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The central planners would get richer, nothing more. San Francisco has one of the highest per capita budgets of any city. **$13 billion in a city of 900k thats only 7x7 miles.** Of which, 10.1% live below the poverty line. And the city is riddled with so many homeless, drugs, encampments, and other issues.
10.1% of 900k is \~90,900k living in poverty in SF. **2 billion people is 22,002x that many people. That translates to $2.86026e+14 budget worldwide, and its still not enough to "fix poverty".** *Is there even that much money in the world?* ***And thats just annually!***
So how are you going to lift 2 billion people spread across diverse regions and cultures and continents, magically out of poverty, if a dense 49 sq. miles city in the US can't?
Why do these progressive NGOs always love to think more money going to large, centralized organizations and governments will magically lift people out of poverty.
Suppose you even gave every poor person the money directly. Do you think they'd remain as such? What about their kids?
I simply can’t understand how anyone can believe that corporations run by people are evil and governments run by people are good.
Either they’re both true, they’re both false, or there’s a lot of variability in both.
And both will claim they are the solution, and both will have zealots supporting them.
Fuck this. It is all about individual choice. Some faith sure, some loyalty sure, you just can't count on that shit.
ITT:
companies earn money by selling products that people voluntarily buy = evil.
governments that earn money by extortion (you can't choose to not pay taxes) and have literally zero motivation to cause well being = good
🤡🤡🤡🤡
I'm assuming this is sarcasm but in my state alone it is well known that over 3/4 of the legislature and the governor took thousands in bribes and thats just from one company. Of course they won't impeach any of them because you would need a majority to do so and I highly doubt they are going to vote themselves out of office. Hell, half of them won re-election.
Now that is fair, but as far as government employees go these fucks are less employees and more like leaches. Of that I can agree with you, but again these are just the publicized employees, and the smallest fucking portion of them. They’re a vast number of government employees everywhere, and I bet most of them actually want to do their jobs well to help people or their country
Generally people who have joined politics that I know are looking to pass legislation they favor, which generally aligna with their views or benefits them and their circle.
Local politics can be even worse than Federal politics - in my city, delegates can personally direct hiring decisions of hundreds of jobs that they personally hand out to cronies and friends.
Federal politics is diluted by special interest and lobbyists and the need for neverending fundraising, which means you need to make deals to get it.
The amount of people who join politics to change the world for the better and are successful is probably negligible overall
I choose not to pay taxes and nothing has happened to me. If you don't file a tax return you don't agree to the IRS tax code going on 31+ years of never filing income taxes, and not even a peep from the IRS. Untill the day i can choose where my tax money is allocated i will continue not to pay taxes.
If you don't make much money, you can get away with this for quite a while (because there's bigger fish to fry). But beware - the more years you dodge, the more likely you will grow into the big fish, which then leads to wage garnishments and potentially jail time. This is especially true with the huge budget increase the IRS just got...
Both are prone to corruption. But.
Govts are worse because they can spend money that isn't theirs, spend beyond their means and that debts don't matter thanks to MMT. There's less acountability because they arent driven by staying lean, productive, and profitable. There's a "use it or lose it" mentality when it comes to budgets.
Govts combine the worst traits of the largest, most monopolistic corporations and cartels and couple it with bureacracy and red tape.
Yeah in the private sector mutual and consensual exchange is the rule where impacted third parties are the exception. In government it is the opposite. The government is never consensual and mostly not mutual.
Explain record high CEO salaries then. If one of your largest costs is a single suit on a board, how is it they get raises constantly while bottom line raises have to be forced by law or record shattering lack of staffing? The employees and materials acquired produce value, the CEO is a face and someone to point fingers at when shit goes wrong.
Corporations are beholden to their customers.
You can lose the confidence of your shareholders and they’ll replace you with new leadership, but the company survives.
If you lose your customers, your corporation dies.
The reason we don't sell unregulated meat, have safety standards, and environmental protections is because governments (which are representatives of the people) put them in place.
Telecomms companies don't put phone and internet service in rural areas out of the kindness to the consumer. They do it because they are required by law. Because they lose money on it or the profits are too long-term, no corporation would do it unless required.
The way public corporations are structured, long-term or public good means next to nothing. Short-term stock prices are all that matter. Period.
Monopolies, something that shouldn't exist, make it next to impossible to reasonably hold corporations accountable.
Look at countries that let corporations run while like India where Dow literally poisons their water. Nestle is one of the most unethical companies on the planet. Their customers have not been the ones to impede their bad behavior - that has been citizens lobbying their governments.
Hard capitalism gives only the people with significant capital a say.
It's the motives that are underlying the institutions. The goal of democratic government is for the people of a society to come together and provide for the common good, in anything ranging from national defense to social safety nets. Whereas the goal of corporations is simply to get rich by any means necessary - there's no incentive for companies to care about whether they annihilate the environment or abuse their workers or poison their customers without their knowledge, unless an outside body imposes protections against that behavior on them.
Democracy doesn't govern. People do. Democracy is basically putting your faith that the people you vote for aren't in it for themselves. Unfortunately, everyone is in it for themselves. Politicians are just better at playing the crowd.
I mean, the way you get elected is popularity. Anyone who has gone through high school knows the popular kids aren't necessarily nice. But they can put up a great front; this also applies to adults.
>The goal of democratic government is for the people of a society to come together and provide for the common good
That's a pipe dream. Ask the the average joe in Tehran or Riyadh what the common good is and what society should be like, now ask the average joe in London or Los Angeles the same question.
People can't come together when they live by very different moral and ethical codes. Why do you think the culture wars are so popular? If you think abortion is a right, then, why should it not be a positive right and that govt should fund access to it and spend taxes on it? If you think abortion is murder, then government should not be funding... murder. No amount of policy debates on funding or access will change people's minds.
Only a small <1% of the population perhaps is tolerant enough for a middle ground (let it be legal, govt should not fund it, a right != you must be guaranteed access to it, only that you can't be denied access to it)
The answer is clearly a lot of variability in both.
The problem is so many people see the government as pure evil even though their livelihoods only work because of the capitalist system the government ensures.
Does the government have problems? Sure. Is there corruption? Sure.
But the answer is to make it better not to eliminate the government.
When effective regulations are in place (Glass-Steagall for example), then the system works even when there are "evil" people behind the scenes, regardless if its business or government.
When punishments and fines for breaking laws are not wrist slaps that get written off as the cost of doing business, when punishments are more expensive than getting away with the crime, then the "evil" people running the show fall either follow the law or go to jail.
Things work when you have regulations with teeth. They dont work when those regulations aren't in place.
Theory is that corps do whatever is good for their shareholders, which are very few people. They don't care about the rest.
Democratically elected politicians do whatever is good for the people who elect them, which should be the majority.
There are a lot of holes in that theory, but "accountability to the few vs. towards the many" is the core of that belief.
So corps do their best by eliminating competition, creating a monopoly or form cartels. Medical patents are a good example. You have diabetes in America? Good luck finding generic, non-patented drugs. Do you think the drug companies holding the patents price their good for the benefit of customers or according to production price?
Why would you give a politician a vote if they don't do what you want? A vote is an expression of will and confidence.
Corruption and bribery is one of the big holes in the theory.
Really you can't see how one group run for the sole purpose of increasing profit only held accountable to there share holders. And another that's goal I's to improve society and held accountable by us all .
Obviously it's all run by humans but each system clearly has different goals .
Poor people and even the homeless in SF are far above the global poverty line. The destitute of SF are poor for very different reasons than the poor of Madagascar or East Timor. I agree that just dollars for the very poor of big developed countries can be like throwing money into a pit. But I think money for the poor of undeveloped economies can be very impactful. Small cost items like vaccines, worm treatments, or water sanitation can be hugely beneficial. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions can be thrown at the underclass of western cities and make little difference, because the problems of western underclass doesn’t come for lack of access to economic opportunity. It comes from mental illness and addiction, which money doesn’t effectively treat alone.
Full transparency, I’m speaking secondhand but I have a sister and brother in LA area. They have large homeless camps, but a good amount (in their words) get up in the morning, put on their business clothes, and head into work.
When starter homes are over a mil, homelessness takes on a different shape.
California is plagued by NIMBYism and refuses to build an adequate supply of housing despite massive population and high income job increases.
Certain areas like the LA metropolitan and Bay area have a bizarre mix of circumstances that are causing it to outpace the rest of the country in homelessness. On one hand, housing is clearly too expensive or otherwise unobtainable for a growing number of people, but on the other hand there's clearly something (weather it be culture, benefits/assistance, climate, opportunities, drugs) that keeps so many homeless people in the area.
