Funny events in anti-woke world

tstorm823

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or wealth will be transferred into liquid, taxable, more active forms (also good).
On the contrary, the best part about having so much wealthy maintained in stocks is that other forms of wealth holding with with more objective value aren't effected. You don't want people to hoard cash as a means of holding wealth. You don't want people buying up commodities to store their wealth. Having wealth concentrated into pieces of paper that do nothing useful is ideal, because it's not clogging up useful resources.
The idea that someone with 124m, with wealth growing by 24m a year, should be taxed less than 6m precisely because that wealth wasn't made by working is fucking obscene.
That's not the argument we're having. Everyone agrees that person should be taxed. Most people agree that person should be taxed more than they currently are. What we're arguing about is when they should be taxed, whether they should be taxed as the value is accrued or when it is realized, being sold or traded.
 

Silvanus

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On the contrary, the best part about having so much wealthy maintained in stocks is that other forms of wealth holding with with more objective value aren't effected. You don't want people to hoard cash as a means of holding wealth. You don't want people buying up commodities to store their wealth. Having wealth concentrated into pieces of paper that do nothing useful is ideal, because it's not clogging up useful resources.
Correction: I don't want them to hoard wealth at all. All forms should be taxed in such a way that none can act as tax-avoidance receptacles. In particular, if properties aren't actually used, there should be mechanisms to reclaim them or compell their use after a certain amount of time. And commodities serving a public good shouldn't be for sale/should be highly regulated and not very profitable, if at all.

But this is sort of beside the point: the primary point of this tax isn't to compell them to sell. So long as that wealth is generating income for the treasury, they can keep them. It's only the obscenely ultra wealthy with zero actual money who are encouraged to relinquish. That wealth can stay in share form... in a wider range of hands.

That's not the argument we're having. Everyone agrees that person should be taxed. Most people agree that person should be taxed more than they currently are. What we're arguing about is when they should be taxed, whether they should be taxed as the value is accrued or when it is realized, being sold or traded.
But in the system as-is, that tax can be perpetually postponed, and could ultimately be a small fraction. There's a very material difference. Even the 'when' matters quite a lot: the treasury's income shouldn't be dependent on the whims of the ultra-rich deciding to sell.
 

tstorm823

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Correction: I don't want them to hoard wealth at all. All forms should be taxed in such a way that none can act as tax-avoidance receptacles. In particular, if properties aren't actually used, there should be mechanisms to reclaim them or compell their use after a certain amount of time. And commodities serving a public good shouldn't be for sale/should be highly regulated and not very profitable, if at all.

But this is sort of beside the point: the primary point of this tax isn't to compell them to sell. So long as that wealth is generating income for the treasury, they can keep them. It's only the obscenely ultra wealthy with zero actual money who are encouraged to relinquish. That wealth can stay in share form... in a wider range of hands.
Do you really not see how "owning things should be unprofitable and also taxed" is de facto outlawing wealth?
 

Silvanus

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Do you really not see how "owning things should be unprofitable and also taxed" is de facto outlawing wealth?
"Unprofitable"? Their post-100m wealth would still be increasing, and 94% of that value would stay with them. On top of the hundred fucking million they already have.

You may as well say income tax is outlawing earning. It's hysterical.
 

Agema

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The "Resistance" should not save America.

The public knew what Trump was, and they elected him. For instance, I have no idea why people are bothered about Matt Gaetz having sex with prostitutes and a 17-year-old when the president is an adjudicated rapist. The Republicans can hardly have made it clearer that they don't see it as a bar to high office, and they won the election comprehensively.

Maybe Americans need a President who actually does what he said, and is seen to do what he said. Trump broadly failed at this 2017-2020, this time he's got another shot. So let him deport 10 million illegal immigrants, slap 200% tariffs on all imports, gut the Department of Education, and slash the bureaucracy and regulations, and pursue cases against all his opponents in a tidal wave of DoJ litigation. Then America can have a think about whether that's really what they want from a government in 2028.
 
