Reddittors vs Wall Street

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plodder
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by plodder » Sat Feb 06, 2021 10:26 am

Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:43 am
plodder wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:47 am
Millennie Al wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 4:17 am


The speakers sound like they're a bit lacking in knowledge of human nature. There's no such thing as a successful one-off tax as if it is successful it gets repeated. A good example of this is income tax which was introduced as an exceptional measure to finance war and quickly got the government addicted so that despite attempts to get rid of it, it kept returning and we're now stuck with it.
A bad example is Gordon Brown’s windfall tax on private utilities, which happened once.
It's a bit soon to make that judgement, but it certainly has been proposed to to something similar again and one proposal was in the Labour manifesto in 2019 so it seems highly likely that it will get repeated eventually.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Imrael » Sat Feb 06, 2021 11:32 am

On wealth taxes, in France at one time they had a lifestyle tax. It basically assumed that if you had a private jet, a racehorse or a bunch of other stuff you must be wealthy enough tp pay some extra tax. Being entirely out of that bracket in my brief time there, I dont know how well it worked, but the idea is interesting to play with.

(I think it might still be there - Google Translate comes up with something called "lump-sum taxation according to the external signs of wealth")

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by JQH » Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:32 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:50 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:49 pm
You do Jeff Bezos, you do Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the Kochs, Bloomberg, et. al.
Eventually there will be a disincentive to hoarding huge wealth, and money will stay in the economy of ordinary people who toil for a living.
Where do you think the wealth of these people currently is? Do they each have a huge pit at home filled with gold coins that they sleep on?
Now you're being silly.

They have a dragon sleep on the hoard of gold. Saw it in a documentary once.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Herainestold » Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:53 pm

JQH wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:32 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:50 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:49 pm
You do Jeff Bezos, you do Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the Kochs, Bloomberg, et. al.
Eventually there will be a disincentive to hoarding huge wealth, and money will stay in the economy of ordinary people who toil for a living.
Where do you think the wealth of these people currently is? Do they each have a huge pit at home filled with gold coins that they sleep on?
Now you're being silly.

They have a dragon sleep on the hoard of gold. Saw it in a documentary once.
That is a good image. I would imagine that it is invested in various off shore stuff that avoids tax.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by shpalman » Sat Feb 06, 2021 6:58 pm

JQH wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:32 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:50 am
Herainestold wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 7:49 pm
You do Jeff Bezos, you do Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the Kochs, Bloomberg, et. al.
Eventually there will be a disincentive to hoarding huge wealth, and money will stay in the economy of ordinary people who toil for a living.
Where do you think the wealth of these people currently is? Do they each have a huge pit at home filled with gold coins that they sleep on?
Now you're being silly.

They have a dragon sleep on the hoard of gold. Saw it in a documentary once.
Well, Italy did just put Mario Draghi in charge.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Herainestold » Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:55 pm

jdc wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:26 pm

Couple C don't have to pay the wealth tax because instead of hoarding it, they've recirculated their cash already. It's gone to travel agents, shopkeepers, restaurants, and HM Gov (in the form of VAT - though I believe that's only the case for the dinners, baubles, and EU holidays as non-EU hols are zero-rated). VAT rates are higher than any proposed wealth tax rates I've seen and there's no threshold so we've hit C good and hard already. Why should C be taxed both on the money they earn and the money they spend while A & B were only taxed on the money they earned and not on the money they've hoarded?

So people who don 't buy property are better for the economy as a whole.

Maybe one approach is property owners could be taxed each year on the increase in value of their property. Just a small amount 5% or so.
If your property went down you could get a tax deduction.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by discovolante » Sun Feb 07, 2021 8:04 pm

Herainestold wrote:
Sun Feb 07, 2021 7:55 pm
jdc wrote:
Fri Feb 05, 2021 10:26 pm

Couple C don't have to pay the wealth tax because instead of hoarding it, they've recirculated their cash already. It's gone to travel agents, shopkeepers, restaurants, and HM Gov (in the form of VAT - though I believe that's only the case for the dinners, baubles, and EU holidays as non-EU hols are zero-rated). VAT rates are higher than any proposed wealth tax rates I've seen and there's no threshold so we've hit C good and hard already. Why should C be taxed both on the money they earn and the money they spend while A & B were only taxed on the money they earned and not on the money they've hoarded?

So people who don 't buy property are better for the economy as a whole.

