EU election

Satinavian

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The green don't make plan, look at Germany. They would have rush to shut them all down. There's also no reason to replace them, nuclear complement renewable perfectly.
The German green formed from an anti-nuclear movement and had a strong opinion about it that is not necessarily shared by the French Greens. Furthermore, the German Greens were in opposition when Germany hastily got rid of nuclear and are not responsible for how it went. When they last had to plan nuclear phaseout in the Schröder years, the result was a very long plan centered on building no new ones and letting most exiting ones do most of the planned runtime.

It was a conservative gouvernment that made hasty and economically unsound decisions to appeal to the voter panic after Fukushima.
The problem is that the wealth of rich is untapped, or rather, hypothetical money. Look at it this way, someone make a company, make it public and create share of it, the share price explode and now the company is worth trillions, government comes in and tax the unrealized gain for (lets say) 100 millions. That's no different than the central bank printing 100 millions, its creating money that doesn't exist and injecting it into the economy. And eventually the market would price in the wealth tax which would depreciate the value of share by quite a lot, people would move to other system to hold their wealth, system that would be harder for average people to take advantages of (it would also destroy the retirement of millions). The only good use of wealth tax is to force inactive asset back onto the market (ie land based) but land based tax are really complicated to implement and their own bag.
The purpose of the wealth tax is to tax wealth.

The higher the inequality, the more it hurts if wealth is not taxable because it means less and less assets and money circulation are accessible to be tax and thus to pay for the gouvernment expenses. There is a limit on how much you reasonably tax work before that is crippling the economy. And a wealth tax would not burden the middle class or their retirement plans at all. Similarly to inheritance tax there would be thresholds under which no tax occurs.

Sure, wealth tax has problems. One of them is the potential to drive wealthy residents out. Another one is that, indeed, it is inefficient because it would require to know how wealthy people actually are and estimate countless items that are not actually on the market. That is a huge bureaucratic undertaking and leaves lots of room for shady practices or unfairness (like, again, inheritance tax).

It is still worth it just to combat inequality. How else are we ever supposed to get rid of inequality or at least lower it ? It won't get better by itself, only worse because capitalism leads to wealth concentration.
 

Silvanus

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The problem is that the wealth of rich is untapped, or rather, hypothetical money. Look at it this way, someone make a company, make it public and create share of it, the share price explode and now the company is worth trillions, government comes in and tax the unrealized gain for (lets say) 100 millions. That's no different than the central bank printing 100 millions, its creating money that doesn't exist and injecting it into the economy.
Hang on a second, stop there, because there's a lot wrong with this.

Firstly, there're dozens of mechanisms by which a wealth tax can avoid being affected by wild fluctuation.

Secondly, if the value of their holding reliably increases, then that's an asset with a monetary value-- accounting it as a part of their wealth makes sense. The extra value didn't come from nowhere, and it certainly wasn't created when the government taxed the holder.

If they don't sell it? Then the government is receiving an existing 100m the holder already had. And if they do sell it? Then the 100m isn't "created" by the revaluation; the share price is transferred from the buyer to the seller, and then (in part) to the government. None of this is the same as printing money.
 

tstorm823

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It is still worth it just to combat inequality.
"Even if we gain nothing, it is still important that they lose something." - Satinavian

Side note, I don't think I've ever considered your name beyond a string of letters before. Are you
The Ecologistes only favour moving from nuclear onto renewables. Not onto fossil fuels. If any phase-out would require an increase in fossil fuels, then the Greens would support a delay until it wouldn't.
You assume that any option presented would maintain the current scale of the power grid one way or another, but historically and presently, there is a subset of environmentalist that would gleefully turn off one sort of power without any kind of replacement under the thinking that more power, even the cleanest sources of power, promotes human development, and they genuinely want nature to retake the earth.

