#net wealth taxes

[pottlewealth]

India is becoming the next great economic powerhouse.

[karisocreates]

20 African Countries with the Most High Net Worth Individuals: See Where Your Country Ranks

20 African Countries with the Most High Net Worth Individuals

Discover which African countries have the highest number of high net worth individuals, ranked from first to last, and learn about the factors that contribute to their wealth. As Africa’s economy continues to grow, an increasing number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) are emerging across the continent. These individuals have created significant wealth through various industries, including…

[apas-95]

re your previous ask saying China is socialist... what about wealth inequality, that China famously has a lot of? What about private property, which has not been abolished? Shouldn't that be taken into account when deciding whether a country is socialist?... or no?

I am not trying to attack you or anything, just trying to understand.

I feel like these points are already covered in the post - again, socialism is the transitional stage between capitalism and communism, wherein classes and the state still exist. It would be a bit silly to take 'the existence of private property' as the arbiter of whether a country is socialist or not, given that, again, the defining feature of socialism as compared to communism is the continued existence of the capitalist class (and private property thereby).

Firstly, wealth inequality itself wouldn't somehow make China not socialist. Again, socialism is the stage of society defined by the proletariat holding state power. The existence of wealth inequality doesn't disprove that the proletariat hold state power. Secondly - 'famously' why? Urban wealth equality in China is a fairly nuanced topic, and one of the main contradictions that drives growth within the paradigm of Reform and Opening Up ('either some people get rich first, or nobody gets rich at all'), but also - one that is massively exaggerated and propagandised by the imperialist nations. Why is the very much non-extreme level of wealth inequality within China 'famous' to you - who made it famous? China installed more solar power last year alone than the US's entire solar power capacity, and has reached peak greenhouse emissions ahead of schedule on the way to net-zero - but I'd wager China is also 'famously' polluting as well!

These are basically restating the two main points of the post: China, a socialist state, is admonished for not immediately skipping over socialism to communism; and commonsense perception of China is massively skewed by the billions of dollars poured by the US directly into propaganda campaigns against it. If you're interested in understanding these questions, I'd suggest reading Marxist theory, such as 'Dialectical and Historical Materialism', 'Socialism Utopian and Scientific', 'The Tax in Kind', etc etc.

[ayeforscotland]

How much do you think rich people threatening to leave and basically holding their 'business' hostage actually affect taxes on the rich? I always see this coming up whenever it's even suggested that rich people pay taxes. Seems to make as much sense to me as the ol' 'the tourism the royal family brings in is totally worth their outrageous wealth hording' thing, an excuse to not do anything about it

When Scotland introduced a progressive tax rate, we had wall to wall press coverage about how this would result in a ‘brain drain’ and all the wealthy people would move just over the border and commute to Edinburgh simply because they could.

That didn’t happen. In fact, there’s been net migration into Scotland from elsewhere in the UK.

Funny how increasing taxes to spend on services makes the country a bit more liveable for everyone.

Austerity is genuinely a fool’s game. Labour are just continuing Tory austerity because they have a flawed view of the economy.

[robertreich]

Biden vs. Trump: Whose Economic Plan Is Better for You? 

Trump failed to deliver on his number one campaign promise:

President Trump presided over a historic net loss of nearly 3 million American jobs, the worst jobs numbers ever recorded under an American president.

This is no fluke. America’s economy has almost always done worse under Republican presidents. A New York Times analysis found that since 1933, the U.S. economy has grown nearly twice as fast on average under Democrats.

Now Trump’s defenders claim it’s not his fault that the economy collapsed under his watch. It was the pandemic. But there are two big things wrong with this.

First, the pandemic recession was as bad as it was because of Trump. His failure to lead with any national strategy left America in chaos throughout 2020, long after other nations had developed coordinated testing, tracing, and social distancing plans that allowed them to reopen their economies.

But secondly, even before the pandemic, Trump failed to deliver on his economic promises. Job growth slowed under Trump.

America added more jobs in President Obama’s last three years than in Trump’s first three.

Even before the pandemic most middle-class American households saw their incomes go down under Trump.

