Economics Thread

sturg33 said:
The dems are passing a relief bill that is 1,000% of Jeff Bezos entire net worth,and that is resulting in $1,400 for adults who make less than $80k.

But somehow unconstitutionally raising taxes on a few billionaires is gonna make the government efficient and make a difference for anyone?
Click to expand...

No. But I think it's generally unhealthy for a relative few to have as much power as vast wealth grants people in the modern world. That's why I would like to couple it with a PAC tax. The PAC tax would take some of the political power away, but the same people would still have access to power via media and tech companies, or many other avenues. Taxing overall wealth essentially makes it harder for incompetent billionaires to hang on to that power long term. Those who are left will at least have been among the fittest.

I also think it will remove some of the incentive to treat employees like they're just a number because the super tax will effectively cap individual earnings. It will be more sound to build for stability than to maximize profits.
 
Jaw said:
No. But I think it's generally unhealthy for a relative few to have as much power as vast wealth grants people in the modern world. That's why I would like to couple it with a PAC tax. The PAC tax would take some of the political power away, but the same people would still have access to power via media and tech companies, or many other avenues. Taxing overall wealth essentially makes it harder for incompetent billionaires to hang on to that power long term. Those who are left will at least have been among the fittest.

I also think it will remove some of the incentive to treat employees like they're just a number because the super tax will effectively cap individual earnings. It will be more sound to build for stability than to maximize profits.
Click to expand...

The wealth gap is caused by fed intervention via zero interest rate and unlimited liquidity in markets. It makes the rich richer and the poorer.

Raising taxes does nothing for this. It simply gives the worst beaurocracy in the world more funds to enrich itself. We should work to reduce spending and government regulation everywhere to help people at the bottom
 
After seeing how large corporations and the wealthy backed BLM and other Democrat causes I couldn’t care less about what happens with their wealth.
 
Little thethe is turning into a commie before our eyes. I honestly did not see this one coming. Donalds landslide loss must have really broke him.
 
sturg33 said:
Yeah you're still demanding school from home. Right?

Give me stossell
Click to expand...

Well first you can have Stossel, but when did I demand school from home? I get up and go to work every day and teach my classes. My "face to face classes" are taught from my office via Ring (we switched from Zoom) because I teach to 3 different campus sites, plus from my office computer I have access to more of my teaching materials and resources.

Just for the record I don't care for Stossel because he represents much of what I hate about Fox and/or Talk Radio. Their only solution for anything is to keep doing what we've been doing, you know the stuff that got us into this mess, and the only thing they're passionate about (him included) is taking a great big dump on anyone who wants to try something different. He may or may not be right about Bernie and AOC but since he doesn't offer a plausible alternative, just blind, negative, partisan, animosity building vitriol, meant to get the viewers to get drunk on their BS. Just my opinion though. Like I said, you can have him. Lord knows I won't miss him.
 
sturg33 said:
I like this lady

[tw]1367907295364005898[/tw]
Click to expand...

I liked her explanation. About how it should be a separate piece of legislation. I could be wrong but it seemed to be a principled stand about how the Senate should operate. If that's true then it's a breath of fresh air in a chamber dominated all too often by achieving an end by whatever means.
 
sturg33 said:
The dems are passing a relief bill that is 1,000% of Jeff Bezos entire net worth,and that is resulting in $1,400 for adults who make less than $80k.

But somehow unconstitutionally raising taxes on a few billionaires is gonna make the government efficient and make a difference for anyone?
Click to expand...

What is unconstitutional about raising the taxes of billionaires?
 
Krgrecw said:
Why not raise taxes on just Jews? Just Latinos? Signaling a group out is a form of discrimination
Click to expand...

Groups are singled out all the time by the government, especially for taxation. People with children get a tax credit that is denied to people without children. People who are paying mortgages or student loans have more tax deductions. People who by cigarettes are taxed more.

You could go into other areas too. There are subsidies that are only available to farmers. Blind people are denied drivers licenses. Young people are denied Social Security.

The government is not required to treat everyone equally. It is understood that not everyone is in the same situation and so the government's actions must be able to be varied to address different circumstances. The groups you listed (Jews and Latinos) are known as "suspect classes." Generally there are four suspect classes: race, religion, national origin, and alienage. Laws discriminating based on these are subjected to strict scrutiny. You can still have laws that discriminate based on a suspect class but you have to prove they are narrowly tailored to address a compelling government interest.

Discrimination based on other classifications receive different levels of scrutiny. Most often it's simply rational basis. This means if the government can articulate a rational basis for the law, it's valid.

So a tax on billionaires would certainly be subjected to the rational basis standard. Since the government can articulate a rational basis (billionaires are more able to shoulder a tax burden) it would be valid.
 
sturg33 said:
The federal government can't simply tax wealth
Click to expand...

This is an interesting question. Any wealth tax would certainly end up before the SCOTUS. It's actually something that even legal scholars disagree on. The issue would be whether this is a direct tax and whether it would have to be apportioned across the states by population. The SCOTUS has flip flopped on this issue so there's not much uniform case law on the subject. The SCOTUS famously struck down the income tax but has allowed other taxes, such as a tax on horse drawn carriages.

This would be a very, very big and very, very interesting case for the SCOTUS to tackle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top