Poll of the Day > I feel like there needs to be a limit on wealth.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Upper and middle class wages are increasing but lower class wages are not. Because of this inflation will continue to rise but people in a lower economic class will not be able to keep up and whenever they try to get higher wages they are told "we can't do that. It would cause inflation!"

Perhaps if the higher classes had a limit then this wouldn't be a problem!

Tag

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that's a terrible idea

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Sounds like communism.

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There IS a limit on wealth, it's called ... idk, what's the most expensive thing you can outright buy?

If you can afford the most expensive thing, then you're at the limit.

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No lmao. Let people earn their money.

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I wouldn't say a limit but I do think using your wealth and power to influence a government and politicians should definitely be curtailed severely. That's part of the problem in America today the wealthy have used their vast resources to hijack the political system and politicians and that isn't good for a country or it's citizens because sooner or later abuse will creep in especially in employment. There are countless well known employers today who commit wage theft on a grand scale and employees are powerless to fight against it.

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The concept seems nice enough, but in practice, it'd be too easy to get around to make any real difference. Cap it at $1 billion, and you just get multibillionaires paying some random people $10,000 a year each to hold on to $500 million for them until they want to access it, or continuing to hide it in offshore tax havens like they currently do to avoid paying taxes on it, or even just giving it away to friends and family members instead of letting it be taxed away and used for public benefit. It wouldn't be impossible to make it work, but it's going to entail outfoxing a whole lot of very highly-paid accountants and lawyers, and the sheer cost of the audits required to enforce it long-term could very well outweigh the potential benefits.

Rather than a hard cap, if you want to cut down on wealth disparity, minimum wage should instead be defined as a percentage of the highest wage (including bonuses) in the company. If a CEO wants to make more money, they must first pay all of their bottom-rung staff more money as well (and, by extension, everyone else in between). Growth remains possible, just not to the explosive, exploitative degree that's currently standard, and that growth benefits everybody that contributes to it.

SirPikachu posted...

Let people earn their money.

This is always the response to such ideas, but I think it fundamentally misrepresents the issue. The vast majority of people saying such things do feel that, for the most part, the financial elite have earned the privilege to live the rest of their lives in complete luxury. Nobody's saying they don't deserve to be rich. The problem is that they've often hoarded enough money to live thousands of such lives, more money than can ever possibly be justified as useful or meaningful for a single person, and their removal of that money from the economy is very bad for it.

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The collapse of every major civilization in the history of the world has been preceded by a period of sharp wealth inequality. Folks are literally willing to let our nation crumble to pieces so that a handful of billionaires can save a couple million dollars a year.

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adjl posted...

The concept seems nice enough, but in practice, it'd be too easy to get around to make any real difference. Cap it at $1 billion, and you just get multibillionaires paying some random people $10,000 a year each to hold on to $500 million for them until they want to access it, or continuing to hide it in offshore tax havens like they currently do to avoid paying taxes on it, or even just giving it away to friends and family members instead of letting it be taxed away and used for public benefit. It wouldn't be impossible to make it work, but it's going to entail outfoxing a whole lot of very highly-paid accountants and lawyers, and the sheer cost of the audits required to enforce it long-term could very well outweigh the potential benefits.

this is a flaw of the western conception of criminal justice, not TC's idea. we know who they are, simply execute them or send them to a labor camp


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Good idea

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adjl posted...

The concept seems nice enough, but in practice, it'd be too easy to get around to make any real difference. Cap it at $1 billion, and you just get multibillionaires paying some random people $10,000 a year each to hold on to $500 million for them until they want to access it, or continuing to hide it in offshore tax havens like they currently do to avoid paying taxes on it, or even just giving it away to friends and family members instead of letting it be taxed away and used for public benefit. It wouldn't be impossible to make it work, but it's going to entail outfoxing a whole lot of very highly-paid accountants and lawyers, and the sheer cost of the audits required to enforce it long-term could very well outweigh the potential benefits.

Rather than a hard cap, if you want to cut down on wealth disparity, minimum wage should instead be defined as a percentage of the highest wage (including bonuses) in the company. If a CEO wants to make more money, they must first pay all of their bottom-rung staff more money as well (and, by extension, everyone else in between). Growth remains possible, just not to the explosive, exploitative degree that's currently standard, and that growth benefits everybody that contributes to it.

This is always the response to such ideas, but I think it fundamentally misrepresents the issue. The vast majority of people saying such things do feel that, for the most part, the financial elite have earned the privilege to live the rest of their lives in complete luxury. Nobody's saying they don't deserve to be rich. The problem is that they've often hoarded enough money to live thousands of such lives, more money than can ever possibly be justified as useful or meaningful for a single person, and their removal of that money from the economy is very bad for it.

