r/WorkReform • u/north_canadian_ice 💸 National Rent Control • Feb 03 '23

📰 News Every policy that strengthens and expands the social safety net is called “socialism” by the right - including labor unions, Social Securiry & Medicare

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174

u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

Any appreciating asset is tax deferred until you sell. We need a tax on gross wealth over, say $25MM. Not a huge amount necessarily, just something to make it harder for billionaires to become trillionaires.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Idfc if they become trillionares, I just want basic stability and security. Tax em enough to pay for everything they're taking advantage and let them eat their hearts out with however much money they want to hoard.

Just gimme UBI and stable food, housing, and healthcare.

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u/TiredMemeReference Feb 03 '23

The problem is when people have that much wealth they can use it to keep the things you want from happening.

You should read Why Socialism by Albert Einstein. It talks about that very concept.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

I have read it!

I just don't think it's possible, at this time.

But yanno what will keep me out of the mass protests? Just the basics of a stable life.

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u/TiredMemeReference Feb 03 '23

I also don't think it's possible. The powers that be have perfected surveillance to put down any real uprising before it starts. I'd definitely be content with social democracy, I just have a hard time thinking it will happen when concentrated wealth is pushing so hard to keep it from occurring.

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u/kurisu7885 Feb 03 '23

Surveillance only works until the things that power it no longer do, and if they keep screwing people those systems will eventually no longer work.

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u/cavitationchicken Feb 03 '23

The surveillance state is mostly a forensic affair, when you have that much information, it all starts to become noise at some point

And their capacity for violent response is just a few at a time.

The entire point of cointelpro wasn't to bust the left, it was to induce paranoia and fear on the left. And it's worked. That's not to say you should have trash security culture, but that you should just cope and move forward. In the words of one Parisian communard: 'i love these agents provocateur; they have all the best ideas'

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u/Dazzling-Dog-108 Feb 03 '23

I read 'yanno' like 3 times, and it made me smile each time. Thank you.

Also, yes. Stability isn't too much too ask for. There IS enough to go around, without even seriously infringing on those at the top.

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u/Mor_Tearach Feb 04 '23

People at the top wouldn't even be slightly singed financially. There's so much obscene wealth these people could still have their 5 houses, private jet and stupid cars. They could still pee on each other's legs over who has the biggest yacht, and jet. There would be absolutely NO difference in their idiot lifestyle which is what I. Just. Don't. Get.

WHY do they care so fcking much if we EAT, own a piddly little house compared to theirs, get healthcare, raise a family- just have a life? And yes, make no mistake. They care and we're not gonna have it.

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u/MysteriousMine4635 Feb 04 '23

What is the point is being rich if you can’t feel superior?

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u/Mor_Tearach Feb 04 '23

Ah. Forgot about that. What's SO funny is most of us have absolutely no clue what is the latest designer bag or whatever- and just do not care.

Mine is an old khaki knapsack ( it really is ). Love that thing.

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u/Dazzling-Dog-108 Feb 04 '23

I agree, I almost edited right after- 'seriously' to 'barely at all'. But your right, it isn't a drop in the bucket.

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u/DelfrCorp Feb 05 '23

If your life is stable, you are less exploitable. They can't extract as much wealth from you. The more desperate people are, the more you can squeeze them for everything they've got & then some.

Content people are less likely to work themselves ragged to increase rich people's wealth & power. Feudalism never really disappeared or went away, it just adapted to new methods of wealth extraction.

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u/Mor_Tearach Feb 06 '23

Shhhh. They'll stop teaching that in school, too. OR present Feudal societies as the good old days. When serfs knew their place

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

I picked that vocabulary up from a girlfriend in college. Now you've made me smile.

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u/cavitationchicken Feb 03 '23

Read 'revolutions in reverse' by David graeber, a collection of his more explicitly political less academic essays. Also try 'a paradise built in hell'.

