7 ms·

Does anyone, without subversive motives, actually agree with the premise that removing all incentives to be successful is a good idea?

tw04 3y ago
There’s a very large chasm between being successful, and having $10s of billions of dollars in net worth. Do you really think someone worth $100m can’t live a life of absolute luxury and choose how and if they want to ever work a day in their life?
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  Their $10s of billions is not a vault full of gold coins in their basement, like Scrooge McDuck has. It represents companies and investments that are creating jobs and wealth for lots of people, probably many of the people who post here owe their job to a billionaire. Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m.
  - tw04 3y ago
    > Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m. Of course they would, and the world would likely be a much better place for it. Those companies you speak of are mega-corporations that tend to operate outside the laws we all get to follow, and typically result in monopolies or oligopolies. There are VERY few industries that NEED a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars to operate. In almost all cases you’d be better off with hundreds of companies worth hundreds of millions competing for your business.
  - pilom 3y ago
    Sure they would. The companies would just have to have different ownership models that incentivized more distributed ownership between more people. If we somehow said that no one could own more than $100 million of a company, then for every person who has $1 billion of a company now, there would be 10 people with $100 million instead. This would be a net benefit to society.
    - friend_and_foe 3y ago
      They would be the same 10 people all owning shares of each other's companies if you said one person couldn't own more than x of a company. Where do all these other people who have the money to own all these shares come from? If they existed they'd be buying the shares right now, and probably own them. You hand wave that this would be a net benefit to society but don't say how, or even demonstrate an understanding of how any of this works. This is all a misunderstanding of power, where it lies, how it works. We imagine the government has power and we can democratically change the fabric of reality, will our desire into existence with no blowback or fallout. The people that own these companies, they cannot be stopped. They exist because they have to exist, they emerge naturally. Someone always holds all the cards. If you try to pass laws to stop it they'll just hide it from you and do it anyway.
- eestrada 3y ago
  > There’s a very large chasm between being successful, and having $10s of billions of dollars in net worth. Because of marginal utility, there really isn't such a large chasm. Every additional dollar has less utility than the dollar that preceded it. Capping what producers can earn or use their means/money on is a good way to stifle innovation and productivity. Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things?
  - tw04 3y ago
    >Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things? Everybody in the US likes to talk about the golden age of the 50s. The top marginal tax rate was pushing 90%. Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few.
    - eestrada 3y ago
      > Everybody in the US likes to talk about the golden age of the 50s. The top marginal tax rate was pushing 90%. The effective tax rate was never actually that high. There are always carve outs to lower the rate. https://www.aei.org/economics/public-economics/were-taxes-really-higher-in-the-1950s/ https://www.aei.org/economics/public-economics/were-taxes-re... https://checkyourfact.com/2019/01/09/fact-check-90-percent-taxes-eisenhower-1950s/ https://checkyourfact.com/2019/01/09/fact-check-90-percent-t... > Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few. At no point did I mention "trickle down economics". I mentioned innovation and productivity, things that are easily measured. The gap between productivity and wages in the US only widely diverged once going off of hard money. This is because the upper class own assets (largely unaffected by monetary inflation) and the lower/middle class own currency (heavily affected by monetary inflation). If the empirical data you speak of is so evident, please provide some references for it. I don't subscribe to "trickle down economics" so I don't know anything about it. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/
fulafel 3y ago
Getting to indulge in unethical behaviour (like private jet use) is not the kind of reward we should be setting to steer people.
arrowsmith 3y ago
Making it harder and more expensive to fly by private jet is hardly "removing all incentives to be successful".
ilyt 3y ago
To be successful enough to be worth hundreds of millions and zip around in private jet, completely oblivious to how normal people lead their lifes ? Oh tell me what benefit does that have for the rest of the society? There is basically no thing single human can do that can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to society. It's all skimming off top people that actually put the work in. Well, maybe if someone cured cancer but we all know that if someone did company hiring him and their CEO would reap most of the profits anyway
- j7ake 3y ago
  What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire? Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself? If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money? In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.
  - pilom 3y ago
    Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.
    - j7ake 3y ago
      That won’t stop her from being a billionaire. She could have ownership of a company that would make her net worth orders of magnitude higher than any earnings cap. You cannot put a cap on a company’s worth, because it’s a guess. They can decide to nationalise those companies as well, but then she could take her skills to another country. Then that country loses all of her earnings for sure. The other way to stop her from being filthy rich would be to make people stop liking her books. Which at this point one should ask how much damage one is willing to do to stop a person from being rich.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    Didn't say anything about taking all their money. Just making sure they actually pay the taxes and not avoid that in million ways they have, both for themselves and for their corporations. Majority of government tax income should come from corporate, not individuals.
craigharley 3y ago
Taxing private jets, is not the same as "removing all incentives to be successful".
m0ped 3y ago
Oh no! The wealthy won't be able to fly private anymore? Why even continue to live, right?

tw04 3y ago

There’s a very large chasm between being successful, and having $10s of billions of dollars in net worth. Do you really think someone worth $100m can’t live a life of absolute luxury and choose how and if they want to ever work a day in their life?

