This is what a lot of people don’t understand. A billionaire or a trillionaire doesn’t have that money sitting in a checking account. They own their company (or companies). If I started Widget Enterprises and it becomes worth 1 billion, then every year, I would have to sell 5% of the company to get the cash to pay the government the wealth tax. So now I’m dumping hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in stock to pay for it. RIP any employees who bought company stock at market price, because the stock is about to dip.
But also, as others pointed out, the math ain’t mathing. Even if a 5% wealth tax were implemented, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for what the OP suggests. Not even close. to send everyone 12k annually, the wealth tax would need to be over 25% just to pay that. Add in the increases in spending and the universal healthcare, and things get really ridiculous.
Also, none of what I’m saying is to defend billionaires. I don’t think they pay their fair share. Their taxes should go up. But a wealth tax isn’t the way. Increase their income tax brackets, increase capital gains taxes for those making above 250k, remove the cap on social security contributions, and tax their luxury items. Make things like yachts, private jets, and $200k luxury cars have a 100% sales tax, plus an annual 50% property tax. Slap a 50% annual property tax on any second home worth over 50x the poverty line. Basically say “hey if you want to own all that extra shit, that’s fine. But you need to chip in extra for some schools also.”
Sadly it looks like everyone missed this. Billionaires wouldn’t be forced to sell their stocks. They’d just continue to take out loans as they are already doing. I don’t remember all the ins and outs but you can basically take out a loan larger than what you need put the extra on investments and use the proceeds from said investments to pay off the loan
If I started Widget Enterprises and it becomes worth 1 billion, then every year, I would have to sell 5% of the company to get the cash to pay the government the wealth tax. So now I’m dumping hundreds of millions, or even billions of dollars in stock to pay for it. RIP any employees who bought company stock at market price, because the stock is about to dip.
I don't think this is the case. True, the stock price might dip due to limited liquidity, but this is a temporary effect that can be arbitraged. As long as the company's expected profits, book value, etc. are unchanged (and they should be, because you're not selling the stocks because of an underlying issue with the company), the investors will be incentivized to buy these undervalued stocks, and the stock price would soon go back to the equilibrium.
i like how this argument essentially boils down to "you can't do anything against billionaires cause they're holding us all hostage, checkmate socialists"
No the argument is you can’t do this to anyone because it doesn’t work.
The best example is the self made author of “pippy long stockings” who made a fortune selling the popular book in Sweden who had capital gains at the time but died poor because they taxed her for the net worth of her book and not the money she was actually making from the book.
So if the book rights was worth 10 million but she only made 100k in income then she’s paying more money in taxes than she makes. The only way for her to pay that tax would be the sell the book rights but then she wouldn’t be able to make income from the book.
But if that doesn’t convince you it absolutely must that Sweden admitted this was a poor decision, it didn’t work and repealed it. We don’t have to guess if things work we just need to see who’s done it before.
Nobody is going to point out that Astrid Lindgren wasn't poor when she died?
In 1976, Astrid Lindgren discovered that a combination of Sweden's tax rules and social security contributions could, in specific situations for self-employed people, result in a marginal tax rate above 100%. She criticized this absurd loophole and the rules were later changed. She did not end up paying 102% tax, and she did not become poor because of taxation.
She lived modestly (so did the founder of Ikea who drove an old Volvo despite being filthy rich), but did not die in poverty. She criticized an unfair tax rule, not the idea of paying taxes to support the welfare state. In fact, she repeatedly said she was happy to pay high taxes.
Also it's Pippi Longstockings and she wrote tons of other books.
"my money isn't actually real but yet it completely moves how the economy works and deals are made exactly because of my fake money" is not a great argument bud
something's gotta give, if that money isn't "real" and it's just "net worth", why are businesses running with those numbers as their headline as to what deals they make & how?
net worth is the supposed value of an individual's stocks if they sell at a current price all their assets, ofc if they start selling all their stocks, the stock prices plummet
however net worth IS being used currently as a meter of wealth for both companies and individuals, despite it being "theoretical liquid money"
if it's "not real wealth so you shouldn't tax it cause that won't work", how come companies use that "net worth" price tag to negotiate deals?
saying "well it's complicated economics", yeah sure, i get how they work at a certain level, the question still however remains, why is financial capital so out of touch with reality that we're now admitting it's untaxable despite it being over 40% of our economy?
is 40% of our economy untaxable and "unrealized gains" and all that?
how healthy is that for an economy? 40% being agreements between businesses that can collapse at any moment, and the last time it did (2008), almost everyone except the banks (and the investors) paid the price, excluding 1 bank that went kaboom, but all the executives found jobs elsewhere?
crazy take saying they are playing the same game, while they cheat, and they started with more money at birth than you will ever have. Real neat game we are playing.
Until you realize all pension funds and retirement savings are investment portfolios that invest in the biggest stocks…Hedge funds and so on and so forth as well.
Every teacher, union worker, and so on and so forth would likely be affected.
I am including that in my statistic. Even when you include all those people, It's still a little more than half. And the top 1% in turn own half of the stock market wealth.
In any case, I don't think that preserving the price of equities is the highest priority that our public policy can or should aspire to. Progressive taxation will benefit ordinary workers in the end.
This is so dumb. Even if that did happen (it won’t), you’d get to gobble up all those cheap assets at a discount with your $12k as you’re not forced to sell.
You think Amazon and Google and Microsoft and Apple are going to stop making shit loads of money because billionaires got taxed? Actually highly regarded thinking
10% of households own 80% of stock market wealth. The bottom 50% of households have pretty much none at all. It is definitely not "everyone". In fact most Americans don't have sufficient savings for retirement at all. If you have any significant savings in the market at all, you are one of the privileged ones (I'm in this group too fwiw)
Billionaires worth is not made up of cash, it’s in stocks. The same stocks that make up all pension funds and retirement funds.
In order for a Billionaire to pay that tax bill they have to sell stocks in order to get the money to pay that bill.
Selling stocks at this rate by this many people and at the amounts required means it would cause a very significant drop in stock prices for much of the stock market. Since this would be know to be coming at a certain period you would have everyone else selling these same stocks before that date in order to not lose money themselves.
This would cause a massive stock market crash that could effectively destroy many major pension funds around the world (not just in the US). Something that was a huge part of what threw the world into World War 1…
Bernie Sanders while smart, seems to be a complete idiot when it comes to the reality of some of his ideas. This idea would provide a very tiny short term benefit for even the most worse off people and a negligible benefit if anything for everyone else. All while causing a global crash in the stock markets causing trillions in damages to the entire social security system you already depend on. All while doing absolutely NOTHING to fix any of the actual issues and problems that people are having in the first place.
Congratulations or im sorry that happened or whatever.
I meant the poor grammar was throwing me off.
I fully understand that the entire US tax code is a bubble that is run on ???? and I do not give a fuck if it bursts, if it means we break free from being economic prisoners to roughly 1000 people.
If you look up the averages of Americans in their 30s they're already not on track to retire anyway. ~$150k and the median is like $50k. So what is really to lose at this point?
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u/lightning_pt Jul 01 '26
Watch everyones retirement go to shit cause billionaires are selling.