Yup, search for “Buy borrow die” and there are various articles about the technique.
The oligarchs in the US are the utlimate power behind the destruction of our democracy. They have stolen the wealth from us for decades. And yet so many of our citizens defend them because they might be rich one day. Which they won’t. Because the ultrarich already there won’t let them.
Guillotines are long overdue.
We don’t wonder anything. If you were wondering, you never bothered to think about it for more than three minutes.
And your comment has what to do with mine?
“The rich pay nintey-”
“They can pay fucken 100 percent, I dont give a shit. You want to be a world pillar? Here you go.”Ancap (ie, right wing) friend sent me this off shitter:
Unrealized gains tax for Gen-Z:
You buy a Pokémon card for $50.
Someone offers you $500 for it. You say no. You love that card. You’re keeping it.
The government says: “Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes.” You: “…I didn’t sell it.”
Government: “Don’t care. Pay up.”
You don’t have $100 lying around. So you’re forced to sell the card you love just to pay a tax on money you never received.
Next month? That card drops back to $50.
Your card is gone. Your money is gone. And the government shrugs.
That’s a wealth tax on unrealized gains. They don’t pay you back the tax…
Now picture this.
Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can’t afford it. She’s lived there 30 years. It’s paid off.
But some website says it’s worth more now and the government says she owes $15,000 she doesn’t have.
So she sells your childhood home. The kitchen where she made you breakfast. The doorframe where she marked your height every birthday.
Gone.
To pay a tax on money that was never real.
Now picture the opposite.
Your dad put everything into his small business. For 20 years he built it from nothing. One year the business is “valued” at $2 million on paper. He owes a massive tax bill. He empties his savings. Sells his truck. Borrows money. Pays it.
Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.
He lost everything to pay a tax on a number that doesn’t exist anymore.
Does the government give him his money back? No.
Does the government give him his truck back? No.
Does the government care? No.
They sold this idea as “taxing billionaires.” But billionaires have armies of lawyers, offshore accounts, and trusts. They’ll be fine.
You know who won’t be fine? Your mom. Your dad. Your neighbor with a small business. The farmer down the road who’s had the same land for four generations and now has to sell it because dirt got expensive.
You’re not taxing wealth. You’re taxing people for owning things.
It’s like getting a parking ticket for a car you might drive somewhere someday.
They want you to own nothing and be happy. To fund the fraud, waste and abuse of the welfare state they created.
There is enough money. More tax isn’t needed. It’s all a lie. But you’ve been gaslit into believing this is a rich vs poor debate.
I hope you understand what’s at stake.
I pretty much instantly shut that down by saying “THEN MAKE THE FUCKING LAW FORBID THE BILLIONAIRES FROM SIDE STEPPING IT! THAT IS THE PROBLEM! IT IS A RICH VS POOR DEBATE YOU IDIOT!!!”
People are idiots.
The ways this is idiotic:
- “The government says: “Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes.” You: “…I didn’t sell it.””
There is currently no tax on unrealized gains. If there ever were, it wouldn’t be 20%. It would be something tiny like 1-2%. It’s a wealth tax. Wealth taxes are tiny compared to income taxes precisely because they’re taxing something you’re holding and will still have next year if nothing changes.
- “Next month? That card drops back to $50.”
Why does it “drop back to $50”? OP said that the $500 value was because someone offered that much for it. Did that person no longer want to buy it? It’s true that sometimes the value of things is fluid, which can make wealth taxes hard. But a 90% drop in value over the course of a month? Let’s be realistic.
- “Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can’t afford it. She’s lived there 30 years. It’s paid off.”
Yes, housing taxes are wealth taxes. Sometimes when the place you lived in appreciates enough, the property taxes go up a lot. So yes, sometimes people do have to move when their properties go up so much they can no longer afford the property taxes. But, when that happens they get to sell the place, and if the property taxes are so much that the person can no longer afford them, that means that the property is worth a fortune. The property tax is often 2% or below. So, if mom owes $15,000 in property taxes, that means her property is worth at least $750,000, probably actually more than $1M. Cha ching! She can buy a nice, smaller place now that she doesn’t need to raise kids, and use the rest to go on some nice vacations.
