I cannot believe that there are people praising Merkel with a straight face. She is literally a laughing stock in Europe, I put her as the poster boy for immigration crisis together with the energy crisis. The only thing she did was shove problems further in the future not caring about the consequences.
I think you have a strange definition of "laughingstock". Germany went from an economic powerhouse of Europe to factory shutdowns and a bunch of bumbling sniveling elites who are afraid of the people they are leading and want to ban them from having a say.
Finally vindicated! For years we were arguing with the Apple fanboys here on HN about what Apple is doing and how it is wrong, immoral and illegal. Glad to see something starting to happen.
I just wonder what are the next excuses going to be?
This list is a pure fallacy of statistical understanding. Skewed data and cherry-picking while also being strengthened by our subjective biases. I would appreciate the list way more if it also included founders who applied but were rejected, or for any other reason were not invested in.
For stuff like this I recommend the book, May Contain Lies by Alex Edmans, he does a fantastic job explaining how most of the time we seek data to confirm our hypotheses, instead of seeking a hypotheses that confirms our data.
Well written, I agree with the basic premise of the idea, I just think the changes will be even more dramatic.
A lot of us are stationary, thinking stuff and other people around us will be automated, but not us, “I am special”, well I fear a lot of people will find out just how much special they unfortunately are (not).
You won’t hear that here because HN is notoriously pro Apple for some reason, even though all the evidence points to Apple being the same, if not bigger evil than Google
Higher top marginal income tax rate (was much higher in the 50s, 60s, 70s). Higher capital gains tax.
And then use the income from that to distribute wealth through things like single payer health care, affordable housing etc. So the basic needed expenses don't take up such a large portion of the budget for middle income households.
Anyone with 100 million dollars or more does not have an income (unless they decide for their own reasons to voluntarily have one; but we will ignore that for the moment).
Who do you think makes the decision regarding the way the government will collect its money?
Ans: The people with 100 million dollars or more. They pay to elect their Senator and Congressional Rep who will create the laws they are instructed to create.
So, when the wealthy told the politicians who should pay the money to operate the government, what did they decide?
Ans: People who worked for a living. People who had incomes. A tax on "income".
The very thing the truly wealthy did not have unless they choose to have an income.
And, the usual way wealthy have to pay tax is when they sell an asset, such as stock. Now there are two things to know about that:
1. Why would an ultra wealthy person sell stock?
Ans: To take advantage of an opportunity for that money to make an even greater annual return than it is currently making.
2. That is still not taxed as income. It is taxed as a long term capital gain. With a maximmum tax rate of 20%.
So, their money is moved from one asset to an even better asset, and they are only taxed at a flat tax of 20% on the profit when the asset is sold before it is invested into the better investment. And of course, they only do this if the proposed new investment is so much better than the way the money is currently invested, that it is going to make overwhelming financial profit after the 20% tax is paid (in other words, this is all by choice - unlike the income tax paid by the workers).
Higher marginal income taxes discourage investment and productivity and high capital gains causes high distortion/is difficult to implement/also discourage investment. Affordable housing shouldn't be tried to be solved by throwing money at it (subsidizing demand), the real way is to cause the supply to go up by laxer zoning and less restrictions. Inheritance taxes could also be used to 'level' the playing without causing huge distortion. Another good tax would be land value tax which would end up taxing those with more wealth the most as well as causing less speculation and more investment in actual companies which would fuel economic growth.
Better unions will never work in the US these days because of deindustrialization and globalization, can't really have leverage when your sector is getting smaller. There's also just no more 'union culture'.
> Higher marginal income taxes discourage investment
I'm not persuaded that this is true. They discourage investment in the stock market, and inhibit a venture capital model, but I think they encourage internal investment. I don't think it's a coincident that places like Bell Labs and Xerox PARC thrived during the high marginal tax regime, nor that back then companies were more apt to train and retain skilled labor: when C-class and stock-holders are taxed at a high rate there are more-useful things to do with profits than eye-watering compensation packages and stock buybacks.
how are high capital gains difficult to implement? we have clear 15/20% federal rules on them now. we can just change those numbers to whatever we want, like many states already have (NY, CA)
The problem is that this would have be to incorporated worldwide wise. Otherwise will capital first run to different cheaper state or different (tax paradise) country. I'm also not sure if alone would solve the problem.
IMHO we would have to probably have small tax on revenue rather than profit - so only something similar to VAT but smaller and without deduction. VAT seems the most honest tax since you pay it only for what you buy. Also maybe property tax but with cumulative different tax brackets (0 tax for first property). 50% average yearly rental tax for each property that is being empty more than 3 months a year - just to discourage and deflate real estate bubble.
Eventually we probably need overproduction for goods at the bottom of maslov piramid: shelter, energy, food, water, transportation. Robotics revolution maybe is some hope.
>The problem is that this would have be to incorporated worldwide wise. Otherwise will capital first run to different cheaper state or different (tax paradise) country. I'm also not sure if alone would solve the problem.
For the US specifically I disagree. The massive size of the US consumer market puts so much power in the hands of the government, that they are currently not using. Probably due to lobbying from corporations that try to prevent just that.
Agree on overproduction. This could also be handled by government subsidies or straight up government investment. Eg. solar and wind investment doesn't have a good ROI anymore for private companies. Maybe the state should be the provider of energy, so we can get very cheap and sustainable power.
As long as there are countries that allow for tax avoidance it's not gonna work. If my income is in the 10s of millions I am better off paying a few millions to some firm to handle every single thing for me to hyper optimize my life. They make you change residence on paper and buy fictitious tickets to prove you have been in country x at least y days during the fiscal year, and much more. You still end up saving way more than paying 20/30% of taxes on those 10s of millions.
There should be a global minimum tax, but trying to make every single ruling party in the world agree to that is a fool's errand. I think that what the little that got leaked by the Panama's papers few years ago is just the tip of the iceberg.
Since 2019, large corporations the world over have been forced to open up their books to fiscal entities in their respective countries. Every country could tax what these companies earn in their country, and also add some penalty for evaded taxes booked in other countries.
We can do the same with billionaires and their assets.
The tax evasion industry (for corporations as well as for individuals) needs way more regulation and penalties. These firms inflict a net negative cost on society.
The article was a positive surprise, I didn't expect such an informative outlook, covering both the doomer and optimist views.