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tstorm823

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"Unprofitable"? Their post-100m wealth would still be increasing, and 94% of that value would stay with them. On top of the hundred fucking million they already have.

You may as well say income tax is outlawing earning. It's hysterical.
Taxing income will never leave you with less than if you hadn't gotten that income. Taxing unrealized gains can leave someone with fewer stocks and less cash than if the stocks had not increased in value.
 

Gergar12

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The "Resistance" should not save America.

The public knew what Trump was, and they elected him. For instance, I have no idea why people are bothered about Matt Gaetz having sex with prostitutes and a 17-year-old when the president is an adjudicated rapist. The Republicans can hardly have made it clearer that they don't see it as a bar to high office, and they won the election comprehensively.

Maybe Americans need a President who actually does what he said, and is seen to do what he said. Trump broadly failed at this 2017-2020, this time he's got another shot. So let him deport 10 million illegal immigrants, slap 200% tariffs on all imports, gut the Department of Education, and slash the bureaucracy and regulations, and pursue cases against all his opponents in a tidal wave of DoJ litigation. Then America can have a think about whether that's really what they want from a government in 2028.
The problem with this is that Trump's second-order targets aren't US citizens generally; that's the aftershock third-order effects. It's people you or I don't give a second thought about. People in random island nations are about to face a hurricane or typhoon on top of the heat and rising sea levels. It's people in India who will die due to lack of A/C. It's people in Iran who can't get enough medical treatment for their relatives because of medical sanctions and anti-adversity travel bans. People are dying from starvation in parts of Africa due to a lack of global agricultural products needed to deliver their soil to grow crops.

People in the US will suffer inflation and high home prices, and some will even die from hurricanes and a possible crisis of top-level mismanagement, but that pales in comparison to the millions in the best-case scenario who will die by the tens of thousands from climate change and increased wars. It won't even be actual powerful US enemies like China or Russia who will die; it will be people caught in the cross-hairs. Russia will do just fine with high oil prices, and China could just make EVs and A/C units plus nuclear and solar.

I am not a hippie. I think the people in Iran are better off with a democratic government, China with a Japan/Singapore-style government, and Russia without Putin. But make no mistake, when people die in a world of nuclear weapons and dictatorships, it becomes everyone's problem.
 

Thaluikhain

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The problem with this is that Trump's second-order targets aren't US citizens generally; that's the aftershock third-order effects. It's people you or I don't give a second thought about. People in random island nations are about to face a hurricane or typhoon on top of the heat and rising sea levels. It's people in India who will die due to lack of A/C. It's people in Iran who can't get enough medical treatment for their relatives because of medical sanctions and anti-adversity travel bans. People are dying from starvation in parts of Africa due to a lack of global agricultural products needed to deliver their soil to grow crops.

People in the US will suffer inflation and high home prices, and some will even die from hurricanes and a possible crisis of top-level mismanagement, but that pales in comparison to the millions in the best-case scenario who will die by the tens of thousands from climate change and increased wars. It won't even be actual powerful US enemies like China or Russia who will die; it will be people caught in the cross-hairs. Russia will do just fine with high oil prices, and China could just make EVs and A/C units plus nuclear and solar.

I am not a hippie. I think the people in Iran are better off with a democratic government, China with a Japan/Singapore-style government, and Russia without Putin. But make no mistake, when people die in a world of nuclear weapons and dictatorships, it becomes everyone's problem.
I mostly agree with this, though any number of people in the US will also be affected, probably the majority will be outside that country, yes.
 

Agema

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The problem with this is that Trump's second-order targets aren't US citizens generally; that's the aftershock third-order effects. It's people you or I don't give a second thought about. People in random island nations are about to face a hurricane or typhoon on top of the heat and rising sea levels. It's people in India who will die due to lack of A/C. It's people in Iran who can't get enough medical treatment for their relatives because of medical sanctions and anti-adversity travel bans. People are dying from starvation in parts of Africa due to a lack of global agricultural products needed to deliver their soil to grow crops.
You can speak for yourself when you say not giving a second thought about them.

