Some dude I work with said “man, if they start taxing Bezos more, at what point are they gonna come after me?”
Maybe when you start making billions of dollars? Fuckin idiot
they already coming at that dude with taxes.
the others ain't paying their fair share.
They're right tho, millionaires are way more protected by government than the average person
You know what the difference is between a million and a billion? Roughly a billion.
Apparently he hasn't noticed the rate he is already being taxed at. Guy sounds like a genius.
Idk man maybe you should be comfortable paying more taxes if it gets you something worth it. I’d probably be hit by the taxes to get free effective public transit, that’s cool, I’d rather pay my car transit bills into a pool that gets us the metro or subway but free
I truly don’t understand these people. Their life is generally stressful to the extreme and the current system of “trickle down” has been for a long time shown to not work. So why not tax the rich, install some decent social systems, make the world better for the general public and move on?
They've been made to believe things like this:
They'd be able to make more than they're making if taxes were less. In effect, their employer and wealthier individuals would share the additional after-tax income.
Job prospects would be better. More promotion opportunities, less layoffs, etc. Also, more vacation time, sick leave, etc would be available.
Just about everything bad that happens economically can be linked to higher taxes.
Prices for everything would be lower.
I'm not defending these views, but this is just what some people believe, and it explains their voting actions. I used to be one such person and I still live among people who see taxes like this. Blame Fox, radio, and similar outlets for spreading misinformation
Ah yes, if companies made more money, they'd share more with the workers. That explains why corps have been making record profits and... Nothing has improved for workers.
At some point you just have to ask whether these people are disconnected from reality.
At some point you just have to ask whether these people are disconnected from reality.
we've past that point. We don't need to ask anymore, really. FWIW, I blame the sabotages public education
Public education and cognitive dissonance.
These people realize there's a problem but they'd rather believe the bullshit their side spews than accept reality
Have you seen politics in this country before? It's not about logic, it's about being mad at some invisible boogey man because someone on the TV told you to.
"b-but trans people..."
Friendly reminder that the difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is still essentially one billion dollars. Billionaires shouldn't exist
Remember nobody can possible EARN a billion dollars. Nobody is that important or effective. If someone made a billion dollars, it was by taking away from the people below, the ones who actually did the work. Billionaires are thieves and leeches.
One million seconds is ~12 days.
One billion seconds is ~32 years.
My dad always says "but then what motivation will they have to make money and innovate." To which I respond, "they'll still be millionaires and far richer than either of us will ever be."
Why is everyone concerned with making humans work? We already have technology to where one human's work can feed, clothe, and house a hundred more, right? So, pay the one human twice as much, as an incentive, and then give a free ride to ninety-nine more. We don't need everyone to be at work all their life.
Because boomers want younger people to suffer like they did. Up until them, every generation had it better than their parents, but boomers are just so fucking selfish that they couldn't stand to see their children do better than them.
"I had to work to get where I am, so you have to work too."
My aunt likes to talk about how she only made 4 dollars an hour making boat seats, so why are people unhappy with 7 something now. She was making good money for the time 40 years ago, but nothing matters to her anyways.
Yeah, it's a wealth tax we need. 10% a year of everything over $100 million. Yeah, bitch, I'm including all your motherfucking shares and property as well.
No, we need to tax the poor to the death and all the problems will disappear over time.
I think you need to be careful with a wealth tax because it will just make millionaires "move" to the US but still do business here. Under NAFTA they can live in the US and only pay US taxes while working here, except for services where GST must be charged.
It'll also really fuck up the TSX because the TSX does not see 10% gains, so we would lose a lot of capital for our business and reduced value of our pension funds.
Not saying no wealth tax, but wealth tax is complicated and the amounts need to be well considered for their impact to the economy.
Edit: forgot I wasn't on the Canada instance.
This applies to Canada doing wealth tax specifically, if everyone coordinated and closed loopholes wealth tax could be realistic, it's a cooperation game.
Two counterpoints:
Norway implemented a wealth tax and millionaires didn't move. It still has one of the highest rates of millionaires in Europe.
France implemented a wealth tax and millionaires moved causing them to make less than if they hadn't implemented it. They repealed said tax after 2 years.
Wealth taxes can work if done right. Done wrong and they do leave.
It's just pure propaganda working out. Our society is composed of roughly the same gene pool it was composed of a millennia ago, and education clearly isn't compensation when it gets treated more and more as just simply a place to discard children off to so people can work without interruptions.
