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US Politics Mega-thread - Page 4282

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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting!

NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.

Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.


If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2603 Posts
July 19 2024 00:53 GMT
#85621
On July 19 2024 08:32 BlackJack wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 08:18 Fleetfeet wrote:
On July 19 2024 07:38 BlackJack wrote:
On July 19 2024 07:20 KwarK wrote:
On July 19 2024 06:18 BlackJack wrote:
On July 18 2024 21:00 KwarK wrote:
On July 18 2024 20:07 BlackJack wrote:
On July 18 2024 17:16 Acrofales wrote:
On July 18 2024 17:01 BlackJack wrote:
On July 18 2024 16:26 MJG wrote:
[quote]
I think that KwarK's more salient point was that someone who is willing to commit sexual assault probably isn't going to care what it says on the door to a restroom, and so the chances of someone faking being transgender just so that they can get into a restroom to sexually assault someone is vanishingly small.


As far as I can tell the only requirement to becoming a woman is to declare oneself a woman so it’s not exactly a giant hurdle to “fake being transgender” if someone wanted to use that as a ruse to gain entry to women’s spaces.

Do you think anybody at all will react significantly differently if a person with a lecherous look walks into the bathroom, and when confronted with why they are barging in answers "because I'm a woman" vs "because I wanted to"?


What’s your objective measure of a lecherous look? A wandering glance would probably be interpreted wildly differently in a women’s locker room if it came from a woman vs a man. That’s kind of why women don’t want men there in the first place. If however that person that appears to be a man simply says “but I’m a woman” then the women have to tolerate that persons presence lest they be a transphobe.

Again, common sense applies.


Whose common sense? To a lot of people it’s common sense that a man is not a woman just because they declare themselves so. You seem to maybe kind of agree(?) but if said man goes through the trouble of throwing on a dress and a wig then they definitely are woman…? There’s a reason why “anyone that says they are a woman is a woman” is the widely accepted belief because as soon as you open the door for “common sense” to dictate who is or isn’t a woman then the people applying the common sense might not be the people you want.

My common sense. Someone showing no signs of gender dysphoria and with no history of gender dysphoria and making no effort to transition and showing no interest in transitioning probably isn’t trans simply because they assert it.


Well hopefully your common sense as a non psychiatric trained layperson is pretty accurate because you wouldn’t want to go around misgendering people on a hunch


I'm usually FOR you being a centrist shit-disturber for the sake of being a centrist shit-disturber, but the whole conversation is bad faith and shitty.

All it takes for a man to be a woman is them to decide to be a woman. This is typically preceded by them having some struggle with gender dysphoria, and followed by some actual manifestations of transitioning.

It still fits this definition of trans to have a man decide that today is the day, apropos to nothing and with no former history of gender dysphoria, that they are a woman. It is dishonest to suggest that this is a majority of trans people and the lens through which we should assess transhood.

Therefore, I suggest we acknowledge that all it takes for a person to become trans is for them to decide they wish to transition or change their gender identity, and then do so. Like being gay, it doesn't make your life easier or better than 'just being normal', so it's pretty easy to trust that transitioning adults are not making such a decision lightly.

This bullshit "But wat about cishet men entering femme spacez b/c they decided theyr femme" is just a slap in the face to all the normal fucking trans people (like Plasmid) just trying to exist and live happily. Genuinely fuck off with it, and make yourself a part of some trans peoples' lives because the majority of them ARE just normal people, suffering like the rest of us and trying not to.


If you read the record back you'll see that I'm not the one bringing up restrooms. I believe Kwark was the one that brought them up. I'm pointing out that his solution of "just apply common sense" to determine who should or shouldn't belong in women's spaces is not a very good solution as you're asking lay people to make these "common sense" calls with any knowledge of the other person's medical records or history. By their very nature these common sense calls would need to be made on superficial judgements about appearance.


The restroom is not at issue, by default treating trans people as people is. If your common sense involves not treating someone like a person then fix your common sense.

