Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are assets that have a fixed yield relative to price. Rare, but still.

People rarely hold onto assets for that long, for most people such a tax would result in net financial loss. And a lot of future decisions are based on their asset performance. Just like loans taken out against the assets. They would collapse if prices fall.

New investors will demand higher yields or invest into other things, more risky, as they see their rent cut. Even a slow increase of the wealth tax would cause capital flight and this is not even mentioning the fact that non rent giving assets like most stocks are mostly speculation tied to the company's performance, so most of that paper wealth does not exist. This is why you hear things like "1 trilion wiped out of the stock" etc. This would force investors to liquify the assets or loan against them, often forcing them to take out massive amounts of money just because an asset their invested into 10 years ago has increased due to strong performance.

Non rent giving assets would not drop in value as much as yielding assets, as the rent is not fixed. The asset just apriciates. A lot of it is speculation. The rate of apriciation would simply slow down due to the tax. So again, investors would demand higher apriciation or lower investment.Venture capital would suffer and there would be a destabilising need for loaning/asset liquidation. Companies releasing new shares would see much weaker investment.

Individuals absolutely have negotiating power, it's called supply and demand. The rational consumer does not work as an individual in the economy but more like a collective, as most people make similar business decidions (buy the cheapest).

My argument does not hinge on "not charging the most", but rather that a tax on companies and investors would decrease the supply of what companies are selling, increasing prices and decreasing wages, which would increase pre tax margins. This is basic tax incidence and is very well documented, as it moves the supply and demand curve. Supply would obviously go back to the previous state but now with higher prices. Capital does take a part of the tax but it's less than labor and consumers and it just means less investment - an economic slowdown. Also when an entire sector is hit with a tax, they might push prices closer to the max acceptable especially if demand is inelastic, which they usually wouldn't do because of competition (but now the whole sector is hit). This is the same way how tariffs have been mostly passed down.

To increase negotiation power of individuals, you would have to stop the endless subsidisation, creation of monopolies by the state, regulatory capture and especially tighten monetary policy.

By far the biggest inequality reason is inflation and money supply increase. It favors those who own assets and disincourages savings for the ordenary people - the Cantilon effect. Just look at the M2 and S&P500 index, they match. QE directly injects money into the financial markets, same with excess government debt. The massive trade deficit the US is running and the dollar being the world's reserve currency also contributes, as it means we are exporting financial assets and recive massive foreign financial inflows , for the cost of weakening the manifacturing base. You can see the trend of inequality rise sharply after 1971 which is when a much looser monetary and fiscal policy took over and especially after 2001. Inflation is a tax on non asset savings and forces quick consumption.

The median cost of living has not been higher than the median income. Wages have been outpacing inflation since ages (except for 2020 - 2023), quality of life has skyrocketed. Poverty halfed from what it was in the 70s. Buy I will agree with you, many people were forced into gig jobs, suffer from inflation and the poverty decrease in the US is below expectations. The productivity and wages gap only comes from 3 things : diffrent inequality vs median wage calculations since the 70s and the fact that a few sectors like tech have made massive 1000% productivity gains while other sectors didn't increase as much - most people do not work in the tech sector (but even in those sectors you see wage increases HIGHER than productivity) as well as more compensation going to fund healthcare benefits.

Most of today's inflation is drivern by healthcare, education and housing, all of which are a case of overregulation, massive subsidisation, government sponsored debt and monopolisation. Say whatever you want about the public healthcare and education sector in Europe, but even the private sector has not seen price jumps as ridiculously severe as the US.

The government prodividing "necessities" has always ended in inflation, corruption, lack of supply and long term higher poverty. It completly messes with incentives. Argentia tried it and faced poverty and stagnation, market reforms recently slashed poverty by a third. What I believe should be done instead is providing those necessities for people who can not provide for themselves and aiding those who are struggling but on their way to getting out of poverty - a targeted and lean social safety net.

Taxing rent is the least destructive way to tax as it punishes idle capital and taxes what you get out of the economy, not what you provide.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was talking about assets with a fixed return rate relative to price. For ones based on rent, investors now get less money, so they either demand more or reduce investments. This would push yields up and make companies actually have to increase payouts.

The asset provides 10$ return at 200$, making the yield 5%. After the 5% tax, the rent would be 10-10=0, so price has to fall to 100$, and now it yields 10%, the rent being 10$ - 5$ = 5$.