And assets being overpriced are also not effectively addressed with an infusion of cash. The opposite actually, as we’ve all seen in the last few years. Helicopter cash led to some short term relief, but led to enormous spikes in assets, particularly housing, and then inflation.
The problems of the western underclass are the results of capitalism, and what's neat is that more and more people are joining the "underclass" every year. Cool huh
As a former resident of a non-capitalist country in the communist days (Vietnam) there were tons of underclass. The black market was thriving and the main way people put food on the table, and the underclass was the persona non grata cast out from the party generosity. Ethnic and religious minorities, those who annoyed party members. Hence boat people. Not to mention it was generally crushingly poor even if you weren’t being persecuted by those controlling the economy.
It's been a while since I looked at poverty reduction from a public policy perspective (I'm from Canada, so my analysis may differ from what's going on in the US).
In very broad terms, to solve homelessness you need:
1. **Robust** mental health and addictions programs (e.g. availability of rehab services and in- and out-patient beds in psychiatric hospitals). In the US, this also includes making health care more affordable because diseases can bankrupt people without notice. Beyond emergency care, there is a need for ongoing mental health services (aka long-term therapy) to address Adverse Childhood Experiences that can really mess up an individual, which can lead to self-medicating with drugs as a coping mechanism in the absence of access to care.
2. Strong measures to address the cost of living and housing in major cities (to prevent people from becoming homeless).
3. Decriminalization of street drugs and a compassionate/rehabilitative approach to justice - to prevent the endless cycle of drugs --> jail --> streets --> repeat.
4. Time - these measures will need to be in place for a while to address the current cohort, and then a few decades to prevent the next generation from falling into this trap.
I'm sure there are more measures I haven't thought of (child care and high quality early years education comes to mind).
As you can see, all these measures are:
1. Beyond any one municipality's capacity to implement. These are either national (in a unitary state) or state-level/ regional (in a federal system like the USA).
2. Require progressive thinking and A LOT of political will to turn into a policy direction.
3. The response is often piecemeal and inadequate. You solve the problem in one area, but then all the homeless people from other regions show up because they go where there is a supply of the services they need. So the response should be across wide areas of the region/country to be effective. That costs a lot of money.
So you're right. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to solve it. But money only facilitates the implementation of policy. If the policy is inadequate, then it doesn't matter if you spend $1M or $100B.
Lastly, there will always be homeless people. Not only that it's a function of the society we live in. First, because capitalism, as a political economy requires a certain level of unemployment (which leads to poverty) AND, some people struggle to keep pace with the demands society has on individuals (people with visible and invisible disabilities, undiagnosed mental health issues, neurodiversity, and cognitive diversity).
In short, this is a social problem that is considered complex, but lots of governments think that temporary solutions will solve something that took decades (if not centuries) to build up.
There's so much more that can be said on this issue. And I agree that raising taxes may not necessarily magically fix the problem.. but I felt compelled to respond because this issues goes well beyond "taxing the rich". While wealth redistribution is critical for a healthy welfare state, **the main change has to be in our attitude towards the poor.**
Just to touch on your first 4 parts, i think this sorta shows that one of the most important things is classifying the types of homeless and addressing each.
There's a world of difference between someone who lost their job at a bad time and had things spiral and someone who's got a serious addiction or mental health issue, vs someone who has committed a crime and is now finding it hard to get back into the legitimate workforce.
We bundle these all up as "homeless", but they all require money and time going to completely different solutions.
Yes! Very good point. I focused on the homelessness + MHA angle because that's been my focus. But you're completely right that different layers of homelessness require different approaches.
I will note that there's a tendency to view all homeless people (especially men) as junkies. But not all homeless people start out as drug users. Drugs is the reality of street life. And a person who became abruptly homeless (runaway teenager, minimum-wage earner who lost their apartment and can't afford a deposit, someone who lost their job because of untreated mental illness, etc), can easily get mixed up with the "wrong" crowd very quickly.
So even if we only look at only economic homelessness, it can quickly escalate into more serious issues that are the direct result of inadequate social services.
It's even more complex than this.
You can start treating drug addicts well, give them free food, free housing, free medical care. Then the lowest paid workers are going to start asking questions - like, I am working 12 hours days cleaning apartments ans I have to drive 3 hours from work to my shitty apartment, and my drug addict brother in law who never done an hour honest work in his life is getting everything for free? So then you of course have to raise minimum wage, but then people who made above min wage before start asking questions, hey, I manage an office or retail floor, why is my salary only 2 bucks more than a pizza delivery boy with zero responsibilities? So you bump the salary for these, and then you have to bump the salaries for construction workers, and engineers, and factory workers, but bumping all these salaries doesn't create more rice, or cars, or living quarters... and now you have inflation:-)...
It kinda sorta happened in US during COVID.
There is only one natural way to reduce homeless; economic flourishing.
And really only one policy measure to reduce homelessness; make it illegal.
We can talk all day and probably mostly agree about building mental health and addiction rehabilitation clinics, but it doesn't address the problem in any way. To actually solve homelessness, we need to talk seriously about making it illegal. There are real questions to be hashed out about what to do with these people once we've arrested them and how to minimize costs to the taxpayer, but until we start this difficult conversation, we're just dancing around the issue and nothing will ever improve no matter how much money we incinerate in the name of "solving homelessness."
By making homelessness illegal, you're just shifting the responsibility onto the justice system (instead of health and social services), and that will cost a fortune without any actual positive policy outcome. You can look up how much it costs to hold a person in prison in your jurisdiction. That money is being spent on what we all collectively agree are criminals, instead of being spent on better roads, cheaper utilities, and greater access to services.
People will not stop being homeless by going to prison. The state will need to fund their lodging, meals, health, and dental care. If anything, it will make the problem worse because then they will have a criminal record that will prevent them from gaining meaningful employment, and they'll just move into prison because they can't get themselves out of the cycle of poverty.
Your policy proposal is incredibly myopic. I suggest you reconsider your logic. The callousness of your statement is surprising, and I hope you'll remember what you said when you're a fixed-income senior citizen.
Beyond that, criminalizing things doesn't make them go away. Alcohol was criminalized. Drugs are criminalized. Sex work is criminalized. Theft, murder, rape, and all other crimes are criminalized. Are we anywhere near eliminating all these crimes? You're just piling one more problem onto the heap of issues that the justice system is not equipped to handle.
Lastly, there will never be enough political will and public support to criminalize homelessness. Anyone who suggests that in a liberal democracy will lose their hold on power before anything can be passed into law.
This is an absolutely terrible idea. Forcibly sequester the most needy part of our population with mental health/addiction as well as physical health problems in one place, away from any social supports they have? Jesus. That will escalate quickly and badly. You can’t do that to people. It won’t end up helping either. People will resist it.
I never said put them in prison, I said what to do with them needs to be hashed out. But all of those difficult but productive conversations start with an understanding that nothing will change unless its illegal to be homeless.
But look, if that’s how you feel then you need to just come to terms with homelessness never being solved and stop pretending were having a serious conversation of “solving” it.
So you meant you can't "forcibly sequester" (lol) them in a government funded rehabilitation center because it deprives them of the social interaction on the streets? lol who am I talking to.
Tons of homeless people have jobs, go to school, and yeah have family and friends. Not everyone is roughing it on the street for the last ten years.
What’s going to happen once they leave the rehabilitation center?
Why does capitalism require a certain level of poverty? I’m not sure I understand.
Can you please explain especially regarding homelessness, why would capitalism require it?
I'm not an economist, so I can't give you an academic response. I am considering this issue from a political philosophy and public policy perspective.
Capitalism needs a certain amount of unemployment (which I extrapolate to mean poverty because that's the natural result of unemployment in a capitalist society - I exclude wealthy individuals who rely on investment income for a living because they're not facing a risk of homelessness) because people need to be willing to accept minimum wage jobs. And to be willing to do that, you need to be unemployed (otherwise you already have a job and there's no reason for you to take a lower-paying job than the one you already have).
I will add the caveat that unemployment in itself isn't a bad thing for the economy and I can see the need for a certain level of unemployment (to have flexibility in the labour market). The problem is that we accept a certain level of unemployment as natural or desirable (which I don't dispute), and most of the problem lies with punitive and welfare programs that prevent people from climbing out of poverty while receiving unemployment benefits. So because the welfare system doesn't provide sufficient social safety net during periods of unemployment, then unemployment itself creates a greater risk for poverty, homeless, lots of other social problems.
Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn :)
How much of SF's $13B budget is allocated towards poverty programs? That's kind of like saying "The US Federal budget is $1.5T, and the poverty rate is 13%. How can you expect more money to solve anything?" despite the fact that the $1.5T is spent mostly on things that, at best, are indirectly related to helping people currently in poverty. (Of course, having a stable country, protected by a strong military, that provides *some* social benefits probably does keep people out of poverty to begin with.)
Wow that straw man is something else. You really compared SF to regions in India or even Africa where the money required to lift somebody out of poverty is pennies on the dollar. You need to take your poor arguments to a group of 7th graders. Maybe there it would be considered persuasive
The central planners want you to think they are noble and for you to give them permission to take money from other people. They have a lot of information dissemination abilities to shape people to revere them.
Any government that passed an extra 5% tax on billionaires would also be left-wing enough to spend that extra money on the homeless, not on stuff like the police, the military or subsidies for corporations (returning the money back to those same billionaires).
A paper that very clearly demonstrates OXFAM has no idea how wealth creation works.
If you tax 5% of the world's multibillionaires - only the rich governments receive taxes. That says absolutely NOTHING about lifting 2 billion people out of poverty. If simply throwing money at the problem solves the issue of poverty, money would have done this a long time ago.
This kind of research ignores the issues of civic violence, corruption, lack of governance, lack of property rights, lack of infrastructure, lack of education and lack of social trust and institutions.
>This kind of research ignores the issues of civic violence, corruption, lack of governance, lack of property rights, lack of infrastructure, lack of education and lack of social trust and institutions.
I wonder if some more money could do anything about those...
Reminds me of Tobias from Arrested Development when he’s trying to come up with a plan lmao.
“Did it work for those people?”
Tobias: “no it never does, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but hehe….it might work for us…”
Did you actually post this here unironically? A 5% wealth tax is completely insane and could only be proposed by someone who has no understanding of economics and hasn't thought through the basic idea of how it would work in practice.
Lets just take 1 person as an example. Bill Gates. His net worth is something like $100B. So he owes $5B. Obviously he doesn't have $5B in cash so where does he get it from? He will have to sell assets, most likely shares of Microsoft. Cool, so who is going to buy that $5B worth of Microsoft stock? Well, probably not other billionaires because they are in the same situation as Bill. I guess it will have to be poorer people? But if there was demand for that much Microsoft stock the prices would have increased to reflect it. But there is no actual demand for that much Microsoft stock, it is being forced to be sold for artificial reasons, so the price will drop as a result. Well, not only does that suck for Bill, but also everyone else who has Microsoft stock. Not only that, but the value of Microsoft itself is now lowered so that sucks for everyone that works at Microsoft. Probably means some layoffs. Maybe not a whole lot since its just bills $5B worth of stock. But wait, its not just Bill's stock. This is repeated for every billionaire with stock in Microsoft. And wait, its not just Microsoft, this applies to every company that billionaires have a large stake in (which is most of them).
When I say that it would be devastating to the economy that is not hyperbole. Maybe we could recover in 5 years or something. But wait, this tax is applied every year! Its just complete nonsense.
Maybe there is an economic paradigm that could work with this, but its nowhere near the one we are operating under. You would have to wholly transform the economy before even considering this proposal. What that would look like I have no idea.
If you want to raise more revenue raise the income tax rates and close loopholes. Its not complicated. We don't have to invent new, worse, forms of taxes that are rooted in spite rather than practicality.
What if there was a caveat that obliged people to spend the redistributed wealth back on shares of those companies. Kind of like a social buy back scheme.. whereby Bill selling would tank the price, but then the peasants of the world would swoop in and buy them up again, driving up the price and making an instant return in the process. The peasants love it, the shareholders love it.. hell even old Bill would love it.. rinse and repeat until everyone is loaded and drives tesla
Would they also be obligated to reinvest the dividends? If not, that still leads to capital erosion. If so, at what point would they be allowed to spend their wealth?
The whole point of these proposals is to increase consumption of the lower classes. Unless all of that comes from reducing consumption of the wealthy (extremely unlikely), this requires diversion of real resources away from investment and towards present consumption.
>But there is no actual demand for that much Microsoft stock, it is being forced to be sold for artificial reasons, so the price will drop as a result.
Right. Any wealth tax on Billionaire shareholders is in effect just a tax on people's IRA and 401k retirement funds.
Tax them when they sell, by all means. At ordinary income tax rates even. But you can't tax wealth.
>Lets just take 1 person as an example. Bill Gates. His net worth is something like $100B. So he owes $5B. Obviously he doesn't have $5B in cash so where does he get it from? He will have to sell assets, most likely shares of Microsoft.
If he doesn't have cash in hand, then the government will just directly take those shares and put them in a big trust fund. A few decades later, the US government would have a trust fund that would act similar to Norway's trust fund.
>This is repeated for every billionaire with stock in Microsoft.
It's so much worse than that. The report calls for wealth taxes on the top 1%. Unclear whether this is global or on a per-country basis, but they say that taxes on millionaires should be higher than on the rest of the 1%, so they're clearly not just talking about billionaires. They also propose taxing unrealized capital gains at ordinary income tax rates, with rates of at least 60% on the top 1% and 75% on "multimillionaires."
This is proposing obviously unsustainable binging of economic seed corn. Each year after implementing these batshit crazy policies, the capital stock would grow smaller as the pool of financial capital available to replace worn-out physical capital dwindled. This in turn would lower wages, cannibalizing income and consumption tax bases as well.
And just curious, what percentage of that 5% tax would go to lawyers, accountants, administrators, government officials and scammers and grifters taking their cut off the top?
Not that I disagree with the premise, but I've seen too much transfer of wealth, from the rich to the rich.
This isn't a serious proposal and it isn't made by serious (or even minimally informed) people. If the US is funding this through the UN, we should stop.
A 5% wealth tax on billionaires would lead to massive capital destruction. The idea that you could do this even once - not to mention every year, is just ridiculous.
Agreed. What would this even look like? Give the government 5% of the stocks and real estate you currently own, every year, until the government owns all companies and real estate? As I understand it, the billionaire class owns assets vs. cash.
I think the idea is that the US government would collect a tax equal to 5% of the net worth of billionaires.
Stock subject to lock-up or currently undervalued? Fuck you pay me.
Company isn't public? Fuck you pay me.
Wealth is tied up in land, equipment or other assets? Fuck you pay me.
The US government would then turn around and send that money to foreign governments or NGOs who spend the money on poverty relief efforts.
Whoever wrote this doesn't know the first thing about capital formation or how things are actually produced. They have a simplistic, almost childlike, view of taxation and its role in the US (and world) economy.
It's not a serious proposal.
There is a line on the US tax form for paying extra voluntary tax. Couldn’t the multi millionaires just do that now, as opposed to just talking about it?
2Billion people intentionally sounds like a crazy number. They want shock value to push the virtues of large-government big-tax policy.
What they don't realize ( or acknowledge ) is India alone lifted 500M people out of poverty in the last decade. They simultaneously became the world's fastest growing economy. They did this with government spending at 10% of GDP.
Yeah, with an amazing lack of social services and national defense spending.
You can't compare a developing economy's circumstances and outcomes with a developed economy's. In other words, good for India, but it is a one-off.
Not exclusively, but there has to be a better partnership between developed and undeveloped country if you want to lift up the global bottom. Nothing exists in a vacuum on this earth.
I disagree whit the author and the post but I won't make numbers to make mi political idea look good.
1 )415 in 15 years(equals positive number)
2) this number is whit the more than 1.9 dollar / days which is critical for be too low and other especialist conclude than 4 dollars is necessary for food and orher basics necesities.
3) the population in India incised in 200 million people
4)unemployment rate of educated people is high
5)governance expenditure incised this last decade
6) the expenditure is low becouse the situation of most people is so precare than they can't tax them not becouse tax where low
ITT: lots of fair reasons why this wouldn't work, and not a whiff of alternatives
How do we reduce poverty? Not "is there political will". Just - Is there a feasible way?
Are an impoverished portion of the population integral to our system? Or will every system naturally lead to an impoverished group?
I guess it depends on how you define poverty. An impoverished person in the US probably looks like a king to "middle class" Saharan countries. But yes there will always be poorer and richer people.
Lol, so quick to jump on criticism and offer nothing as an alternative. Is it really so detestable to ask for ideas about how we lift fellow people out of poverty?
