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I did the trial and its kind of disappointing, I'm on desktop and it lacks basic features like the ability to change volume or make a playlist, deal breaker for me.
It's not as much about fairness as it is about moral, or if that's not a thing for you, good taste. When there is literally toddlers dying simply because of not having access to food or water, how do you feel happy living a lavish life on yachts, in private jets, on private islands. You dont have to feel ashamed for wealth, but psychologically, how do you detach so much from the reality of millions of people. On another note, someone who is on top of the food chain is likely personally responsible for quite some injustice in the world. The argument often times then is, if they aint doing it someone else is. I have to remember that quote when I do amoral things. So , to remain in your logic of one person gets rich by selling the same song over, one person who buys an Iphone does little damage. But the person who is responsible for selling all of them, let's say the CEO, is responsible for children being recuted as soldiers to secure coltan mines. Which is just one of many horrible things happening in the supply and production chain of an Iphone or any smartphone for that matter. So, that's just 2 points that negate the relevance of your argument that the rich already pay more than the fair share.
They should enjoy their yachts! They should do so without disabling the car drivers of an entire city to cross a bridge for weeks. For me that basically justifies a a happy lynching of the yacht owner who is responsible for sexually intercoursing up the bridge. Also I bought an aftermakred trailer hitch 7 days ago directly from Jeff Bezos (not some of his business partners) and it's still not put into mail by him. I don't like to be treated like this as a paying customer even if it's fabulous Jeff Bezos owning the business.
@@TremereTT Well, it is not him who asked for bridge to be dismantled but the local ship building business. So there are two choices, allow local large ship constructor to work and continue to routinely dismantle and reassemble the bridge, as was done in the past mutliple times, or force the business to relocate by cutting lucrative deals. What would you chose ?
Isn't the main problem of ultra-rich paying less taxes about the rich simply having more loopholes and ways to avoid paying taxes like a good citizen? For example getting company bonuses that don't somehow add in to the salary in tax books? Raising the taxes won't do anything when the ultra-rich pay themselves really small salaries and get their money in some other ways instead, those loopholes need to be fixed.
I bet everyone is just ecstatic with the 2 miles of $52 million Vegas tunnel with human-driven Teslas going slow. Not quite a hyperloop dreamed up 100 years ago.
Musk sold all his possessions, paid $11B in taxes and donated over $5B to charities last year but for some people it's never going to be enough to change their preconceived notions or ignore the fact that Tesla and Musk themselves are against government subsidies as long as subsidies for fossil fuels (about 100x larger) are also axed.
It only exists as an idea because the US doesn't have a comprehensive train system for the public. So they went and reinvented a thing that works perfectly in other countries
@@MattCasters Tesla would not even be solvent without government handouts (Corporate Socialism!) so the average citizen is paying HIM. Absolute conman. He did not pay 5b to charities. He gave tesla stock to "unnamed charities" - probably ones he owns! - to avoid taxes further.
@@MattCasters "Expanding" how? Making the single-lane tunnel longer? God knows it won't include elementary safety elements like ventilation or escape walkways. Musk's "design" doesn't appear to offer many options for "expansion", unless that means making adding more stupid to the idiocy that's already there. I will say that this boondoggle does support Boyle's citation of Milty Friedman's theology. The Vegas city council hacks who signed off on the stupid thing are lab-grade specimens of government pissing dollars down the sewer.
At least in the US there is a cohort of people closing in on 40 years old, who finished school in the wake of the Great Recession, when entry-level jobs were hard to find. The result was a permanent scarring, as the group missed their apprenticeship window. My own legal career was a downward spiral, and I ultimately left it for a job with proper insurance benefits. We could be fairly called disillusioned, cynical, or even bitter. It cost us dearly in terms of things like student loan debt, and perpetually delayed marriage, family, and home ownership.
What angers people is that they get taxed on their income, then they give their money to amazon by buying something and pay (sometimes) sales tax only to find out Amazon did not pay any taxes con the money they made by using accounting gymnastics. People are asking for decency, nothing more.
@@neilwhite6305 - You make no sense. Amazon was able to get as big as it is, by losing money and pricing competition out. It's like saying boycott Walmart. Communities tried. But, corrupt politicians would always let them in and give them tax breaks, grants, etc. After the 10 year term was up, Walmart would shutter the OG store and build a Super Store with even more incentives, tax breaks, etc etc. Patrick likes to smooth over the mess and use nonsense to gloss over the rest. He is a happy, very wealthy mouthpiece for Capitilism. The Wealthy get tax law catered to them, rampant corruption takes care of the Courts and Politicians. Patrick thinks that because they have Billions, they are better and more deserving then others not Born Lucky, and they'd just take their money and go home if you taxed them. B.S. Elon is a grifter, and egomaniac. All of them are. They'd keep on doing as they do, especially if the system was designed better. They need the attention and like screwing people.
@@neilwhite6305 people benefit from amazon low prices, a boycot is not the solution. however amazon cannot keep operating without paying taxes at the same time that the small guys has to pay otherwise will be arrested. amazon is turning a lot of profit, they can pay taxes, but they chose not to.
I think the thing that stands out the most to people that wasn't mentioned here is that most normal middle class people pay a significant percentage of their incomes in taxes, while billionaires pay basically no tax at all, sometimes fractions of a percent of their effective income. It isn't just "well you pay 30% and they pay 30%" its "You pay a 30-40% of every check to the government, while someone who makes more than the combined incomes of your entire state in a week pays less than 1%"
But remember these companies often get these tax breaks from the government by making deals to build offices, warehouses and factories in their states. By getting their tax breaks we get our jobs which in turn pay taxes. I'm not saying it is perfect but I am glad I have my job which as taxed as it is allows me to live a nice life. If one person has to be rich for me to live a decent life I am ok being jealous of them.
@@hopelessdecoy I don’t mind people being rich, and I’m not necessarily talking about corporate taxes, I just don’t like that an individual with an ungodly income gets to keep every cent of it while normal people with normal jobs need to give up almost half of every paycheck, especially when the way the system is supposed to work is higher taxes for higher incomes but the richest of the rich have found a way out of it.
But still they pay more. And what, exactly, extra benefits from the taxes they pay do they receive from the grubbymint? Why SHOULD they pay more when they aren't getting in the exchange? Your jealousy-based mindset is irrational and emotional, and not intellectually honest.
@@chuckschillingvideos I don't think our tax system is perfect, and I don't think he's being irrational, emotional or dishonest. Taxation is an extremely complex issue open for debate. If anything your the one being emotional shutting down conversations with no constructive arguments or added info.
@@chuckschillingvideos i don’t understand where you see jealousy in that argument. It’s just about everyone playing the game by the same rules. I don’t like the idea of certain people getting to cheat it just because they have a lot of money. If I pay a big chunk of what I make in taxes, so should Jeff Bezos. If they barely pay any taxes at all, neither should I. It’s the same as how when the punishment for a crime is a fine, it essentially makes it legal for the rich, or how rich people get under prosecuted in courts because they can afford better lawyers, how rich people can steal millions of dollars and pay back thousands in fines. It’s not a matter of being jealous, I’m totally fine with people being successful, it’s just a matter of whether they’re succeeding within the bounds of the game we’re all playing or if they just get to cheat their way to the top.
As an ex super-yacht stewardess I can attest to both sides of this argument. Does one’s ownership of a super yacht create jobs for others? Yes, it does. How many jobs has that boat created or maintained through the ownership? More than just a handful. Lifelong careers are created within the yachting industry. On the other hand, is the amount of money spent building, and maintaining a super-yacht a life changing way to spend money to improve life on this earth? No, there are a million and one other, and more useful ways to spend that money. Say, to help fund ways to stop polluting the earth, which the super-yacht industry is notorious for polluting in every way possible. A sailing yacht is no better than a purely motorized one. Yachts are pure luxury and more so, non essential “toys”. That is all they are, and most likely all they will be.
You can't stop polluting the earth if you want the things that these billionaires offer you. Amazon = goods at your fingertips and quick shipping - that supply system creates a ton of pollution. Musk and his rockets - pollution (we really don't need to be going to space at the moment), Tesla's still involve a lot of pollution in the process to build the things, Satellite internet = polluting the low earth orbit sky with tens of thousands of them which are needed for the network he is proposing. Any electronic company = a ton of pollution in countries that don't have the best track record of caring about such thing. Everything we have that is a modern convenience is pretty much non essential. The entertainment industry that provides endless amounts of movies and tv - employs 60k directly at most and pollutes like crazy.
@@debanjannandi9149You need to have funding and not generally care about pollution if you want to progress - look at quick we went from the industrial revolution in the west to the tech we have today - that rapid pace was purely due to financial incentives. If there are no incentives then human potential and growth drop significantly.
well, yacht technology is used in big logistical ships to improve stability and efficiency, so? do video games change the world for better? provably yes with VR
No one needs super yachts for 500 zillion dollars or any expensive luxury goods, it's just waste of resources and effort to create something even more special and exclusive. It's another boost of status and ego which leads to nowhere.
The problem is that the biggest corporations get the best tax abetments or tax incentives instead of regular small businesses. I believe in neo-liberal principles but it's unjust for a Amazon fulfilment center to pay a smaller property tax (via tax abatement) rate than Joe Shmoe who runs a restaurant down the street.
Amazon is a big corporation with deep pockets, that's why lots of foreign government are willing to give them the lowest possible tax rate so they open ofices and warehouses, creating jobs and paying that low tax that otherwise wouldnt be payed. A low tax on amazon still generates more money in direct, indiriect taxes and associated economic activity than an high tax on Joe's Shmoe restaurant down the street.
that can have the unpleasant side effect of discouraging growth, as companies don't go from Jon Shmoe down the street to Amazon size overnight. where i live ive seen lots companies refraining from hiring new people and expanding because of that (or worse, hiring people informally to evade taxes)
The problem is not about taxing the rich, but about making the rich paying their fair of taxes, which they rarely do! In the US is almost impossible to find a very wealthy person that pay taxes, and I am not talking about special taxes, the regular taxes that they should be paying but they don't because they can afford schemes to avoid all taxes. The banks even given them loans at almost no interest so that they don't need to sell any stocks and ttherefore not to pay any taxes.
I thought the philanthropy bit was very interesting. "In Germany we don't do charity, we have taxes." This fascinates me as I see things like San Francisco dealing with all thier problems even though they are home to so many rich people. The rich are not obligated to solve any particular problem. They can put it towards helping a rare disease impacting people in other countries while the communities they "are a part of" burn around them.
I would not say that san Fransisco has solved all their problems and they are one of the richest areas in the world on account of the concentration of tech companies and their highly paid workers, this both lessens the need for public spending (as people can afford to just pay for things themselves) and increases tax revenue.
@@pioneer_1148 "they can just pay for things themselves" Whenever I hear from some average person in the bay area it's like earning relatively much compared to the rest of the country but rent, etc are so high it more than cancel that out
The zero-sum argument at 4:25 implies a dichotomy of private billionaire spending on goods, which is characterized as inherently mutually beneficial and growing the economy because something is created, and taxation, which is characterized as a zero-sum game. This seems unbalanced because it mentions all potential follow-up benefits of the private spending but only considers the tax transaction for the taxation. But the government is spending the money on something too, buying some service which can also grow the economy and pay salaries that aree spent again. The comparison would instead have to be on whether the private spending on engineers creating a yacht is more beneficial to the economy than some government spending on e.g. engineers extending a rail network, building a school or some other infrastructure in a states budget.
Governments have proven themselves far less efficient at spending and improving the economy then billionaires. They are too corrupt and disorganized. It's like giving money to most so called "non-profit charities", by the time all the inflated salaries and middle organizations get done with the funds only a small portion ever makes it to anything useful. If the Government could ever figure out how to run the Country like a well ran Business then there would be tons of tax money to go around already, but no, they are to busy building their own wealth off the backs of every day people even more so then innovative billionaires.
@@bmartin2304 In the US about 15% of discretionary spending is on federal worker compensation (salary, healthcare, retirement). That's everyone from The POTUS to your local park ranger. This would be on the lower side of salary compensation, business consultants recommend between 15-30% of revenue be spent on payroll. I do agree with your statement on running the country like a business with regards to taxes; A business would never under-fund it's collections department to the extent that the US gov't has. The US should increase IRS funding substantially and remove loophole laws that get in its way.
@@MWNVproductions OK, I may have hyperbolized the non profit analogy when it comes to total cost of salaries etc, but my point on inefficiency stands all the same. Through corrupt back door deals and over paying for just about everything they spend on. Just look at what it cost nasa to develop rockets vs musk. With the government spending the money we get slow painful expensive development of technology as all these companies and politicians milk the system. I don't disagree that tax reform is needed, but I think it's more on the corporate end then going after the owners personal wealth through some sort of billionaire tax. The "step up" tax loophole when estates are passed on is bullshit too.
@@bmartin2304 But what you label as corrupt helps the economy. Yes, the SLS is overdue and over budget because Musk can centralize the processes where NASA has to purchase from suppliers they're told to. So instead of just improving one state's economy they improve 40 states' economy. It increases costs and inefficiencies at the expense of helping more people. This comes about because we like to think that NASA's, Musk's, and the government's goals align when they don't. The government wants the money as spread out as possible where NASA and Musk just want rockets.
@@haroldsandahl6408 I get your point, it adds a perspective I hadn't thought of, but I still feel that the reason the particular suppliers are chosen is not based of some strategic balanced economic approach. It seems to me its based more off lobbying and shady back door deals which end up costing tax payers while enriching themselves. Maybe sales tax luxuries more and leave wealth tied up in productive companies which is beneficial to the economy/progress of innovation/job creation alone.
Well I totally agree on that cultural aspect. We in Germany don't like to share how wealthy one is. There is the athmosphere that somebody would judge you badly for having much money. It's quite surprising if you find out that an acquaintance is a millionaire.
@@bluejar5614 i will never understand this as well. Hiding salaries and wealth is why some companies are deciding on being transparent about all of the employees salaries. Keeps the employees happier, they can negotiate better and keep the average salaries up. And it’s also more predictable. Hiding income numbers and wealth only leads to bad outcomes
@@ciril2643 There are such companies? What's the advantage? If no one knows how much his friend the next desk earns he will never ask this much. I know about teams with the same job, the same performance and skill across the workers but only three guys got for example $900-1000. All 20+ others were held to believe that their earnings had reached their absolute maximum for the job earning $550 to $650.
@@HanSolo__ You're all treating it like you're a slave to one company. Not happy with your salary? Send resumes to other companies and negotiate your potential salary. That's your worth, that's your transparency.
My only issue with the approach of not taxing the wealthy heavily (either through wealth tax which isn't ideal or much higher income tax) is that we as the public give subsidies to their private corporate endeavours through grants/infrastructure bills taking essentially from the tax payer and giving it to the rich instead of having these be made/run by public services. If we take the approach of not directly giving or taking money from individuals of wealth then this should extend to the grants/incentive programs. No private entity should be given money or grants and instead should only be given these as low interest loans in the best of cases with equity being required in the case of risker investments. In no other walk of life would a VC give out money on the basis of no return and if a private entity wishes to receive public help then they should have the same requirements put upon them if we wish to properly treat private wealth generation as private. As quite a few billionaires owe a large portion of their wealth to public contracts or incentives that could/should have been completely run by public government agencies (i.e in the case of SpaceX being fuelled mainly from NASA contracts). This is especially egregious where their company would not have survived or prospered without government contracts securing their companies future as they are not viable in a normal commercial setting.
