Elon musk provides the most value to the world, change my mind

[JosephKnecht]

1 hour ago, Girzo said:

@JosephKnecht Elon Musk is not the best example to use when talking about wealth tax because he is a weirdo who sold out all his properties etc. Other billionaires have plenty of assets that aren't stocks. But still, you can add many luxury taxes to tax wealth, even for a weirdo like Musk. Like an additional tax that you pay on top of the rent if the property you rent is worth over 10 million, let's say.

It makes more sense to tax when money is spent, not when money is earned. 

Taxes disincentivize behavior. The more you tax wealth, the less wealth will be created. 

The more you tax spending, the fewer people will spend. 

You want to create an environment where people have the right incentives to create wealth without spending it. 

One day when there is so much wealth for everyone, you won't need taxes. 

[Yarco]

13 hours ago, Karmadhi said:

It would be nice if the UN did some sort of taxation for ultra rich people where all that money they have would be better distributed.

What you're describing is pure tyranny. Some outside international force coming into an autonomous country and unconstitutionally forcing people to pay tax under threat of violence. That's hardly tax, more like extortion and blackmail. The UN becomes a mafia at that point. 

Maybe if we implement some kind of "one world government." Good luck with that within the next couple hundred years, those kinds of words are a conspiracy theorist's wet dream. If you think Q Anon is bad now, try to introduce a "New World Order" like Alex Jones has been warning about for decades and watch 50% of the population freak out.

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Wealth Tax!

Enough with the income tax BS. Tax the wealth! Rich people don't have incomes.

I'm not in favor of this because:

1. You'll never catch the actual billionaires and trillionaires. They can just move themselves or their corporations to another country where a wealth tax doesn't apply. They'll keep doing it until there are no countries left without wealth taxes.

You can LITERALLY buy a passport to most Caribbean countries for a $100k investment or donation to their development fund. There will always be an incentive for a few of these countries to never have a wealth tax, so rich people flock their with their money.

So really you're penalizing the most enterprising and entrepreneurial people in society, those earning $200k to a few million per year with quick-growing businesses that are actually delivering innovation and social change.

2. Like someone else has said, how do you tax unrealized gains? Bezos and Musk might be able to pay a wealth tax out of their bank account. But for most people who are multi-millionaires on paper, it's all tied up in their business. They'd have to start selling off physical assets, or ownership in their company, just to cover the tax. Which in turn downsizes the company, hurts workers, etc.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Yarco

[Joel3102]

34 minutes ago, Yarco said:

 

2. Like someone else has said, how do you tax unrealized gains? Bezos and Musk might be able to pay a wealth tax out of their bank account. But for most people who are multi-millionaires on paper, it's all tied up in their business. They'd have to start selling off physical assets, or ownership in their company, just to cover the tax. Which in turn downsizes the company, hurts workers, etc.

If you don’t sell, which is a taxable event, you can’t spend the money anyway. I think capital gains tax should be higher given that’s how billionaires earn their money rather than salary. 

[Yarco]

2 hours ago, Joel3102 said:

I think capital gains tax should be higher given that’s how billionaires earn their money rather than salary. 

This makes the most sense to me.

If the complaint is that rich people are living off interest, dividends, and rent payments from assets or "wealth" they inherited or built decades ago, then sure, tax those things at a higher rate. 

The problem is the "leeching" of value that comes as a side-effect of having wealth, not the wealth itself. I find taxing future income that comes solely from the fact they hold assets to be ethical. But taxing the existing assets themselves, not so much. If they ever choose to sell the actual assets, it's already a taxable event.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Yarco

[JosephKnecht]

10 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

The government does not need his money because paper is worthless. The government has gold and printers that can create any amount of money it wants.

Yes. But this creates inflation. Inflation is a different type of taxation. 

11 minutes ago, Gesundheit2 said:

Rule #1 in economics, always keep gold in mind.

Rule #2, money is a cunning joke.

Those who have the money create the tune on which the rest of society, dances. 

Since Elon Musk has the money, he tells thousands of people how to dance to get his ass to Mars.   

Gold used to be a first-level abstraction of value. Paper money(fiat) is just a second-level abstraction of value.

The value itself only exists in people's minds. Thus, all value is perceived value. Perceptions change. 

[Nobody_Here]

6 hours ago, MarkKol said:

It was at this moment that he knew he fucked up

It's more realistic that China would attack Taiwan before it attempts to attack the United States.