Yeah, it sucks if you have an emotional attachment to a place you can no longer afford. But, there are plenty of people who can’t afford to buy a house at all, who weren’t even allowed to mark their kids’ heights every birthday because they were renting. Wealth taxes are a way to even things out. Property taxes are a pretty shitty form of wealth taxes because they hit the middle class harder than the ultra rich, but people who don’t own property don’t pay property taxes, which is good.
- “Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.”
Man, this guy can’t catch a break, all his relatives have everything crash 90% in value immediately after having to pay a tax bill they can’t afford, despite wealth taxes being tiny amounts.
In addition, most of the time wealth taxes have a threshold exactly for this kind of reason. If someone owns a $2m business in a place with wealth taxes, they may pay nothing because the first $5m is exempt.
Yes, sometimes wealth taxes are more painful to upper middle class or the moderately rich because they don’t have the armies of lawyers and accountants who can find the best strategy to minimize their taxes. But, the answer isn’t to scrap wealth taxes entirely. It’s to accept that even the moderately wealthy should pay more than people who own almost nothing, and to properly fund the tax authorities and financial crimes divisions of the cops so they can go after the ultra rich when they illegally avoid taxes.
If you got 500$ - 100$ in tax for the card and it drops back to 50$, you can just buy it back with 400$ you still have left…
And a wealth tax and inheritance tax usually have a cut before you even have to pay any tax. Got granny’s house worth 500k? No problem. Get a building complex worth millions? Pay your damn taxes. I’m sure the state will accept a payout over time if you can’t afford to pay it at once.
If you got 500$ - 100$ in tax for the card and it drops back to 50$, you can just buy it back with 400$ you still have left…
They’re talking about a wealth tax where you have to pay $100 even though you never sold the card. (But it’s double bullshit because something as small as $500 is never going to face a wealth tax, and $100 (20%) is a way higher tax rate than anybody would pay.
They said they were forced to sell the card due taxes
Ah, good point. So, you’re right. It goes from a sad scenario where you have to sell your $500 card to pay an absurd $100 wealth tax, to a happy one where you end up with $350 plus your favourite card just one month later.
The Pokémon card example is ludicrous - aside from the fact that CCG cards are not “wealth”, or the fact that no one would offer $500 for a card that is only worth $50, a single buyer does not make a market or set the value. Stocks, the source of most outrageous wealth, by definition have a market value, and even the most frothy of assets don’t swing 10x in such a short period of time.
The mom calling about selling the childhood home is very real, in fact it already happens! Guess your friend is unfamiliar with property taxes. My home has tripled in value and the government appraised value went up by a smaller amount, and now I pay taxes. When my mortgage is fully paid off, I will still owe the local government taxes every year. All those “tax free” states lean on regressive taxes like sales tax and property taxes to avoid collecting progressive income taxes, so this problem is even worse in those states.
A while back I owned a small business, and because I didn’t pay myself in stock, I had to pay taxes every year based on how much my company profited. My business partner and I would do a distribution every year to pay those taxes. We paid more every year in taxes on our modest business than Tesla paid last year on $5.7B in income. Also, company “worth” for private businesses is based on appreciated assets and cash on hand… a business owner who “lost” 90% of the business value of a two decade old business in a year has much, much bigger problems than unrealized gains taxes.
Middle class people are already paying wealth taxes. Mutual funds are taxed on unrealized gains all the time, albeit at capital gains rates (because we value capital more than labor). Property taxes are paid on the biggest source of wealth most people own. Even poor people are paying annual taxes or fees on their cars.
I agree, your friend is a moron, but I think most people knew that the second they saw “ancap”.
Property taxes are regressive, but having state income taxes doesn’t preclude them, the states just spend the extra money. Here some cities have income taxes, the state, and the feds. And counties do property taxes through the township levels. The state will spend every penny they can get their grasping hands on, currently for pet projects of lawmakers and tax breaks and incentives and money spent to improve locations to lure big business to set up here.
While the small business both parties pretend to care about like yourself pay through the nose, that money is taken from us and handed to the richest companies in the world to set up here without paying those same taxes.
It’s all about leverage, and alone we have none. It’s never been more clear we need to organize, on our own forums, around what we agree on, no matter what we disagree on. On existing social media we are simply turned against each other on issues, oh that person from the other side that rejected their party and came over to our side? They once said this and still say that so fuck them they aren’t pure, even as the people making those arguments originally are the biggest pieces of shit in the world.