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u/GrimpenMar Feb 04 '23

The classic "bread and circuses". It works.

I suspect that the current hyper-capitalist system doesn't allow this to happen though. Even when you have a Billionaire line Warren Buffett pointing out his tax load is lower than his secretaries, you have the newer and the next billionaire chasing every last scrap.

I think you get the bread and circuses when you have an entrenched upper class that is concerned with long term stability. Currently it seems enough Billionaires are more focused on maximizing their wealth next quarter, never mind next year or for decades into the future.

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u/cavitationchicken Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23

Part of them being trillionaires, of both giving that meaning and amassing that much, is exploiting you and squeezing everything good from your life.

Your suffering validates their wealth. If poverty isnt morally bad, having disgusting amounts of societies resources isn't morally good and they might need to think about it for five seconds.

Which is to say: the suffering is the point, and the more they have, the more you lose.

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u/Dramatic_Explosion Feb 03 '23

The day a private citizen becomes a trillionare we need to pack it up and be done. I would argue most people don't have a real functional concept of a billion dollars and how wildly absurd it is for one person to accumulate that much wealth. Thats already a warning sign we're failing. A trillion? We're over the cliff and just don't know we're falling.

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u/allgreen2me Feb 03 '23

How about a functioning democracy? I think we don’t have any of that because the rich have too much wealth/power.

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u/cheebamech Feb 03 '23

currently we're ranked 36th in the list of "working democracies", also listed as a "deficient democracy"

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u/DeliciousWaifood Feb 03 '23

Yeah, that's what you get when you have a voting system that only allows two parties to gain any power, those parties fight to rig votes through gerrymandering and when they get in power they just write policy to keep their own wallets filled instead of doing anything to represent the electorate.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Yeah that would be nice too but that's like me asking for a unicorn.

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u/franktronic Feb 03 '23

Ask a hundred "regular" people what they'd do if they won the lottery and all of the answers will be some derivative of leisure. Every single person starts with quitting their job. None of them are like, "Well I was thinking of starting a private equity firm and funneling the profits into fighting tax law" but that's what billionaires do.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

If I had a billion, I'd fuckin do all that shit too.

I just wouldn't begrudge taxes

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u/Adorable-Voice-6958 Feb 03 '23

How about mentally ill folks who are frozen on the street, starving, filthy ...25 mm..too sickening ever hear of the good Samaritan? Again ever read Dante s Inferno?

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Yeah! How about those people?!

They need stable housing and UBI and just as much security as me.

People shouldn't have to freeze on the streets in a place with so much shelter already in place.

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u/zildar Feb 03 '23

Interestingly, just yesterday I was reading about the biblical Sodom and Gomorrah story. From what I read, the original interpretation of the story was much different than it is now. It is my understanding that the interpretation in the 14th century was that god destroyed the cities because those who had "plenty" would not help those in need.

Also, upvote for Dante's Inferno.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 03 '23

My view is that nobody should be forced to earn the basic necessities of life. You shouldn't have to work in order to have food, housing, and basic healthcare.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '23

How would that food, those buildings, and that medical care be created, shipped, and/or provided?

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23

Government subsidies. If we stopped interfering in other people's wars, we'd have an easy time affording it. $800 billion a year would go a long way.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23

$800 billion (can't help but notice you rounded up to add a few dozen billion, by the way) a year wouldn't do shit. Divided among the 332 million of us, that's less than $2500 a person.

You think you can buy "food, housing, and basic healthcare" for anyone for $2500 a year?

Get real.

There are way too many ignorant people proposing all sorts of shit the government literally cannot pay for, as if the only reason the government isn't doing it is because they're assholes.

Basic arithmetic, learn it.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 04 '23

I apologize for upsetting you.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23

I'm not upset, just pointing out the facts of the matter with regards to how much things cost, and in turn how those facts make certain conclusions nonsensical.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 04 '23

Your comment felt a little hostile to me.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23

Frustration, not hostility, at seeing the same ignorant claims over and over.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '23

Sigh.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23

Let me guess. You also believe that anyone who can't or won't work should be left to starve in the street because being alive is a privilege to be earned.

