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Millionaires ask to pay more tax:
A group of more than 100 of the world's richest people have called on governments to make them pay more tax. The group, named the Patriotic Millionaires, said the ultra-wealthy were not being forced to pay their share towards the global economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
"As millionaires, we know that the current tax system is not fair," they said in an open letter. The signatories included Disney heiress Abigail Disney and Nick Hanauer. Mr Hanauer is a US entrepreneur and an early investor in online retail giant Amazon.
"Most of us can say that, while the world has gone through an immense amount of suffering in the last two years, we have actually seen our wealth rise during the pandemic - yet few if any of us can honestly say that we pay our fair share in taxes," the signatories said in the letter to the World Economic Forum.
[...] It said globally, $2.52tn could lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty and make enough vaccines for the world.
Gemma McGough, British entrepreneur and founding member of Patriotic Millionaires, UK said: "For all our well-being - rich and poor alike - it's time we right the wrongs of an unequal world. It's time we tax the rich."
Ms McGough added: "At a time when simply living will cost the average household a further £1,200 a year, our government cannot expect to be trusted if it would rather tax working people than wealthy people.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday January 20 2022, @07:47PM (16 children)
Death to most corporate structures.
Corporations should not be able to bankrupt with the relative impunity they do today.
If a corporation bankrupts, the principals of that corporation (by mutual agreement among themselves as to the apportionment) should be carrying personal liability for the debt, just the same as they can mutually agree to award themselves "bonuses" from the surplus. Maybe some banks / insurance companies would be willing to shoulder some of that risk (for a healthy fee, of course), but the idea that you can pay some lawyers to set up a fake person to take the fall for your failed risky business schemes is utter insanity.
Oh, and taxes? Yeah - if your corporation has income or cash in the bank, there should be tax on that much the same as people are taxed.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @03:48AM
But if the principals go to prison, who will create the jobs??!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 21 2022, @03:43PM (4 children)
And just like that, you remove the point of having a limited liability structure, because you've just turned it into an unlimited liability structure.
This turns out to be a bad idea.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 23 2022, @12:26AM (3 children)
Bad according to who? I would say that the majority of the population, those who don't benefit from the limited liability legal structures, would benefit from their demise.
We can't all get extremely reduced rate insurance policies backed by the bankruptcy laws
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 23 2022, @09:08PM (2 children)
Bad according to people who understand that they are deriving benefit from an economic system where mobilisation of capital was achieved by enabling structures in which entrepreneurial and managerial classes could actually pursue constructive ends without the owners of the capital having to breathe down their neck for fear of being imprisoned or fined or otherwise abused for things over which they had no control.
But if that confuses you, nobody expects you to actually understand that crap. It's all billionaire hornswoggle! Ignore it, just as you choose to ignore the fact that it's not millionaires asking to pay more taxes, so much as a bunch of millionaires asking to implement political ideas that they'd never squeak by the electorate themselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 25 2022, @03:35AM (1 child)
>mobilisation of capital was achieved by enabling structures
You mean the rich got pouty and wouldn't share their toys unless we guaranteed their toys would be replaced if they played too carelessly with them and broke them?
Too big to fail? Owners of the capital should actually be putting their capital at risk, not using it to stand up fake people to sign loans on high risk ventures then shrugging it off when the gamble fails and leaving everyone else collecting pennies on their dollars of debt, while they go dribble out a little more of their capital plus a ton of other people's money and do it again and again until maybe they get lucky and actually run at a profit for a while.
The investment banking model of "shoot for the stars, sure we'll miss over 95% of the time, but that one big hit makes it all worthwhile." Is utter crap. Those big hits aren't great companies with superior business models, they are just lucky jerkoffs who were in the right place at the right time. Like last year's top stock pickers, they were just lucky and sometimes not too stupid, but as often you have to try something stupid if you really want to win big. Koyaanisqatsi.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 26 2022, @01:31AM
No, no, that's not what I meant. I meant what I said, not your internal monologue.
But feel free to return to the theory that it's all billionaire hornswoggle. It's comfy in there. They have blocks and teletubbies for you.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday January 22 2022, @07:26PM (9 children)
At the very least revoke the charter of the offending organizations
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 23 2022, @12:28AM (8 children)
Doesn't help when the principals can start two more copies, whack a mole style.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday January 23 2022, @12:43AM (7 children)
I believe we can prohibit them from doing so, put them on a global "No Buy List"
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 23 2022, @02:07PM (6 children)
Nice thought, implemented basically nowhere in law.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday January 23 2022, @07:23PM (3 children)
Well, that's our obligation, to elect people that will write such laws
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 23 2022, @08:20PM (2 children)
I feel that the political tide of the last 50 years has been flowing in the opposite direction.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday January 24 2022, @01:07AM (1 child)
And you would be correct, it's a cycle, but the pendulum doesn't really swing that far, change will happen on an evolutionary time scale, and it can go either way
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday January 24 2022, @02:09AM
Since I am just a bit over 50 years old, this particular 50 year swing of the pendulum feels more like a death spiral than a cyclic phenomenon.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 23 2022, @09:10PM (1 child)
Wrong. The SEC kicks people out of the mix all the time. It's one of their favourite regulatory threats. It's why guys like Madoff don't get to be directors of companies after their scams go down.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday January 25 2022, @03:39AM
You mean "guy like Madoff.". Big players getting yanked from the game are rare (it's really bad for the remaining players when it happens, so they really try to avoid it.)
🌻🌻 [google.com]