Social media is rigged, we need our own forums set up to not be rigged, to not be hooked by government and big business, and providing clear rules enforced fairly. Federated sites on general forums allowing people to cooperate publicly and privately as they see fit, and move between social medias on the same account. Where violations can be appealed all the way to a jury trial of members to prevent the rich, government, and moderators perverting it or abusing their power.
Would making the law kick in after a certain amount of net worth be the answer in that situation?
It’s almost like we have that exact system in place for income.
It’s just a shame that it’s completely backwards with those making less money paying a higher % of their money than those with more money.
Start taxing 20% from $1B+ and I think 99.999999% of us are fine.
Historically, taxing the ultra-rich at 90% or 95% has not stopped them from staying rich, and it also helped everyone else get more social services.
When the US was at the height of prosperity, when the working class had the highest standard of living, and disposable income, the highest ever in history of any working class hands down, in the 1950s, and until the 1970s when it declined precipitously in the late 70s, obscene incomes were taxed at 90 percent. The first so much was taxed at lower rates, above a certain amount the rest at 90%.
The majority of taxes came from businesses too, 90%, today it’s flipped and 90% is individuals.
Whatever problems existed in those decades, a minimum wage job paid for a family, bought a house, a cheap car, health care, food, incidentals, going out for a burger even. Just one of them. And that is the issue people care most about, having enough money to live with dignity.
People argue that isnt why America was prosperous. " ACKSHUALLY We were prosperous during that period because we destroyed the other countries ability to produce."
I don’t believe that myself, those idiots are billionaire apologists.
A wealth tax wouldn’t apply to normal people below an obscene threshold. And you wouldn’t tax a primary residence at all, as is already the case with our tax code on near every score. You wouldn’t tax a baseball card collection.
But if a person put a bunch of paypal stock into an IRA account, and it turned into 5 billion dollars later, you would find a way to tax most all of that. If bezos’ worth increased by billions, then a portion above an obscene level would be taxed, often exempting the first so much then graduating higher levels, as is customary in taxation here.
You are excusing the super rich from taxes by associating it with hypothetical unfair taxations against normal people for smaller amounts. Which is the same way they got rid of the estate tax, by lying about who paid the estate tax, claiming family farms and small business paid it, when it was only obscenely rich people that paid it.
Now, no one pays it. An heiress just inherited 200 million on her 19th birthday or something, not the entire estate just a piece of it, without paying a dime in tax, thanks to the dishonest arguments mirroring the ones you made on this in the first half of your piece at least.
Bezos paid 600 dollars in 2020, a year his net worth skyrocketed, and where he spent an incredible amount of money he got without getting a paycheck. He paid less in taxes than we do, not just per capita, total. He claimed the child tax credit. When your net worth increases by millions above millions, it needs to be taxed, whether it’s when they borrow against the value of that which is where they now realize much of their income that is tax free now, or whether it’s regardless of it being realized.
If the value they were taxed on an increased price of an asset fell later, they would be able to subtract that back 3 years and forward ten years to offset other taxable income, that’s the way it’s already set up, itself quite unfair as working people get no such consideration to only pay taxes on profits, which would be akin to only paying taxes on wages after paying all of your core bills.
In 1950, the majority of taxes, like 90 percent, came from businesses, now 90 percent is ripped from working people, and the richer they are, the less they pay above a certain threshold, something has to change.
The whole reason the right wants to abolish the “welfare state” is to have a pipeline of poor and hungry children to sell as sex slaves.
Anybody who complains about “the welfare state” just wants cheaper access to child sex slaves.
Change my mind.
Yeah. My parents moved into the country because their house value got too high and they were being taxed to death because of all the people that moved into my hometown making property values skyrocket.
Then other people started moving into the area, and now the value of their place has skyrocketed, and they’re gonna have to sell again because they’re being taxed to death because other people moved into the area.
There’s this massive movement of retirement people from place to place because every time they move somewhere to reduce their tax burden the values go up again.
I’m 100% for capping the taxable value of land for primary homes based on the value at the time of purchase plus inflation. The whole idea of a homestead is to improve land, and
“Boo Hoo, my assets keep going up in value so much that I keep having to cash out!”
No. They keep having to move away from their homes and get new loans at higher rates.
They’ve never been able to pay off a home because they keep having to do new mortgages.
