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Comment by nickv

3 hours ago

Because wealth is also distributed in a very lumpy way across the city.

154 residents of NYC own 33% of the entire wealth of the city... notice I didn't say 1%, I said top 154. They are not contributing 33% of the tax income to the city.

So yes, the ultra rich pay "less taxes" if you look at how much of the resident wealth they control.

Also, property taxes are significantly lower than appraised value and the richer you get the bigger the disparity. That Ken Griffin’s $238M penthouse pied-a-terre? It's assessed value is $9M. So yea, he's paying like $150k/yr in property taxes.

And finally, it is a known fact that sales tax definitely hits poor people harder (re: "everyone pays sale tax equally"). What you want to look at is what percentage of a person's post taxincome vs sales tax paid, because if you make like $60k/yr you're probably close to 60% of all post tax income paying some form of sales tax (you buy with all the money you make). If you have $2B, your percentage of "tax paid as sales tax" is significantly lower, because you don't typically spend a billion dollars the same way you spend $60k.

Wealth distribution is a false flag. Rain distribution across the globe is not equal, solar light distribution is not equal and they impact people's life more than wealth distribution. USA and the entire planet's population is at record high in living standards and wealth, but some people are still unhappy because not everything is perfectly equal and at zero entropy like the thermal death of the universe: this is more than illogical, it is just envy without limits.

  • Imagine 1.6% of the earth receiving nearly 50% of all sunlight, and 82% of the earth only receiving 12% of all precipitation.

    If rain distribution and solar light distribution were even half as unequal as wealth distribution, our global ecosystem would collapse.