Any practical person can see that most of our long term limitations environmentally are unsolvable without more energy that we already generate, at this point in history, asking to turn off nuclear power is less pro-environment than it is anti-human.
Then that was a problem of implementation, not principle. The super-rich are the single largest source of largely untapped revenue. The majority of that money is economically inactive, and we're talking billions. Taxing it makes absolute economic and moral sense.
What economically inactive money are you referring to, specifically?
Secondly, if the value of their holding reliably increases, then that's an asset with a monetary value-- accounting it as a part of their wealth makes sense. The extra value didn't come from nowhere, and it certainly wasn't created when the government taxed the holder.
The increase in value of an unchanged asset comes from only one place: the desire of others to buy it. Wealth is not a measure of inherent value, it is a measure of the desirability of what you own. But you can't pay taxes with other people's desires, so they would have to sell their possessions for government issued money to pay the tax. The problem with this compounds: the government demanding money for you owning something makes ownership less desirable which lowers the value of owning it in the first place, which brings up the question of who is buying it? For something like single-family homes, those have inherent value, people need those, so the market persists even with property taxes. With stocks, that's unclear. Is it even wealthier people? Is it nobody, and the stock market crashes? What is the end game of making ownership actively toxic?
 
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Silvanus

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there is a subset of environmentalist that would gleefully turn off one sort of power without any kind of replacement under the thinking that more power, even the cleanest sources of power, promotes human development, and they genuinely want nature to retake the earth.
Absurdist fearmongering.
 

tstorm823

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that thing being the source of their power to control everyone else
You have very little faith in the average person, don't you?
Absurdist fearmongering.
It's not fearmongering, it's the truth. Within environmentalism, the debate between conservation and preservation is always ongoing. Environmental conservation is about the proper use of nature, interacting with nature in a way that maintains it for humans into the future. Environmental preservation is about preventing human beings from interacting with nature at all. On a local scale, both can have their place circumstantially, but on a global scale, preservationist thought is flatly anti-human. Prior to the Green Peace era (and increasingly in current times) many environmentalists were proponents of nuclear power, but there was a push to oppose it not because it was dirty, but because it was clean. It was easier to get people to oppose human expansion when you could see the pollution bellowing out of the plants.
 

Satinavian

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You have very little faith in the average person, don't you?
No, he is right.

The idea of democracy is to give everyone an equal vote in political decisions. But money is power and great inequality means that the rich control politics. Which takes power from everyone else away.

It is nice for the populace to want things benefiting everyone, but if the means to do that are in the hands of a few and can't be touched because property is sacred, things won't get done.

Inequality is really bad for societies and worth fighting, even if that lowers wealth total.

Also a wealth tax is usually expected to provide a net income for a nation even with all the administrative inefficiencies.
Side note, I don't think I've ever considered your name beyond a string of letters before. Are you
No, I am not Silvanus. We have literally one letter in common.
 
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Silvanus

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It's not fearmongering, it's the truth.
Absolute bollocks. Not a single mainstream green/ecological party or movement is advocating a return to some primative subsistence lifestyle, and rewilding efforts do not threaten or infringe on modern human life. Its a complete hallucination and a right-wing boogeyman. When you next accuse the left of jumping at shadows, you need to take a hard look in the mirror.

Side note, I don't think I've ever considered your name beyond a string of letters before. Are you
This is getting pathetic.
 

Hades

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There are worries about a hung parliament but if all the parties think rationally then this really shouldn't be difficult.

There are two big issues that cause unrest in European politics: Migration and cost of living of which the former is mostly just gasslighting to distract from the later. Fix the cost of living problems and the unrest will decrease with or without draconian migration policies.

And it just so happens that the left tends to have a program that at least theoretically is largely defined by decreasing the cost of living for the lower classes. If Macron and the left form a government and bring the French living standards up then Le Pen will be in a far weaker position. This is where Macron can get things done. As a centrist party you can't outradical the radical right, and every centrist/right wing party that tried this has ultimately failed and brought the radical right into power. There's nothing to gain by picking the far right over the left.

Sure there will be problem. Macron defined his program as ''professionalizing France'' which is a buzzword for Neoliberallizing the French culture. Well though shit Emanuel. Its not about making France more ''professional'' anymore. Its about preventing the fall of France to the far right.
 

tstorm823

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Inequality is really bad for societies and worth fighting, even if that lowers wealth total.