Trump’s major economic policy was cutting taxes on the rich and big corporations. He promised it would result in $4,000 annual raises for workers. How did that work out? Did you get a $4,000 raise?

Republicans keep claiming that if we just cut enough taxes on the rich, the wealth will “trickle down.” But it never works. Wage growth slowed after Reagan’s tax cuts for the rich and big corporations. And the Bush and Trump tax cuts didn’t trickle down either.

These giveaways to the wealthy came at the expense of investments in infrastructure, education, and health care, making life more expensive and difficult for everyone who isn’t rich.

They also exploded the debt and deficit. Reagan oversaw a 186% increase in the national debt — the biggest percentage increase in over 70 years. The Bush and Trump tax cuts, that mostly benefited corporations and the rich, are the main reasons why America’s debt is growing faster than the economy.

Republican presidents have led us into the three worst economic crises of the last century, and Democrats led us out of them.

Republicans talk about running the country like a business, but they want to run it the way Trump ran his businesses: with massive debts, a string of failures, and payouts for the folks at the top, while workers get shafted again and again. Given Republicans’ track record, why would any hard-working American put their financial security in the hands of a Republican president ever again?

[simply-ivanka]

Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs

When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, what they mean is government employees.

By Allysia Finley Wall Street Journal

Americans who tuned in to Kamala Harris’s coronation last week heard from plenty of celebrities, labor leaders and politicians. Missing from the “joyous” celebration, however, were entrepreneurs who generate middle-class jobs.

No surprise. Cheered on by the crowd, Democrats took turns whacking “oligarchs” and “corporate monopolists.” By the time Ms. Harris took the stage, the pinatas’ pickings had been splattered around. This is what Democrats plan to do if they win: destroy wealth creators so they can spread the booty among their own.

Corporate greed is “the one true enemy,” United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain proclaimed. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders insisted the party “must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people.” Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey railed against “greedflation” and accused corporations of “extorting families.”

Barack Obama lambasted Donald Trump and his “well-heeled donors.” “For them, one group’s gains is necessarily another group’s loss,” Mr. Obama said. “For them, freedom means that the powerful can do pretty much what they please, whether it’s fire workers trying to organize a union or put poison in our rivers or avoid paying taxes like everybody else has to do.”

Democrats treat wealth as a zero-sum game, and so Mr. Obama’s straw men are rich. They get richer by making everyone else poorer—and taking away from the well-off is the only way to enhance the lives of the poor and middle class. Hence, the left’s plans to raise taxes on “billionaires” and businesses to finance more welfare.

It isn’t enough that the top 1% of earners already pay 45.8% of federal income tax, which funds government services and welfare for the bottom half. As for poisoning rivers, perhaps Mr. Obama forgot that his own Environmental Protection Agency caused the 2015 Gold King Mine disaster, which spilled toxic waste into Colorado’s Animas River.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, the former president invoked “the better angels of our nature” even as he appealed to America’s darker angels. His speech brought to mind a recent homily by my local parish priest about the dangers of class warfare and envy, one of the seven deadly sins.

Success, the priest explained, isn’t a zero-sum game. When a businessman succeeds, he creates jobs that help the poor. Envying and tearing down the successful makes everyone poorer. Rather than plunder the wealthy, society should celebrate success and try to help everyone prosper.

Democrats derisively refer to such ideas as “trickle-down economics.” They denounce and diminish business success, and claim the wealthy have profited from greed and government support. Who can forget Mr. Obama’s line in 2012 that “if you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that”?

Rather than try to make it easier for businesses to succeed—say, by reducing taxes or easing regulations—Democrats want to do the opposite. They call for “leveling the playing field” and “growing the middle class out,” euphemisms for taxing success so government can hand out money. But government doesn’t create wealth. People do.

While business success isn’t zero-sum, government growth can be. Its expansion makes it more difficult for business to thrive. The result is fewer jobs, lower wages and less tax revenue, which finances essential public services such as law enforcement and the “safety net” for the indigent.