Your parents just suck at personal finance. They used their home as a piggy bank and raided the equity every time they moved. Either that or they kept buying more expensive properties.
I’m sorry, but your story is just not credible. If they owned a house in the city, and then the value soared, they should have been able to take their windfall, move out to the country, and buy a cheap property in cash. The only way this isn’t true is if they either did a lot of cash-out refinancing, or if when they moved to the countryside, they bought a much larger property.
You’re supposed to use equity towards a new home when interest rates are higher than retirement returns.
The property was cheap (about an acre for 40,000), but then they had to put a house on it. They were living in an RV that came with the property due a few months while the house was being built.
Covid hit in the lag between when their old house sold and the new one was ordered, so the cost of building the new house was double what was expected, so instead of buying cash their remaining equity was wiped out and they ended up with a loan. But it was still cheaper than their old house because of taxes.
But after the new, smaller house was finished, a neighboring property was also bought and a multi-million dollar mansion was placed on it. And then another.
And then the county and school district raised the tax rate for everyone while also quintupling the assessed value of the land. There’s a circuit breaker law, so it can only go up 10% a year, but even that’s unsustainable for people on a fixed income.
The vast majority of states have some level of control on the increase in property taxes. Generally through a cap on appreciation, cap on tax increase, or both.
One word: Land value tax.
Every time I see a post like this I am disappointed that NO ONE mentions Henry George.
People, please, go educate yourself. Taxes were solved before ww1.
Why’s that? You stated your opinion knowing that many people are ignorant of it, but failed to back it up. Why should we research your idea when we have ideas of our own? Don’t suggest we’re ignorant if you’re not willing to take the first step in educating us. Your contempt feels good but doesn’t solve any problems. Ciao
I feel you and I’m glad you asked. The goal of my comment is to invoke interest so one can go down the rabbithole on ones own terms. This has a much more sustainable effect than just serving information on a boilerplate nobody asked for. Much like a catchy title/thumbnail on a yt video generates clicks, but the actual information does not.
There are a lot of resources about LVT out there including some educational videos in an entertainning way. Pick your own poison: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=georgism
My Standpoint: Our present tax system is bad (almost worldwide): Tax based on value generated (like income, sales and import taxes) costs society a lot (real costs but also opportunity costs) while simultaniously not solving a lot of todays issues (f.e. tax evasion, old money, zone planning / car centric design, pollution, etc.). Land Value Tax (or more precicely: Resource Tax) solves this by getting rid of the penalty for being productive or creating value while simultaniously taxing those being exponantionally wasteful with resources and/or pollute.
With LVT, there is now a penalty free incentive to increase profits and/or efficiency. On the other hand, if you consume and/or occupy resources like land, oil or air pollution, you’ll have to pay tax for that derived from the resources scarcity. The sum of the tax would be similar or higher than todays sum and would finance all government spending including a citizens dividend which could be interpreted today as unconditional basic income which would provide for basic human needs.
Georgism is PRO Economy and PRO Humanity. Win Win. Regardless of your political flavor, you should be in favor 😏
Winners: Society, everyone from poor to rich, resourceful entrepreneurs
Losers: old money, polluters, unrighteous beneficiaries of today’s flawed legal situation
That’s a great pitch, thank you, I’m sold. appreciate the work
This doesn’t make any sense. How are the loans getting paid back?
This is the process, extremely simplified:
- It’s 1970. You inherit $10M from your rich dad who worked hard.
- Buy $10M index fund stock.
- Borrow $10M against stock.
- Live tax free off that $10M loan for 30 years (you can do that because you started in 1970 when it was cheap to buy a house).
- Your stock is now worth $58M (avg 6% per year for 30 years)
- Your kids inherit the stock at its current value and immediately sell $10M worth to pay off original loan. They pay no capital gains tax because the stock barely moved in the time between when they took ownership and selling it. All of the value growth since original purchase in 1970 is now tax free. The kids now start with $48M.
- Repeat
Obviously, there is more to it than this. For example, this does not account for interest in the loan, or diversification of investments, or ability to hire accountants to maximize on the process.
Your kids inherit the stock at its current value and immediately sell $10M worth to pay off original loan
And the bank says “um, what about the rest?” In the 1970s and early 80s the inflation rate was, at times, above 10%, so your loan’s interest rate would have been above that. But say on average the loan’s interest rate was 5% per year over 30 years… the bank isn’t going to be content for just the original $10M.
