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by EatingWithForks 996 days ago
I'm arguing that it may not actually affect everyone. In america, the biggest wealth-building tools from the federal government were barred to black people in the previous generation. Banks are still getting hit with racial discrimination in mortgage lending in current year. I don't think we should address inequality by generation if only a minority of that generation got to reap the rewards. It's not like a Latina grandma alive before women were allowed to open bank accounts had a ton of options to her.
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the wealth at the top is a side-effect of chronic unfair advantage. Even if that is somehow targetted, the unfair advantages like e.g. the extreme way in which housing markets in free economies evolved won't change.

And we know that wealth tax does not work because of the structure of the world financial system. We can't pretend that if we try again and again it will work.

The inequality of housing in particular is a result of generational demographic factors which led to political choices (low inflation mandate - high interest rates are being imposed on new generations to pay for housing obtained with record low interest rates). These are cases where democracy fails and cannot guarantee the fundamental right to housing (in fact it actively fights it). Bandaids cannot solve this

I agree bandaids cannot solve this. I just disagree we should be targeting a generation and not just targeting all wealthy people, because the generational opportunities you're describing were closed to subsets of people. Like I said, it's not like a Latina grandmother who wasn't allowed to open a bank is the source of the generational global wealth problem-- it's the white managerial class who got preferential federal mortgage loans.