This only works if those government agencies are capable of actually providing the service in question, which is most often not true. For the given example of SpaceX, it is important to note that NASA has essentially never built their own launch vehicles. This is simply impractical. NASA is deeply involved in the design process and will work closely with contractors, but the closest you could say they have come to "building a rocket" is with cost-plus contracts with Boeing, in which they WILDLY overpaid for the given hardware. Here SpaceX is actually providing RND which NASA is UNABLE to provide for itself. Additionally, the research grants and favorable contracts given by NASA to SpaceX led to the development of the Falcon 9, which has decreased the cost of launch to such a high degree that the savings from using the vehicle have overwhelmingly offset the cost of the grants themselves. My overarching point is that the government hires contractors to do things because, if the contractor doesnt live up to expectations, they can go and hire a different one, which you just cannot do with government employees.
I think you bring a good perspective to the table on these sorts of tax issues but I do feel you should elaborate on certain points such as different systems working differently in different cultures, as that's often used as a catch all to disregard policies which have proven successful in other countries on the basis that the US is different and so it couldn't work here, when in fact many policies and programs are indeed transferable across a wide and diverse range of countries. People often overstate the cultural differences between countries in conversations like this, while understating the arguably far larger pool of commonalities between cultures when it comes to general human behavior
Trauma in a person, decontexualized over time, looks like personality. Trauma in a family, decontexualized over time, looks like familial traits. Trauma in a society, decontexualized over time, looks like culture.
In a way he did, when he joined Tesla they had a Lotus chassis with batteries and no doors, he put his money and his vision into Tesla, the original guys dropped out unable to cope
Hi Patrick, I think that a lot of billionaire spending falls under the "Broken glass" falacy of value generation, super yatchs are non productive assessts and building industries around catering to the ultra wealthy is a less desirable outcome than say, those same shipbuilders being employed making ships used for logistics or fishing.
But that implies that there aren't enough shipbuilders making "productive" ships. One of the things Economics Explained cited as the downfall of the communist system was that they focused on the "means of production" at the expanse of consumption. But there is only so many hammers that are needed in the economy. Eventually, you need to start putting those hammers to work building fancy things that are not necessarily productive. Now throughout human history, we have had situations where productivity has been diverted towards the wealthy while leaving the average person wanting. For example, fertile fields used to produce plants for luxury goods and not food, causing a famine in colonial India. But is that what's happening with luxury yachtes? I would argue no. Unless and until building a mansion causes a shortage of builders for housing for the average person, we should let builders offer their services to whom they want!
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872 In this case works usually means "efficiently and makes society better" if you mean can it be physically done, yes it works, but it's not only not the only viable option, it's not a viable option, it crashes very hard and will lead to revolution (or at least severe civil unrest) if left unchecked.
Liked the video overall but a couple of points: 1. Wealth redistribution can allow more spending (more mobile than investment). While you may be supply side there are demand side arguments too. 2. People at the very bottom may have nothing to offer in a consenting exchange, and may remain locked out of the economy if not aided by government.
The problem I have with the argument about transactions by willing parties that are mutually beneficial is that there are a heck of a lot of "essential" things people are basically forced to buy at the prevailing price whether they want to or not. If I were to decline to provide proper medical care for my family, for instance, because I wanted to be able to afford decent place to live instead I would be derided for not taking care of my family. The easy availability of credit makes this worse, as often the person in debt has no real choice - they can either get themselves in further over their head knowing there is little to no chance they can repay, or they can forgo essential services and possibly die or worse.
Funny that your proposed "scenario" is a first-world problem. Admittedly these are difficult questions. Are you willing to spend your life savings (and your children's education fund) to extend your grandmother's life for six months? If not, does that make you a heartless bastard or a rational individual? One hundred years ago, those services you call "essential" did not even exist. How can they be essential now if they weren't "essential" 100 years ago?
I was quite happy to see the money I spent at Amazon go towards sending Jeff Bezos into space. It's just a shame that they to bring him back down again.😁
Actually I am happy for private money to go to improve space exploration and innovation in general. Arts and sciences have advanced in history due to private patronage and we are all reaping the benefits now, so this is a true investment for the future generations, and not at my personal expense.
@@coscinaippogrifo I don't think nobles and kings could be considered as "private patronage", they were spending public funds after all... As for science I disagree even more, while SpaceX has done a lot in terms of marketing they're still nowhere near as successful as NASA or even the indian space program which is far cheaper in comparison. Most inventions we have were state funded, especially the biggest ones ( the Internet, computers, rockets ) even the ones that weren't funded directly by a state succeeded thanks to their financial support ( cars, electricity, locomotives etc etc )
Your thought exercise on the zero-sum game between taxing and spending is ignoring the fact that one population predominately spends while the other predominately saves. Milton Friedman's statements on "who spends money the best" is only relevant on an individual scale. At the level of an entire economy it becomes a statistics game; $10 will change hands X amount of times and it will trend towards Y marginal utility. Friedman's work on how economies function has been radically improved upon, we really shouldn't be taking his words as gospel anymore. Its nice hearing an opinion different from my own, I'd really like to see more of these videos in the future. Thanks for your hard work.
I agree, the velocity of money helps maintain a vibrant economy. Keynes stated that in times of economic depression, increasing government spending into the economy, while lowering taxes on the consumers are required to stimulate the economy again, as the businesses and the rich in general will actually become more frugal and don't take advantage of stagnant wages to invest in increased production because there is no demand for it. The downside of course is increased government debt which leads to increased inflation, which is slightly offset by the higher interest rate, but both of which will slow the economic recovery. I would argue that increasing taxes on the rich while lowering taxes on low and middle income consumers instead of an across the board tax cut is the best policy during times of depression, because the tax revenue will help stymie the government deficit. Taxing the rich instead of the poor has greater recovery effect since money in the hands of lower earners (who have less disposable income) returns into economic circulation at a higher rate than the wealthy who have more capacity to save, thus slowing the velocity of money. Even if you didn't tax the rich, their savings value would erode because the decrease in tax revenue would lead to increased government debt, which leads to more money printed to service the debt, which eventually lead to inflation which is an indirect tax on savings anyway. But if the rich agree to pump all their savings into GME stock, then I'll be on board in not taxing them because I have 3 GME shares that I'm holding for the MOASS.
People who save money are losing money due too inflation. No rich dude is saving money at least in FIAT currency. Most of it's in the stock market producing
I love your content and presentation, but I'm really against trickle down economics: the wealth gap wouldn't be increasing around the world if trickle down worked
The core problem with the superwealthy is that they have the money in the first place. The money they have in surplus tend to be either unpaid taxes or unpaid wages. Both are a net loss to the 99%. The other problem is using their money for things that is terrible for basically everyone else involved. Funding misinformation, lobbying, private planes, golf courses.
You just look at the money they have, you don't see the benefits they've provided. Jeff Bezos is insanely rich but the world would be considerably worse off without him. And most of their money is in an asset, it's already being put to use. Even if they liquidated their portfolio and put in a bank, the bank would use their money to hand out loans to people and businesses.
It's not the amount of money they have that worries me, its the amount of power they are accumulating without any competition. Like media moguls who decide what the truth is and highlighting opposing views become a necessity for higher earnings, Bezos decides what prices for products should be as all other venues are squeezed out. I'm not sure its in our best interest long term to let a few people dictate every facets of our lives without any competition. At some point money will become the deciding factor for every facet of government internal policies, lobbyist will be the deciding factor not what the people want or need. I think the huge companies should be forced to split into smaller companies, spread the power and invite innovation.
Money is power and power is money. You have one you can get the other which you can again use to get more of the other. It is a positive feedback cycle that we should controll.
@@bar10dr Is there? If you have more money then that part of the industry is worth you can buy it. The only thing stopping you is those fair competition rules which are rarely enforced. And if they are it is because there already are only 2 or 3 major players (nvidea and ARM) Your original post also gives some examples how power gives money, you can buy politicians or if that somehow fails you can just sanction countries because they don't play by your rules. Good luck running your country without our chips. edit: To be clear I don't disagre with you it is just that from what I have seen money and power are mostly interchangable (with some convertion costs)
Without competition? You think these ultra competitive sharks "cooperate" with each other? Name 3 companies that were the top of the foodchain for over 2 decades please. Or 2 families that dominated Forbes list for more than 1 generation.
Also, I doubt it went like: "I'm Jeffy McBezos, I want the bridge put down to make room for my immense boat! Wrahwrahwrah..." And more like: "Hello, I'm the ship builder in this city and have a really lucrative job offer (money for years). BUT the bridge is in the way. Do you think we can do something about it?"
My answer to your sugar coated stupidity: "You said lucrative job offer for money for years? Okay, you're paying for ALL of this thing you want to do with the bridge and fixing it and punitive damages, or just go build that fucking boat on a coastal harbor, what the fuck is wrong with you!?"
Insightful as always. On the specific piece of news I personally feel the crux here isn't really about how big Jeff's yacht is (insert joke?), it's about his ability to even request something like the "temporary dismantlement" of a historic landmark, and the fact that the request is actively being considered. I believe this isn't a matter spite or envy. Also, I'm sure he could pay the extra cost of installing the masts at a seaside shipyard later without issues, actually it would grease the economy even further, wouldn't it? (Guess now I should check the cost of dismantling and riassembling the bridge for a proper comparison)
It is not his ability to request it but the company that builds those yachts. The bride has been designated as 'historic' recently and city council said it will not dismantle it. But when another multi million opportunity came to the city it is hard to turn it down and have the yacht building company relocate somewhere else. Jeff most likely doesn't even know the bridge exists it all resolves around local ship building industry that routinely has the bridge dismantled
Well said. How many people can get a city council to cater to their extravagences? And tycoons like Bezos aren't shy about using the same strong arm tactics on national governments.
@@randomfcounter1930 He would VERY likely know. It's not like he's going to commission a yacht and not be kept abreast of what's going on in it's construction, especially when it clealrly involves more payment for the deconstruction of that bridge to fascilitate it eventually getting into operation. He would either be told upfront about it and it factored into overall costs, or told later and about the costs involved.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say we just want them to pay at least what we pay in taxes especially when they're getting billions of our tax dollars in subsidies
@@_TeaMaster they literally pay no taxes at all. That just got leaked like 6 months ago that the top richest paid zero tax and you know what The whole day pay just as much in no, they don't not percentage-wise and let's face it. If you take 30% from somebody who makes $100,000, You're taking a lot more away than someone who makes 1 billion as a percentage of their net income
@@_TeaMaster Not exactly. Clever accounting and outdated tax laws allow a for a lot of wealth retention that the IRS doesn't collect. Billionaires reducing their taxable "income," underpaying their workforce and relying on welfare subsidies to increase their company's profits with an unofficial subsidy, etc.
Remember that the most equal nations all have one thing in common: High taxation rates, especially on corporations and the rich. I'll take my own native Sweden as example: The Swedish taxation rates vary depending on the income level, as it is a progressive taxation system. The highest marginal tax rate are 57.1% for income above SEK 685,000 per year. That is about USD 63,299 at the time of writing.
Well, the classical Keynesian argument for higher top tax rates on the wealthy isn't about redistribution per se, it's that containing inflation by taxing the wealthy is better than all the other available options. Some goods and services need to be provided via public spending (the argument about which ones these are can be deferred for a bit, but only the most insane libertarians would argue for privately owned law courts, military and police). Governments CAN just conjure this money into existence via fiat, but this will cause inflation once the economy is running at capacity. Letting the inflation happen will be disruptive to businesses and people's personal spending, and it also amounts to a wealth transfer from housing renters to housing owners. So the solution is either higher taxes on someone or having the central bank impose high interest rates on the economy to slow growth and constrict the money supply. For the most part, the latter option has been preferred by the US since about 1981. The problem with higher interest rates is that they hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs, and make it harder for talented people to climb the social ladder if they need to borrow money to pay for their higher education. They also tend to increase unemployment, suppressing growth in the wages of working people. So when inflation rears its head, someone needs to pay more in taxes. Should it be folks like Bezos or the ordinary 47% of freeloaders who, per Mitt Romney, pay no income tax? Well if Bezos ain't got the money to buy a new superyacht, then all the folks employed to make and staff that superyacht are out of work, but what about the 10,000 ordinary schmoes who need to pay higher taxes instead if taxes on income are increased by a flat rate instead? Every one of them has a few hundred or thousand per year less to spend on their consumption, or less to spend on reducing their mortgages or paying down their student loan debt. So all of the people employed providing the goods and services they would have bought are now out of job, OR the money they need to borrow or the debts they didn't pay off means that the money lent to them DOESN'T get used by corporations or businesses looking to borrow or expand. No matter how you cut it, taxing Bezos hurts the economy less than taxing the poor, or forcing them further into debt. But aren't the rich better at starting productive businesses than ordinary people? Congratulations, you no longer believe financial markets work. Does this mean I think Warren wealth tax is a good idea? No, I'd prefer much higher top income brackets, capital gains taxes and a much more draconian estate tax that eats a higher percentage of assets as the size of the estate and the difference in ages between the testator and beneficiary increases. Also I'd have this estate tax treat emigration as death. I'd also allow the wealthy to borrow money to pay estate and capital gains taxes early and write off the interest they pay against their income taxes, with the amount of the prepayment increasing at the rate of the interest on the national debt. If Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos is genuinely consistently able to beat the market in business creation, then the value of their estate will increase faster than their debt, so that their heirs will come out ahead of where they would be if they paid the estate tax duties at the time of inheritance.
@@pretor92 As of right now in the US, a billionaire can simply evade the estate tax by moving to the Bahamas and renouncing their US Citizenship. The most famous example I can think of would be the late Sir John Templeton. I guess I should have elaborated that emigration PLUS citizenship renunciation would be required.
Very Interesting and quite clear vs Patrick Boyle's pseudo right-wing talking points. I don't understand how emmigration could be treated as death though, there is no political party in any democracy that could swing that
@@maxmelser35 See my above clarification, we're only talking about people who emigrate AND renounce their citizenship to evade the estate tax. That's a current loophole in the US system.
You are absolutely wrong that “when Inflation rears it’s ugly head, someone needs to pay more taxes.” That misdiagnoses the inflation problem to begin with. Reduce the size of government and inflation will end… full stop.
I feel like net worth and earnings are the two most overused yet misunderstood metrics that cause this debate in the first place. The US public ed system doesn't teach on business or finance, so the whole of society isn't even equipped to enter this conversation before reactionary arguments come their way.
what's your point. musk or bezos are major stockholders in their companies and those are valued, sometimes more sometimes less realistically. They use that valuations to get loans so they dont have to spend actual money of their own and can get tax deductions.
Right, so they should shuttup, keep being taken advantage of and never given a voice. Because they just dont get it, so leave the conversation to the “smart” ones… K bud. People might not understand the ins-and-outs but can still know something is skewy.
@@creatrixZBD I believe their point is that we should have business and finance classes at all schools, and not a "sometimes offered, sometimes not" class in random areas. That way everyone is equipped not only to spot the problem, but to better find a solution. It will also make it harder for elites to pull a fast one on us.
