technocritWe Desperately Need Maximum Wage Laws
ClassStruggleWe desperately need to get rid of billionaires and follow that up with millionaires
I’d agree with you on tossing billionaires and two - three figure millionaires, but on the low end millionaires is a very wide net that could also include folks with property, retirees and small business owners. I’m not trying to sound out of touch or shill for the owning class here, because there definitely is a point where personal wealth gets excessive, but “common people” with over a million in assets isn’t all that unheard of.
I think “millionaires” is probably a bit too broad depending on exactly how you define it. A million dollars doesn’t go nearly as far as it used to.
Most insanely wealthy people don’t necessarily have millions or billions of dollars sitting around in cash or in their bank accounts, that worth includes things like investments and real estate.
So going by that most people who own a house are probably around halfway to being a millionaire just due to that, add in a retirement account and some savings and odds are theres probably a lot more “millionaires” walking around than you’d think.
I have a relative who retired a few years ago, he worked as a bricklayer his entire life, and don’t get me wrong, that’s a solid job, and he was very good at it, so he made good money, but he wasn’t his own boss, or anyone else’s for that matter, wasn’t actively playing the stock market or anything, just a guy who worked his whole life, lived within his means, saved money, put it into safe retirement accounts and such, etc.
He retired with about 1.5 million. I’m not totally clear if that includes the value of his house or not, if it does that would still put him at around 1 million in savings and investrents, and if it doesn’t you can bump him up to around 2 if we measure him like we do the really wealthy people.
And there’s a good chance that medical bills and such will eat up a good amount of that from him in the coming years…
We desperately need to teach leftists academic economics. Yall have your heart in the right place but none of you have the slightest clue what the fallout of your policy suggestions are.
“Getting rid” of millionaires is ludicrous. There are people who are millionaires because a stock does well for a bit. There are people who had a million for a few days because they held Dogecoin when Elon manipulated that price. Millionaire is a much lower bar than you think.
There are people who are millionaires because a stock does well for a bit.
These largely aren’t working class people.
You would be wrong about that.
The top 10% of the wealthiest own 93% of all stocks
Those statistics are for volume of ownership and aren’t relevant to a discussion about wealth. I can own a handful of highly priced shares and be worth 1+ million while not holding a ton of shares.
Your highly priced shares are highly priced because of the volume held by the 10%
That makes no sense.
Volume traded increases value. If suddenly 93% of those holding were gone your high value stock would tank
Again that makes no sense to the example given. You are stretching very far here.
jumping redditor [they/them]the vast majority of lawyers, doctors, and farmer owners have a net worth above a million even
Exactly, I graduated college at the right time for many of my friends to he worth 10+ million on paper entirely in the form of stock in their employer. One of my buddies had $16 million in AskJeeves that he couldn’t sell as an employee. By the time he could sell that was $64k. Not everyone who is a millionaire is actually a millionaire.
You are framing this in a capitalist world. Getting rid of billionaires would also get rid of the stock market, they hold about 90% of stocks. The stock market is them buying a portion of working class wages and calling them dividends. If everyone’s material needs are met the accumulation of wealth isnt a driving force for ‘success’
Getting rid of stocks and billionaires would have a massive fallout hence why we need to teach leftists actual academic economics as this shift would be colossal and havea ton of externalities.
It’s not wages that are the problem, it’s compounding multi-generational wealth. It’s very easy for rich people to make their income zero.
Amen. Minimum wage was a good start, but it’s become a mere virtue signal for labor rights. I have no reason to believe a maximum wage wouldn’t function similarly. Furthermore, nominal sums are pretty meaningless with currency anyway. Inflation makes them irrelevant pretty quickly. Progressive tax and social subsidy is what works, historically.
I worked for a guy that got paid $1 a year. The business paid for everything for him. Wage caps will not work.
VeganCheesecakeworked for a guy
Probably some variation of owner/boss/CEO.
CFO his dad was CEO. I saw a 27000 Amex bill that we covered.