A "common sense" understanding of common sense, in other words, excludes the 'common sense' of bigots, racists et al, because their common sense should by rights be uncommon. Simply because racists exist and their common sense is 'that black person is likely to steal something' doesn't mean nobody should ever refer to common sense.
Gahlo
Profile Joined February 2010
United States35162 Posts
July 19 2024 00:55 GMT
#85622
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?

It's gotta be Kamala or else there'd be a lot of people upset a woman/brown person got passed over.
ZeroByte13
Profile Joined March 2022
775 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-07-19 01:09:21
July 19 2024 01:01 GMT
#85623
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.
Incognoto
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
France10239 Posts
July 19 2024 01:07 GMT
#85624
On July 19 2024 08:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?


I think there would be an expectation for Kamala Harris to take over as the nominee by some of the Democrats, unless there's a completely open last-minute free-for-all for the nomination. I don't think that Harris would win that free-for-all, and I'm not sure if she'd be the best bet against Trump, but I do think there's a decent chance that she might be gifted the nomination.


I'm sure that Harris is not only a great candidate and qualified for the job, she would probably do a lot of good for this country.

However, given the political climate from the right in United States, I feel like she would likely lose the election against Trump. Whereas most Americans (myself included though I'm not technically American) would take no issue whatsoever against a woman (of color) taking the Oval Office, I think that unfortunately a sizeable amount of voters would take issue with that.

Given the high stakes of this election, I would hope that they do not nominate Harris. Maybe if districts weren't gerrymandered, maybe if voters were just a little more progressive. Right now, I can't see Harris as being the correct move. They already had a qualified woman run against Trump and that's partially what got us into this mess in the first place.

We live in a very sad, difficult world. Unfortunately even after thinking quite hard about it, I'm not exactly sure what would make a conservative come back to a political middle ground. We're too polarized.
maru lover forever
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45041 Posts
July 19 2024 01:29 GMT
#85625
On July 19 2024 09:55 Gahlo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?

It's gotta be Kamala or else there'd be a lot of people upset a woman/brown person got passed over.


It certainly would be amazing for a woman of color to have broken through the ultimate glass ceiling; that would definitely be a huge middle finger to Trump in more ways than one, and inspirational for so many people who lack representation.

On July 19 2024 10:07 Incognoto wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 08:57 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?


I think there would be an expectation for Kamala Harris to take over as the nominee by some of the Democrats, unless there's a completely open last-minute free-for-all for the nomination. I don't think that Harris would win that free-for-all, and I'm not sure if she'd be the best bet against Trump, but I do think there's a decent chance that she might be gifted the nomination.


I'm sure that Harris is not only a great candidate and qualified for the job, she would probably do a lot of good for this country.

However, given the political climate from the right in United States, I feel like she would likely lose the election against Trump. Whereas most Americans (myself included though I'm not technically American) would take no issue whatsoever against a woman (of color) taking the Oval Office, I think that unfortunately a sizeable amount of voters would take issue with that.

Given the high stakes of this election, I would hope that they do not nominate Harris. Maybe if districts weren't gerrymandered, maybe if voters were just a little more progressive. Right now, I can't see Harris as being the correct move. They already had a qualified woman run against Trump and that's partially what got us into this mess in the first place.

We live in a very sad, difficult world. Unfortunately even after thinking quite hard about it, I'm not exactly sure what would make a conservative come back to a political middle ground. We're too polarized.


I agree with your take on Harris and the unfortunate reality of the situation. I think she'd be a solid president, but I also think she's not in the best position to beat Trump. Whether or not her low head-to-head polls and low likeability scores are truly justified, I think at the end of the day, other candidates would be more likely to beat Trump. I think the number one priority needs to be maximizing our odds of beating Trump, and we sadly don't have the luxury of choosing from a plethora of candidates who already have great head-to-head polls against him.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
GreenHorizons
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States23464 Posts
July 19 2024 01:35 GMT
#85626
On July 19 2024 09:55 Gahlo wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?

It's gotta be Kamala or else there'd be a lot of people upset a woman/brown person got passed over.

Not as many as people seem to think, but the people that would be most bothered by it (outside of Harris's hired political circle) are mostly the same people the Democrats always tell to suck it up and fall in line anyway, because the alternative is so much worse. So while Harris is the obvious procedural pick and it would be messed up to skip over her, I wouldn't put it past Democrats to do it and demand those people fall in line or else.

