I have an idea for a tax we can levy on them.
CraigM
1729
Yes, a little off the top.
Queue comment asking why is that bad, people can still move up? in 3…2…1.
I’d mentioned that before. There is a risk issue (had one portfolio manager warn me away from one investment). When you go outside the rules, the rules also don’t protect you. In the deep end the big fish eat the little fish. You have to wonder who it was that keeps taking Trump’s daddy’s money from him forcing Trump into strategic bankruptcies. Like @Kyrios says Trump didn’t have the “Best People”. But those that do take money from Trump or upper middle class as they are the people with enough money worth taking.
Congress has the power of the purse string. If we were smart we’d ask our Congressmen to have it in their platform. My ex-Congressperson (I just moved) was not just in the House but on the Appropriations Committee, those are the prime targets for the question.
@AK_Icebear may have a more workable idea for a short term fix, to get the money for a long-term fix (as it would take a while to staff and retain the type of people that could get those audits done). Where someone like Warren is valuable is in asking for rules that would close some legal loopholes that would make the audits, if they happened, more effective.
I know I got smacked-about for saying earlier in the thread that at a certain level of wealth (which I am not at, but I know people that trained me on managing money) you do get set your own tax rate. Some wealthy chose to pay some taxes btw. But at some level now it really is a choice. Of course, moving the wealth then changing citizenship is the biggest tool, and the usual threat in private: if you try and take more than they are willing to pay, they’ll take the money and leave.
To tie to the most recent posts, mobility is for the more well-off now only, and the very rich are fully mobile.
So, let’s make them do that. If they don’t want to play the rules, they can leave the US, but I am pretty sure their wealth will get taxed on the way out the door.
You move the wealth first, and if you couldn’t find it in an audit, how do you find it to tax it?
Europe, and esp. France just went through this.
https://www.ft.com/content/79d9c18c-f87b-11e8-af46-2022a0b02a6c
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a-wealth-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-did-europe-kill-theirs
There, should be a link from neutral, left, right. No disagreement on how it didn’t work out. And they have better enforcement than we do, but only marginally. Deutche Bank is a known to help in laundering, and implicated with the Trumps.
Even Cato says, “go Warren, close those loopholes” which is her obvious strength. But, without the IRS ability to enforce said rules, or even existing, it is a paper tiger with no teeth. I think the solution, and fallout will need a more global framework.
Nesrie
1736
Sure. Another way to put it, I’m just saying if Warren pursues this… she’d just better make sure she actually pursues it, get it done.
France can’t do much capital control because of single market and eurozone rules, and can’t fill the vacant investment because of eurozone rules. One might even realize that is by design.
Expect this sort of push in the US soon, especially if Trump is re-elected. Either way, the GOP will pivot to deficit anxiety and attack social security and Medicare and the VSP compromise proposal will be raising the age of eligibility.
“Poor people should work longer so that rich people can save on taxes”
Amen brother. That chart has less usability than windows millennium.
CraigM
1740
It definitely is confusing, and not immediately apparent what it is communicating.
However it does demonstrate a trend worth monitoring
The long and short of it is that from ‘76-86 the unemployment in any given state had more to do with the national economy than regional factors. In fact regional factors were more or less irrelevant in predicting the level in 86, with no clear trend. Basically it was random.
However from 2006-2016 that is not the case. Regional unemployment factors were the dominant force, and a state with high unemployment in ‘06 would invariably have a higher level in 2016. Structural local factors were the biggest determinant, and less regional mobility contributed to this sorting.
Bechtel exec suggests that petro industry agree not to compete for workers on wages.
Rather is eloquent as always. One of the better calls for social democracy that I’ve seen, though he doesn’t actually use the term.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/28/774067928/bs-jobs-how-meaningless-work-wears-us-down
Wasn’t sure where to put this, but since this talks about work, and hours, I felt this was the best place
This was an interesting (if long podcast) on how a lot of jobs are useless, but we feel compelled to seem busy. I think this plays heavily into income inequality, because it’s part of the reason costs keep going up in places like Universities.
A BS job is a job where the occupant believes that he or she provides or does nothing of value. But, because of the nature of the job, they are stuck wasting time instead of doing something useful or fun.
One of the best examples in inviterview on BS jobs wasn’t even a BS job. It was washing dishes. The author was hired to wash dishes and did an excellent job (and did it quick) but because he was still on the clock, his boss gave him more things to do to (even though it was just BS work). This is a classic example where efficiency isn’t rewarded, but in fact punished, and something I learned early on working crappy jobs.
Anyway, rich people suck and most of them are useless.
There’s nothing wrong with pitching in and helping elsewhere, and doesn’t a dishwasher need to hang around to wash the next batch of dishes?
Some jobs can be structured so when you’re done you get to leave. I remember watching a story on 60 Minutes I think about the garbage guys in some place, maybe Hawaii, who got to go for the day when their route was done. These guys hustled, trotting alongside the trucks and dashing into yards to get the trash cans. They were able to knock off a couple of hours early by working harder and faster and they loved it!
The podcast goes into it in further detail. There was nothing else to do, but because they were on the clock, their employer insisted that they look busy despite that fact.
It’s an interesting podcast on how doing a Bullshit job is hard on people and how these jobs are created despite serving no purpose (according to the people that actually work these jobs).
Here is a link to wiki page.
One interest point the author made at the end was that he came around to the idea of universal basic income. Since most people are striving to do something of merit, he felt that UBI would lead to more efficient work placement.
The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:
- flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants
- goons, who act aggressively on behalf of their employers, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists
- duct tapers, who ameliorate preventable problems, e.g., programmers repairing shoddy code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags don’t arrive
- box tickers, who use paperwork or gestures as a proxy for action, e.g., performance managers, in-house magazine journalists, leisure coordinators
- taskmasters, who manage—or create extra work for—those who don’t need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals
And again, the essay and book are based on people arguing that their own job is a bullshit job. He isn’t claiming these jobs are BS, he is saying the people that work them are claiming it.