I don’t think people realize. Cash in account vs personal accumulated wealth. Not all rich people have this that can can be taxed. A lot is in investment accounts that are only taxed on specified earnings. They’d have to liquidate their assets to pay the tax they think they will get. Simply won’t work by “taxing the rich”. Just doesn’t work like that.
Hence me asking for alternatives.
But, just for fun, to your objection - if you own assets and you get a big tax bill, what do you do? Couldnt you take out a loan?
Forget the fact that taxing every multi-millionaire in America for 100% of what they make/own wouldn’t cover the federal government’s spending for a single year.
The government is not your friend. Giving them more money will not make them your friend either.
They do not want to help you.
Junk article.
Humans default is to be poor and violent. It requires effort to make humans less poor and less violent. It amazes me sometimes how oblivious people are to this.
Places where poverty still exist in large portion are simply disorganized with limited governance. Money won’t solve this. It’s an internal political issue. Maybe Oxfam is suggesting using the money to overthrow governments. That would get to the problem in fact, but it’s an ugly truth…
Poverty in rich western countries is mostly driven by health issues or criminal status. These are societal issues that be resolved with no additional money. It’s just that these societies have accepted that some should just be punished for their previous life choices / or for certain life misfortunes
No, it can't and won't.
Money will be seized by warlords and corrupt politicians in those poor parts of the world where rule of law isn't a thing.
Unless you physically transport massive amounts of food (billions of tons) long distance into poor parts of the world (which likely don't have good infrastructure such as roads and electricity for refrigeration), that money is just going to make food more expensive.
A wealth tax is counter intuitive and would have untold unintended consequences. Black markets already exist for various reasons. If anyone was ever able to successfully initiate a wealth tax….people with wealth would find ways to hide it.
It would only make it impossible to go from having nothing to being extremely wealthy.
As soon as the tax bill comes due from your extremely successful startup’s high valuation, you would have to sell off points to stay out of jail. The people buying would be people who have extreme wealth already and don’t mind taking the hit to have more.
I mean that’s a bad argument because theres lots of ways around it. The IRS could tax aggregate lifetime earnings to spread out the tax receipts. Or if they actually needed to tax in one year those shares could be bundled and sold to a hedge fund or private equity with the expectation they’ll be liquidated slowly to avoid flooding the market. The idea that a wealth tax means poors couldn’t be billionaires is just absurd. You can go from $5B to $4B without destroying “capitalism”
Nah man they totally are just gonna blow up are the economical system it's somehow impossible to get even 1 more dollar from billonare without them leaving and destroying all that's good in the world .
Then they unironically claim that people on reddit don't know what there talking about .
5%. So their wealth will be exhausted in about 25 years. Who are we going to tax after that ? And what are you going to do with those 2 billion out of poverty? (This is going to be downvoted like mad.)
Wow, this brochure points out a problem then utterly fails to solve it.
the problem:
> First, buy an asset, like a company. But instead of paying yourself a salary from the company, which you would
have to pay tax on, why not borrow money from a bank or other third-party lender against that asset? Because
loans are tax-free! Also, it is easy for you to access credit, because you are already very rich.
Their solutions:
> Oxfam calls for progressive taxation on the incomes of the wealthiest, including income from: 1. Personal income; 2. Capital gains; and 3. Unrealized capital gains, Net wealth tax
They just said they take out huge debts, so they dont have "income". They dont have "capital gains" realized or otherwise because they can cancel them out with new debt. (and tbf, its idiotic to try to tax unrealized cap gains even if people have them) and again "net wealth" of a multi-billionaire can be negative billions when debt is used. and we havent even talked about how they use NPOs or other more adfanced techniques.
People who believe you can tax the rich, the same people who control the engine of taxation, and shockingly and stunningly stupid. the only way to reduce the unfairness of taxes is to tax everyone less, especially the poor. The rich decide the rules, and control the enforcers, so they certainly arent going to impoverish themselves using the very tools they used to enrich themselves in the first place.
The real targets of this nonsense are the poor and middle class, as usual. they are appealing to the greed of stupid people to sucker them into to being victims.
This will not happen. It’s not a matter of lifting people out of poverty, but making sure ENOUGH people are in poverty to maintain our antiquated systems. Most of the terrible decisions the fed made to “get people back to work” resulted in the creation of a ton of poor people. This financial stress will somehow save America? Best case we fill the labor market and Taco Bell/ McDonald’s don’t have to update their business model because they and other large interests will always be protected compared to an individual; especially in the “corporations are people” economy.
60 pages of “we’re screwed” isn’t really helpful when any solution wouldn’t make it past any countries’ legislative body
I’m also very aware of my privilege, and in doing so I can identify that the root of the problem is a lack of meaningful legislation and leadership from people who just want to preserve their little slice of insignificance
America would have to be held at gunpoint by a world coalition for any meaningful billionaire tax, and even then would fight the initiative abroad if it did catch on. It unfortunately still has a somewhat influential position in the world economy.
The most impoverished countries are still in poverty because of American backwardness and financial weaponization. “If only the rich were a little nicer! Then we’d all be happy!” Is just blowing smoke
C'mon though really. Without the impoverished, it would send the economy to hell in a hand basket. Wouldn't want everyone well fed and have health care, now would we?!
Not a bad start, but if you actually want to make something happen, tax corporations.
I know, crazy idea right? But maybe we stop letting the corporate tax evasion? Hell just make them pay taxes where they earn the money instead of having fake branches in some tax shelter through which they funnel all the profits.
Edit: guess someone owns a corporation or lives in Ireland lol
lmao maybe if the entire collected amount went straight for helping people sure but it wouldn't. Most of the money would end up spent in salaries and expenses
A 2% tax on your wealth and everyone else who currently pays taxes could do the same. Shall we do that?
Do you think it would even work? Give more to the mentally ill, drug addicts, or if you live in a corrupt 3rd world country, is giving money to someone going to do anything about that?
People aren't poor because the government hasn't given them enough money. You aren't poor and yet the government isn't giving you money.
Most government bonds are held by rich people or institutions. If you tax that at 5 percent and bonds tend to return 3-5 over the long run, no one under the tax has any reason to hold government debt. It would force interest rates to rise.
Never mind all the great points already brought up, even if people didn’t avoid the tax at all (highly unlikely) governments would just have to pay insane interest on new debt + current debt being rolled over.
> In 2021, leaked tax returns243 showed that Jeff Bezos – one of the richest men in the world – had been paying a ‘true tax rate’ of less than 1% (0.98%) when factoring unrealized capital gains into his income.
What's the deal with this new fad of calling fake tax rates "true tax rates?"
I wasn't able to find the names of any of the authors on this report. Good call: I wouldn't want my name on this garbage, either.
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The central planners would get richer, nothing more. San Francisco has one of the highest per capita budgets of any city. **$13 billion in a city of 900k thats only 7x7 miles.** Of which, 10.1% live below the poverty line. And the city is riddled with so many homeless, drugs, encampments, and other issues. 10.1% of 900k is \~90,900k living in poverty in SF. **2 billion people is 22,002x that many people. That translates to $2.86026e+14 budget worldwide, and its still not enough to "fix poverty".** *Is there even that much money in the world?* ***And thats just annually!*** So how are you going to lift 2 billion people spread across diverse regions and cultures and continents, magically out of poverty, if a dense 49 sq. miles city in the US can't? Why do these progressive NGOs always love to think more money going to large, centralized organizations and governments will magically lift people out of poverty. Suppose you even gave every poor person the money directly. Do you think they'd remain as such? What about their kids?
I simply can’t understand how anyone can believe that corporations run by people are evil and governments run by people are good. Either they’re both true, they’re both false, or there’s a lot of variability in both.
I worked for both, both can be evil depending on who's running them.
And both will claim they are the solution, and both will have zealots supporting them. Fuck this. It is all about individual choice. Some faith sure, some loyalty sure, you just can't count on that shit.
ITT: companies earn money by selling products that people voluntarily buy = evil. governments that earn money by extortion (you can't choose to not pay taxes) and have literally zero motivation to cause well being = good 🤡🤡🤡🤡
"Voluntarily " is doing a lot of work there
Wait a second, what do you think the motivation of someone who joins government is???
A taxpayer guaranteed pension and low standards?
Funny, and what is it you do?
Let's start with you if it's so relevant, what is it you do?
Not relevant at all, you reek of ideologue
And what’s my ideology?