Is he implying that when a poor person gets money, they don't immediately spend most of it? don't they circulate a larger percent of their income? How can he say it's a zero sum game? Giving 100 dollars to poor working people circulates a lot more then if i gave that same 100 dollars to someone of extreme wealth???
In Australia, my perspective is that the mining companies should be more heavily taxed, and the money used to invest into new science and technology industries. Mining makes up a large part of the economy, but it cannot last forever as eventually either supply will run out or demand will drop. It's just putting all the eggs in one basket if they don't diversify.
Yeah, like government just hoards all this money or gives it directly to others. Spoiler alert, government spends this money on public goods, which both require skilled work and provide the public good, while rich spending just requires skilled work. Also what is growing net worth in stocks if not saving money. Investment creates goods only when u put money in
@@finwalter395 a group of people is better than one individual, first of all the chance of u being in that group is higher, second the chance that one of them has goals close to u is higher, third it's easier for u to affect them, since individualy they have less power. I could continue, but since u ignored my first arguments, there's little chance u aren't gonna do it again. P. S. It's funny that people in government are inherintly bad, but rich people are inherently good
@@EvgeniiIvanov-w5n First, be respectful and don't put words into my mouth. I never mentioned rich people nor did I implied that they are somehow inherently good. It doesn't even make sense to view top government officials and rich people as different groups, because top government officials are rich. Thinking in terms of good and evil isn't helpful at all. It's in every humans nature to look for his own advantage. I would argue that governments and public companies are the same structure. Therefore you will find the same breed of people in their leader boards. Top government officials and top executives both fight ruthlessly for the top positions in their organisations. They have to focus on short term results to please their voters/share holders. And they're usually looking to boost their wealth while in power. It's naive to view the government as someone who has your well-being at heart.
I really expected better from Boyle. At a minimum, I'd expect him to acknowledge that huge swathes of what we consider an "advanced" economy simply wouldn't exist were it not for publicly funded basic research -- the kind of scientific inquiry that the private sector has practically *never* been willing to support. Boyle's presentation sounds like a glibertarian hack's fallback argument, "It's Econ 101".
@@samuelglover7685 It's a balance. Government does thing's that are not profitable which is good for humanity in some cases but the government is terrible at producing which capitalism is good at which make's a population strong. You need both because either one left to it's own devices is bad. I am more right of center but realize the positive of government but they spend way too much in my opinion
I dunno, you can extend that "$1 song giving more value to an individual listener while simultaneously making the artist rich" example to the converse case of the government taking taxed wealth of many ultra rich people and, say, building a high speed rail network. I'm traveling through Europe on SNCF, Renfe, ICE, etc., and I'm willing to bet that the aggregated utility given to the millions of riders vastly outweighs the monetary worth the otherwise extremely rich in Europe had to pay. The richest in the US have significantly more wealth than the richest in Europe but I don't particularly feel bad for the rich in Europe. Trust me, they're doing just fine and not particularly complaining that they can't eat lizards too. This seems like a very American sentiment of being prepared to fight "the man" when they as a poor/middle class citizen inevitably become the next Jeff Kizzes. Dear TH-cam comments section, you are never going to become a billionaire, you don't need to be so prepared to protect your ability to get divorced and wear tight pants or buy Twitter to compensate.
High speed rail in Europe is because of good, dense urban planning saving infrastructure money that goes to sprawling and congested roads. The billionares aren't important to high speed rail.
He... doesn't even know Elon DIDN'T found Tesla? And that the value of "providing jobs" that barely pay enough to live on whilst being in a physically unsafe toxic workplace is questionable? Why should I take this seriously?
Part 1: billionaires should keep their money because they spend a lot and that trickles down to the poors. Part 2: billionaires are strapped for cash and can’t pay taxes
He is correct that spending money generates wealth, but he completely ignores that billionaires are *incredibly* frugal as a segment of the population, relative to the poorest people. A poor person spends 100% or more of their annual income whereas a rich person, even a super yacht buyer, will spend only a small fraction. Thus they are hoarding wealth and hurting the economy, in a way that a poor person would not. Billionaires who reinvest most of their money via charity (Gates, Buffet) or structural reinvesting (like musk or bezos do) arguably are less 'frugal' than some simply because they do actually spend their money, but when we look at the 1% as a whole, most of them spend only a small portion of their income. Someone making 200k is going to be saving/hoarding a lot more than someone who makes 20k. If you do a direct cash transfer from the richest to the poorest, it'd be an incredible stimulus that would spur MASSIVE amounts of spending (for good or ill - the result could just be inflation) As for the second half.... I agree that a wealth tax is sort of arbitrary and hard to implement in a fair fashion, mostly because its very hard to evaluate how much someone's assets are really worth. (and that ambiguity leaves lots of room for the wealthy to hide their assets - not a good outcome) But that isn't the only way to tax the rich! Corporate and Capital Gains taxes are very low relative to historical levels, and respresent sources of income only available to relatively wealthy people. A Land Value Tax is similar. I don't buy that people like Musk wouldn't found companies if they faced marginally higher tax rates. They might reinvest slightly less, but even then I'm skeptical.
@@TheStrangeBloke lol at you for believing that billionaires stuff their billions under their mattress. When you're talking about a billionaire's wealth you are mostly talking about the price of a stock they own. Their wealth is an illusion. There's no money bin full of cash anywhere.
@@NYCZ31 Obviously billionaires own stocks rather than giant wads of dollars. But "owning stocks" is not a vital component of the economy. Anyone can own stocks. What a stupid argument. What super-wealthy people don't do, is consume. Very little of their wealth goes to consumption of goods. Sure Bezos buys a super yacht and sure this video is correct - that spurs the economy! But as a fraction of his wealth its pretty trivial. Poorer people do consume. You give a broke guy 1000 dollars, that money is spent within the hour. So a direct cash transfer from billionaires to the poor is a huge boost to consumption, leading to the economic development he talks about but way way way more pronounced. That's something we maybe don't need right now, but it did pretty much inarguably save us during the pandemic.
@@TheStrangeBloke You are not adressing the point. You fundamentally misunderstand or misrepresent what values a billionaire has. A billionaire owns (parts of) large companies. The value of these companies directly arise from their ability to generate income in the future. The values therefore take the form of machines that produce things people need, people with in-depth knowledge, supply chains, physical sites where people work, et cerera. These are the 'dead' billions of the 'frugal' billionaires that 'dont contribute to the economy'. Is it better for the economy to have a steel plant producing steel, or for that plant to be dismantled for parts and the money given to poor people to buy cheeseburgers? And what about the cheeseburger store? Perhaps they should close and sell all their inventory and buildings and give the money to poor people to do ... what? What the economy really relies on are things being made and distributed, and what is portrayed as the net worth of billionaires are the things doing exactly that. Hell, even money on a bank account is productive. That money is a loan that finances something somewhere, probably in some way a government bond. So that money is helping building schools and maintaining roads, no tax required. It's just that you can claim it when you want to.
I’d like to hear you talk about the middle class. Ideas on how to make the middle class larger. What is the current middle class income(definitely varies by region) are how many (middle class people are moving out of cities/states due to housing prices and taxes) Is there an imbalance between costs of certain commodities that are benefiting the rich and why is that? What do you think about “you will own nothing” I don’t take it literally but I think there is a possibility that most Americans will HAVE to be in debt to be “middle class” Right now most people will have to take on debt to pay for a home but with guidance at a young age a middle class income and saving strategies it is possible to pay it off in 15 years but it feels like the expensive stuff is getting wayyyy more expensive. Outpacing normal price things. Monopolies?? Big corporations?
This is the first time I press a like button on a video that makes arguments I might not totally agree with. As a person with a background in physics rather than economics, your videos make me want to study these topics in more depth as they provide a perspective I was mostly unaware of. Thank you for the good work and the dry delivery
When they say that taxing the rich and passing it to the poor is a 'zero sum game' because no services are being produced in relation to this transaction and thus this doesn't help the economy, it's a very myopic view of the situation and kinda besides the whole point. The point is to let the poor a better starting position. The money given is effectively invested into better education and living facilities of this poor, so that they can create wealth, knowledge and solutions in a better way than they would otherwise be able to. This point was completely ignored it seemed, so I couldn't have the patience or interest to continue listening. Also the services that some of this money that the rich spend to buy is actually often overpriced and harmful for the sustainability of the planet, for example nonsense space trips, yacht ride for a person and his pets, and not relevant to developing humanity and human potential. I have some background in a subject related to yours and about none in economics, and I usually like the videos on this channel, but this one seemed not so well made, at least.
@Debanjan Nandi Yeah whatever dude, but it's hard not to notice that your comment glaringly avoids the whole "what about the luxury yacht seat cover artisan upholsterers that would needlessly go unemployed if you were to tax the rich?" argument which is so convincingly addressed in this video. Not to mention the Siberian beaver poachers who have to work extremely hard to find such rare and endangered animals to provide the fur for the helicopter carpet. So mate, please try to think these things through in the future.
@@SofaKingShit ''Not to mention the Siberian beaver poachers who have to work extremely hard to find such rare and endangered animals to provide the fur for the helicopter carpet'' .. Kinda sounds like sarcasm or parody.. Anyway, we were all poaching and hunting, until some got better livelihoods as civilization progressed, through access to better education and resources, thanks to taxation.
The issue arises when certain individuals have found a way to have so much power they can influence to such an extent they're playing by a different set of rules. Think special "foundations" and other interests who have influence over governments, other international organisations that set policy, the UN, WHO and so on
What I'm wondering about the incentive argument: isn't it good for competition that there's not an incentive to create so big companies that they're essentially monopolies?
Confused how a generally intelligent commentator can get this so wrong. Billionaire spending does NOT trickle down across society: it inflates a few sectors (namely real estate and luxury good) beyond anything that is healthy, while leaving utterly dry the actual productive sectors. Do we need any reminder how damaging and gross the effects of the super-rich/corporate investment in real estate since the pandemic has been?
I’m from Rotterdam, people over here aren’t that happy about bringing down the bridge… it is one of the pieces that did not got destroyed during ww2 in Rotterdam! Thnx for the video again.
It's getting put back up again, and the municipality benefits from the jobs and tax revenue. People over there have more pressing matters to be concerned about, like the fact that actual Dutch people make up less than half of the population of the city.
I try to avoid the word "bailout" because it obfuscates the (large) difference between grants, loans, and asset purchases. Otherwise, another very good video.
I think looking at giving grants due to a wealth tax as being zero-sum is a bit short sighted. You yourself said that billionaires spending money puts money in the economy and the same is true for anyone else. Someone or some organization that supports people in poverty also puts money in the economy in the same way. The difference would be instead of money going into the economy for super yachts and massive mansions, it goes into the economy for people in poverty to get dental work, rent a home/apartment, have kids, send their kid to a good school, buy a car, etc. Assuming that people getting benefits from wealth taxes would just horde the money in a bank account just to be able to claim it's a zero-sum wash is really strange to me. I've never heard of of someone who is really poor who wouldn't use money to spend on things to better their living conditions.
EXACTLY! And he also uses a strawman argument that if we tax the ultra wealthy, small businesses with little free cash flow won't be able to stay open. The whole argument is the ULTRA WEALTHY, not middle class citizens starting a business. Billion dollar corporations hide their money in assets, overseas, and anywhere where they can't be taxed on it. Not that they can't liquidate it but rather that it'd increase their taxes. If we get rid of that gap, they can no longer hide it and have to pay on capital gains right away.
Yeah, I'm really not sure how Patrick missed this point. When you're talking about ultra-wealthy and their ability to convert goods via various transactions, there isn't anything exclusive to billionaires that allows this to occur. We see this at all levels of the economy, at all levels of income, and in all types of economies. The biggest issue with me is that this description of a tax being zero-sum seems to directly conflict with basic common sense about other conversions that the government does cause with their budget. I don't think anyone would view a tax for schools as zero sum, I personally enjoy living amongst an educated population and it's pretty easy to see how those initial tax dollars are converted into long-term economic returns on value. If we tax, let's say all people with a net worth greater than 10 billion USD @ 1% annually, and direct it to education, is it still zero sum? Does it magically now convert as opposed to if the funds are directed to say, cash stipends? If we direct the funds to just buying gobs of bombs and guns, doesn't that employ a metric ton defense contractors who earn a salary who now contribute more to the economy? You could play that game all day, with every form of tax, and every type of economic transaction. In this case, I'd like to see Patrick actually cite or source some amount of research that finds that wealth taxes and the uses of that tax are inherently more zero-sum than any other tax or economic transactions.
@@2639theboss Yeah I try and think in this way too. To me if you want to keep the same budget, by not raising taxes, fine and I'm all for it. But then the solutions to solving clear and obvious problems to anyone that goes outside needs to include cutting wasteful spending on things that don't impact the public en-masse. Looking at these type of issues with a basic 2 - 2 = 0 mindsight totally ignores tangential benefits and future benefits even if it is mathematically a zero-sum move. Moving money from mega-ultron transformers yachts into education is a better use for that money even if it's zero-sum.
@@troy3423 It would be interesting to see what research has been done on tax structures based around net worth or assets instead of income. People and corporations with money can easily game the system by moving around assets/money by "paying" for services from another company that's in a certain industry while owning both companies. Using each company to fund their lifestyle with physical assets under corporate ownership and so are tax deductions. They can be like Musk and Bezos where they "only get an 80,000" salary but utilize business assets constantly in their day to day life in the highest luxury you can buy. Or get massive hundreds of millions in lines of credit to fund your life using huge stock options as collateral.
@@mohi0ne306 Them Spending IS the value. It being spent on consumer good is beneficial to economies. Also I'm not sure you really got the point I was making. I agree that you can look at it as "zero-sum" and I have no issue there. But I feel that it is overlooking the longer term economic impacts that each scenario has overall. WHERE the money is used is also important. Looking at economics in purely math terms and stripping away the context of what is happening with the money doesn't make sense to me.
The argument "An individual can only earn money when someone else willingly pays it to them, for a service or product that nobody is required to buy." Really bad argument imo. There are many things people HAVE to buy. Homes, food, healthcare, water, the list goes on. I was expecting an actually good rebuttal to higher taxes, not false representations of how the economy works.
The other thing to consider about mutually beneficial free market transactions, is that it's not only taxation that is coercive. Being poor means you have to sell your labour under duress, due to the threat of homelessness and starvation, leaving you at a massive disadvantage in negotiating a position, or in having any resources or time to improve your value on the market. I'd argue that if that's the burden the poor have to bear, then extra taxation is a reasonable burden for the wealthy to bear, if we're going to keep the system operating to everyone's benefit. The free market is only really free if all the participants are within a reasonable band of wealth. Massive monopolies and extremes of hoarded wealth break it from above, and poverty breaks it from below. Money is always attracted to more money. Wealth always flows upwards. At the end of the day, there has to be a mechanism to recirculate it from the top back down to bottom, otherwise it will just end up piled up at the top, and the market will cease to function. Trickledown economics and relying on wealth being spent downwards is demonstrably too slow and weak a force to balance the upward flow. If it worked, we wouldn't be in the situation we are now.
