- 02 Feb 2019 07:21
#14985164
From a panel discussion at davos. Really interesting to watch and read up on.
[The tweet doesn't seem to be coming into view. So, you can't watch it.]
[twitter=1090045108064579584]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 0/wealth...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ger-breg...
Some choice quotes all from the first article (op-ed):
Mind you the guy who wrote the article is no communist, rather he wants to, in his own words, 'save capitalism'.
Most of you will probably dis-agree with this. I know I don't, although I don't agree on all points. So I am really just wanted to share this with those who care and issue my call for action. Start with a massive tax increase on the wealthy. And graduated taxes on Capital Gains.
[The tweet doesn't seem to be coming into view. So, you can't watch it.]
[twitter=1090045108064579584]
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... 0/wealth...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... ger-breg...
Some choice quotes all from the first article (op-ed):
No, wealth isn’t created at the top. It is merely devoured there.
Now, we may disagree about the extent to which success deserves to be rewarded – the philosophy of the left is that the strongest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden, while the right fears high taxes will blunt enterprise – but across the spectrum virtually all agree that wealth is created primarily at the top.
So entrenched is this assumption that it’s even embedded in our language. When economists talk about “productivity”, what they really mean is the size of your paycheck. And when we use terms like “welfare state”, “redistribution” and “solidarity”, we’re implicitly subscribing to the view that there are two strata: the makers and the takers, the producers and the couch potatoes, the hardworking citizens – and everybody else.
But there is also a second way to make money. That’s the rentier way: by leveraging control over something that already exists, such as land, knowledge, or money, to increase your wealth. You produce nothing, yet profit nonetheless. By definition, the rentier makes his living at others’ expense, using his power to claim economic benefit.
In other words, a big part of the modern banking sector is essentially a giant tapeworm gorging on a sick body. It’s not creating anything new, merely sucking others dry. Bankers have found a hundred and one ways to accomplish this. The basic mechanism, however, is always the same: offer loans like it’s going out of style, which in turn inflates the price of things like houses and shares, then earn a tidy percentage off those overblown prices (in the form of interest, commissions, brokerage fees, or what have you), and if the shit hits the fan, let Uncle Sam mop it up.
Yet it doesn’t have to be this way. Tollgates can be torn down, financial products can be banned, tax havens dismantled, lobbies tamed, and patents rejected. Higher taxes on the ultra-rich can make rentierism less attractive, precisely because society’s biggest freeloaders are at the very top of the pyramid. And we can more fairly distribute our earnings on land, oil, and innovation through a system of, say, employee shares, or a universal basic income.
Mind you the guy who wrote the article is no communist, rather he wants to, in his own words, 'save capitalism'.
Most of you will probably dis-agree with this. I know I don't, although I don't agree on all points. So I am really just wanted to share this with those who care and issue my call for action. Start with a massive tax increase on the wealthy. And graduated taxes on Capital Gains.