Ask Lemmy

I don’t think the crazy taxes need to be on obscene wealth itself, but on the very lavish and wasteful things people do with that wealth, things that have a very real impact to the rest of society.

For example, private jets or even private chartered flights should have some very steep taxes to offset the cost of all the FAA employees and stuff at all the small airports, all the carbon emissions, and everything.

Yachts, and very large properties also come to mind. Like total square feet of living space of all real estate owned - once it crosses like 10,000 sq ft the annual taxes just get higher and higher. For example 10k-20k sq ft costs $1/sq ft annually, 20k-40k costs $5/sq ft, etc.

Since this is AskLemmy, perhaps Lemmy should answer you.

Labor organizing, laws, and taxes. Same way we got what we have now but the work isn't done.

No need, I've been hearing that it's good when they get all the money shoved at them BECAUSE, and hear me out now, they may or may not choose to maybe trickle some of the wealth they don't obsessively hoard or burn on pleasure trips into space back onto the population.

They're bound to start doing that aaaaaany decade now...

To answer the question in terms of things you personally can do, I think the boring and realistic answer is to research organizations who align with your goals and who you think have effective methods, and get involved with them.

Personally I like represent.us - They're specific to the US, but their idea is to put anti-corruption laws into place that help remove the influence of money on the government. This would help get laws passed that favor everybody instead of just the rich. Their approach is to begin at the local level and get enough momentum for a national movement to have some power.

Here are a couple of videos they made, first about what the problem is, and second about how they are trying to solve it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tu32CCA_Ig

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhe286ky-9A

A recent study has shown there is little increase in happiness beyond $500,000 in annual earnings. Based on that I suggest a cap of $500k per year or $50 million lifetime earnings.

The former would be for most people, the latter is for movie stars or athletes who might have a few very high earning years and love off them the rest of their life.

To help our poor billionaires I will take one for the team and help them reduce their burden, for a small administrative fee, I will take ownership of 10% of their fortune, I'd imagine there are several other people who gladly would agree to help in slmilar ways.

Honestly? Nothing can be done short of violent revolution. The rich control the government and the government controls us. Voting is lauded as the common person's chance to have their voice heard, but it's a gerrymandered mess. The politicians are all liars who just want in for clout, power and money. It's a perfect system of control down to even allowing us right now to freely talk about it because they know we're too scared, too fat and too distracted to make any real change. We're prisoners here.

I hear what you're saying. I don't see the methods you listed working under our government as our system has this flaw where the laws enforced tend to depend on which party is in charge.

That being said, organize your workplace. I'm personally fond of the Industrial Workers of the World as we are the only union that has an anticapitalist stance and our industrial organizing methods make it harder for employers to create division amongst the workers of a workplace (ie: separate unions for school teachers and school maintenance staff).

Since force is a clear crowd favorite: What would that look like? Angry mod surrounds home of billionaire and guillotines them on their lawn? According to Forbes there are currently 735 billionaires. That might take some time.

Yes, yes. Guillotines. Come on, do you really think that could happen? I just don't think it is realistic.

After the recent news of several billionaires asking to be taxed more that seems like the most realistic and viable to redistribute some of the wealth. I think you could probably get unions and democrats (leverage ALL existing organizations) to help lobby for some sort of "patriotic wealth tax" or however you wish to spin it. Start small to get it established and then keep lobbying to increase it.

I would recommend staring with a tax on income (ANY income with NO deductions) over $1M/year, maybe 10%. And then tax anyone's assets over $1bn at 2% every 5 years. Then keep changing those numbers to increase the revenue.

So for practical matters:

Lobbying takes time and effort, but it can be effective if done resiliantly.

Find out who in your local community has money and power. Find issues to reach out to other people and politicians on. Maybe there is a new school that would need to be build, butthe guy holding the land refuses to sell at a fair rate? Maybe there is an elderly women being kicked out of her house?

One problem is people havinga detached and abstract idea of super rich people and dont see how their immediate lifes are affected for the worse by it.

There is many people who look into the big picture, like we saw with the Panama papers and other investigative journalism. Did anything tangible come out of it? Why not? I think it is because people are not demanding for it politically. It is some abstract accepted injustice.

But through local action you can steer your community and by this you can force your political representative to adress these issues. That also means looking into the way they voted on issues and holding them accountable. Imagine they voted against an education spending bill and the next week there is a "moms for education" protest in front of his local office and it is all over local news.

Apply the pressure from the bottom up. No billionaire cares what John Doe from Springfield thinks. But they care what congress thinks. And congress cares what the members think. And the members care, what their electorate thinks. And that is where you, or everyone really, can make a difference.

Honestly I think the best means for changing things is right under our noses: voting. Not just federal, but also state and local. As it is now, in most places tax cuts that flow mostly to the wealthy are still a great political move that's an easy way to get votes. That's the first thing that needs to change.

There's all kinds of groups like the Center for Tax Reform and the US Chamber of Commerce that push for policies that tend to increase financial inequality - but as far as I know there isn't one for reducing inequality. Given how many people recognize the problem, maybe there should be one. And then politicians can start to fear that group as much as they fear the others. Of course it won't have a lot of wealthy donors, but as some politicians have shown small donations can do a lot.

Taxes! But different. This channel is very informative:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEdx1BIb1x0

The first Episode of Sabrina Live! is called How the Rich Don't Pay Taxes. All the rich need to do is use three simple steps: "Buy, Borrow, Die." In this episode, Rich Kid attempts to buy a $50 video game after purchasing a $1 Pokemon card. He then leaves his Pokemon card to his son - Rich Kid II.

www.peoplestaxpage.org.

Make wealth hoarders fear for their lives