By what mechanism would the stock market crash? I mean sure, if Bezos dumped 73% of his stock on one day, yes, temporarily. No one would actually propose that though. What about Jeff's ownership is holding up the economy?
I don't think 2008 was good for the country, because inequality increased. All those distressed homes that average people lost are now owned by private equity funds. Over 12 years, those billionaires have almost all gotten wealthier relative to the rest of us. I've already stated my preference for increased anti-trust regulation to protect against that kind of outcome. What was the point of that question?
> Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, etc
Yeah, you know, those storied 230-year capitalist republics in Weimar Germany and post-colonial Zimbabwe. The US Government printed trillions (!!) of dollars this year and gave the majority of it to the wealthy. We can start by taxing that right back, with no obvious consequence.
> Dude, literally one paragraph ago you're talking about a magic database that can edit anyone's net worth at will.
It was a device to overcome your obstinance, not a literal prescription.
> If you want to theorize about potential policies and what their impacts might be, then cool, I'd love to brainstorm about what things might happen.
I don't, because it took like, 12 messages to get you to acknowledge that simply having the wealthy be less wealthy wasn't the literal apocalypse. It's exhausting.
Your contention that a wealth tax won't work is ridiculous, we already have property taxes in most states and state and federal estate taxes. We already successfully tax wealth, the rest is just about setting the right incentives, and removing the insane raft of tax avoidance loopholes that the barons have paid to place in the tax code.
> I'm diagnosing the problem, and asking what you think would be the negative impact if we simply took away 73% of the wealth each billionaire holds, which you won't answer, because you know the answer is "nothing bad".
Ok, in a hypothetical fantasy land where the government has a magic database and they can manually edit anyone's net worth at will and it is further specifically stipulated that this causes nothing bad to happen, then yes, I agree nothing bad happens in that scenario.
Back in the real world, such a thing doesn't exist. So if you want to talk about real things that could actually impact the net worth of billionaires you have to consider what other secondary effects they might have. Here's one: stock market crashes. Billionaires lost a lot of wealth in 2008. In your opinion, was this a generally positive event for the rest of the country or not? Bezos's net worth could easily drop by 73% on Monday without any government intervention at all, do you think that would help anyone?
To the extent that governments do have the ability to manipulate people's net worth via printing money, this has a long history of disastrous consequences like the Weimar Republic, Zimbabwe, etc. In your hypothetical world where the value of anything can be changed at a whim by a bureaucrat, how would anyone even conduct any business at all? How am I supposed to sell you a bag of potatoes for $5 if tomorrow the government might decide it's "more fair" if my $5 is $0 instead?
> Disagree. I'm proposing a return to a previous status quo that was more broadly equitable.
Dude, literally one paragraph ago you're talking about a magic database that can edit anyone's net worth at will. That is not a status quo that has ever existed anywhere in human history.
Are there possible scenarios in which billionaires have less money and everyone else has more money and everyone is happier and healthier and better off? Sure. Is a wealth tax (the closest thing to a policy that you've mentioned) a path to get to any of them? I think probably not. Is a legislative fiat where the government just flat out declares that someone has less money a realistic thing that could happen that wouldn't be a tremendous overreach and huge magnet for corruption and abuse? I think definitely not.
If you want to theorize about potential policies and what their impacts might be, then cool, I'd love to brainstorm about what things might happen. If you just want to fantasize about "Like..what if rich people had like...less money...and we had like...more?" I mean, I'm not sure where to actually go with that.