Low taxation is surprisingly not correlated with higher potential for economic growth. But it seems to me, an external observer, that high wealth disparity within the US is causing a rift within the society, eg. decline in the midwest and increases on the coasts causing a political polarization. And not to mention the insane pressure of massive student loans just so you can hope to get a job that might eventually pay it off. Such communal stress can't be good for the society long term. I don't quite buy the argument that the mega wealthy would give up London, NYC or LA because of increased taxes. It sounds easy, but not too many would pull their kids out of school and move to Switzerland for example. I'd like to hear billionaires argue with their spouses that they should move from Manhattan just because the government wants a million more per year, and that's why they should find a new school and social life somewhere else.
Just look at California, some of the highest taxes and most scrupulous business regulations in the country and people are leaving in mass for states that are friendlier to business. Proving even middle class Americans are willing to move for lower cost of living/taxes.
Agree with the communal stress part. I grew up in a Chinese city with extreme income inequality (Beijing, for anyone wondering) and little social safety net. The result is that people are forced to subscribe to the rat race because 1) the door for getting into the top is almost shut, 2) if you don't accumulate "enough" wealth, and something bad, like divorce or illness happen to you, you lose your basic human dignity due to the almost non-existent social security. Notice how I put quotation marks around the word "enough", because "enough" it not a set number. People's anxiety is rarely alleviated which means people work more and more in pursuit of more and more wealth. Economists like to say how the removal of social safety net motivates people to work harder, and leads to more efficient spending, but I wonder how many Americans really know the downside of anxiety caused by lack of safety net. Some downsides include: anxiety about financial prospect lead to overworking, overworking leads to lack of recreational spending, the pressure to climb the ladder makes people stop cooperating with each other and hurts innovation, inadequate social safety net means people are less willing to take risk which also hurts innovation. Inequality is an extremely complicated problem. Patrick Boyle discussed many aspects of this cluster mess, but I feel that he focused more on the macroeconomic side of things (which I understand, since that is the area he has expertise in). Average North Americans like us who are stressed about housing cost, gas prices, food prices going up right in front of our eyes do not have enough mental bandwidth to focus most discussions on the zoomed out picture of the economy
The current situation isn't a simple one, and can't be viewed entirely through economic lens. Its not going to have a clean answer because of that. It's not a policy problem, but a matter of politics. Inequality is a problem because it's a sign of growing concentration of power and businesses, which ends up increasing stress everywhere. Part of it is political changes that has disempowered the working class and small business over the years. A lot of it is technological though. Many of the internet industries are winner take all, which leads to monopolies. There's not a clear policy to solve this, although if I had to offer one up, stopping corporate consolidation and forcing companies to break up would make the most sense.
I think the super wealthy need to be convinced it’s better, and in their self-interest, to live in a safe, just, and beautiful society than it is to lock yourself in a gilded prison on the high seas…
@@gustopher6500 No, but they should realize that the actual difference between five billion and ten billion really doesn’t affect them. There’s nothing you can do with a hundred billion of something that you can’t do with fifty billion. At a certain point wealth just becomes a dick measuring contest…. The adage: ‘How many yachts do you need to waterski behind’ comes to mind.
For a person who is aware of many angles and elements of financial reality, you have made a few elisions which avoid the real subject. The purpose of the tax proposed by Sen. Warren is not to obtain the same multiplier effect as spending by billionaires on yachts. No, it is to systematically support people getting access to full functionality in our society, and make that integral to how our government works. It might help to remember that Warren practiced bankruptcy law. The support of failures which lead to bankruptcy is an important part of the confidence of capitalism. Your use of the term "confiscation" is a rhetorical device to avoid acknowledging the obligation of us all to pay taxes, and characterize the brackets of taxation at the very top as an offense to a natural right. I expect a better reasoning from you, and I look forward to seeing a video with an evolved understanding..
Dude ... the point was, is and will be that there will be ppl with (=rich) and those without money (=plebs). This has been the case during the stone age and is the case today and will be in the future. Currently in the "west" we have a social capitalism - if we had pure capitalism that would mean that 0.1% would own everything (remember the middle age, kings, dukes, etc?). So the next point is - who runs the system ? I hope you guess it right - it's not you and not the plebs. It's those who have the money and they will make sure that the system will stay as it is - whether it's a Warren Buffet or Nancy Pelosi or Elon Musk or whoever. So get used to it you poor losers - swallow it and get over it. Be happy that anyone rich pays at all some taxes - it's a piece of cake to not to pay taxes as you might guess it. @Patrick - well done !
He addressed pretty much all points that needed to be addressed, if you are interested you can do a point by point breakdown. You on the other hand have two points, 1) the tax isn't a tax because a politician said something and promised to use it on things. 2) The usage of the term confiscation is wrong. One of your points are wrong, the other is debatable.
This is called in DeFi, the opposite of where Boyle works, “shilling his bags”. i.e “I’m a business owner and I’m only paper rich” “please don’t make me pay taxes”. But what he forgot to mention is that those gentleman use their “paper wealth” to serve as collateral for spending loans that are tax deductible! 😂 I pay 25% , you pay 25%. I earn 40k, you borrow 40M. Let’s both pay 25% ;)
Seems mostly reasonable to me (though some people would point out that if their business goes under they'll lose all their collateral) I guess in this scenario you would be taxed on a home equity loan as well if your house's assessed value went up?
are you suggesting business owners borrow against their assets to pay taxes on unrealized gains? What if the assets go down in value? Do they get a refund?
@@mikehallrealestate if you borrow against something that has appreciated in value it's hard to argue that it's an unrealized gain. If the asset decreases in value and that drop is recognized by the bank/lender then maybe you should get a tax write off for the next year just like when a company loses money.
@@j03man44 you’re missing the broader picture. When you borrow against assets it’s done to inject money into the economy and/or grow your business with that money pulled out. If you’re just removing equity from firms to completely lose on taxes, you’re just weakening them. Like hollowing out a tree. Think about being forced to take out a heloc on your home every time the value rises to pay Uncle Sam.
@@mikehallrealestate that argument seems valid against any form of taxation. I would grow the value of my house more if I wasn't paying a 20% tax rate. I would invest in a more fuel efficient vehicle. I would save more for my children's education. There's a whole lot of liquidity to be gained by abolishing taxes in general and we can have that discussion but you haven't persuaded me that it would be any more harmful to recognize borrowing against an appreciated asset as a gain than taxing someone's labor.
In my opinion, increasing the tax rates for high income households and spending this additional revenue on subsidising public education is definitely not a zero sum game. Neither would be just giving it to low income households, since they have a higher marginal propensity to consume compared to high income households. This money would find its way back into the economy by spending it on consumption goods instead of keeping it in the bank or on the stock market..
You make a good point. Having now been at both ends of the wealth spectrum, I now spend far less of my income and increased net worth in the economy. Instead, I'm making sure that next year when I pay for that expensive sailboat I've ordered I'll still be flush. Your points support why a universal basic income would be far better for government, business and individuals than allowing the mega-wealthy to pay no taxes. Money is utility. If it's just piling up it's not doing much. Musk's 'money' (20% ownership of Tesla) is working very hard, but that $11 billion in taxes he's just sold shares to pay will make an impact, as will the $5 billion he's set aside for charity. (I hope he opens his engineering and science university.) When he sold those shares my Tesla investment dropped noticeably, it's dropped even more because of other factors - I'm not worried.
@@samwiseganja4071 doesn’t really matter, all I’m trying to say is that it is not a zero sum game. Let’s say the top 10% for arguments sake. Besides income tax there are numerous other ways to do this btw, higher estate taxes, higher capital gains tax etc
@@WillN2Go1 if you are interested in this kind of thing you could read “the price of inequality” by Joseph Stiglitz or “Utopia for realists” by Rutger Bregman.
I don't understand your logic behind why taxing the rich isn't worth doing just because "it's a relatively small amount". So what? So are the taxes I pay each year, but I still pay them.
Man, it is not about tax the rich -- it is about rich to pay their fair shares. The current tax system in US has such giant holes to allow rich to evade tax legally. US will collapse one day because of this.
I appreciate your work and analyses. This episode though…I find a number of assumptions with which I disagree and some are based on political statements, which are not reality. Bottom line is we have some very well off people contributing very little proportionately to the common good, and benefitting hugely from systems the masses sustain. How they are held to contribute is the sticky wicket.
Assume we distribute the entire net worth of America's 1% to the population of the United States. Then remember that this wealth in large part is not a salary but net worth so you don't get to repeat this every year. How much did you benefit? If you actually do the math you see it's not solving any real problem other than making you feel happy about eating the rich.
@@Oscar-vd4cvDid you read what I wrote? Since I believe everyone should contribute, how that is done is the “sticky wicket.” You appear to assume I support a fixed proportion of wealth be contributed.
@@jaymacpherson8167 in the united states, the rich already pay a much higher proportion already in taxes than the non rich. I didn't say you were in support of a fixed wealth contribution, but by doing that thought experiment, it shows that the source of problems isn't solved even if we completely confiscate the entire net worth of the 1%. It's meant to make you realize the differences in wealth are not the source of all our problems, and if completely confiscating their wealth doesn't solve anything how is taxing it more even close to one of the solutions.
@@Oscar-vd4cv Because this is just a perfect solution fallacy. Obviously there is no single solution to solving the problem of debt. However taxing rich people from a cost/benefit perspective is about as good as it gets. So it should be a cornerstone of any serious attempt to pay down the debt. Also he is cherry picking hard. Using overly inflated numbers that include pandemic relief spending. And ignoring the fact that rich people, are probably going to get significantly richer over time, as they tend to do.
3:35 When people spend their money, it works it's way through the economy, to grocery stores and transportation paying those people's wages, so on and so on. Poor people, by definition, spend all their money, while the wealthy, by definition, do not. So if the sole goal was maximizing money spent, would that not be in *favor* of taxing the vast majority of wealth and distributing the resulting money to people who would spend all of it?
For me, the problem isn't that people are buying absurdly expensive items nobody truly needs. Hell, great works of art have cost obscene fortunes but are certainly a win in my book. The problem I have is that while there are a lot of people suffering due to a lack of opportunities and low income these people are spending their vast wealth on buying these boats instead of attempting to use their wealth to better the world. Jeff Bezos for example could easily spend half his vast fortune on helping others while still being so very rich he need never worry about living in any condition other than extreme comfort. Whether taxes are the solutions to this though, considering the often inept systems governments have in place, I honestly can't say, and I personally have my doubts if that'll be a one trick fix. It also certainly does not help that the companies under the wing of these billionairs are more often than not accused of under paying, over working, and generally treating staff poorly. *Cough* Amazon cracking down on unions *Cough*
I found this to be a more nuanced look at the feasibility of a wealth tax than what economics explained did. But I am a little bit disappointed that Patrizio neglected to cover why there are calls for a wealth tax in the first place. Because the mega rich are using creative accounting to avoid paying taxes. Both on their earnings and their companies earnings. Yeah they are two separate issues technically but they overlap when looked at more broadly in terms of widening wealth disparity. The rich are getting richer while the working classes are sliding into poverty as the cost of living skyrockets all around
If you were a billionaire how would you like politicians spending your hard earned money on absolute garbage? Limiting the number of houses someone can own and controlling rent prices fixes the housing issues While oil is expensive because companies make it expensive food is expensive because china is hoarding it to sell for indebting africa and asia
Like the gates foundation. Most of the money spent in "charity" goes back to Bill Gates clean because he employs his own companies to do the charity work for him.
@@rumplstiltztinkerstein yeah the charity is a scam, but if i was a billionaire i'd trust my own companies to do the work better, if it was actually for charity.
@@thatundeadlegacy2985 if I were a billionaire I’d happily pay taxes in full if the government was using its tax revenue to maintain a robust social security network so that everyone can afford healthcare and education and that the government was investing in maintaining and developing critical infrastructure needed for future economic growth
All questions of taxation aside, it does seem inherently obscene that one person might control the income and resources of thousands of average people, while others struggle to afford a home, an education, or even starve. A society that is comfortable with this situation seems a bit unhinged to me. The 99 percent just taking a ton of wealth, by taxation or even force, would seem almost like a logical outcome. Submitting to increased taxation might be a smart PR move for the truly wealthy at this point.
"...free services like Facebook and Google..." To me, I think we have to actually redfine the value of data, because obviously Facebook and Google aren't running off donations and the will of the people. There is money there, and that money lies in the data. Ipso facto: data is money. Many would like to discredit this position, as the uncertain terms of data makes it so that the general consumer or investor doesn't really know where the money comes from. Therefore I don't distinguish. Data is money. Your private data is money.
I'm not a fan of the idea that "data" is what is valuable. It's the advertising space that is valuable, not your data. More data just allows for more effective advertising.
Excellent, Patrick, you hit the nail right on the head. I don't mind that Jeff Basos has a big boat, what I mind is that I, as a tax payer, paid to build his warehouses. And about the lack of modesty and consideration by Billionaires; when Jeff Basos dumps his wife, mother of his children and the woman who helped him build Amazon in the lean years, for a younger, sexier model that is none of our business, it is his business but it is our business, being that Besos influences society, how we judge his actions.
Capitalists do not enjoy the fruits of their labor as they do not work. They enjoy the fruits of OUR labor, and that is a problem. The capital owner does not work, they make others work for them.
Strongly disagree that collecting through tax and redistributing through grants is a zero sum gain. To work everyone needs food, needs housing, needs the basics... If that is made possible by taxing the top and elevating the bottom then it CANNOT be a zero sum... You're essentially enabled a workforce that is going to pay the return through wages, how can that be zero sum?
When the US gov bail out big banks, back in 2008, I thought they received equity in exchanged? I think US fed received their ROI in early 2017 or 2018, from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
'Inequality' is complaint that's way too vague to take seriously. It's politics - it is a perfect justification for 'eat the rich' demagoguery since it's not even specific. Like, unless we're talking about *everyone* being equal, what is an acceptable level of inequality? Why should it be expected?
I did not think this was needed to be pointed out, but 10% from 1B equates to far more taxed money, than your 40% on a 60k average salary.. Don't get caught in flashy headlines.. 👀👀👍
Come on, Patrick, you know trickle down economics doesn't work. Like a turbocharged car, our whole successful societies all work on cross subsidy and that includes some form of progressive tax system. And remember, except for those like your mate Hugh Hendry, people want to migratev to such countries.
@@itemushmush Like take a billions of taxpayers and retirement fund money and burn that cash for something that normal company in industry can do for 1% of the cost.
Kind of misleading calling Singapore a low tax country when you have to pay such a high tax on things like cars. Sort of like calling Texas no tax when the property tax is so much every year.
Absolutely love how you can present such a controversial topic in all its complexities. Really adds to the conversation about wealth inequality instead of just reading the same talking points over and over again.
@@davidjohnston1799 Yeah, I can't help but feel this was by far the least well argumented video of his I've watched in the last year or so. It also ignored facts like how Walmart makes so much profit by pushing competition out of the market, which in turn is accomplished by paying below-poverty-level wages, to the point that large swathes of their employees require welfare to survive - and this is just ONE example. Also some factual errors like Musk "starting up" Tesla. He bought his "founder" title, he was not an actual founder of the company. There was also nary a peep about how one of the greatest golden eras of US was when the rich had 90% tax rate, which would suggest taxing the rich is actually good for the country.