But the human race has lost that war. Here we are with all the warnings, decades on, and emissions are still going up. We have supposed Climate Change Conferences run by oil magnates and hosted by producers using it as a fossil fuel trade fair, because they're so smug and comfortable about it that they can laugh straight in our faces. Again, the American people - the electorate of the world's biggest oil producer and the world's second biggest polluter - have made their feelings on the matter plain, and that is the end of that.
 

Satinavian

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I mean, i won't stop supporting measures to combat climate change and it will continue to be my most important political topic.

But it is too late to prevent a catastrophe. It will be horrible, Sure, every bit of reduced emission will help preventing it becoming even more horrible. But even when everything goes best from now on (it won't), it will be really really bad.
 

Agema

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Start a fossil fuel register. Track everyone with investments with fossil fuels, and how much money they make (dividends, capital gains, etc.). This is then subjected to an eternal 90% potential tax. Potential tax, because it is not immediately levied, and the potential owed goes up over time with inflation. Every time we need to repair damage from climate change, it comes out of their climate debt first. Eternal in the sense of including their heirs down their entire family line, or passed as debt from company to successor so they know that their future offspring / adopted children / family trusts are never going to be able to safely squat on the millions they make. Although any want to donate to appropriate charities (related to climate change, including stuff like famine relief), that can be subtracted from their debt potential - no handing out money to think tanks, megachurches or any of that shit. Any attempt to move their money into a jurisdiction which does not have this system, they are instantly levied the 90% tax and proceeds go into a climate change fund.
 
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Silvanus

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Taxing income will never leave you with less than if you hadn't gotten that income. Taxing unrealized gains can leave someone with fewer stocks and less cash than if the stocks had not increased in value.
In those mutant cases where someone has over 100m in wealth (rapidly growing) and also so little liquid cash they cannot pay a modest tax, then an unrealised gains tax may leave them with either fewer stocks or less cash.

But even then, it will not leave them with less wealth. It will just prompt them to change its form in order to actually contribute to society. Boo hoo.
 
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tstorm823

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In those mutant cases where someone has over 100m in wealth (rapidly growing) and also so little liquid cash they cannot pay a modest tax, then an unrealised gains tax may leave them with either fewer stocks or less cash.

But even then, it will not leave them with less wealth. It will just prompt them to change its form in order to actually contribute to society. Boo hoo.
First, stop saying modest, it doesn't mean anything.

Second, how does a transfer of stock and cash between parties rich enough to make that transaction contribute to society?
 

Phoenixmgs

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Not really.

I mean sure you can value the physical things that the company owns, but you can't really value things like intellectual property, patents, relationships, potential future growth, etc.

Some companies are worth more than others simply due to nebulous things like consumer good-will. How do you put a dollar value on that, especially given how fickle it is?

And even if you're just trying to objectively take into account the physical property that the company owns, evaluating a company based on that also gets awkward. Take for example 2 companies which do the exact same thing in the same industry with roughly the same market-share. One company doesn't own an office space and has all of its employees working fully remote whereas the other company owns its own offices and has employees working on site. Which is more valuable?

On the one hand the company that owns the office could potentially go full remote if they want and then lease out their office space for extra income. The office is a tangible asset that they can utilize. On the other hand they have costs associated with running and maintaining an office building that the fully remote company doesn't, and the office itself could potentially be a liability if it's not a desirable space or location. Additionally, they would have spent money to buy that office building that the remote company didn't, so the remote company might have used that money for something more profitable.

There's a reason that there's always disagreements on whether any company is properly valued within the marketplace or not, because there isn't an objective way to do it, there's multiple subjective ways thought up by different evaluators.
I would think there would be a somewhat good metric for valuing a company from value of assets to profit margin to market share and other things. Even if a company is perceived as shitty (EA) or good (Larian) that should be reflected in some metric if that does indeed matter.