All that matters is that your portfolio grows faster than the interest rate.
That’s what success looks like. But, you don’t know if you’re going to be successful when you take out the loan. If there’s a market downturn you’re on the hook for the loan and your portfolio has crashed. If you sold a few stocks instead of taking out a loan, you’re insulated from that possibility.
You think they’re giving out low rate 30-50 year rolling personal loans in the tens or hundreds of millions of dollars range? This I find hard to believe. The premise makes sense, but I don’t think these loans usually exist.
You might find it hard to believe, but nevertheless it is true. These are considered to be extremely safe loans, so they give out sweetheart rates to get them.
It’s actually a real thing.
Since taxes are paid when an asset is sold, not when it goes up in value, your net worth goes up with no tax liability change. When you die, the purchase price for tax purposes resets. Now the inheritor sells the assets. Since the sale price is essentially the same as the taxation price, there’s no taxes.
You’re borrowing today’s money against tomorrow’s value and taking the difference out of your death messing with taxes to free up the value.
From a financial perspective the time horizon for return doesn’t matter, only that the return is balanced against the time. From that perspective, the people giving the loan have no reason to really care since it makes them look good and they’ll at least not be working there when and if it goes wrong.They get a painting worth 10K, get a loan for that, then get it appraised for 30K, get a loan on that from somewhere else and pay off the other one. That’s one idea.
The second is they like assets that provide passive income and appreciate. You’ll find a lot get into land as well and rental units.
For the individual wealthy, they aren’t. Some loans might get paid off by taking another loan, but the goal is to take the loan to the grave. The loan would get paid after death because then the estate can sell the stocks without paying any capital gains tax.
Let’s say you buy 1 million worth of stocks. The day before you die that stock is worth 51 million. If you cash out that stock you’re paying capital gains tax on 50 million. Let’s say the capital gains tax is 20% which means you’d pay 10 mil in taxes. So you get 41 million from the sale. Let’s say the loan is exactly 41 million so to pay off the loan you get nothing.
But if you die and that stock goes to the estate they haven’t gained any capital from the stock so when they sell it they pay no tax on it. The estate then sells the stock tax free to pay off whatever debt there was (the estate sells only 41 million worth of stocks keeping the 10 million on stocks). That 10 million is effectively free money that goes to the inheritor.
Basically it’s all just tax evasion for the ultrawealthy. Except it’s legal so technically it’s not tax evasion. And realistically the numbers are even more astronomical than what I used as an example.
Look, the rich people wrote the laws. You think they didn’t leave loopholes for themselves? … Tax law doesn’t have to make sense.
Since the 1970s governments have been continually printing more money. This means that if you can get a low enough interest loan (i.e. by having a ton of money already so that you’re low risk), the money you owe will devalue faster than interest accrues. You just keep doing that, and/or use it to invest.
the stocks pay dividends,
Don’t tax the rich. Take more extreme measures.
Join your local communist party and join the revolution to overthrow these fucks and seize their fortune by force.
Yeah because Communism worked so well for Russia, China, North Korea, etc. Communism is NEVER the answer, since it will ALWAYS get abused.
If I burn your house down, is that evidence your house “didn’t work” and should never have been built in the first place?
Apparently worked better than the alternative . . .
Saying communism isn’t the answer since it will get abused, when your alternative is capitalism, is like saying dating someone in recovery is a bad idea, and that’s why you only look for abusive people who are currently drunk.
So much apples in 1997?
Just like how capitalism works so well for the U.S. and Canada and many other countries?
Don’t you see what’s happening around you? I live in Hochelaga, a borough of Montreal, Canada. There are people sleeping in tents in all the parks around my home. There are literal encampments with several people living together. They’re freezing to death in the winter and dying of heatstroke in the summer. They’re starving. They’re sick. They can’t afford rent after getting kicked out of their apartments because some rich property baron bought their apartment bloc to flip it. Housing has become a commodity for investment instead of a human right. Same with food. Food banks can’t keep up with the surging demand. People are unable to feed themselves because of food inflation. Grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but people are starving because they can’t afford it. Our public healthcare system is being gutted and replaced with private clinics and private care that are out of reach for the vast majority of people. And in the U.S. it’s even worse! People have to live with preventable health problems, wounds, diseases and die because health care is unaffordable. Even education is out of reach in the U.S. because of how ridiculously expensive it is. How well is it going for us in a capitalist world? Not good at all.