Maybe one approach is property owners could be taxed each year on the increase in value of their property. Just a small amount 5% or so.
If your property went down you could get a tax deduction.
That would be a fantastic incentive for the government to prevent property price inflation.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Millennie Al » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:03 am

Herainestold wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:53 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:50 am
Herainestold wrote: You do Jeff Bezos, you do Elon Musk, Bill Gates, the Kochs, Bloomberg, et. al.
Eventually there will be a disincentive to hoarding huge wealth, and money will stay in the economy of ordinary people who toil for a living.
Where do you think the wealth of these people currently is?
I would imagine that it is invested in various off shore stuff that avoids tax.
While, from a UK perspective you might be technically right, in spirit you are completely wrong. Jeff Bezos owns 10% of Amazon, worth $177 billion, Elon Mush owns shares in Tesla, Bill Gates, shares in Microsoft, the Kochs, probably Koch Industries but as a private company shareholding is not known, and Bloomberg owns shares in Bloomberg LP which is also a private company.

Since these are all American companies, you could regard them as "offshore", and you could regard using an Amrican company and a very cunning way to avoid UK tax, but I think that by any reasonable analysis, these are Amaerican people owning American companies paying tax in America nin accordance with whatever crazy laws America may make.

But, with regard to taxing wealth, all of the figures for what these people are worth are little more than fiction. If Jeff Bezos tried to sell his 10% of Amazon, he would get far less than its current share price - especially as such an act would be seen as a vote of no confidence in the company. If you own one share in Amazon, it may be a reasonable guess to say that it is worth the current share price (but, equally, until you sell it you can't really tell what it is worth) but the more shares involved the less it is even meaningful to claim that they have a value at all.

And with regard to hoarding wealth, these people have given, or said they will give, vast sums of money to various philanthropic causes.

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Grumble » Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:25 am

Haven’t the recent statements about Jeff Bezos’ wealth been more related to his share of the profits Amazon have made rather than gains in share price?
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by lpm » Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:44 am

A shareholder in Amazon like Bezos does not get a share of Amazon's profits.

Indeed, Amazon only recently started making a profit, years after Bezos became a billionaire.

The only way a shareholder gets rich from companies they own a share of is (a) from receiving dividends or (b) from its share price increasing and then selling shares at a profit. Amazon does not pay a dividend. However its share price has done rather well, increasing from about $10 a share in the post dot.com crash era to $3,350 today.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by jaap » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:19 am

Meanwhile in the Reddit group that sparked off this thread, the moderators start fighting over potential story/movie rights:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/tech ... ywood.html

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:00 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:03 am
Herainestold wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:53 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Sat Feb 06, 2021 4:50 am


Where do you think the wealth of these people currently is?
I would imagine that it is invested in various off shore stuff that avoids tax.
While, from a UK perspective you might be technically right, in spirit you are completely wrong. Jeff Bezos owns 10% of Amazon, worth $177 billion, Elon Mush owns shares in Tesla, Bill Gates, shares in Microsoft, the Kochs, probably Koch Industries but as a private company shareholding is not known, and Bloomberg owns shares in Bloomberg LP which is also a private company.

Since these are all American companies, you could regard them as "offshore", and you could regard using an Amrican company and a very cunning way to avoid UK tax, but I think that by any reasonable analysis, these are Amaerican people owning American companies paying tax in America nin accordance with whatever crazy laws America may make.

But, with regard to taxing wealth, all of the figures for what these people are worth are little more than fiction. If Jeff Bezos tried to sell his 10% of Amazon, he would get far less than its current share price - especially as such an act would be seen as a vote of no confidence in the company. If you own one share in Amazon, it may be a reasonable guess to say that it is worth the current share price (but, equally, until you sell it you can't really tell what it is worth) but the more shares involved the less it is even meaningful to claim that they have a value at all.

And with regard to hoarding wealth, these people have given, or said they will give, vast sums of money to various philanthropic causes.
I thought it was quite well known that Amazon makes use of a variety of mechanisms to lower its tax liability, which could probably be fairly described as "offshore stuff that avoids tax". They send loads of their EU money via Luxembourg, for example, though the EU is finally starting to try and crack down on this sort of stuff. https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson ... rangement/ ETA and have similar wheezes to avoid federal taxes in the USA https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18231742/ ... ate-income

Just because these things are legal (for now) doesn't mean people don't have a moral issue with them.