That there's still even talk about it not being Harris is only because some top Dems are seriously considering/pushing for it not being her (usually by way of advocating an open/blitz/convention primary process).
"People like to look at history and think 'If that was me back then, I would have...' We're living through history, and the truth is, whatever you are doing now is probably what you would have done then" "Scratch a Liberal..."
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2603 Posts
July 19 2024 01:50 GMT
#85627
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.


I agree that the 1b solution wouldn't even work on paper. It's already the case that a lot of net worth isn't necessarily personal, and at best you'd get certain rich people to diversify their assets in less meaningful ways, like moving 800m worth of shares to each of their kids and/or to other countries etc.

Besides, it's currently an issue that policing the rich is difficult on account of them being rich. Even if you could get a capped networth policy in place, I have no faith it'd be policed adequately.
WombaT
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
Northern Ireland26028 Posts
July 19 2024 01:58 GMT
#85628
On July 19 2024 10:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 09:55 Gahlo wrote:
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?

It's gotta be Kamala or else there'd be a lot of people upset a woman/brown person got passed over.

Not as many as people seem to think, but the people that would be most bothered by it (outside of Harris's hired political circle) are mostly the same people the Democrats always tell to suck it up and fall in line anyway, because the alternative is so much worse. So while Harris is the obvious procedural pick and it would be messed up to skip over her, I wouldn't put it past Democrats to do it and demand those people fall in line or else.

That there's still even talk about it not being Harris is only because some top Dems are seriously considering/pushing for it not being her (usually by way of advocating an open/blitz/convention primary process).

I’m not sure about that, my sense is the cohort that would be most bothered is the very cohort that actively pushes ‘vote Blue no matter who’
'You'll always be the cuddly marsupial of my heart, despite the inherent flaws of your ancestry' - Squat
GreenHorizons
Profile Blog Joined April 2011
United States23464 Posts
July 19 2024 02:24 GMT
#85629
On July 19 2024 10:58 WombaT wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 10:35 GreenHorizons wrote:
On July 19 2024 09:55 Gahlo wrote:
On July 19 2024 08:54 Incognoto wrote:
Should Biden drop out, who would be the most likely Democratic nominee?

It's gotta be Kamala or else there'd be a lot of people upset a woman/brown person got passed over.

Not as many as people seem to think, but the people that would be most bothered by it (outside of Harris's hired political circle) are mostly the same people the Democrats always tell to suck it up and fall in line anyway, because the alternative is so much worse. So while Harris is the obvious procedural pick and it would be messed up to skip over her, I wouldn't put it past Democrats to do it and demand those people fall in line or else.

That there's still even talk about it not being Harris is only because some top Dems are seriously considering/pushing for it not being her (usually by way of advocating an open/blitz/convention primary process).

I’m not sure about that, my sense is the cohort that would be most bothered is the very cohort that actively pushes ‘vote Blue no matter who’

There's definitely overlap. It's basically two centrist factions fighting over aesthetics with the Harris cohort leaning heavily on Black voters. Those Black Harris supporters are who I'm referencing being most (and pretty righteously) upset and reliably told to get in line anyway.
"People like to look at history and think 'If that was me back then, I would have...' We're living through history, and the truth is, whatever you are doing now is probably what you would have done then" "Scratch a Liberal..."
KwarK
Profile Blog Joined July 2006
United States43219 Posts
July 19 2024 02:35 GMT
#85630
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.

People always present this as an unsolvable tax problem because they don't know that it's already how the tax code works for businesses. Losses can be carried back against prior year tax payments to get refunds for overpayments once the multiple year period is averaged. It's already a thing that we do, it's been worked out, it's been solved, it's been put into practice, it's the furthest thing from a gotcha.
ModeratorThe angels have the phone box
Simberto
Profile Blog Joined July 2010
Germany11629 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-07-19 04:37:49
July 19 2024 04:34 GMT
#85631
On July 19 2024 10:50 Fleetfeet wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.