And you’re saying it didn’t work well for the Soviet Union and China? The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve kept pace with the rest of the world in terms of technology and innovation. They were one of the most educated people on earth. Everyone was housed and fed and schooled and received the medical care they needed. And China? I’d say it’s working pretty fucking well for the world’s current superpower. They’re leading the world in economy, technology, productivity, progress, and believe it or not, even environmentally. No other nation has planted as much trees as they did or made as much progress in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions as China did. They’re putting every other countries to shame.
And forget North Korea. That’s not communism.
Those aren’t the only two systems. Even if they were, it’s much easier to force changes onto capitalist governments than communist ones.
The only other one I would tolerate would be anarchism.
This is u ironically why the rich should support a wealth tax.
Ok, but how about something instead of communism, because that never works.
Who told you that it never works? … Checks notes … the capitalists did.
No, it’s my own eyes. You don’t need the capitalists to interpret it for you when you can just look for yourself and see that communism never works.
What communist country did you live in again?
Who said I lived in a communist country?
So what are you seeing with your own eyes?
The results of supposed “communists” taking over a country.
keep in mind, that communism, based on marx’s vision, was supposed to bring democracy to the workplace, on top of democracy in politics, the “worker’s dictatorship” was supposed to be a temporary thing, before the system reaches actual communism
I think we can now say that Marx didn’t know how people actually behaved in real life.
supposed to be
Yet never was and could never be.
That’s so far because either a elite group gets in power and turns it into feudalism again, or the us intervenes because communism shall not work.
We didn’t throw away democracy just because the french revolution failed at first.
That’s so far because either a elite group gets in power and turns it into feudalism again
If it always collapses into feudalism / authoritarianism, it’s not a workable system.
We didn’t throw away democracy just because the french revolution failed at first.
The French and the Americans had historical working versions of democracy to consider, like the Athenian system. Communism just fails over and over again every time it’s tried.
The famous athenian system where slaves were tortured for testimony because their testimony wasn’t admitted without torture because they would ‘otherwise lie?’
The famous athenian system where the military quite literally marched 10 miles in one direction, then 10 miles in the other direction the next day because control of the army was transferred from day to day between different generals?
The famous athenian system where a philosopher was sentenced to death because he was teaching the youth to think differently?*
Sounds like democracy fails over and over again every time it’s tried. For every example you could make of communism always failing, somehow, you can make the same of examples with democracy or capitalism. Make better arguments, for the love of water.
spoiler
Well, slightly more complicated than ‘thinking differently.’
Well, the Americans did incorporate the slavery part of the Athenian system. But, they weren’t complete idiots and they picked and chose parts of it that they thought would make sense in the modern world. Really, the American system was closer to 90% British, with a bit of Athenian democracy mixed in. But, they had a previous system to go by where people were allowed to vote and senators were not born into their position, but elected.
Capitalism doesn’t work. And sadly capitalism never allowed communism to work. Because the greed of the few outweighed the needs of he many.
Capitalism works a lot better than communism. At least countries that are vaguely capitalist still exist and can realistically be described as capitalist today. Countries that claim to be communist are authoritarian, or authoritarian plus capitalist.
How many died under feudalism? How many did Pol Pot kill?
Every system is going to have issues. So far, every other system has resulted in much more death and misery than capitalism.
Your math doesn’t add up. Capitalism kills 18 million a year. Even with the bad math of The Black Book Of Communism (so bad even one of its own authors says it’s bullshit), that means capitalism beat communism in deaths in under 6 years.
Capitalism doesn’t “kill 18 million per year”.
All capitalist countries have elements of socialism, a mix is probably the best scenario, and indeed to have private benefit corporations and co ops to fulfill needs the private sector is unwilling and unable to provide the needs for equitably.
The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls, the free market destroys itself, and leads to consolidation, to one company, becoming sort of communist as the opposite ends come back together in a circle between free market and controlled economy. Somalia should be a free market paradise according to the dogma of the billionaires funding libertarianism and the republican party’s think tanks.
Capital is too greedy to do what’s in it’s own interests and will destroy itself like yeast in a wort producing alcohol that will kill that yeast above a certain percentage.