Mr. Trump’s appeal in 2016 partly stemmed from slow economic growth during Mr. Obama’s presidency. The Republican promised to make all Americans richer by liberating businesses from government’s shackles. Mr. Trump’s deregulation and tax cuts worked: Average real wages increased nearly 70% faster during his first three years than during Mr. Obama’s presidency.

Yet most Americans have become poorer under Mr. Biden, as government spending has fueled inflation, which has eroded wages. Job growth has become increasingly concentrated in sectors that depend on government spending. When Democrats talk about boosting the middle class, they mean the class of government workers.

Government, education, healthcare and social assistance account for more than 60% of the new jobs added in the last year. In the 17 states where Democrats boast a “trifecta”—control of the governorship and both legislative chambers—the share is 98%. In the 23 states with Republican trifectas, it’s 47%.

Likewise, average wage growth since the start of the pandemic has been lower in high-tax states such as Illinois (13.6%), New York (14.4%) and California (17.2%) than in low-tax Florida (22.5%), Texas (23.3%) and South Dakota (26.9%). If middle-class Americans want to get richer, they ought to move to Miami, Dallas or Sioux Falls.

“As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty, or to abolish special privilege,” Henry Ford once observed, “we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.” That’s the joyous future Americans can expect during a Harris presidency.

Appeared in the August 26, 2024, print edition as 'Kamala Harris’s ‘Joyful’ War on Entrepreneurs'.

[bitchesgetriches]

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Repairing Our Busted-Ass World

On poverty:

Starting from nothing

How To Start at Rock Bottom: Welfare Programs and the Social Safety Net 

How to Save for Retirement When You Make Less Than $30,000 a Year

Ask the Bitches: “Is It Too Late to Get My Financial Shit Together?“

Understanding why people are poor

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Why Are Poor People Poor and Rich People Rich?

On Financial Discipline, Generational Poverty, and Marshmallows

Bitchtastic Book Review: Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado

Is Gentrification Just Artisanal, Small-Batch Displacement of the Poor?

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights

Developing compassion for poor people

The Latte Factor, Poor Shaming, and Economic Compassion

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Stop Myself from Judging Homeless People?“

The Subjectivity of Wealth, Or: Don’t Tell Me What’s Expensive

A Little Princess: Intersectional Feminist Masterpiece?

If You Can’t Afford to Tip 20%, You Can’t Afford to Dine Out

Correcting income inequality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap

One Reason Women Make Less Money? They’re Afraid of Being Raped and Killed.

Raising the Minimum Wage Would Make All Our Lives Better

Are Unions Good or Bad?

On intersectional social issues:

Reproductive rights

On Pulling Weeds and Fighting Back: How (and Why) to Protect Abortion Rights

How To Get an Abortion 

Blood Money: Menstrual Products for Surviving Your Period While Poor

You Don’t Have to Have Kids

Gender equality

1 Easy Way All Allies Can Help Close the Gender and Racial Pay Gap 

The Pink Tax, Or: How I Learned to Love Smelling Like “Bearglove”

Our Single Best Piece of Advice for Women (and Men) on International Women’s Day

Bitchtastic Book Review: The Feminist Financial Handbook by Brynne Conroy

Sexual Harassment: How to Identify and Fight It in the Workplace 

Queer issues

Queer Finance 101: Ten Ways That Sexual and Gender Identity Affect Finances

Leaving Home before 18: A Practical Guide for Cast-Offs, Runaways, and Everybody in Between

Racial justice

The Financial Advantages of Being White

Woke at Work: How to Inject Your Values into Your Boring, Lame-Ass Job

The New Jim Crow, by Michelle Alexander: A Bitchtastic Book Review

Something Is Wrong in Personal Finance. Here’s How To Make It More Inclusive.

The Biggest Threat to Black Wealth Is White Terrorism

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

10 Rad Black Money Experts to Follow Right the Hell Now 

Youth issues

What We Talk About When We Talk About Student Loans

The Ugly Truth About Unpaid Internships

Ask the Bitches: “I Just Turned 18 and My Parents Are Kicking Me Out. How Do I Brace Myself?”

