WoodScientist
That math says 10%. But regardless, I think the core of the argument really is that those who actually intend to plant bombs don't make bomb threats. By the time you escalate to the level where you're convinced blowing people to pieces is actually a reasonable course of action, you're not likely to be giving warnings. You either want people dead, or you don't.
Bots are not allowed on a forum like this. If you are simply an instrument of a bot, you should not post here.
Realize. It's only a cap on net worth. You can still make as much money as you want. You just have to spend to keep your net worth below the cap. So this would actually result in an era of extremely visible wealth and splendor. You either donate to all sorts of charities. Or you build a comically large and pretentious dwelling. Or you cut giant checks to your thousands of closest relatives. Or you throw giant extravagant parties for absurdly large numbers of people. Do what you want with it, but your net worth cannot exceed that number. And that makes it so your compounding wealth can never rise to geopolitically-significant levels. You can live in absolute resplendent luxury; you just can't get so wealthy that you threaten to take over the place.
But I suppose, if you want a sticker, that would be fine. Or, we could gamify this. Imagine if we just started publishing the top ten taxpayers each year. Their would literally be an official high score that oligarchs could aim for.
I have a stupider solution. Let's get individual blue states to pass laws making it a serious felony for anyone with a net worth over 10,000x the median national income to set foot in state lines. It is literally a felony to have a net worth over a certain amount. Like, Elon Musk sets foot in California? Bam! Instant 20 year mandatory minimum prison sentence.
We'll get blue states to pass laws effectively banishing the billionaires from our lands, like cockroaches fleeing from the light!
No. The point is not to raise revenue. Concentrated wealth is, in and of itself, as damaging to society as theft, murder, pandemics, and many other crimes and social ills. If you have a community where 100 people each have a wealth of $100k, and you drop in one person with a wealth of $100 billion, you have markedly decreased the quality of life of everyone in that city. You haven't taken a penny from them, but you have harmed their lives grievously. That billionaire can now buy up every property that comes up for sale. That billionaire can now dominate local politics. The resources of the entire city skew to meet the whims of that one person.
Billionaires are dangerous. You don't try to keep them around and use them as a cash cow. You eliminate them. You have a hard maximum wealth cap, and anything above it is taxed 100%. It's not about raising revenue. It's a matter of public health and safety. Billionaires are that dangerous.
That would require a fortune of $330 trillion.
Our society would rather put people in prison for far more than the cost of just housing them.
We need a maximum wealth cap. I want to see a world where you are literally not allowed to have a net worth over a certain amount. I believe capitalism has its place, but unconstrained capitalism leads to innumerable social ills. You want to let people get rich enough to provide an incentive to get educated, work hard, start businesses, and innovate. But you do not want enough wealth that individuals or small groups of individuals can become a threat to society. We don't allow individuals to own nuclear weapons, regardless of how virtuous they may be. We decided long ago that private ownership of nuclear weapons is simply too much power in the hands of one individual.
Yet with enough wealth, an individual can create human misery equivalent to a nuclear weapon. For example, Elon Musk has a net worth of $400 billion. If he chose to, could spend his fortune on destroying the lives of 400,000 people. He could select his victims based on whatever criteria he chose. And he could spend $1 million per person simply hiring lawyers to make their lives Hell. Target them with frivolous lawsuits. Even if he never won a case, he could drive them into bankruptcy through legal fees alone. Or, he could pick a city of a million people and dedicate his fortune to just ruining that city. He could deliberately fund the campaigns of the worst candidates imaginable, and offer them enormous fortunes to deliberately destroy that city. Wealth is power, and power is wealth. They are equivalent and interchangeable. If you want to have a democracy, you cannot have unrestricted wealth.
I would set the wealth cap for any nation at 1000x the median household income of that nation, averaged over a certain number of years. In the US, that would be at this time about $80 million. That is a level of wealth even the most skilled and high-paid of lawyers or physicians, if they worked til the grave, lived like a pauper, and invested everything else, would still struggle to reach by the time of their death. The only way people reach that level of wealth is by leveraging the labor of others. And it is a level of wealth far, far above the level where increasing wealth continues to meaningfully increase happiness. That level of wealth is only useful to a person if that person seeks to manipulate and control other human beings.
We need a maximum wealth cap. Beyond a certain level of wealth, everything is taxed at 100%. I think 1000x the median household income is a good place to set that level. And I think that is extremely generous. I don't care what the former billionaires do with their extra income that would put them above this level. They could simply retire when they hit the cap. They could donate it to charity. They could give it all to their extended families. They could give it to their employees. They could hold grand parties in their home city every year that rivaled the excesses of ancient Rome. They could spend it all on giant yachts. Ultimately, I don't care. The core problem is the concentration of wealth and power in a small number of individuals. Any method of spreading out that wealth will avoid this problem. Even if they just give it all to their extended families, it would still be for the best. If Elon Musk wants to divvy up his fortune to his 5,000 closest family and friends, so be it. Even if every one of them was as much of a bastard as he was, at least they'll have conflicting interests, and few of them will want to see anyone appointed dictator.
We need a maximum wealth cap. Forget taxing incomes. Forget a wealth tax. We need to drive a dagger into the heart of the evil that haunts our society. The world does not need billionaires. We can have the benefits of efficiency and innovation that come with a free market without letting wealth concentrate to the point of farce. We can provide an incentive for people to work and discover without allowing individuals to become a threat to nation states. Even if you believe in the myth of visionary capitalist geniuses, we don't need billionaires. If Musk is already capped out on wealth, the board of SpaceX can still hire him as CEO. He can still enjoy the social status as influence of being the CEO of SpaceX, he just has to dispose of that wealth each year however he chooses.
1000x the median household income. No one should be able to have a fortune larger than this.
Why would you post this trash? If people want to read chatgpt's takes, they can access it themselves.