I agree that the 1b solution wouldn't even work on paper. It's already the case that a lot of net worth isn't necessarily personal, and at best you'd get certain rich people to diversify their assets in less meaningful ways, like moving 800m worth of shares to each of their kids and/or to other countries etc.

Besides, it's currently an issue that policing the rich is difficult on account of them being rich. Even if you could get a capped networth policy in place, I have no faith it'd be policed adequately.


I agree that a hard cap at 1 billion, as is sometimes proposed, is probably not the way to go.

Luckily, that is not what i would propose.

My main steps would be:

1 (incredibly easy): Make sure that the rich actually pay the taxes the owe. This means funding the IRS to the point that it can actually prosecute tax crimes by the rich, and not just have barely enough personnel to prosecute those who cannot afford fancy lawyers. Luckily, this costs negative money, as it actually earns more than it costs.

2 (much harder, but necessary for anything else): Reduce the absurd amounts of influence rich people have by limitting how much they can spend on "elections" aka bribing politicians.

3 (also kinda hard): Massive inheritance taxes on anything beyond a few million. Inheritance is very easy to tax, because it is completely unearned money that some people who already won the birth lottery and got incredible education and connections just get gifted for no reason other than that they were born to the right parents. To avoid/reduce a class of hereditary nobility, we need to tax that free money.

4 ( starting to get political): Have a wealth tax. To avoid money clumping into ever increasing piles at the top, while normal people have to fight for the scraps, we need to tax those piles themselves. The US is in the unique position where they can actually do that without the super rich easily escaping with their money, since they already tax US citizens abroad.

5 (maybe more controversial and potentially more problematic) : Tax changes in net worth, not income. If you were worth 200 billion last year, and are worth 250 billion now, surely you have gained 50 billion. Which should be taxable. Kwark could probably figure out a way how to do that in detail without it completely breaking everything.
Fleetfeet
Profile Blog Joined May 2014
Canada2603 Posts
July 19 2024 05:05 GMT
#85632
On July 19 2024 13:34 Simberto wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 10:50 Fleetfeet wrote:
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.


I agree that the 1b solution wouldn't even work on paper. It's already the case that a lot of net worth isn't necessarily personal, and at best you'd get certain rich people to diversify their assets in less meaningful ways, like moving 800m worth of shares to each of their kids and/or to other countries etc.

Besides, it's currently an issue that policing the rich is difficult on account of them being rich. Even if you could get a capped networth policy in place, I have no faith it'd be policed adequately.


I agree that a hard cap at 1 billion, as is sometimes proposed, is probably not the way to go.

Luckily, that is not what i would propose.

My main steps would be:

1 (incredibly easy): Make sure that the rich actually pay the taxes the owe. This means funding the IRS to the point that it can actually prosecute tax crimes by the rich, and not just have barely enough personnel to prosecute those who cannot afford fancy lawyers. Luckily, this costs negative money, as it actually earns more than it costs.

2 (much harder, but necessary for anything else): Reduce the absurd amounts of influence rich people have by limitting how much they can spend on "elections" aka bribing politicians.

3 (also kinda hard): Massive inheritance taxes on anything beyond a few million. Inheritance is very easy to tax, because it is completely unearned money that some people who already won the birth lottery and got incredible education and connections just get gifted for no reason other than that they were born to the right parents. To avoid/reduce a class of hereditary nobility, we need to tax that free money.

4 ( starting to get political): Have a wealth tax. To avoid money clumping into ever increasing piles at the top, while normal people have to fight for the scraps, we need to tax those piles themselves. The US is in the unique position where they can actually do that without the super rich easily escaping with their money, since they already tax US citizens abroad.

5 (maybe more controversial and potentially more problematic) : Tax changes in net worth, not income. If you were worth 200 billion last year, and are worth 250 billion now, surely you have gained 50 billion. Which should be taxable. Kwark could probably figure out a way how to do that in detail without it completely breaking everything.


A lot of this goes over my head, as there are too many moving parts for me to track and ponder legislation about.

However, don't some of these already exist? I'd be surprised if there weren't limits and controls on how much a person or corporation can donate to a political party, and those limits were just flatly circumvented. In fact, isn't that what the point of superPACs is?