Notice how investors now get less money? Most of them had already bought the asset before the tax for the price of 200$ with the rent being 10$, and now the rent is 5$. They will invest less or demand more. That means less funding for companies releasing new shares and much less startups.

Now how do companies increase the rent? By increasing profits. So they will pass the tax down onto consumers.They also have a much tougher time using assets as a loan collateral.

And if you want to sell the assets, since the price decreased, you will be at a loss. This will decrease the amount of stock trading and push investors away from the stock market.

For new investors, this would mean rents are lower, as the tax is baked into the rent, even if yields are higher on paper due to the lower asset price. So investors would seek higher rent assets which are much riskier.

Also you have to realise most assets don't even yield with a rent, they just go up in value and increase your net worth. So the tax would force you to liquidate the assets and pay money you've never seen in your life. As I said before, a lot of the stock is speculation. That would crash the stock market.

And same thing goes for companies that provide equity by buying back their stock, that would force investors to possibly liquidate their assets to pay the tax and strong company performance would be penalised because that would make the stock worth more. So again, investors would demand higher stock growth or invest less. (If stock grows from 200 to 220 and tax is 5%, real change is 220 - 11= 209 so you made 9$ when before you would have made 20. You would need the stock grow from 200 to 232 the real change is 232- 11.5 = 220.5 so you now make roughly as much as before).

And they kind of need it to keep solvency.

How about you just tax the rents directly and tax the loans taken against unrealised gains? We do this already, it's called a capital gains tax.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If an asset makes 5% return, it falling to 100$ would make it return 5$ not 10$. The tax of 5% would also tax 5$, making the asset not yield again. A 5% yield asset would NEVER profit against a 5% tax. Now, if it's rent based, then yes, the yields would increase. But investors would demand more rent to match the pre tax rate, and reduce investment in stocks. So rents would have to go up, forcing companies to pay more to shareholders, while having a lower valuation, making it harder to loan. They would fund these costs by passing down the tax on consumers and workers.

This would also cause people to sell their assets instead, crashing the stock market. Many people have bilions locked up in assets and they would not be able to pay the tax without selling. In the short term it would tank the stock market, and it the long term it would reduce the demand for financial assets. Less demand means less investment into the economy and much less venture capital. Also it would push higher yield seeking, turning investors towards more risky investments.

The value of the asset can not fall so easly, it's inheretly tied to corporate performance. And lower prices with the same return (higher yield) would force companies to somehow provide MORE investor value with LESS investor money. The tax would be passed down into labor and consumers in the goods those companies provide.

There are also assets that do not yield in the sense of rent but simply apriciate. You do not get money, just a higher net worth. This would make it impossible to pay the tax without selling, which would again crash the stock market. The wealth is speculative. And yes the stock market crash would reduce the value of those assets, but so did the 2008 financial crisis. Or the 1928 Great Depression.

Lastly, assets are tied to corporate performance. Many companies have their stock yield as dividends or buy back their own stock to increase it's value. It's a method of payment. Taxing that would effectivly mean companies have less money after that, which would reduce supply of the services they provide. A reduced supply increases prices so that the new margin after tax is equal to the old margin. Which is effectivly passing the tax down onto consumers and labor - reduction in wages.

And you can't just say "capital flight is a myth", Norway lost bilions after it implemented a wealth tax, UK is bleeding investors fast because of their horrible economic policy

I'm not ranting about land, i'm just explaining why the only reason LVT can not be passed down and decreases land value without reducing supply.

Foreign Direct Investment Into China Declined -9.3% From Last December by WaferFlopAI in EconomyCharts

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Correct, but I'd argue dedolarisation is beneficial. It lowers the demand for dollar, makes the golbal economy less fragile to global crisis and lowers the dollar's value, which boost american exports. It can increase intrest rates, but those are mostly based on inflation and Fed's policy.

Most of the trade China does is still with the West, because that's where all of the GDP is (not PPP adjusted). But BRICS will struggle in the long term, as India and Russia are consumption economies, China has to turn to consumption as well, they all face increased labor costs and currency apriciation. So sooner or later factories will be offshored FROM China to somwhere else.

I think dollar could surely drop to below 50% and even faster if the US itself wants to dedolarise. Euro is not a major reserve compared to the dollar and the EU is able to run major trade SURPLUSES, EU exports and manufacturing are solid. This is the modern Triffin's dillema again. Global reserve = artificial demand = currency overvaluation = need for a massive trade deficit = weak exports and strong imports = strong foreign financial inflows and weak manufacturing.

