Comment by tengbretson
3 hours ago
> Well for a start it pressurises asset holders to sell their assets.
To whom are the selling? The buyers would be only those that can make efficient enough returns to offset this tax due to their existing systemic advantages, like economies of scale or regulatory lobbying. This would accelerate consolidation.
> But the point isn't to increase stakeholdership so much as to stop privileging stakeholders with very low effective tax bills relative to mere workers
At this point I think there is ample evidence that policy in this country does not move forward without the consent of these so-called privileged stakeholders. If you take that as a given, why would you support handing these people an economic machine gun to point at your future self?
> To whom are the selling? The buyers would be only those that can make efficient enough returns to offset this tax due to their existing systemic advantages, like economies of scale or regulatory lobbying. This would accelerate consolidation.
You don't need "systemic advantages" to earn more than 1% average annual return on your wealth. And strangely enough, not paying tax on their wealth accumulation whilst everyone else pays it on their earnings and trades doesn't reduce prospective buyers' advantages...
> At this point I think there is ample evidence that policy in this country does not move forward without the consent of these so-called privileged stakeholders. If you take that as a given, why would you support handing these people an economic machine gun to point at your future self?
Using pretty phrases like "economic machine guns" doesn't somehow make an argument of the form that wealth taxes somehow make wealthy people more powerful actually make sense.
>The buyers would be only those that can make efficient enough returns to offset this tax
Or people who aren't wealthy enough to have to pay it.