The idealogues of the right talk a lot of shit, but capitalism doesn’t work without controls
If you read the writings of people like Adam Smith, they expected the government to have a lot of control. Their idea of capitalism involved a lot of government supervision. The core idea of capitalism that everyone would benefit because of competition. Competition leads to winners, but if the winners get too big then they can squeeze out their competitors. That’s why capitalism only works if there’s a government to step in and keep the “winner” from getting too big so it can dominate.
When a lot of people say they hate capitalism, what they really hate is the winner-take-all part, which isn’t supposed to happen if the government is doing its job. 10 companies all trying to win your business by offering the best product for your needs at the best price they can manage is great. One company that operates at a choke point in your world and squeezes as much money out of you as possible sucks.
You could argue that communism is also supposed to work if the government does its job and ensures that everybody’s needs are met and that everybody is equal. IMO the difference is that capitalism at least sort-of works in practice, not just in theory. Yes, there’s a lot of corruption, regulatory capture, etc. in a capitalist system, which isn’t supposed to happen. But, you still can get upstart businesses displacing old and dominant companies that fail to innovate. Meanwhile, supposedly “communist” governments very quickly collapse into authoritarian systems with an elite class that siphons off the wealth of everyone else. It’s a great system in theory, but in practice it just doesn’t seem compatible with actual fallible, corruptible people. Maybe capitalism is more successful because it accepts that people are flawed and greedy and tries to channel that in ways that benefit the public. Communism seems to believe that people don’t have those flaws. As a result, there doesn’t seem to be part of the communist approach that allows people to channel their competitive and greedy impulses. So, instead, they just corrupt the system and establish themselves as a ruling class.
Well I’m glad capitalism works well for you. But it doesn’t work well for the 99% of the population in capitalist countries where they can’t make ends meet while capitalists hold all the money in the world.
Under capitalism, people are sleeping in tents in parks and on the side of the road, freezing to death or dying of heat strokes. People are lining up to food banks which can’t even supply everyone because of how much demand has increased, while grocery stores are stocked to the brim, but the food is unaffordable. People suffer health issues and die of preventable causes because healthcare is becoming less accessible or is just too expensive. Even education is unaccessible in a few places because of the costs. And for what? So a few corporations can make even more profit than they already are?
At least under communism, everyone has a roof over their head. Everyone has food on their table. Everyone has healthcare. Everyone has a job or at least a purpose in society. And communist countries seem to progress much faster than capitalist countries as well. The Soviet Union initiated the space race. They’ve always kept the pace with the rest of the world in technology and innovation. And if you look at China now, they’re essentially the world leader at this point.
You wanna talk about authoritarianism? Look in the U.S. The moment you start to criticize anything, you either get a visit from the cops, or if you protest you get beat up by an army of police officers. U.S. democracy is a sham. Otherwise you wouldn’t have had people like the Clintons, the Bush or Trump as presidents. These people are put there by the billionaire elites, then they manipulate the population into electing them through the media that they own.
For the record, I’m not saying China is any better in that regard. Freedom of expression is not exactly their thing. There’s a lot of things to look up to with China, but human rights and freedom of expression are not any of them. But, the U.S. aren’t any better.
Communism has a bad rap because U.S. imperialism never allowed it to flourish and reach it’s potential anywhere. It’s been stigmatized and portrayed in such a way that it made people scared of it.
I’m confident that if we allowed communism to enter our democracies it would be for the best. Because, for once, the government would start taking care of its people and its workers instead of the corporate leeches.
I’m confident that if we allowed communism to enter our democracies it would be for the best.
Because it worked so well for…?
Because, for once, the government would start taking care of its people and its workers instead of the corporate leeches.
Because that happened in…?
You’re being dishonest and obtuse on purpose here.
Even Cuba has better access to education and health-care and shelter than in it US. Every other challenges they’re facing is because of the US and their sanctions.
Every other challenge? Are you sure? Seems mighty convenient.
A permanent utopia free from geopolitical influence has yet to be established under any system of government, therefore no system of government has ever worked.
Why is “permanent utopia” the criterion? I don’t know of any political system that claims there will be a “permanent utopia”, except maybe dreams of what communism might one day be like.
Well, permanent because if it gets destroyed it you can’t call it successful, and utopia because you need an ideal to measure success against even if its not realistically achievable.