Well like I said, pretty much all of these mega rich people don’t have any income on paper, otherwise they would have to pay income tax. And rich people hate paying taxes.
multi generational wealth is the only way to have any fun though
That’s the whole problem.
if fun is a problem then I don’t want it fixed
owenfromcanadaThe solutions aren’t complicated. What’s complicated is getting the solutions implemented when enough representatives are bought out by the wealthy.
Even simpler. If one’s wealth exceeds some function of GDP, the law no longer protects them.
Why not just Most Dangerous Game the wealthiest individual at the end of each year?
As much as that appeals to some part of me deep down, those are the tactics being employed right now against vulnerable people in the US. If the law doesn’t protect everyone, it doesn’t protect anyone.
And honestly, I think the wealthy are more threatened by taxes than by having to hire their own protection.
I get that, but I don’t think they deserve the same protections as the vulnerable. The vulnerable cannot easily change their situation. The wealthy can. Beyond that, their cost to society is much much worse.
I don’t think they deserve it either. But when I advocate for due process and humane conditions for the worst people, it’s not for their sake–it’s for everyone else’s.
As soon as there is some class of people who are not protected by law or due process, it can easily be weaponized against the more vulnerable, even if that wasn’t the original intent.
For example, right now in the US, the government is denying due process to “illegal immigrants.” Doesn’t seem like a problem for anyone here legally, right? Except that without due process, what’s stopping them from throwing lawful residents into a van and hauling them away? They don’t get due process to prove their innocence. So anyone can now be defined as “illegal” and deported without any due process or recourse.
Lawfulness is for the vulnerable, even when applied to the less vulnerable.
I’m saying it isn’t a class of people that is not of their own volition. It could be looked at as similar to choosing the class of rapist or other criminal. By choosing to allow your wealth to exceed this point, society has deemed you to be in violation of the law; due process intact. You are therefore, no longer protected by the police, fire departments, emergency rooms, etc. It is one of the primary roles of society to determine what is acceptable and what is not.
I’m not sure what purpose revoking law has on anyone, including this group. In fact, the wealthy is often the group who advocates for privitization of these services, as they’re the only ones who can afford to pay for them out of pocket. Seems like an inconvenience at most.
If you want to make excessive wealth illegal, I’m all for that. But that’s not removing legal protections, it’s allowing the people to prosecute and reclaim wealth from those hoarding it, which seems more productive for what you’re trying to achieve.
If tomorrow’s wealth will exceed that cap, I’d like to see today’s priority be offload that money at all cost. That’s really all I’m suggesting with a partly tongue in cheek suggestion of making it scary to cross that line. But the point is simply to make a person approaching that line feel that getting rid of money with a quickness is integral to their wellbeing.
This is a much more difficult problem than you suggest. Taxing standing wealth of 1.8 million would limit so much of the upper middle class that actually drives economies.
Given how many people have their wealth invested in theor home, how do ypu propose to do this or is everyone constantly downgrading the home they are invested in?
Nothing in economics is ever “easy”.
1000x annual minimum wage is 14.5 million. That’s not the savings of the worker class (a conservative investment would provide enough return to live without working). And the point is that it’s tied to minimum wage. Want to be taxed less on your wealth? You gotta raise the minimum wage.
You’re right in saying it’s a bit more complicated than that–my two point suggestion is oversimplified–but my original point stands: the solutions are less complicated than getting rational legislation passed in a system where the checks and balances are bought out.
Ooof, how did I fuck up themath that badly? At 14+ million it’s different. That’s a lot of wealth compared to the average upper middle class family.
Is the way you just what's wealthy to look at your own situation and target something comfortably above that? There's plenty of people who will surmise that your situation is comfortably better than theirs once that power is available to the public.
No it’s based on a ton of actual hard statistics that focus on relative buying power vs what the state supplies. Many Europeans who make less than I do have a higher QoL than I do because their education and healthcare are subsidized/free.
You don’t have to base it on your own situation, you can base it on cost of living or other objective values.