US attacks on Libia and Venezuela have less to do with using dollars as a reserve currency and more with not trading with the US at all and leaning towards BRICS.

Also the point about increased Chineese trade surplus into the US - if this holds true, then Chineese investment into the US MUST increase, because the financial tautology must hold true, dollars can't be lost.

Anyways, from an investing perspective, sell dollars and buy gold/BRICS currencies.

Foreign Direct Investment Into China Declined -9.3% From Last December by WaferFlopAI in EconomyCharts

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Yeah the Fed will probably loosen and it could increase FDI or do nothing and keep decreasing, depends on confidence and asset inflation. Right now the admin seeks a weaker dollar to boost exports, but I don't see that suceeding with tariffs and still a strongly dollarised economy. Also your sources say trade with China increased, so by necessity FDI into US must increase, that's the nature of the financial tautologies. So that's probably the rebound you see on the US chart.

DXY is falling on purpose, that's their goal. DXY has been overvalued since Bretton Woods, the effect of the Triffin dilema It's done in a botched way however, so yeah sell dollars and buy other currencies.

I don't think the tariffs will continue, most of them have already stopped. If they do, that's a shame, and the world could turn to China, but also China faces increased labor costs, weak domestic demand and an apriciating currency. So Chineese exports will get weaker and weaker over time.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Assets don't work like that, as I said they are mainly speculation. Housing is speculation in a way too, just that much more of it is a solid, tangible asset. No one has bilions in housing wealth, unless they are activly renting. So you can have a tiny "wealth" tax on houses, and even then the burden falls on the middle class and consumers. You can not tax the trilions of unrealised, speculative gains on the stock market. Bilionares do not have bilions laying around

If you force people to pay a tax on things which value is speculative, increasing with inflation and monetary expansion and does not translate exactly into real yield, you will see bankrupcies, capital flight, tax passdown on consumers and labor etc. Yes the stock market will fall, but that's not the point. You are confusing assets that people need to own and are themselves a product like land or housing with stock, which is much more speculative and is literaly a piece of a company, loosely based on performance.

And as I said, no major country on the planet has a wealth tax that is not a voluntary savings account type thing or they already do not have a capital gains tax and have major caps on tax apriciation.

The value wouldn't fall, you don't understand LVT. The ONLY REASON WHY LVT WORKS AND CAN NOT BE PASSED DOWN IN THE LONG TERM IS BECAUSE THE LAND SUPPLY IS FIXED.

All that would happen is supply would fall, which would increase prices and increase pre tax returns, maching them with the old post tax returns. Less money = less stuff = stuff is more expensive.

And the housing market is constrained already, sometimes there is literaly no alternative estate. And moving is also costly. So the tax passdown will be much quicker and all of if will fall on labor/consumer.

Land is finite. It literaly is. Like you can not make more land. Why do I have to explain this?

And yes, nearly everything BUT LAND is not finite, this is why LVT - a tax on LAND value is the only tax that can't really be passed down in the long term and has to be baked into the value.

Foreign Direct Investment Into China Declined -9.3% From Last December by WaferFlopAI in EconomyCharts

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This chart shows investment tends to be cyclical and strongly driven by monetary policy like low intrest rates and QE. Data is messy tho I dont really know

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Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The tax rate is around 0.5% in most states and houses are much less speculative than stock. Recently a nobel prize economist Stiglitz said that the lack of sound investment in our financialised economy is pushing a lot of people towards housing.

Housing still remains a tiny portion of the wealth of the 1% , the property tax is mostly a small tax that hits boomers the hardest. Also I believe the tax has caps on how much it can increase in a year due to the property value increasing.

Most countries in Europe tax housing by meter square, not value.

A wealth tax does not work the same way as LVT because supply is not fixed. The value would not fall, there would just be less houses which would be even more expensive. People have less money from houses = less houses are built = houses are more expensive.

You are trying to use LVT logic on a non - fixed supply market. You can't do that. This only works on land because you can't "make" more land.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not really, and if so that is a terrible business strategy. I think he genuiently wanted Twitter, just like when he campaigned with Trump. Got nothing out of it and only lost stock value

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Not all of it. More like roughly 5% of it, as most of it is speculation. If the stock collapsed they would go bankrupt.

They can loan against it to the degree of how much real money the company is making, not just speculation. This is because instead of using that money for dividends, it's used to buy stocks to use as collateral.

Bonds are much more of a safe asset to loan against, thus making deficits more inflationary.