There's also a 'wealth tax' in the form of tax brackets, which also doesn't seem to work correctly and is just often circumvented.
Uldridge
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Belgium4954 Posts
July 19 2024 06:52 GMT
#85633
If I'm correct, the progressive tax is circumvented by all sorts of things that can be written off, making your actual income seem a whole lot less on paper (and in actuality because that's how it works).
However, one must also realise that money is a way to leverage influence. Fancy dinner parties, fundraisers, art stuff, humanitarian aid, seed funding, lobbying in a sense.
Many people just want some kind of prominent position on the human leaderboard for whatever reason. Maybe they have a deep sense of insecurity to deal with so they can show with tangible metrics how objective their success is.
Taxes are for Terrans
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45041 Posts
July 19 2024 06:53 GMT
#85634
On July 19 2024 14:05 Fleetfeet wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 13:34 Simberto wrote:
On July 19 2024 10:50 Fleetfeet wrote:
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:
On July 19 2024 06:07 Simberto wrote:
It is basically impossible to grasp just how absurdly wealthy a billionaire is. And we have people who hoard hundreds of billions, like some kind of dragon.
Most of billionaires don't have their billions in cash, right?
They have them mosty as shares in huge companies - usually the ones they created or helped to themselves, even if not always.

Someone here proposed to restrict the max wealth size to 1 billion dollars.
Ok, let's say I founded a company and it became really big.
I might be worth 2 billion dollars, but I don't have them in cash, I'm worth 2 billions because I have 20% of shares in a company with market evaluation of 10 billions.

So how would you restrict it?
I'll have to lose (to whom?) 10% of my shares to make it less than 1 billion? But next month something happens with the market and the company's value drops - do you propose to give these shares back or what, to compensate? How would it work?

I'm not saying billionaires shouldn't have high taxes or it's ok for them to abuse their power, etc.
But "hoarding hundreds of billions" sounds like they have Scrooge McDuck-like vault with gold or something.


I agree that the 1b solution wouldn't even work on paper. It's already the case that a lot of net worth isn't necessarily personal, and at best you'd get certain rich people to diversify their assets in less meaningful ways, like moving 800m worth of shares to each of their kids and/or to other countries etc.

Besides, it's currently an issue that policing the rich is difficult on account of them being rich. Even if you could get a capped networth policy in place, I have no faith it'd be policed adequately.


I agree that a hard cap at 1 billion, as is sometimes proposed, is probably not the way to go.

Luckily, that is not what i would propose.

My main steps would be:

1 (incredibly easy): Make sure that the rich actually pay the taxes the owe. This means funding the IRS to the point that it can actually prosecute tax crimes by the rich, and not just have barely enough personnel to prosecute those who cannot afford fancy lawyers. Luckily, this costs negative money, as it actually earns more than it costs.

2 (much harder, but necessary for anything else): Reduce the absurd amounts of influence rich people have by limitting how much they can spend on "elections" aka bribing politicians.

3 (also kinda hard): Massive inheritance taxes on anything beyond a few million. Inheritance is very easy to tax, because it is completely unearned money that some people who already won the birth lottery and got incredible education and connections just get gifted for no reason other than that they were born to the right parents. To avoid/reduce a class of hereditary nobility, we need to tax that free money.

4 ( starting to get political): Have a wealth tax. To avoid money clumping into ever increasing piles at the top, while normal people have to fight for the scraps, we need to tax those piles themselves. The US is in the unique position where they can actually do that without the super rich easily escaping with their money, since they already tax US citizens abroad.

5 (maybe more controversial and potentially more problematic) : Tax changes in net worth, not income. If you were worth 200 billion last year, and are worth 250 billion now, surely you have gained 50 billion. Which should be taxable. Kwark could probably figure out a way how to do that in detail without it completely breaking everything.


A lot of this goes over my head, as there are too many moving parts for me to track and ponder legislation about.

However, don't some of these already exist? I'd be surprised if there weren't limits and controls on how much a person or corporation can donate to a political party, and those limits were just flatly circumvented. In fact, isn't that what the point of superPACs is?

