re: People still don't understand net worth/wealth vs income

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People at the met gala aren't the rich people anyone should be worried about. They have a large yet reasonable amount of money. More to the point, they often pay their taxes

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What an idiot. The entire modern met gala concept is disgusting. It’s primarily financed by a bunch of New York financial players being drug to the event by their wives who want to show off for the wives of other rich guys and to hobnob with famous celebrities.

The celebrities you see pictures of online are almost all there for free. What most of them don’t realize, is that they are the entertainment. They are there so that everyday rich people can feel glamorous for the night.

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If don't like the way the wealthy use loopholes, you can try to close the loopholes, but don't raise taxes willy-nilly on corporations and people above a certain bracket. It will disproportionately affect the mass affluent, in the ultra wealthy will continue to use tax dodges--fact

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If you read my comment, I'm pretty against corporation taxes because they're an inefficient tax.

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If don't like the way the wealthy use loopholes, you can try to close the loopholes, but don't raise taxes willy-nilly on corporations and people above a certain bracket. It will disproportionately affect the mass affluent, in the ultra wealthy will continue to use tax dodges--fact

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There are ways of taxing those who are ultra-wealthy while not taxing the 'mass affluent.' As someone who probably belongs to the 'mass affluent' category, I'm not advocating for increasing taxes on myself.

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Federal Government 2020 Expenditures: 6.5 Trillion Dollars.

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There's nothing better than those say "no one should have as much money and power as Jeff Bezos".

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US Govt Federal Debt: 27 trillion dollars. In other words all three of those guys would have to make 54 times their entire combined life’s net worth to put a dent in the federal debt.

You could seize and liquidate take all of the assets from all three of them combined and you’d still need about 15 times that amount to equal one year of government spending.

Three Words: Cut Federal Spending

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Unfortunately it's too late to save it. Your math demonstrates that perfectly.

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Wait, I thought we all hated Zuckerburg and Bezos? I'd be just fine if Facebook disappeared and Zuck lost his fortune.

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I've mentioned in these threads how conservatives play the role of useful idiot just like all those on the dole, but from the opposite end of the productivity spectrum. The Right is stuck on making Reagan-era arguments in a very different era. Seriously, we're all bent out of shape by the prospect of taxing the very assholes that shut your businesses, schools and churches down (while accruing wealth and power to themselves) over a virus that was no more threat to the vast majority of Americans than a bad flu - and we're doing this at a time they're trying to cut us out of American life (and perhaps your job) if you don't take a vaccine that about 150 million of us have no use for.

I'm a fan of competitive capitalism and a government that stays out of the way and out of my life, but those aren't the circumstances we find ourselves in today. Maybe I just haven't noticed it, but I haven't seen the Right do frick all about it in over 18 months. I'm ready to try about anything. And no risk it, no biscuit.

By the way, know who who suggested a wealth tax before AOC had boobs? Donald Trump. Trump also had a tax increase for the wealthy teed up (44% marginal rate for income over $5 million) during his administration when Bannon still had his ear, but didn't follow through on it.

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So what would you propose?

Serious question.

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I'll give a serious answer that I'll preface with, "somewhat uncharted waters for me because I'm a dyed in the wool capitalist and more conservative than probably 98% of this board. I'm not pretending to have it all figured out" -

I don't have a problem with anybody that amasses great wealth. Historically, that's been a huge winner for everybody - up and down the food chain, and society broadly. But does that describe today? Are the high tech titans, media moguls, private equity/big time finance guys - are they a winner for you and me? Are our middle class/upper-middle class lives/families better today because of the efforts/influences of this eras uber-wealthy? Or are they using their wealth, power, and enterprises to change our country for the worst?

I don't care that Zuckerberg has FU money 10,000x over, but I have a serious f'n problem with him controlling the flow of information, deciding what's fact/fiction and right/wrong. He also spent a few hundred million on organizations that designed to frick with the 2020 election. The same type of case can be made for about 80% of the asset-class.

I don't think we've got real racial problems, certainly nothing truly substantial. I don't think we have LGBQT problems. I don't think we have climate problems. I don't think cops are hunting blacks. I don't think Covid is nearly what it has been hyped to be. I think all of those "existential threats" are ginned up to keep us distracted while the foundation of this country is dismantled by a relatively small group that gets bigger and stronger from it. Who are they? Just look out over the Covid landscape and see who has more wealth and political power than they did in January 2020.

Now think back to occupy Wall Street and all the angst about the 1%. Is it an accident that the targets of that heat are now the champions of the Leftist bullshite you and I are spending way more time than we should have to on? I think Bernie and that whole movement scared the shite out of them because the populist message underlying the bullshite socialism had legs. So they figured out how to triangulate that movement using the Right as their backstop. FFS BLM had Chase Bank and the NFL as corporate sponsors. They and those like them now fund a political movement that espouses policies they depend on the Right to keep them from ever having to live with. (my useful idiot argument)

We are in a conflict that's not race, climate, guns, etc., I believe it's all about money and power - it's a class war, and unlike any class war I'm aware of, it's being waged from the top and against the middle.

You don't like using the tax code for political purposes. Neither do I. But do we have a choice? After everything we've witnessed the last 18-24 months, what is happening on the Right that gives you hope that we're going to stem the Lefty tide and bring the country back to the middle-right? Outside of some great press conferences by DeSantis and a few communiques from Trump, we've got nothing. I don't think warehousing ammo in our basements is going to get us anything. The Right seems disinterested in organizing/funding efforts to start pushing back, or maybe we're just shitty at that. Hell, we've got conservatives sitting out runoff elections that tip the balance of power in the Senate.

So, yeah - unless someone has better ideas, I'm ready to use the tax code to frick with the people trying to assume complete control of this country. frick the $400K threshold. I like Trump's threshold better - $5 million. I'm good with taxing the shite out of income greater than $5 million/year, as well as installing a serious tax on wealth north of $50 million. Let's see what that shot across the bow does to the "activisism" of the likes of Zuckerberg, Brin, Page, Dorsey, Gates, organizations like the NFL, big banks, big tech and even the Lebrons, Kimmels, and Obamas of the world.