Were carrier pigeons not successful? Just because something is discontinued, doesn’t mean it was not successful for its time when it was deployed?
Carrier pigeons aren’t trained to establish a safe society for humanity. So if they get destroyed they haven’t failed at their primary objective. Governments, though…
Looking at Vietnam… Seems to work great when the imperialists fall to crush you.
In what ways is Vietnam a communist country?
Vietnam joined the WTO and exploits it’s workers for Wall Street corporations outsourcing from even china to save an extra buck. How is that communist, whoring for wall street?
“If we tax billionaires they’ll leave!” in a box? lol
Hopefully. A wooden box. The kind that gets buried 6 feet under.
Folks, please don’t polarize because some rando on social media tells you to. We live in an increasingly polarizing world. I’m with you on taxing the rich and holding them accountable and distributing incomes more fairly again but PLEASE know you can be centrist AND make the change you want to see. Following identity politics in the far right or far left part of the spectrum isn’t the answer but mobilizing peope from the entire spectrum to stand up and build a resistance TOGETHER is. Don’t cut out that many people from your movements because then you’re only fewer. You lack persuasion in numbers, and for these things we need masses. Maybe I may remember you of the “let them eat cake” lady. Different times of course but you get my point
Centrism is the enabler of fascism.
Yes and no. What you say sounds like an oversimplified parole though. I’d argue how far you branch out depends on the political system your country has and the people at the top. Most of the time its good to take a stance rather than staying quiet, so you’re not an ignorant bystander. Talk to people about stuff, friends, family, posts, sign petitions. You don’t need to be far left or far right for that. Though going on the streets demonstrating can block assholes from passing laws that only benefit them and give it more urgency
In France, the ministry of Economics just announced that 13000 millionaires did not pay income tax in 2025 … and our social security (health insurance, jobless minimun income, etc) was founded on the principle of taxing the wealthy. So they (liberals) now say that social security is not working as intended and the state should delegate these things to “for profit” organizations … for “efficiency”
Coincidentally, I saw an article entitled “Buy, Borrow, Die”. If you don’t need to have a salary paying job (so not applicable to almost everyone I know or have ever met), you buy an asset let it grow, refinance it (borrowings grow), spend the money you borrowed (tax free) some for more assets, some for pleasure. Rinse and repeat until you die with a shitload of debt that then gets wiped out.
Henry Ford said, “It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
This is why we need a wealth tax.
this is also pretty good vulnerability, should people start to think at somepoint that maybe billionaires shouldnt have all the wealth in the world. I wonder how the ones who have loaned them money would feel if the asset they have loaned the money for would just… go away.
Any person should consider billionaires like foreign occupation, though the occupation consists the entire planet. Maybe we shouldn’t eat the rich, but eat their art collections.
Oh was that why they threw the tomato sauce on that one painting? Now it all makes sense
Tax portfolio loans over a certain amount. That’s pretty much it. Sure, there will need to be some moving parts beyond that, but basically if you treat a loan as an income rather than something like a primary residence purchase in the buyer’s own name, it gets taxed.
I think the ‘unrealized assets’ should be taxed as ‘realized’ if they are used as collateral. Yes, it would affect the reverse mortgages and such, or home equity loans, but fuck it, I’d take those relatively small pains against the massive societal gains.
Reverse Mortgages are usually predatory anyway, so more scrutiny and regulation isn’t a bad thing.
Yes, this. Tax collateral as advance on capital gains and the whole incentive to dodge taxes with loans go away and it remains fair too
You could make exceptions for loans taken to improve the same asset (home improvement loans) but you’d have to pass strict audits to get the exception approved
I don’t know what the financial consequences would be. Taxing unrealized assets would also have to have limits because so many retirement funds and the like are unrealized gains, we don’t want to hurt people’s ability to retire. That’s why putting a tax on trying to sidestep paying capital gains makes more sense. We’re not going to figure out how that all works here today. People won’t sit on unrealized gains, they’re going to have to use them in some fashion even if just as collateral, and we need to tax whatever workarounds they use to make those funds work for them.
they have tax accountants, legal advisors plus they squirrel away money to foreign banks, like swiss, deustche bank.
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Oh no, AI on Lemmy. It’s joever :(
Capitalist apologia AI, of course