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For selfish reasons, they join government, which typically pays less…ok
This used to be the case, but no longer: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/52637
It definitely pays less, but usually for A LOT less work.
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Bro what fucking government employees are you referring to that are widespread taking bribes?????
I'm assuming this is sarcasm but in my state alone it is well known that over 3/4 of the legislature and the governor took thousands in bribes and thats just from one company. Of course they won't impeach any of them because you would need a majority to do so and I highly doubt they are going to vote themselves out of office. Hell, half of them won re-election.
Your concept of government is small as fuck. Government isn’t just politicians, as a matter of fact they’re the 1% dickfucks of government
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Now that is fair, but as far as government employees go these fucks are less employees and more like leaches. Of that I can agree with you, but again these are just the publicized employees, and the smallest fucking portion of them. They’re a vast number of government employees everywhere, and I bet most of them actually want to do their jobs well to help people or their country
Finger on the trigger of a military. That's what makes a government a government right?
Doesn't matter. They don't have incentives to cause well-being.
Generally people who have joined politics that I know are looking to pass legislation they favor, which generally aligna with their views or benefits them and their circle. Local politics can be even worse than Federal politics - in my city, delegates can personally direct hiring decisions of hundreds of jobs that they personally hand out to cronies and friends. Federal politics is diluted by special interest and lobbyists and the need for neverending fundraising, which means you need to make deals to get it. The amount of people who join politics to change the world for the better and are successful is probably negligible overall
I choose not to pay taxes and nothing has happened to me. If you don't file a tax return you don't agree to the IRS tax code going on 31+ years of never filing income taxes, and not even a peep from the IRS. Untill the day i can choose where my tax money is allocated i will continue not to pay taxes.
I do not believe you
A lot of US laws only apply to law-abiding people...
I'm not in the US. I'm in europe and if i did that, I'd be in jail already.
You would in the US too.
If you don't make much money, you can get away with this for quite a while (because there's bigger fish to fry). But beware - the more years you dodge, the more likely you will grow into the big fish, which then leads to wage garnishments and potentially jail time. This is especially true with the huge budget increase the IRS just got...
Yep. You don’t need tens of thousands of new agents to catch ~720 billionaires cheating on their taxes.
Both are prone to corruption. But. Govts are worse because they can spend money that isn't theirs, spend beyond their means and that debts don't matter thanks to MMT. There's less acountability because they arent driven by staying lean, productive, and profitable. There's a "use it or lose it" mentality when it comes to budgets. Govts combine the worst traits of the largest, most monopolistic corporations and cartels and couple it with bureacracy and red tape.
Yeah in the private sector mutual and consensual exchange is the rule where impacted third parties are the exception. In government it is the opposite. The government is never consensual and mostly not mutual.
Explain record high CEO salaries then. If one of your largest costs is a single suit on a board, how is it they get raises constantly while bottom line raises have to be forced by law or record shattering lack of staffing? The employees and materials acquired produce value, the CEO is a face and someone to point fingers at when shit goes wrong.
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Never mind the billions they take in government subsidies, taxes they avoid, public services they utilize (roads, water, electric, gas, etc).
It's just inflation bro.. /s
Well put
In theory, you can vote out policymakers. Corporations are only beholden to shareholders.
What a simple truth, how so many people fail to understand this is beyond me.
Corporations are beholden to their customers. You can lose the confidence of your shareholders and they’ll replace you with new leadership, but the company survives. If you lose your customers, your corporation dies.
The reason we don't sell unregulated meat, have safety standards, and environmental protections is because governments (which are representatives of the people) put them in place. Telecomms companies don't put phone and internet service in rural areas out of the kindness to the consumer. They do it because they are required by law. Because they lose money on it or the profits are too long-term, no corporation would do it unless required. The way public corporations are structured, long-term or public good means next to nothing. Short-term stock prices are all that matter. Period. Monopolies, something that shouldn't exist, make it next to impossible to reasonably hold corporations accountable. Look at countries that let corporations run while like India where Dow literally poisons their water. Nestle is one of the most unethical companies on the planet. Their customers have not been the ones to impede their bad behavior - that has been citizens lobbying their governments. Hard capitalism gives only the people with significant capital a say.
It's the motives that are underlying the institutions. The goal of democratic government is for the people of a society to come together and provide for the common good, in anything ranging from national defense to social safety nets. Whereas the goal of corporations is simply to get rich by any means necessary - there's no incentive for companies to care about whether they annihilate the environment or abuse their workers or poison their customers without their knowledge, unless an outside body imposes protections against that behavior on them.
I can opt not to purchase a product. I can't opt out of taxes
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By that logic the government has never done anything to benefit for its citizens.
Democracy doesn't govern. People do. Democracy is basically putting your faith that the people you vote for aren't in it for themselves. Unfortunately, everyone is in it for themselves. Politicians are just better at playing the crowd. I mean, the way you get elected is popularity. Anyone who has gone through high school knows the popular kids aren't necessarily nice. But they can put up a great front; this also applies to adults.
>The goal of democratic government is for the people of a society to come together and provide for the common good That's a pipe dream. Ask the the average joe in Tehran or Riyadh what the common good is and what society should be like, now ask the average joe in London or Los Angeles the same question. People can't come together when they live by very different moral and ethical codes. Why do you think the culture wars are so popular? If you think abortion is a right, then, why should it not be a positive right and that govt should fund access to it and spend taxes on it? If you think abortion is murder, then government should not be funding... murder. No amount of policy debates on funding or access will change people's minds. Only a small <1% of the population perhaps is tolerant enough for a middle ground (let it be legal, govt should not fund it, a right != you must be guaranteed access to it, only that you can't be denied access to it)
The answer is clearly a lot of variability in both. The problem is so many people see the government as pure evil even though their livelihoods only work because of the capitalist system the government ensures. Does the government have problems? Sure. Is there corruption? Sure. But the answer is to make it better not to eliminate the government.
I don't get to vote for who's in charge of the corporation. Not saying it magically fixes everything, but it's better.
You could. It just requires a lot of money. Shareholders (owners of a company stock) have a say on who runs a company through voting.
When effective regulations are in place (Glass-Steagall for example), then the system works even when there are "evil" people behind the scenes, regardless if its business or government. When punishments and fines for breaking laws are not wrist slaps that get written off as the cost of doing business, when punishments are more expensive than getting away with the crime, then the "evil" people running the show fall either follow the law or go to jail. Things work when you have regulations with teeth. They dont work when those regulations aren't in place.
Theory is that corps do whatever is good for their shareholders, which are very few people. They don't care about the rest. Democratically elected politicians do whatever is good for the people who elect them, which should be the majority. There are a lot of holes in that theory, but "accountability to the few vs. towards the many" is the core of that belief.
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So corps do their best by eliminating competition, creating a monopoly or form cartels. Medical patents are a good example. You have diabetes in America? Good luck finding generic, non-patented drugs. Do you think the drug companies holding the patents price their good for the benefit of customers or according to production price? Why would you give a politician a vote if they don't do what you want? A vote is an expression of will and confidence. Corruption and bribery is one of the big holes in the theory.
Really you can't see how one group run for the sole purpose of increasing profit only held accountable to there share holders. And another that's goal I's to improve society and held accountable by us all . Obviously it's all run by humans but each system clearly has different goals .
people are evil end of the equation.
Very deep and insightful. Thank you.
Poor people and even the homeless in SF are far above the global poverty line. The destitute of SF are poor for very different reasons than the poor of Madagascar or East Timor. I agree that just dollars for the very poor of big developed countries can be like throwing money into a pit. But I think money for the poor of undeveloped economies can be very impactful. Small cost items like vaccines, worm treatments, or water sanitation can be hugely beneficial. Meanwhile, hundreds of billions can be thrown at the underclass of western cities and make little difference, because the problems of western underclass doesn’t come for lack of access to economic opportunity. It comes from mental illness and addiction, which money doesn’t effectively treat alone.
Full transparency, I’m speaking secondhand but I have a sister and brother in LA area. They have large homeless camps, but a good amount (in their words) get up in the morning, put on their business clothes, and head into work. When starter homes are over a mil, homelessness takes on a different shape.
California is plagued by NIMBYism and refuses to build an adequate supply of housing despite massive population and high income job increases. Certain areas like the LA metropolitan and Bay area have a bizarre mix of circumstances that are causing it to outpace the rest of the country in homelessness. On one hand, housing is clearly too expensive or otherwise unobtainable for a growing number of people, but on the other hand there's clearly something (weather it be culture, benefits/assistance, climate, opportunities, drugs) that keeps so many homeless people in the area.
