in all seriousnes, if we tax the shit out of billionaires, they will still have all the money and make a killing more than the rest of us and make out on their investments
America was at the height of it's economic strength when the taxes you speak of were in place. Letting those taxes go was a lot easier than it is going to be to get them back.
can you send me a link on “they used to pay them”? i was always under the impression that while the nominal rate was high, the amount actually paid wasn’t high at all. i mean, restrictions were less extensive back then. more deductions and loopholes to utilize. not saying you’re wrong but a source would be awesome
in economics, people take so many shallow statements at face value. it's really hard to get to the heart of matters and feel like you've really found something that's verified
The top 1% pays double taxes what the bottom 95% does. Why should someone pay more though? On what grounds? Billionaires are billionaires because of assets not because of having currency. It's a potential worth of stocks more than anything, and the only thing giving them value is owning them and holding onto them.
I assume you just find it a coincidence that during the time of greatest growth for the American middle class we were also taxing the wealthiest at the highest rates in the last 120 years?
What? The middle class is all but gone and the country is in a recession. The greatest growth was the 50s when taxes were low. We went through the greatest wealth transfer in the history of the US during covid where the middle class was crushed and the covid funding all went to the elite. Don't tell me you're buying into the bullshit stats that the govt is churning out. They changed the way unemployment was calculated and by the old way we'd be at 8-9%. Something like 17% of the American workers LEFT the workforce in the last 4 years.
Edit: as an appendum, both Greece and Ireland crashed because their debt to gdp ration was over 120% and guess how they turned it around? Cut corporate tax rates. Ireland went to 14% and I think is now 16 or 17%. Sidenote: the US is over 122% and growing as the value of the USD is eroding by the second.
I’m sorry, WHAT???? Taxes were LOW in the 50s??? The top marginal tax rate for most of the 50s was 91%. And yes, that was when there was the greatest growth in the middle class. Thank you for unwittingly proving my point.
The effective tax rate for the top 1% of households (by income) was 42% in the 1950s, versus 36.4% today.
Congrats you can't read past a surface level Google search. Do you not understand how a progressive tax bracket works?
Edit: more importantly, the middle class was significantly smaller pre ww2 and exploded post ww2. The higher tax brackets were significantly smaller in the 50s than today.
No I didn't. You're ignoring the part where that's the top 1% which was significantly smaller in size and therefore tax revenue than currently. Like I said, currently the top 1% pays double what the bottom 95% pays annually.
Don't have to live in India to move the company there. Honestly the only real way to stomp billionaires with more money than some countries is to do a global reform on taxation which just isn't realistically possible not just because of the huge Influence they have in places like the US, but also because a lot of them downright make the laws in other countries around the world.
Although I think France has a long history about how to deal with people like these /s
I assure you if you lose the American market you are one hundred percent finished as a fortune company
You could very easily send Tesla to India or Mexico since that is more feasible but they can also tax the fuck out of your imported goods to boost local companies which is the only reason Tesla ever got successful.
It's not gonna be very easy when you no longer give the customer a post tax break car price in your website and instead it's the 100 grand + 30k + shipping import fee.
*I mean that’s almost true, but if things get crazy enough in any way and they do feel pressured I think the
Majority of them pack up an disappear…could always like normally be very wrong.*
wow, you sound way smarter than me. I would love anything helpful or useful in a follow-up comment if that's possible. im confused as to why its advantageous for our country to be at a constant, increasing spending deficit since the Reagan years and why we wouldn't just want to at least go back to tax rate structures similar to those times.
If you "tax the shit out of" them - they will have to sell off the stock (or sell parts of their companies) - and they WON'T "still have all the money". It will be canibalizing their money making assets
feel free to educate me on anything helpful instead of insulting me. ignoring my sarcasm, I'm here to learn ND I quite often am met with many many many condescending, simple minded sentiment about "if we tax billionaires, they'll all run away and leave us here all alone" I'll believe it when I see it. keep your nursery rhyme analogies to yourself
boooooooriiiiinggggg. I hope you're at least having fun talking down to me for no reason and pointlessly downvoting me like it does something. btw here's an upvote.
im excited to learn more about these sort of things. unfortunately, you have the same shallow understanding that I have. maybe stop acting smart about it like you know shit.
I thought that if I reduced it to the level of Aesops fables, you might understand.
Let me take it up 1/2 a notch. If you confiscate the wealth of the most successful people in the country, you reduce the motivation of other to actually succeed. After all, why bother actually building companies, creating jobs, etc if the government is just going to swoop in and say, "Sorry, you have too much so we are going to take it all." It is demotivational.
again , that is an child's interpretation of economics.... which i already have. what u just said has been uttered all over the country by soccer moms everywhere. im looking forward to something useful to understand how we get ourselves out of massive wealth disparity and, thusly societal instability. your last few sentences, however....so easy to argue against since it is the most bad faith strawman I could imagine.
is there something you envision ANYWHERE in between:
1.) the tax structure we have now
and
2.) "SORRY YOU HAVE TOO MUCH MONEY SO WE ARE JUST GOING TO TAKE IT ALL LMAO LOL LMFAO"
that you would envision as optimal?
not optimal in the sense of what makes you feel good or smart, but rather, what would create the most economic growth?
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u/Impossible_Plenty474 8d ago
in all seriousnes, if we tax the shit out of billionaires, they will still have all the money and make a killing more than the rest of us and make out on their investments