There's also a 'wealth tax' in the form of tax brackets, which also doesn't seem to work correctly and is just often circumvented.


On a related note: Elon Musk just pledged to give $45 million each month, for 4 months, to support Trump's campaign. Should end up being around $180M total, between now and November.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-plans-commit-around-45-million-month-new-pro-trump-super-pac-wsj-reports-2024-07-16/
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Uldridge
Profile Blog Joined January 2011
Belgium4954 Posts
July 19 2024 07:05 GMT
#85635
So, the masks are off? Wasn't Elon still till last week an overtly covert Trump supporter?

Yesterday, I've seen the reasoning that Russian influence might actually be so much higher than imagined before. Now, it goes into tinfoil a bit, but the fact that you have someone like Candace Owens always deflect Russian criticism and only critiques the USA and the current failing executive apparatus. Weird ways to influence the local sentiment. Say Putin is a smart, well reasoning, well spoken individual while saying Biden is a mumbling fool, might be correct, but is so ultra corrosive, it seemingly makes no sense.
Taxes are for Terrans
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45041 Posts
July 19 2024 07:09 GMT
#85636
On July 19 2024 16:05 Uldridge wrote:
So, the masks are off? Wasn't Elon still till last week an overtly covert Trump supporter?


Yeah. Elon Musk had clearly been pushing a pro-Trump/pro-conservative agenda on Twitter/X for a while now, but he finally made a public announcement right after Trump's assassination attempt. I don't think anyone was surprised by him admitting what we already knew about him.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
Acrofales
Profile Joined August 2010
Spain18114 Posts
Last Edited: 2024-07-19 07:36:10
July 19 2024 07:24 GMT
#85637
On July 19 2024 16:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 16:05 Uldridge wrote:
So, the masks are off? Wasn't Elon still till last week an overtly covert Trump supporter?


Yeah. Elon Musk had clearly been pushing a pro-Trump/pro-conservative agenda on Twitter/X for a while now, but he finally made a public announcement right after Trump's assassination attempt. I don't think anyone was surprised by him admitting what we already knew about him.

Wasn't that fake news?

https://time.com/6999003/elon-musk-donate-millions-trump-campaign-america-pac/

Guess it's he said she said until the accounting has to be updated.
DarkPlasmaBall
Profile Blog Joined March 2010
United States45041 Posts
July 19 2024 07:46 GMT
#85638
On July 19 2024 16:24 Acrofales wrote:
Show nested quote +
On July 19 2024 16:09 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:
On July 19 2024 16:05 Uldridge wrote:
So, the masks are off? Wasn't Elon still till last week an overtly covert Trump supporter?


Yeah. Elon Musk had clearly been pushing a pro-Trump/pro-conservative agenda on Twitter/X for a while now, but he finally made a public announcement right after Trump's assassination attempt. I don't think anyone was surprised by him admitting what we already knew about him.

Wasn't that fake news?

https://time.com/6999003/elon-musk-donate-millions-trump-campaign-america-pac/

Guess it's he said she said until the accounting has to be updated.


Ah, there are definitely conflicting sources on how much money Musk will be giving Trump, if any, besides his public support and social media platform. Thanks for the correction; I think we'll have to wait and see.
"There is nothing more satisfying than looking at a crowd of people and helping them get what I love." ~Day[9] Daily #100
KT_Elwood
Profile Joined July 2015
Germany1085 Posts
July 19 2024 08:10 GMT
#85639
On July 19 2024 10:01 ZeroByte13 wrote:


So how would you restrict it?



Big companies need to be publicly traded at below 1000$ per stock (auto split).
This would allow to take away the (mostly inherited) wealth that some people wield.
Just splitt the excess wealth amongst the employees.





"First he eats our dogs, and then he taxes the penguins... Donald Trump truly is the Donald Trump of our generation. " -DPB
Gorsameth
Profile Joined April 2010
Netherlands21952 Posts
July 19 2024 08:32 GMT
#85640
Elon Musk has been openly pushing Nazi propaganda for a while, as in quoting and retweeting actual nazis on twitter.
There hasn't been any question about which side of the fence he is on for a long while.
It ignores such insignificant forces as time, entropy, and death
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