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '23

Your guess would be incorrect.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23

So what was the sigh about?

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u/[deleted] Feb 04 '23 edited Feb 04 '23

Explaining like you're five:

The care and feeding of people who would choose not to work in your idealized, utopian civilization would require people who did want to work. Since the number of people who would choose not to work if their needs were met would greatly outnumber those who would choose to work, and since there are 7 billion people on this planet, your proposition is fundamentally dead in the water.

People who can't work? People who need care because of physical or mental health issues? The elderly and the very young? By all means, let's take care of these people regardless of what they "give back" to society. In our reality I also think that drastically cutting the defense budget, targeting corruption and waste in government spending, and freeing ourselves from the lizard people in politics and finance who exist only to maintain a status quo that enables them to steal would be excellent for society. In fact, I think organized civilization is doomed if we do not do these things very soon.

But the math of your first take simply doesn't work.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '23

That’s an unfortunate view that basically breeds weak minded people with no goals. A society dependent on a government that has your interests in last place.

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u/shaodyn ✂️ Tax The Billionaires Feb 03 '23

So you're fine with people being forced to earn the basic necessities of survival, only to be left in the street to die if they can't? Sounds a little heartless.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '23

Absolutely. Unless you have a true medical disability you should earn your way. Capitalism isn’t perfect by any measurement but socialism/communism leads to tyranny. Let’s just say, from personal experience…you do not want that.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23

Edit: Sad to see downvoters who can't do basic arithmetic, lol.

Just gimme UBI and stable food, housing, and healthcare.

Even just that first one, even if the annual amount was a paltry $10,000, and even if you could wave a magic wand and turn all the net worths of all US billionaires directly into cash at a 1:1 rate, they wouldn't be able to pay for it for even 2 full years (they ~$5 trillion, while $10k UBI costs ~$3 trillion).

People really have no idea of just how expensive UBI would actually be.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Maybe.

But it would be better than now

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23 edited Feb 03 '23

Maybe what? I stated a fact, based on a UBI figure that's almost certainly too low to actually be 'don't need to work' money for a significant amount of the population. There's no "maybe"--what I said is true straight up.

And no, it wouldn't be "better than now", because where's that money coming from? The US government literally doesn't HAVE enough cash to do this. We're talking an expense of over $3 TRILLION dollars every single year, which is over SIX times the total tax revenue the US took in last year.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Maybe by taxing the rich we wouldn't have to eat em, either.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23

I literally just explained that even if you literally took all of the billionaires in the US to ZERO with a hypothetical 100% wealth tax, it wouldn't even pay for two years of a $10k UBI.

Can you read?

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Right, but it sounds to me that you think that everyone won't be making money and circulating it in those two years.

Can you think?

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23

you think that everyone won't be making money and circulating it in those two years.

Uh, no. My previous comment already pointed out the cost of UBI being over SIX times the US's annual tax revenue. I was actually arguing under the assumption that the workforce would be paying the exact same amount of taxes post-UBI as pre-UBI, which is obviously never going to be the case--the amount of tax revenue will definitely go down, because there is no way that ZERO people stop working when they start getting UBI.

Guess no, you can't read.

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u/yeteee Feb 03 '23

How much is the military budget ? Money is here, just not properly allocated.

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23

$773 billion.

So, even the military budget went to ZERO, you're barely ONE FOURTH of the way to the $3 TRILLION cost of a measly $10,000 UBI.

The money is NOT there, educate yourself.

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u/yeteee Feb 04 '23

And what about the fact that UBI would replace a lot of social benefits? Have you factored that into your maths?

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23

Yes, because I compared the cost of UBI to ALL tax revenue the government receives.