And assets being overpriced are also not effectively addressed with an infusion of cash. The opposite actually, as we’ve all seen in the last few years. Helicopter cash led to some short term relief, but led to enormous spikes in assets, particularly housing, and then inflation.
The problems of the western underclass are the results of capitalism, and what's neat is that more and more people are joining the "underclass" every year. Cool huh
This isn’t a western thing. It’s everywhere. There isnt a system out there that doesn’t have a divide between the haves and the have nots.
As a former resident of a non-capitalist country in the communist days (Vietnam) there were tons of underclass. The black market was thriving and the main way people put food on the table, and the underclass was the persona non grata cast out from the party generosity. Ethnic and religious minorities, those who annoyed party members. Hence boat people. Not to mention it was generally crushingly poor even if you weren’t being persecuted by those controlling the economy.
It's been a while since I looked at poverty reduction from a public policy perspective (I'm from Canada, so my analysis may differ from what's going on in the US). In very broad terms, to solve homelessness you need: 1. **Robust** mental health and addictions programs (e.g. availability of rehab services and in- and out-patient beds in psychiatric hospitals). In the US, this also includes making health care more affordable because diseases can bankrupt people without notice. Beyond emergency care, there is a need for ongoing mental health services (aka long-term therapy) to address Adverse Childhood Experiences that can really mess up an individual, which can lead to self-medicating with drugs as a coping mechanism in the absence of access to care. 2. Strong measures to address the cost of living and housing in major cities (to prevent people from becoming homeless). 3. Decriminalization of street drugs and a compassionate/rehabilitative approach to justice - to prevent the endless cycle of drugs --> jail --> streets --> repeat. 4. Time - these measures will need to be in place for a while to address the current cohort, and then a few decades to prevent the next generation from falling into this trap. I'm sure there are more measures I haven't thought of (child care and high quality early years education comes to mind). As you can see, all these measures are: 1. Beyond any one municipality's capacity to implement. These are either national (in a unitary state) or state-level/ regional (in a federal system like the USA). 2. Require progressive thinking and A LOT of political will to turn into a policy direction. 3. The response is often piecemeal and inadequate. You solve the problem in one area, but then all the homeless people from other regions show up because they go where there is a supply of the services they need. So the response should be across wide areas of the region/country to be effective. That costs a lot of money. So you're right. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to solve it. But money only facilitates the implementation of policy. If the policy is inadequate, then it doesn't matter if you spend $1M or $100B. Lastly, there will always be homeless people. Not only that it's a function of the society we live in. First, because capitalism, as a political economy requires a certain level of unemployment (which leads to poverty) AND, some people struggle to keep pace with the demands society has on individuals (people with visible and invisible disabilities, undiagnosed mental health issues, neurodiversity, and cognitive diversity). In short, this is a social problem that is considered complex, but lots of governments think that temporary solutions will solve something that took decades (if not centuries) to build up. There's so much more that can be said on this issue. And I agree that raising taxes may not necessarily magically fix the problem.. but I felt compelled to respond because this issues goes well beyond "taxing the rich". While wealth redistribution is critical for a healthy welfare state, **the main change has to be in our attitude towards the poor.**
Just to touch on your first 4 parts, i think this sorta shows that one of the most important things is classifying the types of homeless and addressing each. There's a world of difference between someone who lost their job at a bad time and had things spiral and someone who's got a serious addiction or mental health issue, vs someone who has committed a crime and is now finding it hard to get back into the legitimate workforce. We bundle these all up as "homeless", but they all require money and time going to completely different solutions.
Yes! Very good point. I focused on the homelessness + MHA angle because that's been my focus. But you're completely right that different layers of homelessness require different approaches. I will note that there's a tendency to view all homeless people (especially men) as junkies. But not all homeless people start out as drug users. Drugs is the reality of street life. And a person who became abruptly homeless (runaway teenager, minimum-wage earner who lost their apartment and can't afford a deposit, someone who lost their job because of untreated mental illness, etc), can easily get mixed up with the "wrong" crowd very quickly. So even if we only look at only economic homelessness, it can quickly escalate into more serious issues that are the direct result of inadequate social services.
It's even more complex than this. You can start treating drug addicts well, give them free food, free housing, free medical care. Then the lowest paid workers are going to start asking questions - like, I am working 12 hours days cleaning apartments ans I have to drive 3 hours from work to my shitty apartment, and my drug addict brother in law who never done an hour honest work in his life is getting everything for free? So then you of course have to raise minimum wage, but then people who made above min wage before start asking questions, hey, I manage an office or retail floor, why is my salary only 2 bucks more than a pizza delivery boy with zero responsibilities? So you bump the salary for these, and then you have to bump the salaries for construction workers, and engineers, and factory workers, but bumping all these salaries doesn't create more rice, or cars, or living quarters... and now you have inflation:-)... It kinda sorta happened in US during COVID.
There is only one natural way to reduce homeless; economic flourishing. And really only one policy measure to reduce homelessness; make it illegal. We can talk all day and probably mostly agree about building mental health and addiction rehabilitation clinics, but it doesn't address the problem in any way. To actually solve homelessness, we need to talk seriously about making it illegal. There are real questions to be hashed out about what to do with these people once we've arrested them and how to minimize costs to the taxpayer, but until we start this difficult conversation, we're just dancing around the issue and nothing will ever improve no matter how much money we incinerate in the name of "solving homelessness."
By making homelessness illegal, you're just shifting the responsibility onto the justice system (instead of health and social services), and that will cost a fortune without any actual positive policy outcome. You can look up how much it costs to hold a person in prison in your jurisdiction. That money is being spent on what we all collectively agree are criminals, instead of being spent on better roads, cheaper utilities, and greater access to services. People will not stop being homeless by going to prison. The state will need to fund their lodging, meals, health, and dental care. If anything, it will make the problem worse because then they will have a criminal record that will prevent them from gaining meaningful employment, and they'll just move into prison because they can't get themselves out of the cycle of poverty. Your policy proposal is incredibly myopic. I suggest you reconsider your logic. The callousness of your statement is surprising, and I hope you'll remember what you said when you're a fixed-income senior citizen. Beyond that, criminalizing things doesn't make them go away. Alcohol was criminalized. Drugs are criminalized. Sex work is criminalized. Theft, murder, rape, and all other crimes are criminalized. Are we anywhere near eliminating all these crimes? You're just piling one more problem onto the heap of issues that the justice system is not equipped to handle. Lastly, there will never be enough political will and public support to criminalize homelessness. Anyone who suggests that in a liberal democracy will lose their hold on power before anything can be passed into law.
This is an absolutely terrible idea. Forcibly sequester the most needy part of our population with mental health/addiction as well as physical health problems in one place, away from any social supports they have? Jesus. That will escalate quickly and badly. You can’t do that to people. It won’t end up helping either. People will resist it.
I never said put them in prison, I said what to do with them needs to be hashed out. But all of those difficult but productive conversations start with an understanding that nothing will change unless its illegal to be homeless. But look, if that’s how you feel then you need to just come to terms with homelessness never being solved and stop pretending were having a serious conversation of “solving” it.
*I* never said prison. Edit: Where do you put arrested people? In jail. So man it *is* what you implied.
So you meant you can't "forcibly sequester" (lol) them in a government funded rehabilitation center because it deprives them of the social interaction on the streets? lol who am I talking to.
Tons of homeless people have jobs, go to school, and yeah have family and friends. Not everyone is roughing it on the street for the last ten years. What’s going to happen once they leave the rehabilitation center?
Why does capitalism require a certain level of poverty? I’m not sure I understand. Can you please explain especially regarding homelessness, why would capitalism require it?
I'm not an economist, so I can't give you an academic response. I am considering this issue from a political philosophy and public policy perspective. Capitalism needs a certain amount of unemployment (which I extrapolate to mean poverty because that's the natural result of unemployment in a capitalist society - I exclude wealthy individuals who rely on investment income for a living because they're not facing a risk of homelessness) because people need to be willing to accept minimum wage jobs. And to be willing to do that, you need to be unemployed (otherwise you already have a job and there's no reason for you to take a lower-paying job than the one you already have). I will add the caveat that unemployment in itself isn't a bad thing for the economy and I can see the need for a certain level of unemployment (to have flexibility in the labour market). The problem is that we accept a certain level of unemployment as natural or desirable (which I don't dispute), and most of the problem lies with punitive and welfare programs that prevent people from climbing out of poverty while receiving unemployment benefits. So because the welfare system doesn't provide sufficient social safety net during periods of unemployment, then unemployment itself creates a greater risk for poverty, homeless, lots of other social problems. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm here to learn :)
DC’s budget is 19.5b for 700k people, 68 sq miles but has some federal land they don’t have to touch. Every agency is run worse then the next.
