Wealth taxes are a symptom of a broken tax system. If you let someone get to hundreds of billions in net worth and then realize they haven’t been appropriately paying back into the system, it’s already too late. Like the article says they can simply say “no” in a variety of ways, from fighting in court to simply leaving.
Larry Page owns about 5% of Alphabet, which is worth $4T, so he has $200B give or take. Which part of that do you think reflects a "broken tax system"? Companies should get kneecapped if their market cap gets too high? Founders shouldn't be allowed to keep even a single digit percent of the company?
The broken part is that there is third world-level poverty on the streets outside Google’s offices, working class people cannot afford to live in the Bay Area, and a fifth of California lives in poverty.
Read somewhere that SF spends roughly 50k$-80k$ per homeless person per year.
Taxing more doesn't solve a massively inefficient system at it's core. Just like US education, we spend more than any country on earth, why is it still bad?
Answering that question with a "if only we had more money" is a really poor argument. The CA tax fundamentals are bad, pooring more cash onto the fire will not fix that.
You can't solve a shortage with demand subsidies. You need to expand supply. SF has too little housing relative to its population, and has perennially tried throwing money at the nonprofit industrial complex which has (obviously) perennially failed to solve the problem because it doesn't generate new housing units, it just bids up and reshuffles the existing ones (and steals a lot of money in the process).
And, many people who are poor have persistent mental/physical disabilities, so part of that spending is because many of these people have it the hardest.
With that said, we could likely fix all of these things and significantly unequal wealth distribution would still result in a lot of poverty.
96k$?! Those are rookie numbers. I propose a mclaren for every homeless person. We will weath tax all stocks in the fortune 500 to pay for it, crash the stocks and solve inequality.
binlog · · focus · HN ↗
jdm2212 · · focus · HN ↗
binlog · · focus · HN ↗
johnsmith1840 · · focus · HN ↗
Read somewhere that SF spends roughly 50k$-80k$ per homeless person per year.
Taxing more doesn't solve a massively inefficient system at it's core. Just like US education, we spend more than any country on earth, why is it still bad?
Answering that question with a "if only we had more money" is a really poor argument. The CA tax fundamentals are bad, pooring more cash onto the fire will not fix that.
edoceo · · focus · HN ↗
jdm2212 · · focus · HN ↗
edoceo · · focus · HN ↗
robocat · · focus · HN ↗
The population that's already living in those houses?
Note that "native-born Californians are ~37% of San Francisco County. That percentage has remained relatively flat over recent decades"
<a href="https://usafacts.org/answers/is-the-population-growing-or-shrinking/county/san-francisco-county-ca/" rel="nofollow">https://usafacts.org/answers/is-the-population-growing-or-sh...johnsmith1840 · · focus · HN ↗
I think it's more socialist/communist motivation to seize production I don't think they care about the rich as much as control.
omgwtfbyobbq · · focus · HN ↗
<a href="https://youtu.be/YKAD7l1a9hc" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/YKAD7l1a9hc
In addition, there should probably be changes to laws/regulations to address companies that exploit the poorest.
<a href="https://youtu.be/U9Rls-_7LdQ" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/U9Rls-_7LdQ
And, many people who are poor have persistent mental/physical disabilities, so part of that spending is because many of these people have it the hardest.
With that said, we could likely fix all of these things and significantly unequal wealth distribution would still result in a lot of poverty.
peab · · focus · HN ↗
johnsmith1840 · · focus · HN ↗