SoftTalker 3y ago
Their $10s of billions is not a vault full of gold coins in their basement, like Scrooge McDuck has. It represents companies and investments that are creating jobs and wealth for lots of people, probably many of the people who post here owe their job to a billionaire. Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m.
- tw04 3y ago
  > Those things would not exist if "net worth" were somehow capped at $100m. Of course they would, and the world would likely be a much better place for it. Those companies you speak of are mega-corporations that tend to operate outside the laws we all get to follow, and typically result in monopolies or oligopolies. There are VERY few industries that NEED a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars to operate. In almost all cases you’d be better off with hundreds of companies worth hundreds of millions competing for your business.
- pilom 3y ago
  Sure they would. The companies would just have to have different ownership models that incentivized more distributed ownership between more people. If we somehow said that no one could own more than $100 million of a company, then for every person who has $1 billion of a company now, there would be 10 people with $100 million instead. This would be a net benefit to society.
  - friend_and_foe 3y ago
    They would be the same 10 people all owning shares of each other's companies if you said one person couldn't own more than x of a company. Where do all these other people who have the money to own all these shares come from? If they existed they'd be buying the shares right now, and probably own them. You hand wave that this would be a net benefit to society but don't say how, or even demonstrate an understanding of how any of this works. This is all a misunderstanding of power, where it lies, how it works. We imagine the government has power and we can democratically change the fabric of reality, will our desire into existence with no blowback or fallout. The people that own these companies, they cannot be stopped. They exist because they have to exist, they emerge naturally. Someone always holds all the cards. If you try to pass laws to stop it they'll just hide it from you and do it anyway.
eestrada 3y ago
> There’s a very large chasm between being successful, and having $10s of billions of dollars in net worth. Because of marginal utility, there really isn't such a large chasm. Every additional dollar has less utility than the dollar that preceded it. Capping what producers can earn or use their means/money on is a good way to stifle innovation and productivity. Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things?
- tw04 3y ago
  >Also, what indication is there that the government won't squander taxes from this in the same way they have squandered taxes from so many other things? Everybody in the US likes to talk about the golden age of the 50s. The top marginal tax rate was pushing 90%. Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few.
  - eestrada 3y ago
    > Everybody in the US likes to talk about the golden age of the 50s. The top marginal tax rate was pushing 90%. The effective tax rate was never actually that high. There are always carve outs to lower the rate. https://www.aei.org/economics/public-economics/were-taxes-really-higher-in-the-1950s/ https://www.aei.org/economics/public-economics/were-taxes-re... https://checkyourfact.com/2019/01/09/fact-check-90-percent-taxes-eisenhower-1950s/ https://checkyourfact.com/2019/01/09/fact-check-90-percent-t... > Empirical data answers your question. Trickle down economics has been a provable disaster with the VAST majority of wealth accumulating in the hands of a few. At no point did I mention "trickle down economics". I mentioned innovation and productivity, things that are easily measured. The gap between productivity and wages in the US only widely diverged once going off of hard money. This is because the upper class own assets (largely unaffected by monetary inflation) and the lower/middle class own currency (heavily affected by monetary inflation). If the empirical data you speak of is so evident, please provide some references for it. I don't subscribe to "trickle down economics" so I don't know anything about it. https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/ https://wtfhappenedin1971.com/

fulafel 3y ago

Getting to indulge in unethical behaviour (like private jet use) is not the kind of reward we should be setting to steer people.

arrowsmith 3y ago

Making it harder and more expensive to fly by private jet is hardly "removing all incentives to be successful".

ilyt 3y ago

To be successful enough to be worth hundreds of millions and zip around in private jet, completely oblivious to how normal people lead their lifes ? Oh tell me what benefit does that have for the rest of the society? There is basically no thing single human can do that can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year to society. It's all skimming off top people that actually put the work in. Well, maybe if someone cured cancer but we all know that if someone did company hiring him and their CEO would reap most of the profits anyway

j7ake 3y ago
What coercive mechanism made people buy JK Rowlings books, and made her a billionaire? Who did JK Rowling exploit to funnel so much of those book sales towards herself? If someone buys a Harry Potter book, is she not entitled to a portion of the money? In winner take all dynamics, like what books parents buy for their kids, a person can easily earn 1000 times more than the average person by doing a similar amount of work.
- pilom 3y ago
  Above a certain level I could certainly get behind saying no she's not entitled to it. 100% marginal tax rates above $10 million in annual earnings seem perfectly reasonable to me.
  - j7ake 3y ago
    That won’t stop her from being a billionaire. She could have ownership of a company that would make her net worth orders of magnitude higher than any earnings cap. You cannot put a cap on a company’s worth, because it’s a guess. They can decide to nationalise those companies as well, but then she could take her skills to another country. Then that country loses all of her earnings for sure. The other way to stop her from being filthy rich would be to make people stop liking her books. Which at this point one should ask how much damage one is willing to do to stop a person from being rich.
- ilyt 3y ago
  Didn't say anything about taking all their money. Just making sure they actually pay the taxes and not avoid that in million ways they have, both for themselves and for their corporations. Majority of government tax income should come from corporate, not individuals.

craigharley 3y ago

Taxing private jets, is not the same as "removing all incentives to be successful".

m0ped 3y ago

Oh no! The wealthy won't be able to fly private anymore? Why even continue to live, right?