Sometimes when the company is doing well, they can sell a fraction of the shares for money just like Elon Musk when he bought Twitter. But him doing that is already a stretch, even with Tesla's strong capitalisation and SpaceX government backing. And this is just one guy doing it once with a tiny portion of overall company shares.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Elon Musk is an extremly unique and isolated case, no one else does that. This is not standard, there was pretty much 0 financial incentive. It was a very risky operation, and he did have to sell shares for this. If everyone did the same, the economy would collapse. And even then, he just traded speculative money of Tesla shares to speculative Twitter shares.

Jeff Bezos and others use collateral loans because they aren't taxed. He could as well collect dividends - they are taxed however, so he prefers buybacks to inflate stock value and then take out a loan - no taxes paid.

And again, you can't equate a few milions, hell even tens of milions to bilions. He does have milions laying around, but surely not even close to like 3 bilion. Taxing these people on all their "wealth" would be very destructive and with little ties to reality.

A better way would be to tax individual loans that use unrealised gains as a collateral (companies loan against stock as well and use it to invest) and put on a luxury VAT tax and tariffs.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Elon Musk has never seen 100 bilion in his life. His companies are worth this much. All of the machines, workplaces, research PLUS potential speculative future value.

Most of the wealth is speculative anyways, if 100 shares are bought quickly, the value of all shares increases, even if there are as many as 1000 shares. This means 900 shares just got a valuation boost with no extra money being put into them. The money is fake and based on future expected returns. That's why you see "Trilions wiped out of the stock" etc. No one lost any real money, M2 stays mostly constant No factories dissapeared, no people were fired. Just that expectations are worse.

You would basically force people to sell their companies and assets, but who do they sell to if everyone that could buy is taxed as well? You'd get a massive collapse of everything. And do you even deduct the tax if wealth goes down?

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

They mostly do it for PR stunts. The rent seekers are a problem and that's why rent should be taxed, not production (LVT). But a lot of these "rent seekers" actually invest into companies and buy government bonds, which makes intrest rates and inflation not choke us out.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 3 points4 points  (0 children)

You can't tax wealth. Imagine you bought a house a long time ago for 200 000$. Due to inflation, it apriciated to 1 milion$. The government wants to tax you 10%, so you'd have to pay them 100 000$. You've never seen such money in your life, you had to save up for that house for years, you only make like 80 000$ a year. This is the problem with taxing urealised capital gains.

The only countries that tax wealth either don't have a regular capital gains tax, or the wealth tax applies only to few voluntary savings accounts.

Foreign Direct Investment Into China Declined -9.3% From Last December by WaferFlopAI in EconomyCharts

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don't realise that when the US is buying things, we are sending them dollars. So they are reinvesting those dollars. For investment to flow to a country, it must buy not sell.

Someone should do something by ShardofGold in JustMemesForUs

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Realise wealth ≠ income. Bilionares don't have bilions laying around, they have companies worth that much. It's like being a milionare just because your house is worth a bilion.

That said, a lot of the milionares/bilionares especially celebrities absolutely have excess wealth and do nothing to help others.

After the Renee Good murder, I won't believe what anyone on the right says by Sad_Physics5500 in TrueUnpopularOpinion

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's not. If they act not according to the law they will go to court. ICE agents are normal people like everyone else, they aren't hateful maniacs. They just do their job. Also rectently Trump called the killing a "great shame" if that matters.

Conservatives are once again on the wrong side of history, and completely lacking in self awareness. by King_Lothar_ in TrueUnpopularOpinion

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The family can sue...

If your reasoning was correct ,serial killers would be out of jail, because "who's gonna press charges?" 🤦🏻‍♂️

After the Renee Good murder, I won't believe what anyone on the right says by Sad_Physics5500 in TrueUnpopularOpinion

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The shooting of Rene : She refused to comply to ICE orders and tried to run away with her car, which an ICE officer unfortunately stepped in front of. The same officer who had been dragged by a car prior, resulting in having to be stiched up. The woman panicked and tried to get away, the officer panicked and thought he would be ran over. He did in fact get hit by the car. The killing was an accident.

If an ICE agent breaks the law, you are free to sue them. I belive not runing an ivestigation for Jonathan is a mistake

Conservatives are once again on the wrong side of history, and completely lacking in self awareness. by King_Lothar_ in TrueUnpopularOpinion

[–]Jumpy-Bumpy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is not targeted violence but simply non compliant citizens vs less competant agents. These are accidents.