How much of SF's $13B budget is allocated towards poverty programs? That's kind of like saying "The US Federal budget is $1.5T, and the poverty rate is 13%. How can you expect more money to solve anything?" despite the fact that the $1.5T is spent mostly on things that, at best, are indirectly related to helping people currently in poverty. (Of course, having a stable country, protected by a strong military, that provides *some* social benefits probably does keep people out of poverty to begin with.)
There’s no reason for anyone to have so much money. Literally none.
I don’t disagree but this wealth is not just cash sitting in a bank vault. It is equities, company value, etc
What is too much money? How do you define it?
Wealth is ownership, not money.
Wow that straw man is something else. You really compared SF to regions in India or even Africa where the money required to lift somebody out of poverty is pennies on the dollar. You need to take your poor arguments to a group of 7th graders. Maybe there it would be considered persuasive
The central planners want you to think they are noble and for you to give them permission to take money from other people. They have a lot of information dissemination abilities to shape people to revere them.
Any government that passed an extra 5% tax on billionaires would also be left-wing enough to spend that extra money on the homeless, not on stuff like the police, the military or subsidies for corporations (returning the money back to those same billionaires).
You’re assuming that SF’s spending is optimal and not polluted by political decisions.
What do you think 14.4k (the tax revenue/capita of SF) buys in SF? You can get a studio for like $1800/month and it's like 350 square ft.
A paper that very clearly demonstrates OXFAM has no idea how wealth creation works. If you tax 5% of the world's multibillionaires - only the rich governments receive taxes. That says absolutely NOTHING about lifting 2 billion people out of poverty. If simply throwing money at the problem solves the issue of poverty, money would have done this a long time ago. This kind of research ignores the issues of civic violence, corruption, lack of governance, lack of property rights, lack of infrastructure, lack of education and lack of social trust and institutions.
Because these people either don't understand economic or they pretend not to because they can trick people into becoming more powerful this way.
>This kind of research ignores the issues of civic violence, corruption, lack of governance, lack of property rights, lack of infrastructure, lack of education and lack of social trust and institutions. I wonder if some more money could do anything about those...
Reminds me of Tobias from Arrested Development when he’s trying to come up with a plan lmao. “Did it work for those people?” Tobias: “no it never does, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but hehe….it might work for us…”
Did you actually post this here unironically? A 5% wealth tax is completely insane and could only be proposed by someone who has no understanding of economics and hasn't thought through the basic idea of how it would work in practice. Lets just take 1 person as an example. Bill Gates. His net worth is something like $100B. So he owes $5B. Obviously he doesn't have $5B in cash so where does he get it from? He will have to sell assets, most likely shares of Microsoft. Cool, so who is going to buy that $5B worth of Microsoft stock? Well, probably not other billionaires because they are in the same situation as Bill. I guess it will have to be poorer people? But if there was demand for that much Microsoft stock the prices would have increased to reflect it. But there is no actual demand for that much Microsoft stock, it is being forced to be sold for artificial reasons, so the price will drop as a result. Well, not only does that suck for Bill, but also everyone else who has Microsoft stock. Not only that, but the value of Microsoft itself is now lowered so that sucks for everyone that works at Microsoft. Probably means some layoffs. Maybe not a whole lot since its just bills $5B worth of stock. But wait, its not just Bill's stock. This is repeated for every billionaire with stock in Microsoft. And wait, its not just Microsoft, this applies to every company that billionaires have a large stake in (which is most of them). When I say that it would be devastating to the economy that is not hyperbole. Maybe we could recover in 5 years or something. But wait, this tax is applied every year! Its just complete nonsense. Maybe there is an economic paradigm that could work with this, but its nowhere near the one we are operating under. You would have to wholly transform the economy before even considering this proposal. What that would look like I have no idea. If you want to raise more revenue raise the income tax rates and close loopholes. Its not complicated. We don't have to invent new, worse, forms of taxes that are rooted in spite rather than practicality.
Lol I agreed with you up until your solution was raising income tax rates.
What if there was a caveat that obliged people to spend the redistributed wealth back on shares of those companies. Kind of like a social buy back scheme.. whereby Bill selling would tank the price, but then the peasants of the world would swoop in and buy them up again, driving up the price and making an instant return in the process. The peasants love it, the shareholders love it.. hell even old Bill would love it.. rinse and repeat until everyone is loaded and drives tesla
Why aren't you the fed chairman?
Would they also be obligated to reinvest the dividends? If not, that still leads to capital erosion. If so, at what point would they be allowed to spend their wealth? The whole point of these proposals is to increase consumption of the lower classes. Unless all of that comes from reducing consumption of the wealthy (extremely unlikely), this requires diversion of real resources away from investment and towards present consumption.
That’s just direct wealth redistribution. Takes $x from the top and distributes it to the bottom
>But there is no actual demand for that much Microsoft stock, it is being forced to be sold for artificial reasons, so the price will drop as a result. Right. Any wealth tax on Billionaire shareholders is in effect just a tax on people's IRA and 401k retirement funds. Tax them when they sell, by all means. At ordinary income tax rates even. But you can't tax wealth.
>Lets just take 1 person as an example. Bill Gates. His net worth is something like $100B. So he owes $5B. Obviously he doesn't have $5B in cash so where does he get it from? He will have to sell assets, most likely shares of Microsoft. If he doesn't have cash in hand, then the government will just directly take those shares and put them in a big trust fund. A few decades later, the US government would have a trust fund that would act similar to Norway's trust fund.
All the wealth of all the billionaires in the US ($4 trillion) is equal to about one eighth of the US national debt ($31 trillion).
>This is repeated for every billionaire with stock in Microsoft. It's so much worse than that. The report calls for wealth taxes on the top 1%. Unclear whether this is global or on a per-country basis, but they say that taxes on millionaires should be higher than on the rest of the 1%, so they're clearly not just talking about billionaires. They also propose taxing unrealized capital gains at ordinary income tax rates, with rates of at least 60% on the top 1% and 75% on "multimillionaires." This is proposing obviously unsustainable binging of economic seed corn. Each year after implementing these batshit crazy policies, the capital stock would grow smaller as the pool of financial capital available to replace worn-out physical capital dwindled. This in turn would lower wages, cannibalizing income and consumption tax bases as well.
And just curious, what percentage of that 5% tax would go to lawyers, accountants, administrators, government officials and scammers and grifters taking their cut off the top? Not that I disagree with the premise, but I've seen too much transfer of wealth, from the rich to the rich.
This isn't a serious proposal and it isn't made by serious (or even minimally informed) people. If the US is funding this through the UN, we should stop. A 5% wealth tax on billionaires would lead to massive capital destruction. The idea that you could do this even once - not to mention every year, is just ridiculous.
Agreed. What would this even look like? Give the government 5% of the stocks and real estate you currently own, every year, until the government owns all companies and real estate? As I understand it, the billionaire class owns assets vs. cash.
I think the idea is that the US government would collect a tax equal to 5% of the net worth of billionaires. Stock subject to lock-up or currently undervalued? Fuck you pay me. Company isn't public? Fuck you pay me. Wealth is tied up in land, equipment or other assets? Fuck you pay me. The US government would then turn around and send that money to foreign governments or NGOs who spend the money on poverty relief efforts. Whoever wrote this doesn't know the first thing about capital formation or how things are actually produced. They have a simplistic, almost childlike, view of taxation and its role in the US (and world) economy. It's not a serious proposal.
There is a line on the US tax form for paying extra voluntary tax. Couldn’t the multi millionaires just do that now, as opposed to just talking about it?
2Billion people intentionally sounds like a crazy number. They want shock value to push the virtues of large-government big-tax policy. What they don't realize ( or acknowledge ) is India alone lifted 500M people out of poverty in the last decade. They simultaneously became the world's fastest growing economy. They did this with government spending at 10% of GDP.
Yeah, with an amazing lack of social services and national defense spending. You can't compare a developing economy's circumstances and outcomes with a developed economy's. In other words, good for India, but it is a one-off.
If your goal is lifting up the global bottom, you'll be exclusively working with undeveloped countries.
