Super rich proposes new tax for the super rich
” We are writing to call on all candidates for President, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, to Support a moderate wealth tax on the fortunes of the richest 1/10 of the richest 1% of Americans—on us. The next dollar of new tax revenue should come from the most financially fortunate, not from middle-income and lower-income Americans.”
This is the first paragraph of a letter sent by a group of very wealthy Americans to all presidential candidates of 2020. They argue that “The top 1/10 of 1% of households now have almost as much wealth as all Americans in the bottom 90%”. They see solving the climate crisis, the general health of Americans and patriotism as some of the areas the proposed tax would benefit.
I think this is long overdue, not just for the US, but for all countries. It isn’t fair for the richest to build their fortunes on other peoples misfortunes. If there are people in your business chain that cant get by on the salary they make, you are paying too little. It doesn’t matter if they live in some faraway country and work for a supplier that you have hired. It is your responsibility to make sure that everyone in your supply chain is treated well before you make a profit off of what they do.
What makes this initiative unique, is that it is some of those who will be targeted by a tax like this who brought it up this time. This is an excellent opportunity to do something about it. If America took the lead on this, I am sure other countries would follow.
What do you think? Have you given this any thought?
Best regards, Niklas 🎈
About time! There is such disparity in wealth all over the world and I agree these billionaires and millionaire need to start taking some action.
All the best, Leia
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It's a sensible initiative. However it's questionable whether the multi billionaires are the real problem. This is because it should all be about resource consumption rather than wealth and by and large people with say USD 10bn of wealth are probably not consuming that much more, certainly not 100x as much as those worth say USD 100m
I think the argument is that the wealth of the 10 richest people in the world could feed all the starving in the world, or something like that.
Best regards, Niklas 🎈
Yes I think it's a misconception though. By and large 95per cent of the wealth of the mega rich is in the form of numbers with lots of zeros against them in various ledgers. Of course on an individual basis Bill Gates could hand over 5 bucks and someone can eat lunch. But that doesn't quite work on an aggregate level if we took say a trillion dollars from the mega rich and distributed it to the poor, it would not automatically solve global hunger (though for sure it would probably do some good). To a first order approximation the amount of food grown in the economy is relatively fixed, so a large part of the extra trillion is likely to go in the form of higher prices rather than more food I the bellies of the hungry. Admittedly there would be important deck d order effects for example people may be able to buy more fertiliser and better seeds or have more education.etc but it is not quite as straight forward as people might imagine
I’m not thinking of a tax that would take all the fortunes of the richest and give to the poor, but a percentage that is sustainable in the long run.
Best regards, Niklas 🎈