Identifying and combatting abuse

When Money is the Weapon: Understanding Intimate Partner Financial Abuse

Are You Working on the Next Fyre Festival?: Identifying a Toxic Workplace

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Say ‘No’ When a Loved One Asks for Money… Again?”

Ask the Bitches: I Was Guilted Into Caring for a Sick, Abusive Parent. Now What?

On mental health:

Understanding mental health issues

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Stop Recommending Therapy Like It’s a Magic Bean That’ll Grow Me a Beanstalk to Neurotypicaltown

Bitchtastic Book Review: Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos and Your Big Brain

Ask the Bitches: “How Do I Protect My Own Mental Health While Still Helping Others?”

Coping with mental health issues

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about Self-Care

My 25 Secrets to Successfully Working from Home with ADHD 

Our Master List of 100% Free Mental Health Self-Care Tactics 

On saving the planet:

Changing the system

Don’t Boo, Vote: If You Don’t Vote, No One Can Hear You Scream

Ethical Consumption: How to Pollute the Planet and Exploit Labor Slightly Less

The Anti-Consumerist Gift Guide: I Have No Gift to Bring, Pa Rum Pa Pum Pum

Season 1, Episode 4: “Capitalism Is Working for Me. So How Could I Hate It?”

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 1: Healthcare, Housing, and Labor Rights 

Coronavirus Reveals America’s Pre-existing Conditions, Part 2: Racial and Gender Inequality 

Shopping smarter

You Deserve Cheap Toilet Paper, You Beautiful Fucking Moon Goddess

You Are above Bottled Water, You Elegant Land Mermaid

Fast Fashion: Why It’s Fucking up the World and How To Avoid It

You Deserve Cheap, Fake Jewelry… Just Like Coco Chanel

6 Proven Tactics for Avoiding Emotional Impulse Spending

Join the Bitches on Patreon

[hussyknee]

It says a lot that Global South people are far more concerned about finding out about the conditions of Palestinians, building trust with Palestinian blogs and their vetting processes and actually finding which GoFundMes to donate to, whereas white and western users first and foremost question is who the scammers are and whether they're getting scammed. And then they can't understand why the white right wing and "fiscally conservative" liberals in their own countries, who distrust the government more than the left and associate poverty and opportunism with minorities, don't want to expand welfare and social security.

It's for the same reason as why you think scammers proliferate more than the millions of people in need, and distrust any minority representatives that offer accountability and advocate for themselves. Why you seek to validate that distrust instead of trying to find information and processes that enable you to trust. The difference between domestic and foreign issues is that white leftists are often poor themselves or live within proximity to poverty and recognise that they themselves are in need of social safety nets. So the brunt of their racist indifference and paranoia of the Other is turned against the people of the Global South victimized by the same colonial capitalist and imperialist military systems.

Paranoia that your empathy, emotional labour and wealth will be exploited is part of white colonial anxiety, that resents its own guilt and sees oppression primarily as a weapon that can be turned against the "privileged but innocent". It's why the tide of leftist support is turning against Palestine after nearly an year of genocide. Accountability for and cessation of the genocide might extract a heavy cost from their domestic politics, and the funds begging private citizens for financial aid are increasing by the thousands in proportion to the amount of tax money their governments are sending to blow those people up. Unable to pay this cost of their complicity, western liberals rationalize that their empathy for Palestine is being exploited and used to extort them. This is the racist fear that liberal Zionists so successfully leverage against Palestinians to sabotage their credibility, protests and cries for help and allyship. Today it's attacks against the credibility of GoFundMes, but in a few months liberals will be questioning the credibility of the genocide itself.

Propaganda works by giving people rationalizations, fallacies and false evidence for things they already want to believe. People are predisposed to despise vulnerability, believe themselves victimized when called to account, and cling to a comfortable status quo. These are the building blocks of fascism. Genocide, colonization and war is the status quo on which the Global North was built, especially the US, and Palestine is the first time this status quo has been so thoroughly disrupted since perhaps the Vietnam War. The easiest way to return to it is to not believe Palestinians, return to deprioritising foreign policy, and giving yourself license to ignore their cries for help by telling yourself that it's "too hard" to find trustworthy information. And Zionists are only too happy to provide justifications, rationalizations and "evidence" to do so.