Your think tank does lean. It leans against taxing corporations or the wealthy.



Dude, you asked me to provide an example of researchers favouring an unrealised gains tax. Now you're whining because I did?
In your opinion it does but you're not a tax expert.

And if I gave your a conservative think tank as a source, you wouldn't accept it either. You're the one whining about my source that looks to be unbiased, at least less biased than your source. I referred to a good reason my source provided for why unrealized gains tax would be bad that you edited out of my quote. I also criticized your source's dumb comparison to 401Ks that you also edited out.


Which source would you say is more biased based on the Wiki entries?

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Dirty Hipsters

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I would think there would be a somewhat good metric for valuing a company from value of assets to profit margin to market share and other things. Even if a company is perceived as shitty (EA) or good (Larian) that should be reflected in some metric if that does indeed matter.
You would think that, because you're not very well versed in the subject.

If there was an objective metric for valuing a company there wouldn't be disputes by various banks, evaluators, and economists on the value of companies because each of these individuals or groups have their own subjective metrics for completing their valuations.

That's why there's constant conversations about the market overvaluing or undervaluing certain companies or properties, because there is no objective standard.
 
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Gergar12

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Start a fossil fuel register. Track everyone with investments with fossil fuels, and how much money they make (dividends, capital gains, etc.). This is then subjected to an eternal 90% potential tax. Potential tax, because it is not immediately levied, and the potential owed goes up over time with inflation. Every time we need to repair damage from climate change, it comes out of their climate debt first. Eternal in the sense of including their heirs down their entire family line, or passed as debt from company to successor so they know that their future offspring / adopted children / family trusts are never going to be able to safely squat on the millions they make. Although any want to donate to appropriate charities (related to climate change, including stuff like famine relief), that can be subtracted from their debt potential - no handing out money to think tanks, megachurches or any of that shit. Any attempt to move their money into a jurisdiction which does not have this system, they are instantly levied the 90% tax and proceeds go into a climate change fund.
Funny, there was a stock called ET/energy transfer (like 30 bucks worth) for natural gas I invested in. When I first started, I couldn't even get a question through about climate change CC. It was all about profitability. And that's when I realized it was doomed.

You can speak for yourself when you say not giving a second thought about them.

But the human race has lost that war. Here we are with all the warnings, decades on, and emissions are still going up. We have supposed Climate Change Conferences run by oil magnates and hosted by producers using it as a fossil fuel trade fair, because they're so smug and comfortable about it that they can laugh straight in our faces. Again, the American people - the electorate of the world's biggest oil producer and the world's second biggest polluter - have made their feelings on the matter plain, and that is the end of that.
Every time you or I buy a product, like any smart phone or just basically any electronics, the components pass through dozens of countries, which will increase CO2 for some of the same countries. What I meant by that was we don't give a thought to them when we consume what we consume, and even if you or I do, the investment funds are all fossil fuel-charged, so bye bye US-style 401K investments. Even social security is backed up by US Treasury bills based off of US economic growth and US military backing, which uses lots of fossil fuels.

The American consumer needs a viable way to have an impact on the world, be in a similar technology ecosystem, eat more local, etc. And just have an alternative to globalization and fossil fuel-backed trade products. Even if we make a million artificial reefs and cleanse the atmosphere of CO2 by shooting into Mars or storing it somehow. We have the extinction of who knows how many animal species to deal with.
 

Silvanus

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First, stop saying modest, it doesn't mean anything.
No. If you're using hysterical language like "outlawing wealth", then I'm going to highlight just how little the taxes are relative to the wealth held by these people.

Second, how does a transfer of stock and cash between parties rich enough to make that transaction contribute to society?
The contribution of tax to the treasury is what contributes to society.

Though the wider distribution of shares over a larger group of people, making it less concentrated, is a separate societal benefit.