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Donald Trump and Angela Merkel will join 2,500 world leaders, business executives and charity bosses at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland which kicks off on 23 January. High on the agenda once again will be the topic of inequality, and how to reduce the widening gap between the rich and the rest around the world.
The WEF recently warned that the global economy is at risk of another crisis, and that automation and digitalisation are likely to suppress employment and wages for most while boosting wealth at the very top.
But what ideas should the great and good gathered in the Swiss Alps be putting into action? We'd like to know what single step you think governments should prioritise in order to best address the problem of rising inequality. Below we've outlined seven proposals that are most often championed as necessary to tackle the issue – but which of them is most important to you?
- Provide free and high quality education
- Raise the minimum wage
- Raise taxes on the rich
- Fight corruption
- Provide more social protection for the poor
- Stop the influence of the rich on politicians
- Provide jobs for the unemployed
Do you think these ideas are enough, or are there any better ideas to close this wealth gap ? You too can participate and vote for the idea that, you think, works best.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:56AM (7 children)
You just know that something smells when they have to invent a whole new name for it when there's already sales tax, VAT, etc out there. How about a better idea? We just don't do that and thus, don't have to pay the consequences of making that mistake. Sales taxes and such are already known to be regressive. This would end up being yet another such tax which the rich would be adept at avoiding, such as by leasing everything (as AC noted [soylentnews.org]).
Sorry, this is a idiotic approach. Transactions aren't wealth inequality. Everyone needs to trade to get what they need, but the rich would be particularly well positioned to trade in ways that don't incur this new tax. This is not the first time I've seen someone try to solve wealth inequality by counterproductively attacking something that isn't part of wealth inequality.
And who again is paying for this? There's not going to be 5 trillion in transactions when it's all taxed at the massive rate of 2%. It would be educational to see how quickly the free lunchers use up this bonanza for all the frivolous crap you mentioned (as well as plenty you didn't mention), but not worth $100 billion a day.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @09:37AM (6 children)
I wish we had someone like you to push against military funding
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @11:39AM (5 children)
You do have me. But military spending is only 20% of the US federal budget and very little of the state or local level budgets. To solve things, you also need to deal with (and by that, I mean greatly reduce) entitlements. Personally, I'm in favor of a 25-50% reduction across the board in benefits and spending on everything in order to get spending in line with revenue. There's not much point to increasing taxation more when in the case of the US, it's spent so poorly and the political establishment borrows so readily.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 21 2018, @01:25PM (2 children)
Personally, I'm in favor of a 25-50% reduction across the board in benefits and spending on everything
You are about to find that the poor favour a 20% reduction in the rich - and in America the poor have GUNS. Another problem is
that they may be very poor in money terms and also poor at identifying the rich. The killing may not be the right people
and may not be easy to stop.
There is a natural balance between rich and poor - it is established and maintained by the poor killing the rich. However,
(read up on chaos theory) some transitions are smooth and others are abrupt. In a smart administration, the rich see the
poor coming and make concessions. In others they lose their heads (see French Revolution, Haiti).
(Score: 2) by Justin Case on Sunday January 21 2018, @02:37PM
Your violent fantasies overlook that a person with more money can afford
* More/bigger guns
* Security people to wield the guns
* Fences, alarms, cameras, walls...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday January 21 2018, @03:13PM
The poor isn't necessarily on your side. Most of them want a functioning society too.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Sunday January 21 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)
Why is that necessarily the solution, and not, say, taxing rich people to fully fund the entitlements in question? For example, we could completely eliminate any kind of debt in the Social Security system by eliminating the cap on wage income subject to FICA tax. We don't do that because we don't choose to do that.
Bear in mind that when you translate "greatly reduce entitlements" into real rather than financial terms, what you're saying is "We should let millions of poor cripples and elders die."
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:36PM
Who needs death panels when you've got death legislation?