My thoughts exactly.

Hell, the elite rich buy entire apartment buildings or apartment floors and never live there, with the sole purpose being to hide money in investments to avoid taxes. They do this with land, too. Invest and just let the money sit so it goes unnoticed.

The root of the problem is that people who have millions upon trillions of money that they're never going to spend in its entirety. They eventually usually just pass it along to their kids and the kids spend it or add to it and the money just stays within the family tree or in offshore accounts to hide from government.

But hey, that's capitalism for you. And anyone who voices otherwise is a dirty socialist commie. /s (but not really /s)

There needs to be a lower class or else society wouldnt work. The faster thats accepted the faster we can start helping others. Anything we do to try to stop the rich theyll find a way around anyway.

The emphasis shouldnt be on less wealth inequality but teaching people how to live better with what they have. I am at like 98-99th percentile for my age and spend like someone making 20th percentile for my age...I have less stress though Because I have money for emergency healthcare. I could easily reduce my expenses by quite a bit still. A few years ago I was spending just 10k a year living alone and still happy. This is a developed skill, and we should help people optimize their money and be able to live safe, fulfilling, and healthy lives.

This would be difficult in a HCOL, but we should make more communities that support those with low income and give them good opportunities. More libraries with fun events, high speed internet access, a very nice meal a few times a year, transportation, make sure they dont get taken advantage of by employers.

If everyone had a full conceptual understanding of how much one billion dollars is for one person to own, there would be an uprising.

Your wealth is closer to Elon Musk's wealth than Bill Gates is to Jeff Bezos.

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faramir77 posted...

Your wealth is closer to Elon Musk's wealth than Bill Gates is to Jeff Bezos.

And every single one of them need their wealth taken from them and redistributed.

Not because they're rich, but because all three of them are fucking assholes.

THEGODDAMNBATMA posted...

Upper and middle class wages are increasing but lower class wages are not. Because of this inflation will continue to rise but people in a lower economic class will not be able to keep up and whenever they try to get higher wages they are told "we can't do that. It would cause inflation!"

Perhaps if the higher classes had a limit then this wouldn't be a problem!

Only solution is class warfare against all professionals, and yuppies.

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There needs to be limits, but limiting the wealth you can make per year is probably not one of them. That being said, taxing said wealth a larger percentage (and avoiding loopholes etc) does make sense, as long as it's done in a way that the wealth doesn't leave the country all together.

Some limits that really need to be implemented are:

limits on the cost to rent a place to live.

You can't let supply and demand and the market itself determine the cost for a person to actually have somewhere to live, because you end up in situations like we have now, and that will continue to get worse. It should never cost more then 1/2 the amount you can make in an area on min wage (40 hours) to rent a place (simple one bedroom), but enough of them need to be available so everyone can get one.

Currently in many places it costs almost 100% of what you can make in a 40 hour week on min wage, and in some places it costs more then 100%. It is not sustainable to have people need to work more than 40 hours just to have a roof over their head and food to eat.

Medical coverage needs to be limited in how much is charged, not how much insurance costs etc, but how much the actual charges are for the medical procedures, staying at a hospital etc. The amount charged in the US is insane, so even if you have a million dollar insurance cap, you can blow through it in a month of being sick, and then your screwed. People are making BILLIONS on the medical industry in this country, which is just insane. A cap on that should be enforced by the government as a basic right of the people.

Cap on education costs as well, same as medical, people are making billions on education, while putting all that on the population as a whole, so many people are in massive debt, while a few are running around with billions of dollars. It's disgusting. Again this should be a right of the citizens, and while you might charge for it (to pay teachers etc) the amount should be reasonable and effectively just pay for costs (which would be less then 1/20th of the current costs).

Straight up cap on number of people in prisons, end of story. There is no reason for any society to have such a large percentage of their population in prison or jail, and especially such a larger population that at one point was in prison or jail. IF your laws mandate so many people be incarcerated, then your laws are wrong. Period.

I'd also cap sales tax, and at much lower then 10%, I'm not sure exactly why this was ever enacted other than it makes great sense for the rich. It basically puts the onus on paying for things primarily on the poor or lower middle class. When you charge 11% sales tax on everything (like in my state) you basically reduce the buying power of the power or middle class by 11%, they don't have the income to easily handle that difference. You should not tax food (obviously) including food from eating out etc. Basic things that you need to survive should not be taxed at all, let alone at 11%.