Patrick, your analysis is excellent and you obviously strive to show multiple viewpoints. What would you think is a plausible solution? Make a video on some options! Thanks.
5:19 you claim that taking money from the rich and redistributing to the poor is a zero-sum game. By that logic, why bother having taxes at all, as it is just a zero-s game? How about letting the poor who could benefit from these transfers of wealth to continue to live in poverty while working barely livable wages for companies like Amazon, Uber, and Walmart? It's a "zero sum game" in that companies won't be able to reinvest their profits for growth made made off of the workers who gain none of the benefits and own none of the capital.
Not all taxes are a zero sum game... Just the ones where you take from one person and give it to another with out the creation of a product. Noone is saying taxing people to build roads is a zero sum game because the roads that result from that tax improve the efficiency of the economy and therefore create wealth.
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I've enjoyed many of your videos, and I enjoyed your perspective on this one, but I completely disagree. Warren's "wealth tax" is a silly idea. But taxing the pants off of INCOME seems very reasonable. All income is income. Tax it at the same rate. If you happen to own a giant company and hold your wealth there, that's great. And THE COMPANY has all sorts of tax loopholes and incentives to encourage them to invest in growth and diversify. But the second that money hits your bank as income... tax it. As income. And we live in a society where we all get a say in what's important to our government, which is supposed to be responsive to our social desires. Philanthropy is by definition spending on what one rich guy likes. He wants to endow a foundation for left handed knitters with $5billion? He can, and he gains the exact same tax benefits as if he funded food banks for the hungry. I say the government absolutely spends our money "on citizens" better than any random rich dude. Tax them and let the government spend on larger programs of social good. If we don't like what the gov does, we can elect different leaders. What makes Bezos or Koch's opinion about "beneficial programs" worth more than the collective opinion of 300 million of us? I have no objection to the existence of billionaire's. I wish I were one. But anyone making billions a year in INCOME needs to either pay a boatload of taxes, or claim deductions and exemptions that benefit all the rest of us. Not by endowing his left handed knitters foundation. And with the billions they have left, they can buy all the yachts they want, with the secondary job benefits you touted. No difference. You buy ONE yacht, you stimulate X jobs. It's not like they're going to buy 6 or 7 yachts. Their consumption, no matter how conspicuous and grandiose, will NEVER equal the consumption value of the rest of us circulating whatever money we get in benefits or reduced taxes. 100 million average people will spend more than 1000 rich guys. Every year. And we'll spend it on food, clothes, transport and everything else, thereby creating and driving far, far more jobs across the economy.
Intrensic Vs. Equitable value. Everyone wants to be wealthy. However, few actually understand how to use that wealth in a way that provides any actual value. Intrensically or otherwise. Some COULD have been wealthy, but they lack forsight and finantial discipline. Much less seeing value if it even existed to begin with.
I guess that would include the basic research that is the actual foundation for pretty much everything that our oligarch class loves to take credit for. Yeah, that Milty Friedman really saw the big picture....
The problem isn't trickle down economics in and of itself. It's that it's ill-fit for golbalization. If rich people make jobs in America, well and good. Problem is that so many of the benefits in the last 30 years have been put in China.
Right. There’s a reason he’s an quantitative investor instead of macro economist I guess. Just adding this comment I made to point out why his whole argument is faulty with just a tiny bit of logic The problem with your first point is that it neglects to apply the same logic to taxes. When the government taxes rich people, that money goes back into schools, public work projects, higher minimum wage, etc., which then gives more money to poorer people. These people then spend the money as well, putting it back into the economy and multiplying it as well.
The economic multiplier of money going into the government is less than 1 which is really remarkable given the things they could theoretically, but show me a Western government that actually tries to improve the population, do things with public health that have big returns. Instead the government actively promotes moral hazard, and does things like replacing the population. If you think the government is better in charge of your money, make a cash donation. No one is stopping you
The problem with your first point is that it neglects to apply the same logic to taxes. When the government taxes rich people, that money goes back into schools, public work projects, higher minimum wage, etc., which then gives more money to poorer people. These people then spend the money as well, putting it back into the economy and multiplying it as well.
There's a double standard when you describe taxing the rich as "zero sum" versus allowing them to spend their money, which apparently multiplies through the economy. The point of taxing the rich is to get that money into the hands of people who are poor. Once poor people have money, they're gonna spend it on food, clothes, etc. Whether one rich person spends a million dollars on a yacht, or 100,000 poor people spend $10 on lunch, the money circulates equally. Money don't care who spends it. Additionally, there seems to be a bit of doublethink going on when you make these opposite claims: "it's actually good when rich people spend their money (instead of being taxed)" as well as "rich people actually don't have much money to spend. It's all tied up in the businesses they own" If their money is locked inside of their businesses, how are they paying for mansions and yachts?
This is a video where I have the uneasy feeling that Patrick is out of his depth. Designing the tax structure with regard to the wealth and income distribution of an economy is a massive macroeconomic topic. Patrick sticks to the financial and basic economic principles, producing a good reminder of how some simplistic proposals are wishful. But the video overlooks externalities of transactions and involuntary transactions in private sectors, such as wage theft. The repeated phrase “free market transactions” actively neglects the unfree market transactions. The argument that building the yacht provides jobs is an especially weak one, since taxed money goes to jobs via government spending. In the end the video lacks a overarching framework tying the scattered points from different perspectives together. It leaves not a feeling of empowerment that if I want to go deeper this is where I can go, but a sense of confusion and paralysis.
@@MOFOSGTFO It's mostly the CEO's/ COO's whom collect large, sorry RIDICULOUS sums of money from their companies. These people could afford to improve their workers lives financially instead of spending insane sums of money on items that scream Morgan....big M ....little organ.
I'm a fan of your channel Patrick but feel you missed on this one. Seems a bit more ideological than factual. The Dutch folk who want to throw rotten eggs at the superyacht may not believe in greater wealth redistribution but are offended by these gross displays of wealth by the super rich. Councilers from the Dutch city promised the bridge wouldn't be disassembled again as it has already been in the past from a previous super yacht (not Bezos') and it is a unique and much appreciated bridge in that city. So they resent the gross display of wealth and making special rules for some people based entirely on what they can buy. I highly doubt people would be throwing eggs at the yacht if it was a touch more modest.
Completely ideological (and full of examples that lack any sort of basis - e.g. sure, millionaires going on a spending spree do have some trickle-down effects on the economy, but you're far overestimating the number of people who benefit from that vs direct use of those resources for tackling wealth inequality. I suggest Patrick reads Piketty on this. But maybe he think's Piketty is a commie or something), and ending the video with Milton Friedman's attempt at cosplaying an anthropologist-psychologist sealed the deal for me - I've just unsubscribed from his channel, I don't trust his takes.
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?” ― Thomas Sowell
With philanthropy we trust 1 or few people. In a democratic process of redistributing money we have discussion, elections, debates and many people. Is Bill Gates smart? Sure! Do I trust him more than a democratic process, no. And not everyone is like Bill Gates. Charity is very arbitrary and we have unelected people redistributing. And the claim, that in Germany we don't do charity and pay taxes is just plainly wrong! Without food banks funded by large companies: (international) retail chains like Aldi, Lidl, etc…; and better-of private citizens a big pillar of our care for the poor would vanish and It'd surely have great consequences.
Hello Dr. Boyle, big fan of your content! Couple of questions: 1. Concerning the zero-sum game theory about redistribution through taxes. Are the varying marginal propensities to consume taken into account? 2. Do you believe there can be a solution to the issue of wages staying stagnant compared to productivity growth after the 70's without fundamentally changing our economic and incentives systems? Keep up the good work!
Redirecting into a zero sum game, the working class would use that extra money to buy much need necessities or male needed repairs. So the money would then go back to businesses for exchanged goods and services, and the companies would now grow more organically
5:29 : "On the other hand, when money is taken from a person as a tax, and given to another as a grant, that is really a zero-sum game". Not sure I follow you here. Government will spend money on infrastructure and transfers, and this grows the economy. BTW, not sure if Amazon would be a multi-billion dollar company today if there is no government-provided infrastructure and services. BTW2 : Good luck selling on the Internet if it was not created by the army and universities (both subsidized by the government).
Good point. Governments don't hoard money at all. Regarding infrastructure your argument is flawed in the same way. There is no fundamental difference if the infrastructure is built and maintained by the government or by a company. In case of the internet Amazon is with it's huge data centers (AWS) probably the biggest infrastructure provider itself. Yes they leverage the infrastructure of telecom companies, but telecom companies use the infrastructure of power companies and so on. Everything is intertwined. The same is true for research. It happens in state funded entities and it happens in companies.
The wealth transfer doesn’t grow the economy. To believe that, you are only looking at one side of the balance sheet. The transferred wealth would have been spent (likely far more productively) by the private sector. Both lead to “growth” in the sense that the money continues to circulate and have a multiplier effect through the economy. However if you are suggesting that the government is significantly better at managing capital in comparison to the private market, you are simply wrong.
Let's be clear, government should not spend money on investments that the private sector already does well (don't worry guys, not a commie). Government should mostly stay out of the economy (which it already does in western countries). The are some investments that the governments are better placed to do, or that lead to better outcome than the private sector. My only point was that Patrick's way of presenting it seems to suggest that taxes go in a big black hole of nothingness, which does not compute for me. I do agree with some of Patrick's points BTW. For example, most people underestimate how much "rich people" contribute in taxes (in absolute terms). Many people on the left imagine rich people as paying no taxes, which is a gross oversimplification.
@@shbehna fair enough. I think Patrick was generalizing, because only a tiny fraction of government expenses are actually infrastructure. Most of the government budget is just transfer payments (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.)
Where does their personal wealth come from? - From the value of their companies. Where does the value of their companies come from? - large market share in their industry - cheap and easily replaceable labour - govt subsidies and tax breaks We don't need to "tax the rich", we need to eliminate the handouts, increase worker rights and minimum wage and break up the monopolies to fix the underlying problem.
Visit newsoveraudio.com/patrickboyle (or use coupon code PATRICKBOYLE) to get a free 7 day trial of Noa's premium subscription, plus 37% off the annual fee.
I did the trial and its kind of disappointing, I'm on desktop and it lacks basic features like the ability to change volume or make a playlist, deal breaker for me.
It's not as much about fairness as it is about moral, or if that's not a thing for you, good taste. When there is literally toddlers dying simply because of not having access to food or water, how do you feel happy living a lavish life on yachts, in private jets, on private islands. You dont have to feel ashamed for wealth, but psychologically, how do you detach so much from the reality of millions of people.
On another note, someone who is on top of the food chain is likely personally responsible for quite some injustice in the world. The argument often times then is, if they aint doing it someone else is. I have to remember that quote when I do amoral things. So , to remain in your logic of one person gets rich by selling the same song over, one person who buys an Iphone does little damage. But the person who is responsible for selling all of them, let's say the CEO, is responsible for children being recuted as soldiers to secure coltan mines. Which is just one of many horrible things happening in the supply and production chain of an Iphone or any smartphone for that matter.
So, that's just 2 points that negate the relevance of your argument that the rich already pay more than the fair share.
I knew Rose Friedman .. she was one sharp cookie
They should enjoy their yachts! They should do so without disabling the car drivers of an entire city to cross a bridge for weeks. For me that basically justifies a a happy lynching of the yacht owner who is responsible for sexually intercoursing up the bridge.
Also I bought an aftermakred trailer hitch 7 days ago directly from Jeff Bezos (not some of his business partners) and it's still not put into mail by him. I don't like to be treated like this as a paying customer even if it's fabulous Jeff Bezos owning the business.
@@TremereTT Well, it is not him who asked for bridge to be dismantled but the local ship building business. So there are two choices, allow local large ship constructor to work and continue to routinely dismantle and reassemble the bridge, as was done in the past mutliple times, or force the business to relocate by cutting lucrative deals.
What would you chose ?
Isn't the main problem of ultra-rich paying less taxes about the rich simply having more loopholes and ways to avoid paying taxes like a good citizen? For example getting company bonuses that don't somehow add in to the salary in tax books? Raising the taxes won't do anything when the ultra-rich pay themselves really small salaries and get their money in some other ways instead, those loopholes need to be fixed.
I bet everyone is just ecstatic with the 2 miles of $52 million Vegas tunnel with human-driven Teslas going slow. Not quite a hyperloop dreamed up 100 years ago.
Musk sold all his possessions, paid $11B in taxes and donated over $5B to charities last year but for some people it's never going to be enough to change their preconceived notions or ignore the fact that Tesla and Musk themselves are against government subsidies as long as subsidies for fossil fuels (about 100x larger) are also axed.
The Las Vegas loop has become quite the attraction I heard and was deemed successful enough to start on expanding it.
It only exists as an idea because the US doesn't have a comprehensive train system for the public. So they went and reinvented a thing that works perfectly in other countries
@@MattCasters Tesla would not even be solvent without government handouts (Corporate Socialism!) so the average citizen is paying HIM. Absolute conman.
He did not pay 5b to charities. He gave tesla stock to "unnamed charities" - probably ones he owns! - to avoid taxes further.
@@MattCasters "Expanding" how? Making the single-lane tunnel longer? God knows it won't include elementary safety elements like ventilation or escape walkways. Musk's "design" doesn't appear to offer many options for "expansion", unless that means making adding more stupid to the idiocy that's already there.
I will say that this boondoggle does support Boyle's citation of Milty Friedman's theology. The Vegas city council hacks who signed off on the stupid thing are lab-grade specimens of government pissing dollars down the sewer.
At least in the US there is a cohort of people closing in on 40 years old, who finished school in the wake of the Great Recession, when entry-level jobs were hard to find. The result was a permanent scarring, as the group missed their apprenticeship window. My own legal career was a downward spiral, and I ultimately left it for a job with proper insurance benefits. We could be fairly called disillusioned, cynical, or even bitter. It cost us dearly in terms of things like student loan debt, and perpetually delayed marriage, family, and home ownership.
Sounds like the dark side of one of the principles from Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.
"scarring"? Really? How do you measure THAT?
@@judychurley6623clearly you haven’t heard of metaphors.
@@judychurley6623 I probably would start with being overly risk-averse. The psychology of a beaten dog and all that.
What angers people is that they get taxed on their income, then they give their money to amazon by buying something and pay (sometimes) sales tax only to find out Amazon did not pay any taxes con the money they made by using accounting gymnastics. People are asking for decency, nothing more.
Simple boycott and they will end up like some of the companies they put out of business.
@@neilwhite6305
How does one boycott one of the most convenient and pivotal shipping companies in the US…?
@@neilwhite6305 - You make no sense. Amazon was able to get as big as it is, by losing money and pricing competition out. It's like saying boycott Walmart. Communities tried. But, corrupt politicians would always let them in and give them tax breaks, grants, etc. After the 10 year term was up, Walmart would shutter the OG store and build a Super Store with even more incentives, tax breaks, etc etc.
Patrick likes to smooth over the mess and use nonsense to gloss over the rest. He is a happy, very wealthy mouthpiece for Capitilism.
The Wealthy get tax law catered to them, rampant corruption takes care of the Courts and Politicians. Patrick thinks that because they have Billions, they are better and more deserving then others not Born Lucky, and they'd just take their money and go home if you taxed them. B.S. Elon is a grifter, and egomaniac. All of them are. They'd keep on doing as they do, especially if the system was designed better. They need the attention and like screwing people.