You have perfect right to delete, block, scroll past or blacklist tags and do whatever you need to draw your own boundaries. That's not in question. What you do need to sit with and examine is this "distrust" and "anger at scammers". If your distrust of asks and GoFundMe accounts is not followed by the will to find and follow Palestinians accounts and trust that they have done all they reasonably can to verify a fundraiser; if you believe that scam accounts truly outnumber the desperate and displaced Gazans who cite internet access as essential to survival as food and water; if you're not willing to run some reasonable risk of being scammed just so you might end up helping a real family being genocided; if you don't consider whether the people casting doubt on the veracity of Palestinian users and GFMs and their vetting process might be racists and Zionist saboteurs speaking to your own biases; then your "distrust" is actually just racism. Are you really angry at scammers or are you trying to validate your distrust and decision to ignore pleas for help by deflecting the blame onto the asker?

[allthecanadianpolitics]

All the tax does feel so high though i get why its necessary but it feels like a bit of a kick in the ass especially in ontario where they have still 13% sales tax and it's hard enough to get on any subsidization. Like theres hardly any accessible housing support, 1 in 19 ontarians use food banks, disabled people are constantly in a battle with the government to get any sort of income. So im watching the quality of my neighbourhood and schools go down and eugenics literally being encouraged instead of just. Having a universal basic income. It's probably a gross oversimplification for what my understanding of all the underlying issues going on, but I'm not seeing the extra hundreds of dollars I spend a year go back into the pockets of the people who Actually need it.

My issue is if you just cut the tax, then social programs will disappear, which won't be a net benefit imo.

So if you are going to remove general taxes like sales tax, you have to significantly target other areas such as with wealth taxes.

I'm just saying that while it would be a good thing to ease pressure on lower income people, you have to have a plan to replace the lost income or you could end up hurting low income people in other ways (such as decreased income supports from less tax revenue, or decreased funding for public transit, etc).

[rainbowdaisy13]

Hi, I hope you're doing ok. I was browsing down your blog to read some of the asks about what is happening in the Taylor Swift fandom and I had a lot of ideas to share.

I'll start off by saying I'm not American, therefore I'm not gonna actively take part in the 2024 elections and I don't know all the details about US politics outside of what my country media outlets say and write. Also English is not my first language so sorry for any misspelling or mistake.

To focus just on the Taylor Swift current matter: to me this situation is yet ANOTHER proof of her sheer disinterest in speaking up about anything polarizing and potentially dangerous for her net worth. And the worst part is that if she stays bland and money driven like this she'll only show how she considers everything an era. There is no commitment for her.

Lover era feels comically fake now for the stark contrast to nowadays, it was all a stunt. Where's all that activism now, especially as an "ally" for the LGBT+ community? How can we really define her as a feminist when she only speaks up when it affects her (let's not forget her radio silence on reproductive rights)?

And granted we will never know where "Taylor Swift real person" ends and "Taylor Swfit TM" begins, and I personally don't really care, what I mostly care about, and that I noticed recently, is the consequences she - and people like her - have directly or indirectly on media and pop culture: I may be extreme when I say that NO philanthropic billionaire/multi millionaire will ever do enough good for the world EVER, because the very same system that got them to that level of wealth is the faulty system that condemns the majority of the worlds population to exploitation and poverty.

Add this to the fact that most of the ultra rich and rich people don't give a damn about anything if it's not affecting their pockets, while they're also powerful and influential enough to drive politics and culture in their favour (ie. anything concerning taxes, systemic exploitation of low income countries, etc, and don't get me started on the absurdity of finance as a whole), we are in a situation where we actually are influenced by these people that have all the interest of staying out of anything for the sake of their money.

All of this to say that to expect Taylor Swift to be a source of information and potentially an inspiration to decide who to vote is very dangerous and takes away all the agency that every single one of us ideally has in a democratic system (let's not forget that Taylor herself keeps very conveniently reminding that she does not want to be a 'guiding light', that she's 'too soft for all of this' indeed).

