That wealth should also be taxed.
What makes stock ownership somehow holy that should be protected from taxation?
We should stop conflating what a company generates as a consequence of their activity with the glorified gambling of the stock market.
> We should stop conflating what a company generates as a consequence of their activity with the glorified gambling of the stock market.
Well, that might be a valid point for some people, but it's pointless for Zuckerberg or Bezos or Bill Gates or even Musk: those guys have been mostly holding their companies' stocks for ages. They don't buy and sell all the time. No 'glorified gambling the stock market' there.
In any case, I brought up stock ownership as a concrete example of wealth that doesn't just site 'idle' in a vault somewhere. It's a claim on a productive enterprise that is only worth something because it serves customers and employs people etc.
This company only exists because wealth is concentrated enough to support a market for it.
That company consumes about 4 million skilled-labor-hours a year to provide this service.
This means that skilled-labor-hours are more scarce/expensive for _everyone_, because the on any given year, there are only so many skilled-labor hours that exist. These labor hours require about three decades of investment from society to produce (public education/childcare/etc).
Bezos may not buy a super-yacht every year, but as a class, the super rich consume an insane labor hours.
Money isn't stuff. Yes, those craftsmen get paid, but when one of them has something he needs done, some service provided, or some physical resource, he ends up paying more for the labor, because he is competing in the same labor market as everyone else.
Don't you think spending the working time of 4 million labor hours a year, building megayachts, is perhaps not the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large? You could for example, with ~4 million skilled labor hours a year, build a lot of housing. You could build factories that provide for the needs the people. Hell, you could just give people time-off to, y'know, live and enjoy life (and perhaps, uh, have _children_, which the current system seems to be very efficient at disincentivizing).
You'll have to explain that more. Ship builders aren't competing with plumbers.
>Don't you think spending the working time of 4 million labor hours a year, building megayachts, is perhaps not the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large
Well, that's a drop in the bucket. But you could apply this reasoning to any form of luxury goods. Where do you draw the line? Nice clothes? Fancy watches? Sports cars? Five-star restaurants? Are any of these "the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large?" Who decides what goods and services are worthy?
> and perhaps, uh, have _children_
You think people are having fewer children because luxury yachts are being built?
Sure, on any given year. But the current economic organization of society wasn't born yesterday. On a longer timescale? Absolutely are.
> Well, that's a drop in the bucket. But you could apply this reasoning to any form of luxury goods.
Yes.
> Where do you draw the line? Nice clothes? Fancy watches? Sports cars? Five-star restaurants? Are any of these "the most productive/ROI generating activity for society at large?" Who decides what goods and services are worthy?
The neat thing about market economies is that you don't actually have to draw a line anywhere. You can just reduce income & wealth inequality via taxes and markets will sort it out. If you had taxed capital gains such that Bezos would have had to liquidate 10x - 100x in Amazon stock to buy his yacht, he likely would have settled for a smaller, but still perfectly acceptable yacht, and so on down the wealth ladder.
> You think people are having fewer children because luxury yachts are being built?
Yes I think income/wealth inequality + the amount of labor hours demanded from people to just stay in place is why people are having fewer children.