Also a wealth tax is usually expected to provide a net income for a nation even with all the administrative inefficiencies.
I agree with both of these to an extent, but to see it as "one person's wealth means everyone else is being controlled" is a rather extreme interpretation of having too much power. I think you could get away with a wealth tax and generate significant value if it is not recurring. Like a "we've got this specific thing weed absolutely need to fund right now, this is how we can fund it" scenario, I think politically and economically could be viable. I think something like an annual wealth tax large enough to change inequality would be catastrophic for the nation.
No, I am not Silvanus. We have literally one letter in common.
I must have messed up my post quoting more people. The end of that sentence was supposed to be "a smooth bird". Cause satin avian. Sorry for the blunder.
Absolute bollocks. Not a single mainstream green/ecological party or movement is advocating a return to some primative subsistence lifestyle, and rewilding efforts do not threaten or infringe on modern human life. Its a complete hallucination and a right-wing boogeyman. When you next accuse the left of jumping at shadows, you need to take a hard look in the mirror.
To be fair, is there really such a thing as a mainstream green party? I'm pretty sure they're all fringe nerds that I'm not particularly worried about.

People advocating for the end of human civilization as we know it aren't mainstream or politically powerful, but neither are literal nazis, and you're not going to see me complain at you for saying nazis exist and you don't want them influencing major political decisions.
 

Silvanus

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To be fair, is there really such a thing as a mainstream green party? I'm pretty sure they're all fringe nerds that I'm not particularly worried about.
Well, I mean relatively mainstream (I.e., well known in their country, contesting elections regularly, maybe have a few representatives-- like the French, German and British Greens/ecologists).

People advocating for the end of human civilization as we know it aren't mainstream or politically powerful, but neither are literal nazis, and you're not going to see me complain at you for saying nazis exist and you don't want them influencing major political decisions.
I've encountered more of the latter than I have the former, both online and IRL. Nazis-- or rather, broadly the violent far-right-- are increasingly influential in several European parties, though they still represent a fringe. Greens advocating for the end of human civilisation are virtually nonexistent, even within green parties. You're jumping at shadows because of some inane exaggerations you heard.
 

tstorm823

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Greens advocating for the end of human civilisation are virtually nonexistent, even within green parties. You're jumping at shadows because of some inane exaggerations you heard.
I generally avoid taking 3rd party descriptions of people as truth, but luckily you and I have been around arguing on the internet long enough to have seen the era when overpopulation was still the hot topic of the day. You're asking me to forget the arguments people made against me on behalf of their own beliefs.
 

Silvanus

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I generally avoid taking 3rd party descriptions of people as truth, but luckily you and I have been around arguing on the internet long enough to have seen the era when overpopulation was still the hot topic of the day. You're asking me to forget the arguments people made against me on behalf of their own beliefs.
Well, let's see exactly what you're talking about, because I also remember you mischaracterising a phase-out of fossil fuels as an existential threat to human civilisation.
 

tstorm823

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Well, let's see exactly what you're talking about, because I also remember you mischaracterising a phase-out of fossil fuels as an existential threat to human civilisation.
In the short term, it absolutely is an existential threat. In the long term, phasing out fossil fuels (at least as an energy source) should be a common goal for everyone. Setting sail to a batter land is great and all, but if you set sail before the ship is built you sink to the bottom of the ocean.
 

Satinavian

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I must have messed up my post quoting more people. The end of that sentence was supposed to be "a smooth bird". Cause satin avian. Sorry for the blunder.
Oh, that makes more sense.

But no, the name is from one of my first RPG characters i made decades ago and follows a common in-setting naming convention that is based on using some mythical entity and apply an ending like -ian. In this case the entity was the supposed ruler of time, Satinav, whose name itself is a play on the latin word vanitas.

I generally avoid taking 3rd party descriptions of people as truth
The thing is, if you are living somewhere that has proportional representation, the distinction between main and 3rd parties vanishes. There are a lot of Green parties in various European parliaments, have done so for decades, and have regularly been in gouvernment coalitions. Even the current German foreign minister which you might have seen in some news reports is from the Greens.

And as this thread is about the EU election, currently the Greens (a group of national green parties) have 53 seats in the EU parliament. And that is a bad result for them, they had 67 prior. That is pretty mainstream.
 