That would be a good start at least, and do more than just capping wealth. To be honest the only way to even tax the wealthy more, is to keep the percentage lower than they can get other places (so less then 50% or so). That being said, making SURE they pay that amount and can't just use loopholes to pay 0% or 5% etc (like many wealthy do, and companies do etc), would make a huge difference and allow less taxes for the poor and middle class.

I'd basically increase the automatic deductions at this point from 12k (which isn't nearly enough to live most places) to 16k across the board (36 for if filing jointly). I'd maintain a 10% tax for any income from 16k to 40k, bump it to 15% for 40k to 60k, 20% for 60k to 100k and then increase it by 5% each 50k you make over that, up to a maximum of 45% total.

But tax is based on total accumulated wealth, you can't take tons of deductions etc, you can't invest the money to avoid paying taxes for now (other then something like a 401k which limits how much you can invest etc).

If you make 500k, you end up paying about 200k or a bit more in taxes and you plain out simply can't freaking avoid it.

IF that was implemented we would no longer have a deficit, the poor and middle class would have significantly more money to spend, and it wouldn't drastically impact the rich/wealthy at all. Combine that with some form of rent control, and you would see a massive improvement in the standard of living for most americans.

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The problem is that rich people horde money but there's no real way to stop it without going to a completely terrible authoritarian government that can, and would, take everything from everyone and leave us all to die

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That's a progressive tax system. We already are supposed to have one, it's just watered down, so it's not "communism".

They can't just keep getting richer forever.

SirPikachu posted...

No lmao. Let people earn their money.

Yes, let single mom/father working to death with 3 jobs have something resembling a savings account.

Then we can talk about Jeff Bezos keeping his money.

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You can cap it - but someone will find a loophole or hide it away.

Muscles posted...

there's no real way to stop it without going to a completely terrible authoritarian government that can, and would, take everything from everyone and leave us all to die

Not really. You can very easily have an effective progressive taxation system without going full Soviet. Just not when your entire government is bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists that would rather see their numbers get meaninglessly bigger than actually improve the world around them in any way, plus more than half of your country thinks that's a good thing.

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No one needs or deserves lifelines of income compared to people that actually keep society functioning.

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Allowing Jeff Bezos to amass TRILLIONS while millions of Americans starve is criminal. He could buy everyone on the planet a years supply of food and not even notice anything was spent.

And the guy has done NOTHING that warrants hoarding that much. Nothing, unless you count screwing over everyone who works for him.

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Muscles posted...

The problem is that rich people horde money but there's no real way to stop it without going to a completely terrible authoritarian government that can, and would, take everything from everyone and leave us all to die

Not true at all. A wealth tax has worked in the past and would again. The problem is that Americans cant seem to wrap their brains around what taxing 90% of money made over x amount means. They see 90% and go into heart failure without reading the rest of the damn sentence.


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SunWuKung420 posted...

No one needs or deserves lifelines of income compared to people that actually keep society functioning.

What would you know about keeping society functioning?

Trespasser2003 posted...

Not true at all. A wealth tax has worked in the past and would again. The problem is that Americans cant seem to wrap their brains around what taxing 90% of money made over x amount means. They see 90% and go into heart failure without reading the rest of the damn sentence.

The biggest problem is that American children are indoctrinated into a belief system that tells them anyone could make 500 billion dollars a year if they worked hard enough, even though 99% of all American's struggle to stay afloat financially. They are also told that it's ok that a guy that sits in meetings all day deserves a salary far greater than their needs while those keeping those companies running, those doing the actual work (ceo's don't keep a company running: janitors, technicians, processors, administrators, managers, etc,. those doing the daily toil do) have to worry if they are making enough money.

If one ceo took a 25% pay cut, you could pay every employee of that company 50% more. (I made this up but I bet the truth is far more shocking and glaring.)

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Muscles posted...

The problem is that rich people horde money but there's no real way to stop it without going to a completely terrible authoritarian government that can, and would, take everything from everyone and leave us all to die

as usual you have no earthly clue what you are talking about

sharp wealth disparity is literally what leads to authoritarian nationalism. Open a history book sometime

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Trespasser2003 posted...

He could buy everyone on the planet a years supply of food and not even notice anything was spent.

Eh, not quite. A year's supply of food is somewhere on the order of $3500-4000, even if you're reasonably frugal about it (that's $70-75 per week), so feeding the entire planet for a year would cost somewhere in the realm of 25 trillion. He's not quite THAT rich. Maybe try saying that again in 3-4 years and it'll be more accurate.

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no
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Just tax them fuckers and close the loopholes.