@@neilwhite6305 people benefit from amazon low prices, a boycot is not the solution. however amazon cannot keep operating without paying taxes at the same time that the small guys has to pay otherwise will be arrested. amazon is turning a lot of profit, they can pay taxes, but they chose not to.
@@lemmonboy6459 You can boycott Amazon by buying at brick and mortar stores instead.
I think the thing that stands out the most to people that wasn't mentioned here is that most normal middle class people pay a significant percentage of their incomes in taxes, while billionaires pay basically no tax at all, sometimes fractions of a percent of their effective income. It isn't just "well you pay 30% and they pay 30%" its "You pay a 30-40% of every check to the government, while someone who makes more than the combined incomes of your entire state in a week pays less than 1%"
But remember these companies often get these tax breaks from the government by making deals to build offices, warehouses and factories in their states. By getting their tax breaks we get our jobs which in turn pay taxes. I'm not saying it is perfect but I am glad I have my job which as taxed as it is allows me to live a nice life. If one person has to be rich for me to live a decent life I am ok being jealous of them.
@@hopelessdecoy I don’t mind people being rich, and I’m not necessarily talking about corporate taxes, I just don’t like that an individual with an ungodly income gets to keep every cent of it while normal people with normal jobs need to give up almost half of every paycheck, especially when the way the system is supposed to work is higher taxes for higher incomes but the richest of the rich have found a way out of it.
But still they pay more. And what, exactly, extra benefits from the taxes they pay do they receive from the grubbymint? Why SHOULD they pay more when they aren't getting in the exchange? Your jealousy-based mindset is irrational and emotional, and not intellectually honest.
@@chuckschillingvideos I don't think our tax system is perfect, and I don't think he's being irrational, emotional or dishonest.
Taxation is an extremely complex issue open for debate.
If anything your the one being emotional shutting down conversations with no constructive arguments or added info.
@@chuckschillingvideos i don’t understand where you see jealousy in that argument. It’s just about everyone playing the game by the same rules. I don’t like the idea of certain people getting to cheat it just because they have a lot of money. If I pay a big chunk of what I make in taxes, so should Jeff Bezos. If they barely pay any taxes at all, neither should I.
It’s the same as how when the punishment for a crime is a fine, it essentially makes it legal for the rich, or how rich people get under prosecuted in courts because they can afford better lawyers, how rich people can steal millions of dollars and pay back thousands in fines. It’s not a matter of being jealous, I’m totally fine with people being successful, it’s just a matter of whether they’re succeeding within the bounds of the game we’re all playing or if they just get to cheat their way to the top.
As an ex super-yacht stewardess I can attest to both sides of this argument. Does one’s ownership of a super yacht create jobs for others? Yes, it does. How many jobs has that boat created or maintained through the ownership? More than just a handful. Lifelong careers are created within the yachting industry. On the other hand, is the amount of money spent building, and maintaining a super-yacht a life changing way to spend money to improve life on this earth? No, there are a million and one other, and more useful ways to spend that money. Say, to help fund ways to stop polluting the earth, which the super-yacht industry is notorious for polluting in every way possible. A sailing yacht is no better than a purely motorized one. Yachts are pure luxury and more so, non essential “toys”. That is all they are, and most likely all they will be.
You can't stop polluting the earth if you want the things that these billionaires offer you. Amazon = goods at your fingertips and quick shipping - that supply system creates a ton of pollution. Musk and his rockets - pollution (we really don't need to be going to space at the moment), Tesla's still involve a lot of pollution in the process to build the things, Satellite internet = polluting the low earth orbit sky with tens of thousands of them which are needed for the network he is proposing. Any electronic company = a ton of pollution in countries that don't have the best track record of caring about such thing. Everything we have that is a modern convenience is pretty much non essential. The entertainment industry that provides endless amounts of movies and tv - employs 60k directly at most and pollutes like crazy.
@@debanjannandi9149You need to have funding and not generally care about pollution if you want to progress - look at quick we went from the industrial revolution in the west to the tech we have today - that rapid pace was purely due to financial incentives. If there are no incentives then human potential and growth drop significantly.
th-cam.com/video/NJQt6qLjofI/w-d-xo.html
well, yacht technology is used in big logistical ships to improve stability and efficiency, so? do video games change the world for better?
provably yes with VR
No one needs super yachts for 500 zillion dollars or any expensive luxury goods, it's just waste of resources and effort to create something even more special and exclusive. It's another boost of status and ego which leads to nowhere.
But… Jeff isn’t a rapper.
Patrick must know something we don’t know
The problem is that the biggest corporations get the best tax abetments or tax incentives instead of regular small businesses. I believe in neo-liberal principles but it's unjust for a Amazon fulfilment center to pay a smaller property tax (via tax abatement) rate than Joe Shmoe who runs a restaurant down the street.
Amazon is a big corporation with deep pockets, that's why lots of foreign government are willing to give them the lowest possible tax rate so they open ofices and warehouses, creating jobs and paying that low tax that otherwise wouldnt be payed.
A low tax on amazon still generates more money in direct, indiriect taxes and associated economic activity than an high tax on Joe's Shmoe restaurant down the street.
Boycott Amazon and buy from ebay
that can have the unpleasant side effect of discouraging growth, as companies don't go from Jon Shmoe down the street to Amazon size overnight. where i live ive seen lots companies refraining from hiring new people and expanding because of that (or worse, hiring people informally to evade taxes)
@@eris7070 It helps to expand if you have got $50 million to start, and starting in garages story is utter fabrication.
since when did fair enter the capitalist game?
The problem is not about taxing the rich, but about making the rich paying their fair of taxes, which they rarely do!
In the US is almost impossible to find a very wealthy person that pay taxes, and I am not talking about special taxes, the regular taxes that they should be paying but they don't because they can afford schemes to avoid all taxes.
The banks even given them loans at almost no interest so that they don't need to sell any stocks and ttherefore not to pay any taxes.
I thought the philanthropy bit was very interesting. "In Germany we don't do charity, we have taxes." This fascinates me as I see things like San Francisco dealing with all thier problems even though they are home to so many rich people. The rich are not obligated to solve any particular problem. They can put it towards helping a rare disease impacting people in other countries while the communities they "are a part of" burn around them.
One thing California has in large numbers: stupid politicians.
I would not say that san Fransisco has solved all their problems and they are one of the richest areas in the world on account of the concentration of tech companies and their highly paid workers, this both lessens the need for public spending (as people can afford to just pay for things themselves) and increases tax revenue.
San Francisco city government doesn’t seem to be doing a bang up job of fixing their problems.
@@pioneer_1148 "they can just pay for things themselves"
Whenever I hear from some average person in the bay area it's like earning relatively much compared to the rest of the country but rent, etc are so high it more than cancel that out
Helping rare diseases is also important. Not just your average druggie in frisco.
The zero-sum argument at 4:25 implies a dichotomy of private billionaire spending on goods, which is characterized as inherently mutually beneficial and growing the economy because something is created, and taxation, which is characterized as a zero-sum game. This seems unbalanced because it mentions all potential follow-up benefits of the private spending but only considers the tax transaction for the taxation. But the government is spending the money on something too, buying some service which can also grow the economy and pay salaries that aree spent again.
The comparison would instead have to be on whether the private spending on engineers creating a yacht is more beneficial to the economy than some government spending on e.g. engineers extending a rail network, building a school or some other infrastructure in a states budget.
Governments have proven themselves far less efficient at spending and improving the economy then billionaires. They are too corrupt and disorganized. It's like giving money to most so called "non-profit charities", by the time all the inflated salaries and middle organizations get done with the funds only a small portion ever makes it to anything useful. If the Government could ever figure out how to run the Country like a well ran Business then there would be tons of tax money to go around already, but no, they are to busy building their own wealth off the backs of every day people even more so then innovative billionaires.
@@bmartin2304 In the US about 15% of discretionary spending is on federal worker compensation (salary, healthcare, retirement). That's everyone from The POTUS to your local park ranger. This would be on the lower side of salary compensation, business consultants recommend between 15-30% of revenue be spent on payroll. I do agree with your statement on running the country like a business with regards to taxes; A business would never under-fund it's collections department to the extent that the US gov't has. The US should increase IRS funding substantially and remove loophole laws that get in its way.
@@MWNVproductions OK, I may have hyperbolized the non profit analogy when it comes to total cost of salaries etc, but my point on inefficiency stands all the same. Through corrupt back door deals and over paying for just about everything they spend on. Just look at what it cost nasa to develop rockets vs musk. With the government spending the money we get slow painful expensive development of technology as all these companies and politicians milk the system. I don't disagree that tax reform is needed, but I think it's more on the corporate end then going after the owners personal wealth through some sort of billionaire tax. The "step up" tax loophole when estates are passed on is bullshit too.
@@bmartin2304 But what you label as corrupt helps the economy. Yes, the SLS is overdue and over budget because Musk can centralize the processes where NASA has to purchase from suppliers they're told to. So instead of just improving one state's economy they improve 40 states' economy. It increases costs and inefficiencies at the expense of helping more people. This comes about because we like to think that NASA's, Musk's, and the government's goals align when they don't. The government wants the money as spread out as possible where NASA and Musk just want rockets.
@@haroldsandahl6408 I get your point, it adds a perspective I hadn't thought of, but I still feel that the reason the particular suppliers are chosen is not based of some strategic balanced economic approach. It seems to me its based more off lobbying and shady back door deals which end up costing tax payers while enriching themselves. Maybe sales tax luxuries more and leave wealth tied up in productive companies which is beneficial to the economy/progress of innovation/job creation alone.
Well I totally agree on that cultural aspect. We in Germany don't like to share how wealthy one is. There is the athmosphere that somebody would judge you badly for having much money. It's quite surprising if you find out that an acquaintance is a millionaire.
@@bluejar5614 i will never understand this as well. Hiding salaries and wealth is why some companies are deciding on being transparent about all of the employees salaries. Keeps the employees happier, they can negotiate better and keep the average salaries up. And it’s also more predictable. Hiding income numbers and wealth only leads to bad outcomes
I believe there is a difference between boasting and having wealth, and one can be rich without being a twit
@@ciril2643 There are such companies? What's the advantage? If no one knows how much his friend the next desk earns he will never ask this much. I know about teams with the same job, the same performance and skill across the workers but only three guys got for example $900-1000. All 20+ others were held to believe that their earnings had reached their absolute maximum for the job earning $550 to $650.
@@HanSolo__ You're all treating it like you're a slave to one company. Not happy with your salary? Send resumes to other companies and negotiate your potential salary. That's your worth, that's your transparency.
@@HanSolo__ look up wage transparency. The advantages are the ones I mentioned above.
Patrick is a master of dry wit.
'indignity of disassembly' was my favourite line from this vid
And based on those bottles behind him, also a master of dry _Brut_
I wonder how much time he spends dehydrating his wit each day...
yeah and master of bad matemathics... I wouldn't expect anything else from an eng. person.
Isn't that an English characteristic? Stiff upper lip.
My only issue with the approach of not taxing the wealthy heavily (either through wealth tax which isn't ideal or much higher income tax) is that we as the public give subsidies to their private corporate endeavours through grants/infrastructure bills taking essentially from the tax payer and giving it to the rich instead of having these be made/run by public services. If we take the approach of not directly giving or taking money from individuals of wealth then this should extend to the grants/incentive programs. No private entity should be given money or grants and instead should only be given these as low interest loans in the best of cases with equity being required in the case of risker investments. In no other walk of life would a VC give out money on the basis of no return and if a private entity wishes to receive public help then they should have the same requirements put upon them if we wish to properly treat private wealth generation as private. As quite a few billionaires owe a large portion of their wealth to public contracts or incentives that could/should have been completely run by public government agencies (i.e in the case of SpaceX being fuelled mainly from NASA contracts). This is especially egregious where their company would not have survived or prospered without government contracts securing their companies future as they are not viable in a normal commercial setting.
Thankss~~~~
well said
This only works if those government agencies are capable of actually providing the service in question, which is most often not true. For the given example of SpaceX, it is important to note that NASA has essentially never built their own launch vehicles. This is simply impractical. NASA is deeply involved in the design process and will work closely with contractors, but the closest you could say they have come to "building a rocket" is with cost-plus contracts with Boeing, in which they WILDLY overpaid for the given hardware. Here SpaceX is actually providing RND which NASA is UNABLE to provide for itself. Additionally, the research grants and favorable contracts given by NASA to SpaceX led to the development of the Falcon 9, which has decreased the cost of launch to such a high degree that the savings from using the vehicle have overwhelmingly offset the cost of the grants themselves.
My overarching point is that the government hires contractors to do things because, if the contractor doesnt live up to expectations, they can go and hire a different one, which you just cannot do with government employees.
This is a great point ! Thank you
I think you bring a good perspective to the table on these sorts of tax issues but I do feel you should elaborate on certain points such as different systems working differently in different cultures, as that's often used as a catch all to disregard policies which have proven successful in other countries on the basis that the US is different and so it couldn't work here, when in fact many policies and programs are indeed transferable across a wide and diverse range of countries. People often overstate the cultural differences between countries in conversations like this, while understating the arguably far larger pool of commonalities between cultures when it comes to general human behavior
Trauma in a person, decontexualized over time, looks like personality.
Trauma in a family, decontexualized over time, looks like familial traits.
Trauma in a society, decontexualized over time, looks like culture.
Elon Musk didn't start Tesla.
True, but dont get caught saying that. Also, he's bald. Just saying.
In a way he did, when he joined Tesla they had a Lotus chassis with batteries and no doors, he put his money and his vision into Tesla, the original guys dropped out unable to cope
And his dad was rich, so ultimately he’s a product of privilege, not skill. He won the lottery, money makes more money. No money makes nothing
Maybe not start it, but he made it.
Hi Patrick, I think that a lot of billionaire spending falls under the "Broken glass" falacy of value generation, super yatchs are non productive assessts and building industries around catering to the ultra wealthy is a less desirable outcome than say, those same shipbuilders being employed making ships used for logistics or fishing.
it feels as though he actually believes in trickle down economy...
@@hh-nh6ju He probably believes in Santa Claus too
But that implies that there aren't enough shipbuilders making "productive" ships. One of the things Economics Explained cited as the downfall of the communist system was that they focused on the "means of production" at the expanse of consumption. But there is only so many hammers that are needed in the economy. Eventually, you need to start putting those hammers to work building fancy things that are not necessarily productive.
Now throughout human history, we have had situations where productivity has been diverted towards the wealthy while leaving the average person wanting. For example, fertile fields used to produce plants for luxury goods and not food, causing a famine in colonial India. But is that what's happening with luxury yachtes? I would argue no. Unless and until building a mansion causes a shortage of builders for housing for the average person, we should let builders offer their services to whom they want!
@@tinnic just the fact you cited economics explained as your source makes your whole argument invalid
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872 In this case works usually means "efficiently and makes society better" if you mean can it be physically done, yes it works, but it's not only not the only viable option, it's not a viable option, it crashes very hard and will lead to revolution (or at least severe civil unrest) if left unchecked.
Patrick doing sit-ups and chores in suit made my day
Thankss~~~~
This. Who does that? Patrick does.
