[monero-xmr]

The value of the super wealthy’s net worth is paper. It only has value because we all agree it has value. If you started to seize their paper wealth and give it to everyone else, the value of that paper would immediately fall, not just from the threat of seizing it but their lack of ownership and stewardship would make it crumble.

When someone actually uses their money, like to buy a mansion, we do indeed tax the shit out of it. We tax the corporation, we tax the dividends, we tax the gains, we tax the seller of the property and we make the buyer pay various fees. We tax the property yearly, and we increase the assessed value of it upwards to get more tax every year. Tax tax tax.

The only place to get more tax is to just seize the paper straight. And I think that’s a terrible idea.

[ProfessorLayton]

>The only place to get more tax is to just seize the paper straight. And I think that’s a terrible idea.

That's not true, right now there's lots of incentive for the ultra wealthy to not sell their stocks, and instead use the buy/borrow/die strategy. This results in less tax revenue, allows them to capture gains, and can then pass down that wealth on a step-up basis that wipes out capital gains for the recipient.

Policies could be changed to incentivize selling assets without actually seizing them.

[cko]

Seizing it would also have the secondary effect of a mass exodus of investment capital from the country, like capital flight in China.

A more reasonable way is to seize it is through taxation, either by a wealth tax or tax on unrealized gains, but it would be very difficult to implement.

[JetSpiegel]

Capital flight to where? The US economy is still the largest in the world, there aren't enough assets in the rest of the world for that capital to buy.

Plus, the US government could just implement capital controls overnight (or better yet, in the night before), then the money would have nowhere to go.

[zer8k]

> The value of the super wealthy’s net worth is paper. It only has value because we all agree it has value. If you started to seize their paper wealth and give it to everyone else, the value of that paper would immediately fall, not just from the threat of seizing it but their lack of ownership and stewardship would make it crumble.

I don't think ownership and stewardship is the problem. The fundamental problem is still there: whether they have 1T dollars, or 300M people have their share of 1T dollars, the dollars in the system will increase the second they spend it. Their "stewardship" is a tenuous position - commanding enough capital to cause massive inflation. Politics aside, it's lose/lose for a single person to command that much power over an economy. If every billionaire decided to liquidate their assets all at once the financial system would absolutely fold. The fact these people can accumulate this level of wealth is not only an income equality problem but a symptom of a cancer in our financial system. The Fed's policies and the existence of lobbying have, by and large, created these people. It's less a money problem but rather a political problem.

I agree with you that the idea of charging capital gains on unrealized capital is financial and political suicide. Even if you suppose you only do this for people worth, say, 500M or more history has shown that this never sticks. Eventually, the government will continue to get more hungry and continue to make abhorrent financial decisions. Eventually, it will effect everyone. As you stated, the investment from regular people over the next 30-50 years would trend towards 0 - and then a new way to tax would need to be made. Negative interest rates on bank accounts, perhaps.

That's not to say however it's ok that these people are allowed to possess >= 80% of a countries net wealth. The money isn't the problem is the power it brings - and that's a huge problem. The safest way is probably a progressive inheritance tax but it still has the same problem. How long before Joe Plumber is effected by it? 50 years? There's no simple solution.

[monero-xmr]

The government has a monopoly on violence, and it can (and does) print as much money as it wants. There is no "threat" of a private person having money, they are still bound by the same laws. They became rich by creating a business that provided value for others - the most noble way to acquire wealth that exists. That's not a danger or a cancer of the system, that's a success

[rootusrootus]

> They became rich by creating a business that provided value for others - the most noble way to acquire wealth that exists.

This applies to small business owners way more accurately than it does to billionaires riding the startup rocket to the moon because all the gamblers with money decided they looked like the best way to make a quick buck in the stock market.

[monero-xmr]

It appears there is a certain type of person, to your own exacting standards, who "deserves" being wealthy, but everyone else does not. Furthermore, the act of having a lot of wealth is inherently suspicious to you, although certain edge cases (a small business owner perhaps) you would allow it.

Overall I am not persuaded, I think rich people are a good thing for society.

[rootusrootus]

You inferred an awful lot from my comment. Which, I get it, makes a certain amount of sense given that you're attributing 'noble' to people using wealth as the metric.

I'm not focused on the person, nor how deserving they are individually, I care about how this benefits society.

Let me put this another way. I think that the majority of billionaires essentially won the lottery, and that a typical small business owner brings more real, actual value to society. For every one Musk or Bezos or Gates, how many equally intelligent people tried but were in the wrong place at the wrong time? I think the collective value of a lot of really intelligent people is much higher to society than the guys who got all the right things lined up at the right moment. Does Bezos have skill? Yes! Does he have skill proportionate to his wealth? Not a chance.

Hell, I'll even admit that Musk is clearly skilled in business. Luck can't necessarily explain all of it. But he rode the wealth rocket on the back of TSLA, a company he did not create. It wasn't his idea to build electric cars, but maybe we can credit him for figuring how to make them a sexy and sought over status symbol.

[monero-xmr]

There is no logical way to objectively judge which billionaire is deserving or not of wealth. Any tactic you take will be gamed. I’d rather not pick winners and losers. I disagree that you “win the lottery” by becoming rich.

[rootusrootus]

> If every billionaire decided to liquidate their assets all at once the financial system would absolutely fold.

Would it? Or would it come roaring back stronger than ever? If there are real assets, then I'd expect good results. If it's just on paper backed by nothing but good feelings, maybe we're better off burning that paper.

[bigfudge]

We don’t tax the shit out of it relative to income earned though. And in the UK we don’t even tax the property in any meaningful way. Do you in the US?