I don't want I try not to and am not driven by celebrities in my choices but I do recognize their influence on pop culture as well.

I'm not the first to say that lately there has been a need of belonging to a community, to feel a part of something, and music has always had this power, but has been enhanced with social media and especially after the pandemic imo. For a lot of people, and I'm personally not totally immune to this as well, supporting an artist and interacting with their fanbase became a way to define who they are/want to be and it can be difficult to keep some distance from the idol, because you more likely support someone if they seem to have an affinity with you, your interests, what you stand for, etc. Sometimes it pushes us to believe we have more intimacy with what are complete strangers and sometimes it can bleed into parasocial relationships, which I don't think are healthy and can get quite extreme (respect Chappell Roan please!)

In the end, my personal impartial advice to this would be to discern the art from the artist, and detach the fields that don't concern the artist from said artist, unless they are active in those fields.

This doesn't mean that I don't think celebrities don't have the power to influence and change important events, nor that they shouldn't speak up and get more involved, but I find myself growing more and more disillusioned with celebrities and more and more eager to reclaim my agency as a commoner.

This doesn't even exclude the fact that we shouldn't criticize Taylor for her general inactivity (from the AI crap to the Democratic endorsement) when she has every mean avaible to do differently and actually have an impact.

P.S. I'm still uncertain about the whole matter with BM, and Taylor being surrounded by people with questionable opinions, because we can't blame her for the doings of others BUT she still hangs out with those people. But again it's very likely they don't talk/don't give a damn about politics.

Sorry for the long ass ask.

First of all, whenever you guys say English isn’t your first language it just blows me away—all of you read & write better English that many Americans, so please never feel weird about sending in asks! They are always very articulate and have less spelling mistakes than I make 😆

Secondly, you bring up lots of good points—for me, Taylor getting involved this election isn’t because I hope she will sway votes away from Trump and towards Kamala—I agree it would be dangerous to rely on wealthy entertainers and billionaires as beacons of the common persons best interests. Rather, Taylor speaking up would confirm for me and many other fans that she IS who we all thought she was back in 2018-2021. That the person she claimed to evolve into—a more empathetic socially conscious braver Taylor who knew that her voice does impact so many younger impressionable minds, one who wanted to stand up for what and who she believed in, someone who claimed the LGBTQ causes, the BLM protests, gerrymandering, etc were worth speaking up about, wasn’t just an era to try on until she got tired of it

Damn you have so many excellent points here, but yeah you’re right, at the end of the day Taylor and other billionaires aren’t going to stand against a system that is still actively keeping them at the top

Thanks so much for your input 🙏🏼

[karisocreates]

20 African Countries with the Most High Net Worth Individuals: See Where Your Country Ranks

Discover which African countries have the highest number of high net worth individuals, ranked from first to last, and learn about the factors that contribute to their wealth. As Africa’s economy continues to grow, an increasing number of high net worth individuals (HNWIs) are emerging across the continent. These individuals have created significant wealth through various industries, including…

[liberalsarecool]

Billionaires reimagined by AI in an alternative universe if they were born without rich parents, didn't receive billions in government handouts, and didn't have thousands of employees creating value they siphon away and rebrand as their 'personal net wealth'.

1. Donny Chumpf: Evaded taxes but didn't get away with it because he's working class, resulting in a criminal record which prevented him from obtaining another job. Chumpf spent more than half his life in prison.

2. Schemelong Musk: Musk's father was a miner but he didn't mine emeralds in Africa, but rather coal in West Virginia. After losing his mother at an early age to prescription opioids, Musk never regained focus or was able to obtain legitimate work. He spends his days roaming the streets loudly ranting to himself about space travel, underground tunnels, and magical coins with dogs imprinted on them that will replace the US dollar and global currencies.

3. Shill Tate: Had a good longterm job at a factory that makes chips for personal computers, but executives made the decision to relocate the plant to China so they could boost their bonuses. He and most of his community were never able to recover despite great efforts.