There’s a big difference between 1 million and 10 million. With a modest 5% return on investment, 1 million nets you $50,000 per year, which is enough to support a very modest lifestyle in some places (near poverty in others). 10 million with the same investment nets $500,000 per year, which is more than enough to retire to a very luxurious lifestyle and accumulate more wealth along the way.
And that’s still less than the 14.5 million I proposed, so that person would still not see any wealth tax.
It’s vastly different. A net worth of ten million plus isn’t just a case where you own a home and a retirement fund.
It’s wildly different.
$1 million invested at 5% is $50,000 annually. $10 million invested at 5% is $500,000 annually.
That’s the difference between the working and wealth classes.
quick_snailGiving that money to poor people would drive the economy more.
Not necessarily, it is a lot more complex than that.
Real estate is a good example of the trickiest thing about “simple” wealth tax.
I bought a house, and 20 years later I have to pay more taxes because my neighbourhood is more desirable?
Okay, easy solution, you get one free house you need to reside in for x% of your time per year.
But say I bought a painting from a local artist, even a friend, and decades go by and they’ve gone on to become ultra famous. Do I now have to pay more tax because I possess something that has become valuable?
Obviously thats a very unlikely scenario, but you can see the principle issue.
For the numbers I suggested, I don’t think you’d realistically hit these types of cases.
1000x annual minimum wage is $14.5 million. Based on a quick search, the threshold for the top 1% of Americans with respect to net worth starts at $13.6 million in 2023. So over 98% of Americans would never see the impact of a wealth tax like this.
If minimum wage were brought up to a realistic level, say $20/hour (still low, but better than the current $7.25), that threshold jumps to $40 million. This would capture somewhere between the top 0.5% and 0.1%. This is excessive wealth.
In the case where your painting is suddenly worth $50 million, yes–you’d have to pay more tax. But I think that many dollars might be some reprieve from the pain of selling it.
Applying sensible economic policy to extreme wealth is easier than general economic policy.
I had a public policy professor who used to say wealth taxes frequently come with loopholes you can pilot a yacht through
ElectricAirshipHow about a 99.9% corporate tax rate and then nationalize the corporations later on?
That’s like $70k a year as a cap. There are jobs that are critical to the function of society but are remarkably dangerous or require unique skills that many cannot obtain. Suggesting there shouldn’t be greater compensation than what a truck driver makes means no one will be willing to do these necessary yet hazardous jobs. Why would anyone weld underwater if there are other jobs that will pay just as well that aren’t like.y to kill you!
Okay, how about 15 times minimum wage.
Also, CEOs do not have specialized skills and their work pushing pencils can hardly be considered dangerous.
All of the 23 underwater welders can earn the maximum wage. CEOs must prove that their job is dangerous and that nobody has their skill set to earn as much as those welders.
You started at such a remarkably low point that I would suggest you consider this might not be a subject for you to opine on.
CEO’s don’t have specialized skills? That’s silly as many do.
If ypu want to learn why your ideas are flawed and what solutions might be more likely to work macro 101 is available online from MIT and unsurprisingly it is very good.
It’s a negotiation. You managed to point out underwater welders for being a specialized and dangerous job.
What CEOs have something that is irreplaceable? United Healthcare CEO recently died and the business is still going on as if nothing had happened. He made $10,000,000 in 2023. Starbucks suffers more from a barista calling in sick.
I understand that the only thing that matters in that is shareholder value no matter what the human cost of their decisions. As a human I don’t not care if my decisions make costs higher for shareholders. They already have plenty.
You aren’t coming from an informed perspective. Maybe start by getting educated because your thinking here is a mess.
“I understand that the only thing that matters in that is shareholder value no matter what the human cost of their decisions. As a human I don’t not care if my decisions make costs higher for shareholders. They already have plenty.”
Statements like the above make it hard to take you seriously as no one has suggested this.
Again, macro 101 is free. You should take it if you would like to see why this is so much more complex than most here seem to think.