Comment by gruez
5 hours ago
>Well for a start it pressurises asset holders to sell their assets.
Even assuming this is true, then what? Do you think the average joe is going to suddenly buy alphabet or meta stocks because bill ackman or ken griffin sold their shares to buy bigger yachts?
Perhaps you could direct this strawman upthread, to the person who implied that to enable the average joe to obtain a share in the means of wealth creation it would be necessary for the HNW individuals who currently own it to be able to maintain that ownership without paying tax on it...
All I pointed out was that at the margin, HNW individuals needing to liquidate 1% of their portfolio every year (and also HNW individuals not being disincentived from realising their capital gains as under the current system) actually works in favour of people trying to buy shares in means of production (by increasing liquidity and lowering prices), as well as obviously against wealth concentration.
There are arguments against wealth taxes that are actually credible, like those concerning capital flight, but this thread seems like a magnet for bad ones. Like, AMZN valuation dropping slightly at the margin from Bezos at al's forced divestment of portions of their stock actually being a bad thing for the economy as a whole is a defensible position; the utopian scenario involving delivery drivers ending up with a decent sized stake in Amazon somehow being impeded by wealth taxes isn't....