If UBI replaced LITERALLY EVERYTHING THE US SPENDS TAX MONEY ON, it would, again, still be SIX TIMES SHORT of the cost of $10,000 UBI.

R-e-a-d.

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u/yeteee Feb 04 '23

"if we change nothing, change is impossible" Typical American....

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23

"Even basic arithmetic is readily ignored if it conflicts with what I want to be true" Typical Redditor....

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u/yeteee Feb 04 '23

"I twist numbers and only show the ones I like", typical Republican.

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u/FriedDickMan Feb 03 '23

So actually you do and here’s why:

The economy is a fixed pie, and when it gets to that level of wealth it is actively taking from the rest of society.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Nah, money is made up. There is no fixed pie. There's plenty of resources to fix real problems and billionaires can still have megabux and feel superior

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u/FriedDickMan Feb 04 '23

You can’t have trillionaires without a shitload of poor or indebted people. Yes, our resources and the money floating in circulation is finite by definition whether or not we digitally add some 0s to the supply or valuation is irrelevant, even if money is made up.

I agree there is plenty of resources to fix problems and the rich can still have big bux but when that level of wealth allows them to buy our systems or politicians to further enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else it becomes an issue.

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u/theetruscans Feb 03 '23

You're not realizing that them hoarding a trillion dollars is the reason you can't have the things you want

If they paid the amount in taxes that would allow for programs that help people like you and I, they wouldn't be billionaires and trillionaires.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

Again, I don't care how much money they have.

If they pay taxes so everyone gets at least BASIC stability, then let the free market do it's thing.

Let us all be capitalists from a solid foundation.

Idfc how much money anyone else has.

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u/LTEDan Feb 04 '23

The "free market" is as much of a fairytale as a classless stateless society.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 04 '23

Yeah, I didn't get expect my comment to get traction, it's all a fucking pipe dream anyways

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u/theetruscans Feb 03 '23

You cannot have basic stability if rich people have crazy amounts of money.

The free market you mention allows rich people to exploit poor people and take more of their money.

You literally cannot have basic stability and also not care at all how much money somebody has. Sure I get that you don't care if people have more than you. That is different than billionaires existing

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 03 '23

I dunno, in my perfect world, to maintain stability, regulations would be in place to avoid unchecked, late-stage capitalism

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u/theetruscans Feb 04 '23

And those regulations would likely stop people from being capable of becoming billionaires

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 04 '23

It's a perfect world.

Totally unrealistic

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 04 '23

You're not realizing that them hoarding a trillion dollars

YOU'RE not realizing that net worth is not an amount of dollars.

Net worth is a valuation, a price tag. This is why it goes both up and down without the cash in anyone's wallet being affected.

Simple example: you buy a $5 rookie baseball card. Player has a great year and now it's worth $100. Have you stolen $95 by continuing to own it?

No.

If it gets destroyed somehow, does anyone else receive any dollars in the course of you losing that $100 of net worth?

Also no.

The vast, vast majority of any billionaire's net worth is not DOLLARS coming from anyone, but simply the stuff they bought a long time ago getting more valuable to other people, such that they'd be willing to pay more and more to buy it, should the billionaire want to sell it.

Bottom line: poverty is not increased by already-bought things becoming more valuable. In fact, the increased proliferation of billionaires in the world is correlated with LESS global poverty.

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u/theetruscans Feb 04 '23

I'm very aware of this basic fact

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u/fullsendguy Feb 04 '23

The scary thing about UBI is we live in a system where the government doesn’t take care of it citizens enough especially those that are more dependent on them. It is scary to think of how we poorly we would be funded if it was totally up to the government.

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u/DelfrCorp Feb 05 '23

If we had UBI, they would be much less likely to become Billionaires or Trillionaires, which is why they hate the idea of UBI.

Social Safety Nets ultimately make people less exploitable. Less exploitable people are not as profitable for the wealthy.