4. Jep Bozo: An enterprising and hardworking boy, Bozo got his first formal job at 15-years-old at the local warehouse for a global corporation. Despite working 60 hours a week for 20 years in backbreaking labor, Bozo never escaped poverty. He was injured on the job and without adequate medical or leave benefits, was told not to return.

5. Mac Chucklef*ck: Since youth, Mac had a lot of promise and was even accepted into Stanford University. Then Mac got in trouble for using the school's resources to bootstrap a private tech company which kept a database of images of female students without their consent. He was booted from the school, and without a college degree couldn't find good work and turned to a series of unsuccessful side hustles to make a living.

#InheritedWealth #TaxTheRich

[probablyasocialecologist]

Climate anxiety means different things to different income groups. At the bottom, it means fear of heat and floods. At the top, it means fear of increasingly desperate people. Billionaires often live in protective bubbles maintained at a considerable cost in dollars and emissions. Some are preparing for “the event”, with plans for doomsday bunkers in New Zealand, Nevada and other remote areas. Others blast off the planet in private rockets and talk of colonising space. Instead of making every effort to reduce emissions, the rich increase their carbon footprint by putting more distance between themselves and the masses. The Oxfam report reveals that the decision-making classes who will dominate at Cop28 – senior politicians including US senators, British ministers and European commissioners – are also in the top 1% of income earners. Corporate CEOs, whose lobbyists also flock to Cop summits, are often wealthier and more heavily invested in carbon assets. Boardroom share options and bonus structures have created an incentive for oil company executives to resist climate action. Instead, they have successfully pushed for expansion of fossil fuel production. Dario Kenner, the author of Carbon Inequality, has identified what he calls a “polluter elite”: anyone with a net worth over $1m who reinforces the use of fossil fuel technologies through their high carbon consumption, investments in polluting companies and, most importantly, political influence. “The polluter elite have blocked an alternative history where the destruction of extreme weather events and air pollution could have been reduced,” he told the Guardian. The international climate negotiating process has failed to keep pace with the growing power of the super-rich. Thirty-one years ago, when the world first came together to tackle climate and biodiversity problems at the Rio de Janeiro Earth summit, there was optimism for a solution on behalf of billions of humans and the countless other forms of life on Earth. Since then, the opposite has happened. Governments remain deeply divided, 60% more emissions are being pumped into the atmosphere and more money, carbon and power is being concentrated in ever fewer hands. The solution to all this is complex but also very simple. Many believe that the key lies in politicians wresting back control of the climate issue with strong legislation and policy. Oxfam is calling for a wealth tax, and a windfall tax on corporations based on the “polluter pays” principle, placing the highest burden on those most responsible and most able to pay. “We need a political discourse that is class conscious, that recognises that the rich and capitalism are the major drivers of the climate crisis,” said Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist at the London School of Economics and the author of The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions. “This is about bringing production – and provisioning systems and energy systems – under democratic control.”

[phoenixyfriend]

I have a tax structure concept in my mind and I'm not sure if it would even function as a policy but. I am rotating it.

So one of the reasons a lot of wealthy people get away with paying minimal taxes is because a lot of their money is tied up in investments, so their net worth can be 2 billion but they're only paying taxes on the $400k they make in a year because they aren't actively selling the investments, right?

I think that a possible partial solution to this is that the tax rate is based on the net worth. You don't tax the investments themselves, necessarily, but if your net worth is… IDK over 10mil, your effective tax rate on your income is 90%, even if the annual income itself is something like 200k.

It still not a great solution to billionaires existing, but it does introduce some kind of penalty for amassing wealth.

It also, admittedly, has minimal effect on people who act as though they've made all of 10k because they supposedly lost more money than they earned. [Side-eyes Warren Buffet]

It's like… idk. It's a policy concept that I haven't thought through but has probably been trialed somewhere in the world.

It would probably result in them moving assets offshore to try and hide them from the government, or putting them into a 'philanthropic foundation' or something.

Thoughts? I haven't looked into whether it's been implemented with any success in other parts of the world.

[simply-ivanka]

If Taylor Swift Had Endorsed Donald Trump

Democrats would scorn her business savvy, cap her ticket prices, and fret over her huge carbon footprint.