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Trespasser2003 posted... He could buy everyone on the planet a years supply of food

So everyone gets 220 pounds (100 kilos) of beans and rice. Then what? Wait for another handout? Have more kids knowing the food will be there? Then they'll be back at square one next year still looking for a handout.

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KnoxKorner posted...

So everyone gets 220 pounds (100 kilos) of beans and rice. Then what? Wait for another handout? Have more kids knowing the food will be there? Then they'll be back at square one next year still looking for a handout.

Hey honey we can quit our jobs, we have enough beans and rice for one year

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Mead posted...

Hey honey we can quit our jobs, we have enough beans and rice for one year

The subsistence goat farmer in Chad, and the textile worker in Yemen don't care. Try thinking globally putz.

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Yeah it would be such a shame if those people actually had foot to eat

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Mead posted...

Yeah it would be such a shame if those people actually had foot to eat

They'd really have their foot in their mouths then

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Mead posted...

Yeah it would be such a shame if those people actually had foot to eat

Yeah, such a shame those people cannot feed themselves or figure out agriculture. Such a shame that the rest of the world needs to give them handouts for eternity. Such a shame that in feeding them we only create a dependency that grows exponentially with their population.

Such a shame.


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adjl posted...

Eh, not quite. A year's supply of food is somewhere on the order of $3500-4000, even if you're reasonably frugal about it (that's $70-75 per week), so feeding the entire planet for a year would cost somewhere in the realm of 25 trillion. He's not quite THAT rich. Maybe try saying that again in 3-4 years and it'll be more accurate.

$4000 per year? Are you sure that's not including eating out every week or something? I eat about 3k calories/day and spend about $200 USD a month ($2400 per year) on personal groceries.

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KnoxKorner posted...

Yeah, such a shame those people cannot feed themselves or figure out agriculture. Such a shame that the rest of the world needs to give them handouts for eternity. Such a shame that in feeding them we only create a dependency that grows exponentially with their population.

Such a shame.

lol this dude is so angry at africa

nobody else even mentioned Africa

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Mead posted...

The collapse of every major civilization in the history of the world has been preceded by a period of sharp wealth inequality. Folks are literally willing to let our nation crumble to pieces so that a handful of billionaires can save a couple million dollars a year.

Citation needed.

THEGODDAMNBATMA posted...

And every single one of them need their wealth taken from them and redistributed.

Not because they're rich, but because all three of them are fucking assholes.

Lol.

Trespasser2003 posted...

Allowing Jeff Bezos to amass TRILLIONS while millions of Americans starve is criminal. He could buy everyone on the planet a years supply of food and not even notice anything was spent.

And the guy has done NOTHING that warrants hoarding that much. Nothing, unless you count screwing over everyone who works for him.

What crime did he break?
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Revelation34 posted...

Citation needed.

Mead has me blocked but the collapse of the Roman Empire is a prime example. World history much?

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Mead has me blocked but the collapse of the Roman Empire is a prime example. World history much?

He said every.
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Clench281 posted...

$4000 per year? Are you sure that's not including eating out every week or something? I eat about 3k calories/day and spend about $200 USD a month ($2400 per year) on personal groceries.

Going to second this here, my gf spends about $400 a month on food for both of us ($200 each) and that includes eating out and also eating nice meals at home. We do not eat 3k calories/day, closer to 1.5-2k calories.

Revelation34 posted...

He said every.

Because it has been close to that.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Because it has been close to that.

"Close to that" is not "every".
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Trespasser2003 posted...

And the guy has done NOTHING that warrants hoarding that much. Nothing, unless you count screwing over everyone who works for him.

He made an online business which revolutionized how people shop worldwide and also hosts half of the internet. The man changed was able to organize a fundamental change in the lives of almost everyone in a developed nation on the planet.

Someone else wouldve done it if he didnt, but same with Einsteins discoveries...took advantage of right place right time.

Revelation34 posted...

"Close to that" is not "every".

Aztecs, Mayans, Khan, Hammurabi, The English, The Nazi Germans, etc..

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SunWuKung420 posted...

Aztecs, Mayans, Khan, Hammurabi, The English, The Nazi Germans, etc..

every
Pronunciation /evr/ /vri/

Translate every into Spanish
DETERMINER

1(preceding a singular noun) used to refer to all the individual members of a set without exception.
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Mead posted...

as usual you have no earthly clue what you are talking about

sharp wealth disparity is literally what leads to authoritarian nationalism. Open a history book sometime

Both extremes can be bad in a situation, I never implied the rich hording money is a good thing just that going to such extreme measures in the opposite direction is bad too

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Mead and I are on the same page but he's blocking me...rofl.

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