mean the VC model seems kind of broken these days. Second growth/market penetration/new product related profits are different from windfall profits so it's not quite the same though I see what you are trying to do is frame it in an SV start-up viewpoint.

[boring_twenties]

12.43% of SPY is financials. We are all bank shareholders.

[Marsymars]

About 40% of Americans don't hold any stocks, either indirectly (via mutual funds, ETFs, etc.) or directly.

And about half of those stocks are held by the top 1%.

[FirmwareBurner]

>Shareholders of the bank suffer

Won't someone think of the poor bank shareholders? /s

[gameman144]

I mean, your parents and their 401k that holds all the money they're planning to retire on feels decently human and relatable to me.

[kirkbackus]

The "your parents" are only harmed if the public benefit from taxes don't offset the benefit that is received directly in the funding of the 401k or other relevant investment accounts.

In America anyway, the wealthiest 1% own 53% of the stock market. I highly doubt that the "your parents" would benefit more from funding of their investment accounts than they would benefit from the tax revenue generated. Of course my assumption is highly dependent on public policy.

[FirmwareBurner]

I don't think 401k is a thing in Italy.

[gruez]

"401k" as in subsection 401(k) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code might not be a thing in Italy, but personal pension/savings account probably is.

[FirmwareBurner]

With that logic we should never prosecute corporations doing nefarious things, because that might hurt their profits which will hurt those who's retirement funds depend on said $EVIL_CORP.

"Go ahead BP and VW, keep polluting the world, we're not gonna touch you because we don't want your shares to go down and in turn the retirement funds of those tied to you."

Am I the one seeing the slippery slope here, or am I being crazy?

[predictabl3]

No, you're not. This whole subthread is sycophantic.

[gruez]

> With that logic we should never prosecute corporations doing nefarious things, because that might hurt their profits which will hurt those who's retirement funds depend on said $EVIL_CORP.

Nobody claims this. My initial comment was only pointing out that the claim that nobody will be harmed by the windfall tax was false.

[gruez]

Did you stop reading there before deciding to write your snarky comment? I address that concern in the sentence immediately after that.

>This may not be a crowd that solicits a lot of sympathy, but they still exist.

[boringg]

While you seem to be trying to say that bank shareholders are astronomical or just wealthy people and aren't worthy of sympathy. You seem to fail to realize that most 401k holders are bank shareholders as a function of their holdings. They are arguable more hurt than the people who get large gains.

I'm not defending anyones point here but pointing out that you haven't quite grasped how the economy works or alternatively you like snarky little value add comments.