This has actually been tried. It’s called [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demurrage_currency](demurrage currency). Basically, every note decreases in value every week: in 1930s Austria, this was accomplished by requiring people to get regular stamps to keep their money good, but every stamp reduced the value of the note.
This encourages people to spend money instead of hoarding it, but the obvious downside is that it makes saving functionally impossible.
very cool thanks :)
That would disproportionately affect the poor since the money owned by the wealthy is overwhelmingly tied up in other assets, index funds etc
Your right I should have said wealth or assets
It does. It’s called inflation.
Modern millionaires don’t hoard cash, just like ancient millionaires didn’t hoard apples or wheat. Sure, millionaires always had something perishable, but most of the wealth was/is tied in things like land, buildings, companies, ships, cattle, slaves, stocks, bonds, loans etc.
Inflation has little impact on the wealthy. I should have said wealth or assets
Please note that Elon Musk doesn’t hoard money in the same way that Scrooge McDuck does
Yes but he does hoard wealth and assets.
Man, I wish the world’s richest man was just a cheap skate instead of a corrupt sociopathic nazi fraud edgelord.
That’s pretty much always been an apt description of the World’s richest person.
And schools should have economics and personal finances as part of the curriculum.
Nobody is hoarding money. Uncle Scrooge is a bad caricature of a rich person - that’s not how any of it works.
And schools should have economics and personal finances as part of the curriculum.
the problem with this “common sense” approach is that it emphasizes and reinforces personal responsibility in a system that’s rigged to take advantage of every human foible.
I call this the “late-fee” fallacy. As in the idea that video store late fees are intended to encourage responsible behavior, not a revenue stream that the business relies on. Overdraft fees are another great example.
Financial responsibility would ruin the economy.
Better solution: world wide wealth caps. WWWC, if you will
Just your normal tax brackets but with one extra one that says that nobody can be worth more than, say, 10 million dollars. Anything over that goes straight not taxes until you’re below again.
For companies, make it a billion dollars
This way, nobody can become extraordinary rich and or powerful
Nobody can pressure others or influence large groups with money because nobody can
Companies will require a huge amount of small shareholders so no one single shareholder can influence a single company
Governments will get a huge influx of money which they can use for a huge social network with free healthcare, free education, UBI (Universal Basic Income) and so on.
With that, no more poverty. Everyone can have a standard minimum living where they have a nice little home, all the food and healthcare and education they’d need, and if someone wants a little more, they can work a little more, but nobody can get over 10 mil.
It would eradicate poverty, and much of -or most- crime, as money is the incentive of much of the crime in the world
Governments can make world wide investment foundations that can fund independent press agencies with the single requirements that they always try to be as unbiased and honest as possible
Companies can’t have a networth over a billion dollars, so instead of 1-3 giant companies, we’ll have thousands, of not millions of smaller ones.
Companies will no longer have incentives to cheat and or fuck over customers or the environment because why would you of you reached the limit and you can’t earn more anyway? Focus can go to quality and safety again
I see a huge amount of pro’s here with … Well, I don’t even see cons
I know this requires that we implement this world wide, but that would be the only complication. The rules themselves are simple and basic. I know, there are a lot of details that willl emerge that need to be handled but anything is better than the oligarch shit we have now and this to me sounds like a Utopian society, really, or as close as we can get to them
It already does, it’s called inflation.
Also are you talking about physical money, or bank accounts, or what…?
inflation has little effect on the wealthy. I should have said wealth or assets.
A wealth tax of just 1%/year is sufficient to prevent new billionaires from forming and slowly eliminating existing billionaires without having to bring out the choppy boys. Given current public anger, they would be wise to support such things.
Do you mean cash, money, or wealth?
Sorry I should have said wealth or assets.
Yes, only already rich should have an ability to use capital. Peons should be stripped of even theoretical possibility to get any capital-tier sum. Only gas and bread money.
I was thinking more of people having what they can use and not horad wealth and assets.
Absolutely not
Hoarding is not illegal, maybe it should be, certainly at scale but currently it is not so measures to stop it are not lawful at this time.
Lol. The way you make something illegal is by passing laws. It’s not unlawful to pass laws
Hoarding is not the correct way to think of billionaires amassing grotesque wealth, hoarding is the old couple putting cash under the bed. For the old couple it is their money and their business. What billionaires do is a significant societal drain on resources and should be dealt with accordingly, akin to war crimes.
Yeah, I feel like we want constant deflation instead of inflation.
Deflation makes dollars MORE valuable, and thus discourages commerce.
