Of course I want money to live well and get what I need and want.
How much money is that? $1 million? $1 billion? If you want a house that costs $500 thousand, that’s what you’ll need for that. Maybe you feel like you could live well on $100 thousand a year, buy some decent things, take some trips, etc. Well, $100 thousand a year over 50 years, is $5,000,000. That plus your $500,000 house and you’d have enough money to be in the top 1%.
But what I’m saying is, if you had that much money you would be wealthy. You would be one of them, you’d be in the top 1% of wealth holders.
But, ok, let’s say wealthy really means everyone who has over $1 billion in wealth. Well, if we forced all the people who have more than $1 billion in wealth to liquidate all of their wealth above $999,999,999.00, and we redistributed that to every household in the US, each household would get about $36,000. And I’m not talking about $36,000 a year, I’m talking about a one time $36,000 check. Now, that’s not nothing, and for some folks that would definitely help a ton, but you also have to consider the inflationary implications. If all of the sudden every household in the US got an extra $36,000, a lot of those folks would want to spend it. And why not, right? Get a car maybe, take a trip, put a down payment on a house. But if everyone were suddenly looking to spend all that money at once, prices would go up, so your money wouldn’t go as far.
But I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it. I think there are a lot of good reasons to have a wealth tax over a certain amount. I’m just not sure it would make that much of a difference.
That’s why we don’t write checks to people and give that 5 trillion to the state where it belongs, to invest in education, public health, infrastructure, and other public goods. 5 trillion about 15% of our national debt.
That’s fine, but you really don’t need a wealth tax to fund education and infrastructure. A sovereign currency issuer can create their own money. There’s no reason why the US government couldn’t just create $5 trillion to fund those things you mentioned. And I know you might say that would cause inflation, but I don’t see how $5 trillion being created would cause more inflation than getting the $5 trillion from a wealth tax. Either way, the same amount of money is being spent on education, health and infrastructure. Plus, with the wealth tax, the billionaires would have to liquidate a lot of assets to get that money to pay the wealth tax, and that could cause a crash in asset markets.
How much money is that? $1 million? $1 billion? If you want a house that costs $500 thousand, that’s what you’ll need for that. Maybe you feel like you could live well on $100 thousand a year, buy some decent things, take some trips, etc. Well, $100 thousand a year over 50 years, is $5,000,000. That plus your $500,000 house and you’d have enough money to be in the top 1%.
Whatever the number is, it’s much less than a billion. That goes for anyone.
But what I’m saying is, if you had that much money you would be wealthy. You would be one of them, you’d be in the top 1% of wealth holders.
But, ok, let’s say wealthy really means everyone who has over $1 billion in wealth. Well, if we forced all the people who have more than $1 billion in wealth to liquidate all of their wealth above $999,999,999.00, and we redistributed that to every household in the US, each household would get about $36,000. And I’m not talking about $36,000 a year, I’m talking about a one time $36,000 check. Now, that’s not nothing, and for some folks that would definitely help a ton, but you also have to consider the inflationary implications. If all of the sudden every household in the US got an extra $36,000, a lot of those folks would want to spend it. And why not, right? Get a car maybe, take a trip, put a down payment on a house. But if everyone were suddenly looking to spend all that money at once, prices would go up, so your money wouldn’t go as far.
But I’m not saying we shouldn’t do it. I think there are a lot of good reasons to have a wealth tax over a certain amount. I’m just not sure it would make that much of a difference.
That’s why we don’t write checks to people and give that 5 trillion to the state where it belongs, to invest in education, public health, infrastructure, and other public goods. 5 trillion about 15% of our national debt.
That’s fine, but you really don’t need a wealth tax to fund education and infrastructure. A sovereign currency issuer can create their own money. There’s no reason why the US government couldn’t just create $5 trillion to fund those things you mentioned. And I know you might say that would cause inflation, but I don’t see how $5 trillion being created would cause more inflation than getting the $5 trillion from a wealth tax. Either way, the same amount of money is being spent on education, health and infrastructure. Plus, with the wealth tax, the billionaires would have to liquidate a lot of assets to get that money to pay the wealth tax, and that could cause a crash in asset markets.