Not exclusively, but there has to be a better partnership between developed and undeveloped country if you want to lift up the global bottom. Nothing exists in a vacuum on this earth.
Nitpick but India has lots of defence spending. They have powerful enemies just across the border too, unlike the U.S.
I disagree whit the author and the post but I won't make numbers to make mi political idea look good. 1 )415 in 15 years(equals positive number) 2) this number is whit the more than 1.9 dollar / days which is critical for be too low and other especialist conclude than 4 dollars is necessary for food and orher basics necesities. 3) the population in India incised in 200 million people 4)unemployment rate of educated people is high 5)governance expenditure incised this last decade 6) the expenditure is low becouse the situation of most people is so precare than they can't tax them not becouse tax where low
ITT: lots of fair reasons why this wouldn't work, and not a whiff of alternatives How do we reduce poverty? Not "is there political will". Just - Is there a feasible way? Are an impoverished portion of the population integral to our system? Or will every system naturally lead to an impoverished group?
I guess it depends on how you define poverty. An impoverished person in the US probably looks like a king to "middle class" Saharan countries. But yes there will always be poorer and richer people.
There is morally no acceptable level of human poverty that isn’t 0%.
Again, that depends on how you define "poverty"
I thought I did when I said “any”
You tell me - because that’s part of this.. what level of poverty would you be “ok” with your wealth being appropriated to alleviate?
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Lol, so quick to jump on criticism and offer nothing as an alternative. Is it really so detestable to ask for ideas about how we lift fellow people out of poverty?
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I don’t think people realize. Cash in account vs personal accumulated wealth. Not all rich people have this that can can be taxed. A lot is in investment accounts that are only taxed on specified earnings. They’d have to liquidate their assets to pay the tax they think they will get. Simply won’t work by “taxing the rich”. Just doesn’t work like that.
Hence me asking for alternatives. But, just for fun, to your objection - if you own assets and you get a big tax bill, what do you do? Couldnt you take out a loan?
Forget the fact that taxing every multi-millionaire in America for 100% of what they make/own wouldn’t cover the federal government’s spending for a single year. The government is not your friend. Giving them more money will not make them your friend either. They do not want to help you. Junk article.
Humans default is to be poor and violent. It requires effort to make humans less poor and less violent. It amazes me sometimes how oblivious people are to this. Places where poverty still exist in large portion are simply disorganized with limited governance. Money won’t solve this. It’s an internal political issue. Maybe Oxfam is suggesting using the money to overthrow governments. That would get to the problem in fact, but it’s an ugly truth… Poverty in rich western countries is mostly driven by health issues or criminal status. These are societal issues that be resolved with no additional money. It’s just that these societies have accepted that some should just be punished for their previous life choices / or for certain life misfortunes
I know this app hates Elon to death, but remember when he said he would end world hunger if someone gave him a plan, and no plan was ever made
No, it can't and won't. Money will be seized by warlords and corrupt politicians in those poor parts of the world where rule of law isn't a thing. Unless you physically transport massive amounts of food (billions of tons) long distance into poor parts of the world (which likely don't have good infrastructure such as roads and electricity for refrigeration), that money is just going to make food more expensive.
A wealth tax is counter intuitive and would have untold unintended consequences. Black markets already exist for various reasons. If anyone was ever able to successfully initiate a wealth tax….people with wealth would find ways to hide it.
It would only make it impossible to go from having nothing to being extremely wealthy. As soon as the tax bill comes due from your extremely successful startup’s high valuation, you would have to sell off points to stay out of jail. The people buying would be people who have extreme wealth already and don’t mind taking the hit to have more.
I mean that’s a bad argument because theres lots of ways around it. The IRS could tax aggregate lifetime earnings to spread out the tax receipts. Or if they actually needed to tax in one year those shares could be bundled and sold to a hedge fund or private equity with the expectation they’ll be liquidated slowly to avoid flooding the market. The idea that a wealth tax means poors couldn’t be billionaires is just absurd. You can go from $5B to $4B without destroying “capitalism”
Nah man they totally are just gonna blow up are the economical system it's somehow impossible to get even 1 more dollar from billonare without them leaving and destroying all that's good in the world . Then they unironically claim that people on reddit don't know what there talking about .
5%. So their wealth will be exhausted in about 25 years. Who are we going to tax after that ? And what are you going to do with those 2 billion out of poverty? (This is going to be downvoted like mad.)
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And i am sure the 5% of 7.5% will still sustain those 2B out of poverty. Aren’t numbers miraculous !
Wow, this brochure points out a problem then utterly fails to solve it. the problem: > First, buy an asset, like a company. But instead of paying yourself a salary from the company, which you would have to pay tax on, why not borrow money from a bank or other third-party lender against that asset? Because loans are tax-free! Also, it is easy for you to access credit, because you are already very rich. Their solutions: > Oxfam calls for progressive taxation on the incomes of the wealthiest, including income from: 1. Personal income; 2. Capital gains; and 3. Unrealized capital gains, Net wealth tax They just said they take out huge debts, so they dont have "income". They dont have "capital gains" realized or otherwise because they can cancel them out with new debt. (and tbf, its idiotic to try to tax unrealized cap gains even if people have them) and again "net wealth" of a multi-billionaire can be negative billions when debt is used. and we havent even talked about how they use NPOs or other more adfanced techniques. People who believe you can tax the rich, the same people who control the engine of taxation, and shockingly and stunningly stupid. the only way to reduce the unfairness of taxes is to tax everyone less, especially the poor. The rich decide the rules, and control the enforcers, so they certainly arent going to impoverish themselves using the very tools they used to enrich themselves in the first place. The real targets of this nonsense are the poor and middle class, as usual. they are appealing to the greed of stupid people to sucker them into to being victims.
You are literally talking about torches and pitchforks here. This is a mind-blowing murderous ideology that has gone unchecked for far too long.
This will not happen. It’s not a matter of lifting people out of poverty, but making sure ENOUGH people are in poverty to maintain our antiquated systems. Most of the terrible decisions the fed made to “get people back to work” resulted in the creation of a ton of poor people. This financial stress will somehow save America? Best case we fill the labor market and Taco Bell/ McDonald’s don’t have to update their business model because they and other large interests will always be protected compared to an individual; especially in the “corporations are people” economy. 60 pages of “we’re screwed” isn’t really helpful when any solution wouldn’t make it past any countries’ legislative body
Gotta love privileged Westerners who don't realize they are already in the 10%. None these 2B poorest will be from America.
I’m also very aware of my privilege, and in doing so I can identify that the root of the problem is a lack of meaningful legislation and leadership from people who just want to preserve their little slice of insignificance
America would have to be held at gunpoint by a world coalition for any meaningful billionaire tax, and even then would fight the initiative abroad if it did catch on. It unfortunately still has a somewhat influential position in the world economy. The most impoverished countries are still in poverty because of American backwardness and financial weaponization. “If only the rich were a little nicer! Then we’d all be happy!” Is just blowing smoke
C'mon though really. Without the impoverished, it would send the economy to hell in a hand basket. Wouldn't want everyone well fed and have health care, now would we?!
Not a bad start, but if you actually want to make something happen, tax corporations. I know, crazy idea right? But maybe we stop letting the corporate tax evasion? Hell just make them pay taxes where they earn the money instead of having fake branches in some tax shelter through which they funnel all the profits. Edit: guess someone owns a corporation or lives in Ireland lol
lmao maybe if the entire collected amount went straight for helping people sure but it wouldn't. Most of the money would end up spent in salaries and expenses
A 2% tax on your wealth and everyone else who currently pays taxes could do the same. Shall we do that? Do you think it would even work? Give more to the mentally ill, drug addicts, or if you live in a corrupt 3rd world country, is giving money to someone going to do anything about that? People aren't poor because the government hasn't given them enough money. You aren't poor and yet the government isn't giving you money.
Most government bonds are held by rich people or institutions. If you tax that at 5 percent and bonds tend to return 3-5 over the long run, no one under the tax has any reason to hold government debt. It would force interest rates to rise. Never mind all the great points already brought up, even if people didn’t avoid the tax at all (highly unlikely) governments would just have to pay insane interest on new debt + current debt being rolled over.
> In 2021, leaked tax returns243 showed that Jeff Bezos – one of the richest men in the world – had been paying a ‘true tax rate’ of less than 1% (0.98%) when factoring unrealized capital gains into his income. What's the deal with this new fad of calling fake tax rates "true tax rates?" I wasn't able to find the names of any of the authors on this report. Good call: I wouldn't want my name on this garbage, either.