It is impossible to defend democratic rights or any of the social interests of working people without seizing the unearned wealth of the billionaire parasites.
Billionaires technically don’t have much personal wealth. They leverage their illiquid assets as collateral to take out massive loans. Which they can later cover with taking out even bigger loans.
The liquid wealth of the wealthy is very low, technically in debt. This is another way they can avoid paying tax as they technically don’t have much of anything, and the reason why ‘declining to take a salary’ is typically meaningless.
That feels like an easy loophole to patch- Treat loans as income. Maybe tax it at some separate progressive rate so people using small loans as intended don’t get fucked. But if Muskerberg has $100 million in loans taken out against his stock, taxing $90 million of that as income would make a difference. Especially if the top rate is like 90%.
So a loan of $10 million has like $5mil taxed right away? You get $5mil to spend, and still owe the bank like $12mil? Those interest rates are insane, and will definitely affect the working class more than the ultra-wealthy. Specifically businesses, which will increase giants’ monopolies. And you can’t make businesses an exception, because then the ultra-wealthy will borrow through those.
The money is not the problem. Money isn’t real, it’s just a tool that represents power and resources. There’s nothing you can do to tax or control money itself because what wealthy people have is all the resources, and they can leverage them with or without money.
You can’t tax your way out of hierarchal Capitalism. The rich are paying as much tax as the current system legally asks of them - which is very little, when your wealth is in resources and not money.
The poor and workers are more affected by taxes and costs because most of our worth is in money. Once you have enough to start investing and have resources, your worth can grow rapidly.
I don’t think the working class is taking out $10mm personal loans against their stock portfolios. And if you do it with a progressive model, smaller players won’t be impacted much or at all. Otherwise, if it’s being used like income it should be taxed like income.
I don’t think the rich people’s “resources” are that useful if they can’t turn them into fungible money. Can’t eat Tesla stocks. They have power through other mechanisms like access and owning platforms, but money is a big part of it. They can spend money on elections, on bribes, on buying platforms. So I’m not really sure what you meant by the distinction between resources and money.
Well if it doesn’t, sell your stock to yourself a la Elon Musk, who sold X at a loss to XAI (a company he also majority owns). The ‘loss’ of ~6bil in value (iirc) means he can now gain ~6bil from any other sources without paying gains tax.
Billionaires technically don’t have much personal wealth. They leverage their illiquid assets as collateral to take out massive loans. Which they can later cover with taking out even bigger loans.
The liquid wealth of the wealthy is very low, technically in debt. This is another way they can avoid paying tax as they technically don’t have much of anything, and the reason why ‘declining to take a salary’ is typically meaningless.
They shouldn’t control that much wealth anyway, even if it’s not ‘real’ money
That feels like an easy loophole to patch- Treat loans as income. Maybe tax it at some separate progressive rate so people using small loans as intended don’t get fucked. But if Muskerberg has $100 million in loans taken out against his stock, taxing $90 million of that as income would make a difference. Especially if the top rate is like 90%.
So a loan of $10 million has like $5mil taxed right away? You get $5mil to spend, and still owe the bank like $12mil? Those interest rates are insane, and will definitely affect the working class more than the ultra-wealthy. Specifically businesses, which will increase giants’ monopolies. And you can’t make businesses an exception, because then the ultra-wealthy will borrow through those.
The money is not the problem. Money isn’t real, it’s just a tool that represents power and resources. There’s nothing you can do to tax or control money itself because what wealthy people have is all the resources, and they can leverage them with or without money.
You can’t tax your way out of hierarchal Capitalism. The rich are paying as much tax as the current system legally asks of them - which is very little, when your wealth is in resources and not money.
The poor and workers are more affected by taxes and costs because most of our worth is in money. Once you have enough to start investing and have resources, your worth can grow rapidly.
I don’t think the working class is taking out $10mm personal loans against their stock portfolios. And if you do it with a progressive model, smaller players won’t be impacted much or at all. Otherwise, if it’s being used like income it should be taxed like income.
I don’t think the rich people’s “resources” are that useful if they can’t turn them into fungible money. Can’t eat Tesla stocks. They have power through other mechanisms like access and owning platforms, but money is a big part of it. They can spend money on elections, on bribes, on buying platforms. So I’m not really sure what you meant by the distinction between resources and money.
Buy borrow die
It does have a notable Achilles heel though, which is that the underlying portfolio has to keep appreciating in value.
Well if it doesn’t, sell your stock to yourself a la Elon Musk, who sold X at a loss to XAI (a company he also majority owns). The ‘loss’ of ~6bil in value (iirc) means he can now gain ~6bil from any other sources without paying gains tax.