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Silvanus

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In the short term, it absolutely is an existential threat. In the long term, phasing out fossil fuels (at least as an energy source) should be a common goal for everyone. Setting sail to a batter land is great and all, but if you set sail before the ship is built you sink to the bottom of the ocean.
And all mainstream green parties favour building the ship. The idea that they want to just shut everything off without anything in place to compensate is fearmongering nonsense.
 

tstorm823

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And all mainstream green parties favour building the ship. The idea that they want to just shut everything off without anything in place to compensate is fearmongering nonsense.
"Just Stop Oil" - Just Stop Oil
 

Satinavian

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As i wrote, there are enough Green parties actually in power somewhere and we can see what kind of politics they propose or support.

And that is, without exception a slow phasing out of fossil fuel with enough time to replace it. But even that is incredibly hard to get as the fossil lobby fights tooth and nails against any measure that could help replace it.
 

Silvanus

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"Just Stop Oil" - Just Stop Oil
Uh-huh, and we have the capability to stop relying on oil and transfer off, without cataclysmic upheaval. Which is in line with that phrase. Want to give another try?
 

meiam

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The purpose of the wealth tax is to tax wealth.

The higher the inequality, the more it hurts if wealth is not taxable because it means less and less assets and money circulation are accessible to be tax and thus to pay for the gouvernment expenses. There is a limit on how much you reasonably tax work before that is crippling the economy. And a wealth tax would not burden the middle class or their retirement plans at all. Similarly to inheritance tax there would be thresholds under which no tax occurs.

Sure, wealth tax has problems. One of them is the potential to drive wealthy residents out. Another one is that, indeed, it is inefficient because it would require to know how wealthy people actually are and estimate countless items that are not actually on the market. That is a huge bureaucratic undertaking and leaves lots of room for shady practices or unfairness (like, again, inheritance tax).

It is still worth it just to combat inequality. How else are we ever supposed to get rid of inequality or at least lower it ? It won't get better by itself, only worse because capitalism leads to wealth concentration.
You're confounding hypothetical wealth and money supply. The two things aren't linked 1:1, ie someone share increasing in value doesn't mean that an equivalent amount of money disappeared from society. Lets look at it in a different way, so you own an house that you brought a long time ago, suddenly its discovered that under your house there's a massive amount of gold, equivalent to 1 trillions dollars, making you technically a trillionaire. How does that reduce the amount of money circulating and accessible to be tax? How does this reduce the ability of government to function? While this increase inequality in society, how is that a problem? Who are the people negatively affected by this? Why is it so important that the government immediately start taxing you on that value even if you don't use the gold?

Like you said, inequality is a problem when its taking money out of the economy, but almost all extremely rich people aren't rich because they cash their share right away and have a giant Scrooge McDuck money pool that they hoard. They own share who they buy at low value and keep while their value increase, which doesn't cost anyone anything.

Hang on a second, stop there, because there's a lot wrong with this.

Firstly, there're dozens of mechanisms by which a wealth tax can avoid being affected by wild fluctuation.

Secondly, if the value of their holding reliably increases, then that's an asset with a monetary value-- accounting it as a part of their wealth makes sense. The extra value didn't come from nowhere, and it certainly wasn't created when the government taxed the holder.

If they don't sell it? Then the government is receiving an existing 100m the holder already had. And if they do sell it? Then the 100m isn't "created" by the revaluation; the share price is transferred from the buyer to the seller, and then (in part) to the government. None of this is the same as printing money.
But the extra value did come from nowhere. Like Jeff Bozo has a bunch of amazon shares, most of these hes had since the beginning and never sold, these have greatly increase in value. If that extra value didn't come from nowhere, where did it come from? Who lost all of that money for him to become richer?

Or, lets look at it the opposite way, the government would use that tax money to do something. But if they didn't tax it, Bezo wouldn't have done anything with it, so this would obviously drive inflation, like if the money had been printed. You might say that Bozo could sell the shares at anytime and then start using the money created, which is absolutely true, but then he would be tax at that point on the gain he made then and there.

Now I'm not against increasing capital tax (which is shamefully low) or some form of wealth tax (I think inheritance tax should be much higher with far less loophole, but only because it doesn't require constantly recalculating someone value every year and require goods to be actively transferred). I also think there are plenty of other way to raise revenue that mainly benefit rich that should be explored (church should pay tax, charity donation shouldn't be tax deductible, private individual shouldn't be able to make company and use these to deduct their personal tax). But the "soak the rich just to soak the rich" mentality doesn't serve much purpose and can be very destructive to society.