I would argue that schools are really just a battery farm for obedient workers. Getting good marks doesn't mean the kid is smart, just means they're good at doing what they're told even if they don't want to, and thus makes a perfect and obedient worker. It also gets kids used to the idea of not having any rights, and having to ask to do basic human rights like eat or go to the bathroom.
If I defend billionaires online, they'll let me have a mansion on Mars
Dumbasses
I do not understand people who rent caring this much about someone who owns houses, a cruise ship and a jet just for laughs. I feel like I need to start carrying copies of “so. you’re in love with a narcissist” to give out whenever I run into one of these stupids.
He’s just not into you, sweetheart.
America has a huge "fuck you, I got mine" attitude. Not surprised so many of them worship people like Musk.
An income tax would be pointless for the wealthy. Most of their wealth is in unrealized capital gains or other investment vehicles, not from salaries.
There would need to be a mechanism to tax unrealized capital gains, or just networth in general.
They’re not temporarily embarrassed millionaires. There’s no such thing, really.
They’re groupies. They don’t care how bad their life is, they’re star-crossed and get a weird vicarious thrill from it. They know they’ll never be that rich, but as long as their star is rising, they’re happy. It’s more like fans of a sports team. If their star quarterback is winning – even if that means they’re personally doing worse – they’re on the winning team.
The false narrative of ‘temporarily embarrassed millionaires’ is detrimental because it’s misleading in how we talk to and about them. I don’t remember who started that, but it’s dead wrong.
e: to clarify, they aren’t supporting this shit because they think it will benefit them someday. If that were the case, they could be reasoned with. It’s worse:
They support this shit because they believe those billionaires are deserving or anointed by god. A fundamental part of conservatism is the belief there is a natural order to society with more deserving people on top, and if that hierarchy is disrupted, all of society will fall into chaos. They believe certain people should naturally be on top, and there’s honour in knowing your place and performing it well. Conservatism was born when feudalism died and the historical lords shifted their ideology from feudalism to capitalism to keep their wealth and power.
That ‘knowing your place in the hierarchy’ bit is a large part of racism as well as their penchant for fascism. The world makes more sense and is thus safer when everyone is in their proper place.
Should just start by issuing a 80 percent tax in wealth that we haven't hit yet
Say, 400 billion.
That way when they can pass it and say it doesn't impact anyone. It's just there as a buffer.. And when musk or zuck hit that eventual trigger we tax the piss out of them
Measures like these often fail, because a lot of people dream of being these people that earn that much money. They don't want to limit their possibly future unrealistic imaginary self.
I think the thing for everyone not making >$1m/yr to firmly understand is that when top marginal rate income isn't taxed seriously and antitrust laws aren't enforced, they have to bid for housing in markets where the prices are set by top-bidders, and your grocery bill is whatever they feel like charging you and that means your normal $50k/yr income can't afford rent and food without roommates. High inequality means everything becomes expensive.
It's the "low-tax" countries that create unaffordable real estate, the 'free market' countries are where you can't afford necessities. It's the ones that invest in public goods and infra (and regulate their capitalism) that yield high standards of living for most people.
People ~~cosplaying as folks~~ making under $50k per year
Friendly reminder that Joe The Plumber wasn't named Joe, wasn't a Plumber, and was earning well into the six-figure tax bracket before he spent a year on the right-wing freak show talk circuit.
It isn't even temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Its astroturfed outrage by paid performers and fellow grifters, intended to give their wealthy peers cover when they pile out into the suburbs waving No Step On Snek flags from their BMWs and F-350s.
Billionaires make money off stocks and asset gains, so taxing income higher generally only hurts the upper middle class (i.e. doctors, high earning professionals).
In Canada the average effective tax rate actually decreases once you hit like $750k (I don't have exact numbers, it's been a while since I analyzed this one) because those people stop paying as much employment tax and instead pay capital gains which are taxed at 50%.
So, if you're middle class, or upper middle class, you're paying twice as much as the millionaires and billionaires are per additional dollar made.
And that's the best case because the really rich people put their assets under a corporation and continually "reinvest" their gains while harvesting their losses (businesses pay 26.5% tax).
So Rich people pay a marginal rate of 26.5/26.8%, while the upper middle class pay 53.5% on their income.
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