Liked the video overall but a couple of points: 1. Wealth redistribution can allow more spending (more mobile than investment). While you may be supply side there are demand side arguments too. 2. People at the very bottom may have nothing to offer in a consenting exchange, and may remain locked out of the economy if not aided by government.
The problem I have with the argument about transactions by willing parties that are mutually beneficial is that there are a heck of a lot of "essential" things people are basically forced to buy at the prevailing price whether they want to or not. If I were to decline to provide proper medical care for my family, for instance, because I wanted to be able to afford decent place to live instead I would be derided for not taking care of my family. The easy availability of credit makes this worse, as often the person in debt has no real choice - they can either get themselves in further over their head knowing there is little to no chance they can repay, or they can forgo essential services and possibly die or worse.
The overwhelming use of short term credit is used to buy non essential stuff though. How many people living on benefits have a SKY TV subscription?
seeing BNPL "services" being advertised for essentials like diapers and baby food is scary.
Funny that your proposed "scenario" is a first-world problem. Admittedly these are difficult questions. Are you willing to spend your life savings (and your children's education fund) to extend your grandmother's life for six months? If not, does that make you a heartless bastard or a rational individual? One hundred years ago, those services you call "essential" did not even exist. How can they be essential now if they weren't "essential" 100 years ago?
@@davidwebb2318 I don't know, how many? I suspect the answer is well short of the one in your imagination.
@@davidwebb2318 Waiting for the source for this data
I was quite happy to see the money I spent at Amazon go towards sending Jeff Bezos into space.
It's just a shame that they to bring him back down again.😁
th-cam.com/video/NJQt6qLjofI/w-d-xo.html
Actually I am happy for private money to go to improve space exploration and innovation in general. Arts and sciences have advanced in history due to private patronage and we are all reaping the benefits now, so this is a true investment for the future generations, and not at my personal expense.
What did Jeff Bazos do to you?😂
@@coscinaippogrifo Going up to space for an 8-minute joyride isn't advancing science.
@@coscinaippogrifo I don't think nobles and kings could be considered as "private patronage", they were spending public funds after all... As for science I disagree even more, while SpaceX has done a lot in terms of marketing they're still nowhere near as successful as NASA or even the indian space program which is far cheaper in comparison. Most inventions we have were state funded, especially the biggest ones ( the Internet, computers, rockets ) even the ones that weren't funded directly by a state succeeded thanks to their financial support ( cars, electricity, locomotives etc etc )
Your thought exercise on the zero-sum game between taxing and spending is ignoring the fact that one population predominately spends while the other predominately saves. Milton Friedman's statements on "who spends money the best" is only relevant on an individual scale. At the level of an entire economy it becomes a statistics game; $10 will change hands X amount of times and it will trend towards Y marginal utility. Friedman's work on how economies function has been radically improved upon, we really shouldn't be taking his words as gospel anymore.
Its nice hearing an opinion different from my own, I'd really like to see more of these videos in the future. Thanks for your hard work.
Well said!
I agree, the velocity of money helps maintain a vibrant economy. Keynes stated that in times of economic depression, increasing government spending into the economy, while lowering taxes on the consumers are required to stimulate the economy again, as the businesses and the rich in general will actually become more frugal and don't take advantage of stagnant wages to invest in increased production because there is no demand for it.
The downside of course is increased government debt which leads to increased inflation, which is slightly offset by the higher interest rate, but both of which will slow the economic recovery.
I would argue that increasing taxes on the rich while lowering taxes on low and middle income consumers instead of an across the board tax cut is the best policy during times of depression, because the tax revenue will help stymie the government deficit. Taxing the rich instead of the poor has greater recovery effect since money in the hands of lower earners (who have less disposable income) returns into economic circulation at a higher rate than the wealthy who have more capacity to save, thus slowing the velocity of money.
Even if you didn't tax the rich, their savings value would erode because the decrease in tax revenue would lead to increased government debt, which leads to more money printed to service the debt, which eventually lead to inflation which is an indirect tax on savings anyway.
But if the rich agree to pump all their savings into GME stock, then I'll be on board in not taxing them because I have 3 GME shares that I'm holding for the MOASS.
People who save money are losing money due too inflation. No rich dude is saving money at least in FIAT currency. Most of it's in the stock market producing
I was disappointed by this video, here you realize a financier is not an economist.
@@LaFacedera Very true. I guess it's good to be alerted to extreme obtuseness, but it's still disappointing.
profit sharing / stock purchase plans for all employees of a corporation should be part of every corporate charter
so if the profits are negative should the employees then have to write a check???
@@dontmarkettomeimpoor2856 I think his idea is to hand out stock and when a profit has a loss the shareholders don't pay
Company not a proft
@@omniladdrr6899 but the shareholders pay in dilution.....better to pay the workers cash and if they want they can buy stock or not
I love your content and presentation, but I'm really against trickle down economics: the wealth gap wouldn't be increasing around the world if trickle down worked
The core problem with the superwealthy is that they have the money in the first place. The money they have in surplus tend to be either unpaid taxes or unpaid wages. Both are a net loss to the 99%.
The other problem is using their money for things that is terrible for basically everyone else involved. Funding misinformation, lobbying, private planes, golf courses.
You just look at the money they have, you don't see the benefits they've provided. Jeff Bezos is insanely rich but the world would be considerably worse off without him.
And most of their money is in an asset, it's already being put to use. Even if they liquidated their portfolio and put in a bank, the bank would use their money to hand out loans to people and businesses.
It's not the amount of money they have that worries me, its the amount of power they are accumulating without any competition. Like media moguls who decide what the truth is and highlighting opposing views become a necessity for higher earnings, Bezos decides what prices for products should be as all other venues are squeezed out. I'm not sure its in our best interest long term to let a few people dictate every facets of our lives without any competition. At some point money will become the deciding factor for every facet of government internal policies, lobbyist will be the deciding factor not what the people want or need. I think the huge companies should be forced to split into smaller companies, spread the power and invite innovation.
Money is power and power is money. You have one you can get the other which you can again use to get more of the other. It is a positive feedback cycle that we should controll.
@@someonespotatohmm9513 There is a difference between having a lot of money and controlling a whole industry though.
@@bar10dr Is there? If you have more money then that part of the industry is worth you can buy it. The only thing stopping you is those fair competition rules which are rarely enforced. And if they are it is because there already are only 2 or 3 major players (nvidea and ARM)
Your original post also gives some examples how power gives money, you can buy politicians or if that somehow fails you can just sanction countries because they don't play by your rules. Good luck running your country without our chips.
edit: To be clear I don't disagre with you it is just that from what I have seen money and power are mostly interchangable (with some convertion costs)
At some point?
Without competition? You think these ultra competitive sharks "cooperate" with each other? Name 3 companies that were the top of the foodchain for over 2 decades please. Or 2 families that dominated Forbes list for more than 1 generation.
Also, I doubt it went like: "I'm Jeffy McBezos, I want the bridge put down to make room for my immense boat! Wrahwrahwrah..."
And more like: "Hello, I'm the ship builder in this city and have a really lucrative job offer (money for years). BUT the bridge is in the way. Do you think we can do something about it?"
My answer to your sugar coated stupidity:
"You said lucrative job offer for money for years? Okay, you're paying for ALL of this thing you want to do with the bridge and fixing it and punitive damages, or just go build that fucking boat on a coastal harbor, what the fuck is wrong with you!?"
@@jmitterii2 I won't retort, because I made a humorous point and you called me stupid; so, suck it! 😆
Insightful as always. On the specific piece of news I personally feel the crux here isn't really about how big Jeff's yacht is (insert joke?), it's about his ability to even request something like the "temporary dismantlement" of a historic landmark, and the fact that the request is actively being considered. I believe this isn't a matter spite or envy. Also, I'm sure he could pay the extra cost of installing the masts at a seaside shipyard later without issues, actually it would grease the economy even further, wouldn't it? (Guess now I should check the cost of dismantling and riassembling the bridge for a proper comparison)
It is not his ability to request it but the company that builds those yachts. The bride has been designated as 'historic' recently and city council said it will not dismantle it. But when another multi million opportunity came to the city it is hard to turn it down and have the yacht building company relocate somewhere else.
Jeff most likely doesn't even know the bridge exists it all resolves around local ship building industry that routinely has the bridge dismantled
Well said. How many people can get a city council to cater to their extravagences? And tycoons like Bezos aren't shy about using the same strong arm tactics on national governments.
Actually it had been done before and it was agree upon before he had the yatch built.
@@randomfcounter1930 He would VERY likely know. It's not like he's going to commission a yacht and not be kept abreast of what's going on in it's construction, especially when it clealrly involves more payment for the deconstruction of that bridge to fascilitate it eventually getting into operation. He would either be told upfront about it and it factored into overall costs, or told later and about the costs involved.
Seems like the yacht builder may need to relocate to another site that supports the building of these larger vessels.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say we just want them to pay at least what we pay in taxes especially when they're getting billions of our tax dollars in subsidies
Proportionally, at least in US they actually still pay way more than you do.
@@_TeaMaster they literally pay no taxes at all. That just got leaked like 6 months ago that the top richest paid zero tax and you know what The whole day pay just as much in no, they don't not percentage-wise and let's face it. If you take 30% from somebody who makes $100,000, You're taking a lot more away than someone who makes 1 billion as a percentage of their net income
@@_TeaMaster Not exactly. Clever accounting and outdated tax laws allow a for a lot of wealth retention that the IRS doesn't collect. Billionaires reducing their taxable "income," underpaying their workforce and relying on welfare subsidies to increase their company's profits with an unofficial subsidy, etc.
@@missingpiece2071 mf doesn’t know how taxes work
Roughly 45% of Americans do not pay any federal income tax. In 2020 that was a lot higher due to stimulus funds (61%)
Remember that the most equal nations all have one thing in common: High taxation rates, especially on corporations and the rich.
I'll take my own native Sweden as example:
The Swedish taxation rates vary depending on the income level, as it is a progressive taxation system. The highest marginal tax rate are 57.1% for income above SEK 685,000 per year. That is about USD 63,299 at the time of writing.
Well, the classical Keynesian argument for higher top tax rates on the wealthy isn't about redistribution per se, it's that containing inflation by taxing the wealthy is better than all the other available options.
Some goods and services need to be provided via public spending (the argument about which ones these are can be deferred for a bit, but only the most insane libertarians would argue for privately owned law courts, military and police). Governments CAN just conjure this money into existence via fiat, but this will cause inflation once the economy is running at capacity. Letting the inflation happen will be disruptive to businesses and people's personal spending, and it also amounts to a wealth transfer from housing renters to housing owners. So the solution is either higher taxes on someone or having the central bank impose high interest rates on the economy to slow growth and constrict the money supply. For the most part, the latter option has been preferred by the US since about 1981. The problem with higher interest rates is that they hurt small businesses and entrepreneurs, and make it harder for talented people to climb the social ladder if they need to borrow money to pay for their higher education. They also tend to increase unemployment, suppressing growth in the wages of working people.
So when inflation rears its head, someone needs to pay more in taxes. Should it be folks like Bezos or the ordinary 47% of freeloaders who, per Mitt Romney, pay no income tax? Well if Bezos ain't got the money to buy a new superyacht, then all the folks employed to make and staff that superyacht are out of work, but what about the 10,000 ordinary schmoes who need to pay higher taxes instead if taxes on income are increased by a flat rate instead? Every one of them has a few hundred or thousand per year less to spend on their consumption, or less to spend on reducing their mortgages or paying down their student loan debt. So all of the people employed providing the goods and services they would have bought are now out of job, OR the money they need to borrow or the debts they didn't pay off means that the money lent to them DOESN'T get used by corporations or businesses looking to borrow or expand. No matter how you cut it, taxing Bezos hurts the economy less than taxing the poor, or forcing them further into debt.
But aren't the rich better at starting productive businesses than ordinary people? Congratulations, you no longer believe financial markets work.
Does this mean I think Warren wealth tax is a good idea? No, I'd prefer much higher top income brackets, capital gains taxes and a much more draconian estate tax that eats a higher percentage of assets as the size of the estate and the difference in ages between the testator and beneficiary increases. Also I'd have this estate tax treat emigration as death. I'd also allow the wealthy to borrow money to pay estate and capital gains taxes early and write off the interest they pay against their income taxes, with the amount of the prepayment increasing at the rate of the interest on the national debt. If Elon Musk/Jeff Bezos is genuinely consistently able to beat the market in business creation, then the value of their estate will increase faster than their debt, so that their heirs will come out ahead of where they would be if they paid the estate tax duties at the time of inheritance.
this kicks ass. why emigration tho?
@@pretor92 As of right now in the US, a billionaire can simply evade the estate tax by moving to the Bahamas and renouncing their US Citizenship. The most famous example I can think of would be the late Sir John Templeton. I guess I should have elaborated that emigration PLUS citizenship renunciation would be required.
Very Interesting and quite clear vs Patrick Boyle's pseudo right-wing talking points. I don't understand how emmigration could be treated as death though, there is no political party in any democracy that could swing that
@@maxmelser35 See my above clarification, we're only talking about people who emigrate AND renounce their citizenship to evade the estate tax. That's a current loophole in the US system.
You are absolutely wrong that “when Inflation rears it’s ugly head, someone needs to pay more taxes.” That misdiagnoses the inflation problem to begin with. Reduce the size of government and inflation will end… full stop.
"Or that small underground taxi company he owns in Las Vegas" 🙆♂️🤣🤣🤣
I feel like net worth and earnings are the two most overused yet misunderstood metrics that cause this debate in the first place. The US public ed system doesn't teach on business or finance, so the whole of society isn't even equipped to enter this conversation before reactionary arguments come their way.
what's your point. musk or bezos are major stockholders in their companies and those are valued, sometimes more sometimes less realistically. They use that valuations to get loans so they dont have to spend actual money of their own and can get tax deductions.
Right, so they should shuttup, keep being taken advantage of and never given a voice. Because they just dont get it, so leave the conversation to the “smart” ones… K bud. People might not understand the ins-and-outs but can still know something is skewy.
@@creatrixZBD I believe their point is that we should have business and finance classes at all schools, and not a "sometimes offered, sometimes not" class in random areas. That way everyone is equipped not only to spot the problem, but to better find a solution. It will also make it harder for elites to pull a fast one on us.
Is he implying that when a poor person gets money, they don't immediately spend most of it? don't they circulate a larger percent of their income? How can he say it's a zero sum game? Giving 100 dollars to poor working people circulates a lot more then if i gave that same 100 dollars to someone of extreme wealth???
In Australia, my perspective is that the mining companies should be more heavily taxed, and the money used to invest into new science and technology industries. Mining makes up a large part of the economy, but it cannot last forever as eventually either supply will run out or demand will drop. It's just putting all the eggs in one basket if they don't diversify.
Nah mate, you couldn't sell it to the Australian people 😂😂
Yeah, like government just hoards all this money or gives it directly to others. Spoiler alert, government spends this money on public goods, which both require skilled work and provide the public good, while rich spending just requires skilled work. Also what is growing net worth in stocks if not saving money. Investment creates goods only when u put money in
The government consists of people who in aggregate have the following agenda:
1. Siphon what you can into your pocket.
2. Buy favors/votes.
@@finwalter395 a group of people is better than one individual, first of all the chance of u being in that group is higher, second the chance that one of them has goals close to u is higher, third it's easier for u to affect them, since individualy they have less power. I could continue, but since u ignored my first arguments, there's little chance u aren't gonna do it again.