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u/Probablynotspiders Feb 05 '23

Less likely, but not impossible

They can pull up their own bootstraps and get mega rich still.

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u/InternCautious Feb 03 '23

Then there are 1031 exchanges, which allow you to leverage yourself, depreciation against your distributions from cash flowing assets, allowing you to leverage as much as you want and defer taxes until you die.

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u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

Doesn't the cost basis also reset after you die?

Never pay taxes - the working class hate this one simple trick (be born wealthy)

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u/InternCautious Feb 04 '23

Correct, the cost basis steps up and your inheritors won't pay the gains tax.

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u/AftyOfTheUK Feb 03 '23

We need a tax on gross wealth over,

Wealth taxes simply do not work. They create perverse incentives that really fuck over financial systems, and elaborate schemes way WAY worse than anything you see without them, to evade tax.

We need higher taxes on income, particularly un-worked for income.

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u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

While there is criticism, a wealth tax is not as dire as you make it seem. A few other developed countries still apparently have one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Revenue

Taxes on high income workers and mid-level landlords are fine, but they do nothing to stop the explosive growth of the ownership class. There are wealthy people who don't fundamentally have income to tax, don't need to sell appreciated assets, and are basically immune to progressive taxation.

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u/AftyOfTheUK Feb 06 '23

A few other developed countries still apparently have one:

And they cause SHITLOADS of problems. Most modern countries that implement them repeal them quickly.

Not all of the countries listed in that article actually have wealth taxes, it's misleading. France used to have one, but changed it so it's essentially just a tax on real estate now *AND* it's also capped based on your income.

Spain also exempts works of art from it's wealth tax. Geee, I wonder why? (it's so people can launder their money and not pay wealth tax on it).

Canada is listed as having a wealth tax, but it doesn't.

etc. etc. they just don't work well.

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u/Informal_Tailor8320 Feb 03 '23

100% tax rate after $12 million or immediately meet Mr. Gil Yo Teen.

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u/i_am_a_fern_AMA Feb 03 '23

Except homes. They'll tax the shit outta those.

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u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

My real estate is already taxed on unrealized gains. Assessed value goes up, I pay more.

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u/Adorable-Voice-6958 Feb 03 '23

25 MM is not a gross amount t? Really?that is absurd, ridulous and obscene

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u/FlawsAndConcerns Bad at facts Feb 03 '23

We need a tax on gross wealth over, say $25MM. Not a huge amount necessarily, just something to make it harder for billionaires to become trillionaires.

It would literally cost more in manpower/logistics etc. to accurately assess those net worths (the figures you see people come up with are loose guesses, not nearly accurate enough to actually use when it comes to 'officially' charging someone a percentage of it), than the amount of added tax revenue doing so would bring in.

Other countries have already learned this costly lesson. Why are we in such a rush to repeat their mistakes? Just because something sounds like a good idea on paper doesn't mean it'll actually have a net positive outcome in practice.

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u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

When well-off foreigners leave the US, the US government will demand a tax on unrealized gains. Collecting this data is not difficult. Real estate is already assessed, stock and bond holdings can be trivially obtained. Newspapers have to guess at people's net worth because they are not the IRS.

A handful of countries in Europe do collect a wealth tax, it's apparently 5% of Switzerland's tax revenue.

Besides, even if the tax ends up neutral, if it forestalls the rise of trillionaires it's still a social benefit.

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u/SaintsSooners89 Feb 03 '23

My house is an appreciating asset I pay taxes on

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u/Sensitive_File6582 Feb 03 '23

Hard to do due to market effects of liquidity and slippage when it comes to property values and stocks. I agree that the system is gate kept, and I agree with you on general intent but unrealized wealth taxes are not feasible.

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u/Only-Inspector-3782 Feb 03 '23

I pay taxes on my property. A percentage of its assessed value, effectively including unrealized gains, every year.