[diamondpenguin]

Tax assets, but dont tax money in bank account. Money in bank is no ones business. Limit amount of rental properties one can have too. Real estate needs more regulations. 

[Leo Gura]

Stock holdings certainly count as wealth and must be taxed as wealth.

If the billionaires don't like it, let them move to some 3rd world shit hole. But, see, they all want to benefit from the safety and luxury of American life. They want their kids going to the best private schools in America. They want their headquarters and top employees in America. They want to shop at the best stores in America. If you want that, pay the cost of entry.

Also, a US citizen is still obligated to pay the US taxes even if he lives overseas. The only way to escape paying US taxes is to renounce your citizenship. Let's see if they want to do that.

And once a US company founder renounces his citizenship: oops! We'll pull all the federal subsidies for his business and stick and additional 10% tax for foreign owned/operated businesses.

[diamondpenguin]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Stock holdings certainly count as wealth and must be taxed as wealth.

If the billionaires don't like it, let them move to some 3rd world shit hole. But, see, they all want to benefit from the safety and luxury of American life. They want their kids going to the best private schools in America. They want their headquarters and top employees in America. They want to shop at the best stores in America. If you want that, pay the cost of entry.

Also, a US citizen is still obligated to pay the US taxes even if he lives overseas. The only way to escape paying US taxes is to renounce your citizenship. Let's see if they want to do that.

And once a US company founder renounces his citizenship: oops! We'll pull all the federal subsidies for his business and stick and additional 10% tax for foreign owned/operated businesses.

Yeah man, honestly if someone has got 1 bil in stocks or other worth. Then losing 500 mil wouldn't be the end of the world. That 500 mil could do a lot of good things rather than be wasted on private jet rides, or random expensive clothes. It could go back to the people who built the country, the architects, engineers, teachers, authors, and they're children who will be the next builders of America. 

[John Paul]

22 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Obviously. But that's the whole problem. Billionaires are allowed to earn zero income and gain massive wealth through stocks without paying a cent. This needs to be better regulated.

It's ridiculous that an average person has to pay 25% of their yearly profits to the government but a billionaire gets away with 3%.

I don't remember how laws work. How do we actually make this the new way of doing things?

[JosephKnecht]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Stock holdings certainly count as wealth and must be taxed as wealth.

Stocks do count as wealth, but only when you sell them. This is already taxed by capital gains. 

Elon Musk is not selling his stocks. How do you tax him if he doesn't sell his stocks?

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

If the billionaires don't like it, let them move to some 3rd world shit hole. But, see, they all want to benefit from the safety and luxury of American life. They want their kids going to the best private schools in America. They want their headquarters and top employees in America. They want to shop at the best stores in America. If you want that, pay the cost of entry.

The problem Is not the tax, but rather who gets to allocate capital in society. 

Last year Elon Musk shot a car he created into space with a racket he created. This is the power of the private sector. 

Last year Donald Trump told the public to drink bleach. This is the uselessness of the public sector. 

Who created more benefits for society? Elon or Trump? To whom would you give your money? 

[RareGodzilla]

1 hour ago, JosephKnecht said:

Stocks do count as wealth, but only when you sell them. This is already taxed by capital gains. 

Elon Musk is not selling his stocks. How do you tax him if he doesn't sell his stocks?

The problem Is not the tax, but rather who gets to allocate capital in society. 

Last year Elon Musk shot a car he created into space with a racket he created. This is the power of the private sector. 

Last year Donald Trump told the public to drink bleach. This is the uselessness of the public sector. 

Who created more benefits for society? Elon or Trump? To whom would you give your money? 

SpaceX gets so much public subtities, it's hard to call it private initiative at this point. My god, you guys won the space race with a public company don't you renember that? 

Trumps whole thing was about running the country like a private buisniss. It was a disaster. 

 

[Contrast]

Elon Musk is helping humanity progress faster technologically. which is great. nothing wrong with technology. the problem is that technology alone can't solve all of humanity's problems. our lives are 100x easier than it was 2000 years ago thanks to technology, yet people are still anxious, angry, depressed, suicidal, and mentally ill. technology cannot solve these problems for us (or at least not the technologies that Elon musk is working on).

to solve these problems we need genuine non-dogmatic non-religious spirituality which is taught by people the likes of Leo, Sadhguru, Ekart Tolle, etc...

if such a spiritual leader/teacher can rise up to the popularity and influence that Elon musk has. he could provide 1000x more value to the would than Elon musk ever could.