Wall Street Journal

By Allysia Finley

Forbes estimates Taylor Swift’s net worth at $1.3 billion. Despite her liberal leanings, the singer-songwriter has amassed her wealth the old-fashioned way: through hard work, talent and business savvy. Her endorsement of Kamala Harris last week is rich considering she owes her success to the capitalist system the vice president wants to tear down.

“The way I see it, fans view music the way they view their relationships,” Ms. Swift wrote in a 2014 piece for the Journal. “Some music is just for fun, a passing fling. . . . Some songs and albums represent seasons of our lives, like relationships that we hold dear in our memories but had their time and place in the past. However, some artists will be like finding ‘the one.’ ” She has become “the one” for hundreds of millions of fans worldwide with lyrics that chronicle relationship woes women commonly experience.

Ms. Swift took advantage of her ardent fan base in 2014 by removing her catalog from Spotify in a bid for higher royalties. “Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free,” she explained. “My hope for the future, not just in the music industry, but in every young girl I meet, . . . is that they all realize their worth and ask for it.”

She also criticized Apple Music for not paying artists during the streaming service’s free trial, prompting the company to change its policy. As she jeers in a hit song, “Who’s afraid of little old me?” Apparently, Big Tech companies.

Last year she reportedly raked in $200 million from streaming royalties on top of the estimated $15.8 million she grossed per performance during her recent “Eras” tour. Some fans have shelled out thousands of dollars on the resale market to see Ms. Swift perform. Americans have even traveled to Europe when they couldn’t get tickets in the U.S.

Her fan base may be more loyal and enthusiastic than Donald Trump’s. JD Vance scoffed at the idea that the star’s endorsement of Ms. Harris could influence the outcome of the election. The “billionaire celebrity,” he said, is “fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.” Maybe, but she certainly taps into the problems of young women.

Democrats hope to use Ms. Swift’s endorsement to drive them to the polls. But it isn’t difficult to imagine what the left would be saying about her had she endorsed the Republican antihero. It might go something like this:

The billionaire has gotten rich by ripping off fans, avoiding taxes and harming competitors. Time for the government to break her up. Unlike rival artists, Ms. Swift writes, performs and owns her compositions. This vertical integration allows her to charge exorbitant royalties and ticket prices.

Tickets for her “Eras” tour on average cost about $240. That’s merely the price for admission—not including food, drink or Swiftie swag. VIP passes that include memorabilia go for $899. How dare she make young women choose between paying for groceries or rent and going to a concert.

The Federal Trade Commission must cap Ms. Swift’s ticket prices at a reasonable price—say, $20—and ban her junk fees. Concertgoers shouldn’t have to pay $65 for an “I Love You It’s Ruining My Life” sweatshirt.

Her romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce also unfairly boosts their star power, letting them charge more for endorsements. As Ms. Swift writes in one song, “two is better than one.” Mr. Kelce reportedly signed a $100 million podcast deal with Amazon’s Wonderly. By breaking up the couple, the government could reduce their royalties and ticket prices.

Ms. Swift, the self-described “mastermind,” also dodges taxes on her “full income,” which includes some $125 million in real estate and a music catalog worth an estimated $600 million. “They said I was a cheat, I guess it must be true,” Ms. Swift acknowledges in her song “Florida!!!”

Under the Biden-Harris administration’s proposed billionaire’s tax, she would have to pay a 25% levy on the $1 billion increase in her fortune since 2017. But that isn’t enough. Ms. Swift should also have to pay taxes on the appreciating value of her “name, image and likeness,” which the Internal Revenue Service considers an asset.

How much is her brand worth? Easily billions. She might say, as she does in a song, that her “reputation has never been worse.” True, Miss Americana’s image took a hit after reports that her private-jet travel in 2022 emitted 576 times as much CO2 as the average American in a year. When Ms. Swift sings, “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me,” she’s correct. She and her fat-cat friends are what’s wrong with America.

Appeared in the September 16, 2024, print edition as 'If Taylor Swift Had Endorsed Donald Trump'.

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