The Kochs own a lot of Trump's debt, interestingly.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Herainestold » Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:25 pm

Grumble wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 6:25 am
Haven’t the recent statements about Jeff Bezos’ wealth been more related to his share of the profits Amazon have made rather than gains in share price?
His net worth is supposedly $200 billion according to the interwebz. He built up that horrendous wealth on the backs of ordinary Amazon workers, exploiting their toil in work conditions similar to indentured labour. People naturally feel that this is not equitable.
During the Long March when the Red Army defeated a local warlord, they would put him on trial and then confiscate his pigs and slaughter them, giving the meat to the people. Not the soldiers of the army, but the peasant upon whose toil the landord's riches depended.
We need to do the same thing to the modern exploiters. Not advocating any physical harm shoulod come to those such as Bezos. His grotesque wealth, like the landord's pigs, should be distributed to the people who worked so hard for it.

The modern way to accomplish this is a wealth tax.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:53 pm

A wealth tax sounds great, but also, f.ck Jeff Bezos's pigs. Can't wait to chop up those squealing little bastards and feed them to Amazon's long-suffering warehouse employees and delivery drivers.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Herainestold » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:00 pm

The idea is very appealing morally and emotionally.

A wealth tax would achieve the goal, its tricky and difficult to implement, but it could be done.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by jdc » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:43 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:53 pm
A wealth tax sounds great, but also, f.ck Jeff Bezos's pigs. Can't wait to chop up those squealing little bastards and feed them to Amazon's long-suffering warehouse employees and delivery drivers.
No! We should set the pigs free and let the Amazon employees feed themselves. Which should be no problem once we've given them Jeff Bezos's money.

Can't believe you're a pig murderer Boaf. You're much more bloodthirsty than I'd realised.

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Herainestold » Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:45 pm

jdc wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 10:43 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 9:53 pm
A wealth tax sounds great, but also, f.ck Jeff Bezos's pigs. Can't wait to chop up those squealing little bastards and feed them to Amazon's long-suffering warehouse employees and delivery drivers.
No! We should set the pigs free and let the Amazon employees feed themselves. Which should be no problem once we've given them Jeff Bezos's money.

Can't believe you're a pig murderer Boaf. You're much more bloodthirsty than I'd realised.
I thot he was a vegan.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:04 pm

Pigs are class traitors.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by plodder » Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:14 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:04 pm
Pigs are class traitors.
Not all of them. Some pigs etc etc

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Feb 09, 2021 1:54 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:00 pm
Millennie Al wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:03 am
Since these are all American companies, you could regard them as "offshore", and you could regard using an Amrican company and a very cunning way to avoid UK tax, but I think that by any reasonable analysis, these are Amaerican people owning American companies paying tax in America nin accordance with whatever crazy laws America may make.
I thought it was quite well known that Amazon makes use of a variety of mechanisms to lower its tax liability, which could probably be fairly described as "offshore stuff that avoids tax".
Only if you're an American.
They send loads of their EU money via Luxembourg, for example,
Luxembourg is one of the cerntres of the EU, so not in the least "offshore".
though the EU is finally starting to try and crack down on this sort of stuff. https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson ... rangement/ ETA and have similar wheezes to avoid federal taxes in the USA https://www.vox.com/2019/2/20/18231742/ ... ate-income

Just because these things are legal (for now) doesn't mean people don't have a moral issue with them.
Do these moral issues include objecting to American taxes on activity whose connection to America is very small, or are the morals based mainly on greed and envy at seeing a source of money to be tapped?

The tax situation is that the between a corporation and a nation, one of the two makes the rules, judges their application, and has had hundreds of years experience at doing so. It is hard to find any sympathy when that side claims they have come off worse.

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Millennie Al » Tue Feb 09, 2021 2:05 am

Herainestold wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 7:25 pm
During the Long March when the Red Army defeated a local warlord, they would put him on trial and then confiscate his pigs and slaughter them, giving the meat to the people. Not the soldiers of the army, but the peasant upon whose toil the landord's riches depended.
So the Red Army took these pigs which were really the property of the peasants and killed them all rather than giving them back to the peasants alive? Not exactly something to emulate.

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by basementer » Tue Feb 09, 2021 4:04 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Feb 08, 2021 11:04 pm
Pigs are class traitors.
Winston Churchill wrote:I am fond of pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by nezumi » Tue Feb 09, 2021 1:44 pm

I'm definitely pro-pig survival. It would definitely have been better to redistribute the living pigs to the peasants, give a man a dead pig and he'll eat for a week, give a man a live pig and he'll eat for a week sometime in the unspecified future, but also have a handy dustbin living around the place for a bit.

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by plodder » Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:07 pm

"why do you keep a three-legged pig around?" etc

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Re: Reddittors vs Wall Street

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:38 pm

That's my husband!
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