P. S. It's funny that people in government are inherintly bad, but rich people are inherently good
@@EvgeniiIvanov-w5n First, be respectful and don't put words into my mouth. I never mentioned rich people nor did I implied that they are somehow inherently good. It doesn't even make sense to view top government officials and rich people as different groups, because top government officials are rich. Thinking in terms of good and evil isn't helpful at all. It's in every humans nature to look for his own advantage.
I would argue that governments and public companies are the same structure. Therefore you will find the same breed of people in their leader boards. Top government officials and top executives both fight ruthlessly for the top positions in their organisations. They have to focus on short term results to please their voters/share holders. And they're usually looking to boost their wealth while in power.
It's naive to view the government as someone who has your well-being at heart.
I really expected better from Boyle. At a minimum, I'd expect him to acknowledge that huge swathes of what we consider an "advanced" economy simply wouldn't exist were it not for publicly funded basic research -- the kind of scientific inquiry that the private sector has practically *never* been willing to support. Boyle's presentation sounds like a glibertarian hack's fallback argument, "It's Econ 101".
@@samuelglover7685 It's a balance. Government does thing's that are not profitable which is good for humanity in some cases but the government is terrible at producing which capitalism is good at which make's a population strong. You need both because either one left to it's own devices is bad. I am more right of center but realize the positive of government but they spend way too much in my opinion
I dunno, you can extend that "$1 song giving more value to an individual listener while simultaneously making the artist rich" example to the converse case of the government taking taxed wealth of many ultra rich people and, say, building a high speed rail network. I'm traveling through Europe on SNCF, Renfe, ICE, etc., and I'm willing to bet that the aggregated utility given to the millions of riders vastly outweighs the monetary worth the otherwise extremely rich in Europe had to pay.
The richest in the US have significantly more wealth than the richest in Europe but I don't particularly feel bad for the rich in Europe. Trust me, they're doing just fine and not particularly complaining that they can't eat lizards too. This seems like a very American sentiment of being prepared to fight "the man" when they as a poor/middle class citizen inevitably become the next Jeff Kizzes. Dear TH-cam comments section, you are never going to become a billionaire, you don't need to be so prepared to protect your ability to get divorced and wear tight pants or buy Twitter to compensate.
High speed rail in Europe is because of good, dense urban planning saving infrastructure money that goes to sprawling and congested roads. The billionares aren't important to high speed rail.
You are 10x better than CNBC and The Wall Street Journal combined! Thanks for the great video!
Kind of an insult. I would imagine he's _at least_ 13.455562x better with a variance of +- 0.3448x
He... doesn't even know Elon DIDN'T found Tesla? And that the value of "providing jobs" that barely pay enough to live on whilst being in a physically unsafe toxic workplace is questionable? Why should I take this seriously?
Part 1: billionaires should keep their money because they spend a lot and that trickles down to the poors. Part 2: billionaires are strapped for cash and can’t pay taxes
He is correct that spending money generates wealth, but he completely ignores that billionaires are *incredibly* frugal as a segment of the population, relative to the poorest people. A poor person spends 100% or more of their annual income whereas a rich person, even a super yacht buyer, will spend only a small fraction. Thus they are hoarding wealth and hurting the economy, in a way that a poor person would not.
Billionaires who reinvest most of their money via charity (Gates, Buffet) or structural reinvesting (like musk or bezos do) arguably are less 'frugal' than some simply because they do actually spend their money, but when we look at the 1% as a whole, most of them spend only a small portion of their income. Someone making 200k is going to be saving/hoarding a lot more than someone who makes 20k. If you do a direct cash transfer from the richest to the poorest, it'd be an incredible stimulus that would spur MASSIVE amounts of spending (for good or ill - the result could just be inflation)
As for the second half.... I agree that a wealth tax is sort of arbitrary and hard to implement in a fair fashion, mostly because its very hard to evaluate how much someone's assets are really worth. (and that ambiguity leaves lots of room for the wealthy to hide their assets - not a good outcome) But that isn't the only way to tax the rich! Corporate and Capital Gains taxes are very low relative to historical levels, and respresent sources of income only available to relatively wealthy people. A Land Value Tax is similar.
I don't buy that people like Musk wouldn't found companies if they faced marginally higher tax rates. They might reinvest slightly less, but even then I'm skeptical.
@@TheStrangeBloke lol at you for believing that billionaires stuff their billions under their mattress. When you're talking about a billionaire's wealth you are mostly talking about the price of a stock they own. Their wealth is an illusion. There's no money bin full of cash anywhere.
@@NYCZ31 Obviously billionaires own stocks rather than giant wads of dollars. But "owning stocks" is not a vital component of the economy. Anyone can own stocks. What a stupid argument.
What super-wealthy people don't do, is consume. Very little of their wealth goes to consumption of goods. Sure Bezos buys a super yacht and sure this video is correct - that spurs the economy! But as a fraction of his wealth its pretty trivial.
Poorer people do consume. You give a broke guy 1000 dollars, that money is spent within the hour.
So a direct cash transfer from billionaires to the poor is a huge boost to consumption, leading to the economic development he talks about but way way way more pronounced. That's something we maybe don't need right now, but it did pretty much inarguably save us during the pandemic.
So true 😂
@@TheStrangeBloke You are not adressing the point. You fundamentally misunderstand or misrepresent what values a billionaire has. A billionaire owns (parts of) large companies. The value of these companies directly arise from their ability to generate income in the future. The values therefore take the form of machines that produce things people need, people with in-depth knowledge, supply chains, physical sites where people work, et cerera. These are the 'dead' billions of the 'frugal' billionaires that 'dont contribute to the economy'. Is it better for the economy to have a steel plant producing steel, or for that plant to be dismantled for parts and the money given to poor people to buy cheeseburgers? And what about the cheeseburger store? Perhaps they should close and sell all their inventory and buildings and give the money to poor people to do ... what? What the economy really relies on are things being made and distributed, and what is portrayed as the net worth of billionaires are the things doing exactly that.
Hell, even money on a bank account is productive. That money is a loan that finances something somewhere, probably in some way a government bond. So that money is helping building schools and maintaining roads, no tax required. It's just that you can claim it when you want to.
I’d like to hear you talk about the middle class. Ideas on how to make the middle class larger. What is the current middle class income(definitely varies by region) are how many (middle class people are moving out of cities/states due to housing prices and taxes) Is there an imbalance between costs of certain commodities that are benefiting the rich and why is that? What do you think about “you will own nothing” I don’t take it literally but I think there is a possibility that most Americans will HAVE to be in debt to be “middle class”
Right now most people will have to take on debt to pay for a home but with guidance at a young age a middle class income and saving strategies it is possible to pay it off in 15 years but it feels like the expensive stuff is getting wayyyy more expensive. Outpacing normal price things. Monopolies?? Big corporations?
This is the first time I press a like button on a video that makes arguments I might not totally agree with. As a person with a background in physics rather than economics, your videos make me want to study these topics in more depth as they provide a perspective I was mostly unaware of.
Thank you for the good work and the dry delivery
When they say that taxing the rich and passing it to the poor is a 'zero sum game' because no services are being produced in relation to this transaction and thus this doesn't help the economy, it's a very myopic view of the situation and kinda besides the whole point. The point is to let the poor a better starting position. The money given is effectively invested into better education and living facilities of this poor, so that they can create wealth, knowledge and solutions in a better way than they would otherwise be able to. This point was completely ignored it seemed, so I couldn't have the patience or interest to continue listening. Also the services that some of this money that the rich spend to buy is actually often overpriced and harmful for the sustainability of the planet, for example nonsense space trips, yacht ride for a person and his pets, and not relevant to developing humanity and human potential. I have some background in a subject related to yours and about none in economics, and I usually like the videos on this channel, but this one seemed not so well made, at least.
Also their spending is not really commensurate to the amount wealth they accumulate, another reason taxation is good.
@Debanjan Nandi Yeah whatever dude, but it's hard not to notice that your comment glaringly avoids the whole "what about the luxury yacht seat cover artisan upholsterers that would needlessly go unemployed if you were to tax the rich?" argument which is so convincingly addressed in this video. Not to mention the Siberian beaver poachers who have to work extremely hard to find such rare and endangered animals to provide the fur for the helicopter carpet. So mate, please try to think these things through in the future.
@@SofaKingShit ''Not to mention the Siberian beaver poachers who have to work extremely hard to find such rare and endangered animals to provide the fur for the helicopter carpet'' .. Kinda sounds like sarcasm or parody.. Anyway, we were all poaching and hunting, until some got better livelihoods as civilization progressed, through access to better education and resources, thanks to taxation.
th-cam.com/video/NJQt6qLjofI/w-d-xo.html
The issue arises when certain individuals have found a way to have so much power they can influence to such an extent they're playing by a different set of rules. Think special "foundations" and other interests who have influence over governments, other international organisations that set policy, the UN, WHO and so on
What I'm wondering about the incentive argument: isn't it good for competition that there's not an incentive to create so big companies that they're essentially monopolies?
Confused how a generally intelligent commentator can get this so wrong. Billionaire spending does NOT trickle down across society: it inflates a few sectors (namely real estate and luxury good) beyond anything that is healthy, while leaving utterly dry the actual productive sectors. Do we need any reminder how damaging and gross the effects of the super-rich/corporate investment in real estate since the pandemic has been?
I’m from Rotterdam, people over here aren’t that happy about bringing down the bridge… it is one of the pieces that did not got destroyed during ww2 in Rotterdam!
Thnx for the video again.
It's getting put back up again, and the municipality benefits from the jobs and tax revenue. People over there have more pressing matters to be concerned about, like the fact that actual Dutch people make up less than half of the population of the city.
Do what they do elsewhere - take a chunk off the top and finish it elsewhere.
I try to avoid the word "bailout" because it obfuscates the (large) difference between grants, loans, and asset purchases.
Otherwise, another very good video.
is "baller bailout" better? or would you prefer "Huge-ass bailout"
I think looking at giving grants due to a wealth tax as being zero-sum is a bit short sighted. You yourself said that billionaires spending money puts money in the economy and the same is true for anyone else. Someone or some organization that supports people in poverty also puts money in the economy in the same way. The difference would be instead of money going into the economy for super yachts and massive mansions, it goes into the economy for people in poverty to get dental work, rent a home/apartment, have kids, send their kid to a good school, buy a car, etc.
Assuming that people getting benefits from wealth taxes would just horde the money in a bank account just to be able to claim it's a zero-sum wash is really strange to me. I've never heard of of someone who is really poor who wouldn't use money to spend on things to better their living conditions.
EXACTLY! And he also uses a strawman argument that if we tax the ultra wealthy, small businesses with little free cash flow won't be able to stay open. The whole argument is the ULTRA WEALTHY, not middle class citizens starting a business. Billion dollar corporations hide their money in assets, overseas, and anywhere where they can't be taxed on it. Not that they can't liquidate it but rather that it'd increase their taxes. If we get rid of that gap, they can no longer hide it and have to pay on capital gains right away.
Yeah, I'm really not sure how Patrick missed this point. When you're talking about ultra-wealthy and their ability to convert goods via various transactions, there isn't anything exclusive to billionaires that allows this to occur. We see this at all levels of the economy, at all levels of income, and in all types of economies.
The biggest issue with me is that this description of a tax being zero-sum seems to directly conflict with basic common sense about other conversions that the government does cause with their budget. I don't think anyone would view a tax for schools as zero sum, I personally enjoy living amongst an educated population and it's pretty easy to see how those initial tax dollars are converted into long-term economic returns on value. If we tax, let's say all people with a net worth greater than 10 billion USD @ 1% annually, and direct it to education, is it still zero sum? Does it magically now convert as opposed to if the funds are directed to say, cash stipends? If we direct the funds to just buying gobs of bombs and guns, doesn't that employ a metric ton defense contractors who earn a salary who now contribute more to the economy?
You could play that game all day, with every form of tax, and every type of economic transaction. In this case, I'd like to see Patrick actually cite or source some amount of research that finds that wealth taxes and the uses of that tax are inherently more zero-sum than any other tax or economic transactions.
@@2639theboss Yeah I try and think in this way too. To me if you want to keep the same budget, by not raising taxes, fine and I'm all for it. But then the solutions to solving clear and obvious problems to anyone that goes outside needs to include cutting wasteful spending on things that don't impact the public en-masse.
Looking at these type of issues with a basic 2 - 2 = 0 mindsight totally ignores tangential benefits and future benefits even if it is mathematically a zero-sum move. Moving money from mega-ultron transformers yachts into education is a better use for that money even if it's zero-sum.
@@troy3423 It would be interesting to see what research has been done on tax structures based around net worth or assets instead of income. People and corporations with money can easily game the system by moving around assets/money by "paying" for services from another company that's in a certain industry while owning both companies. Using each company to fund their lifestyle with physical assets under corporate ownership and so are tax deductions.
They can be like Musk and Bezos where they "only get an 80,000" salary but utilize business assets constantly in their day to day life in the highest luxury you can buy. Or get massive hundreds of millions in lines of credit to fund your life using huge stock options as collateral.
@@mohi0ne306 Them Spending IS the value. It being spent on consumer good is beneficial to economies.
Also I'm not sure you really got the point I was making. I agree that you can look at it as "zero-sum" and I have no issue there. But I feel that it is overlooking the longer term economic impacts that each scenario has overall. WHERE the money is used is also important.
Looking at economics in purely math terms and stripping away the context of what is happening with the money doesn't make sense to me.
The argument "An individual can only earn money when someone else willingly pays it to them, for a service or product that nobody is required to buy."
Really bad argument imo. There are many things people HAVE to buy. Homes, food, healthcare, water, the list goes on. I was expecting an actually good rebuttal to higher taxes, not false representations of how the economy works.
The other thing to consider about mutually beneficial free market transactions, is that it's not only taxation that is coercive. Being poor means you have to sell your labour under duress, due to the threat of homelessness and starvation, leaving you at a massive disadvantage in negotiating a position, or in having any resources or time to improve your value on the market.
I'd argue that if that's the burden the poor have to bear, then extra taxation is a reasonable burden for the wealthy to bear, if we're going to keep the system operating to everyone's benefit.
The free market is only really free if all the participants are within a reasonable band of wealth. Massive monopolies and extremes of hoarded wealth break it from above, and poverty breaks it from below.
Money is always attracted to more money. Wealth always flows upwards. At the end of the day, there has to be a mechanism to recirculate it from the top back down to bottom, otherwise it will just end up piled up at the top, and the market will cease to function.
Trickledown economics and relying on wealth being spent downwards is demonstrably too slow and weak a force to balance the upward flow. If it worked, we wouldn't be in the situation we are now.
Excellently argued. Well done.
thank you
In all fairness, no company owes you a job.
@@shauncameron8390 .
Low taxation is surprisingly not correlated with higher potential for economic growth. But it seems to me, an external observer, that high wealth disparity within the US is causing a rift within the society, eg. decline in the midwest and increases on the coasts causing a political polarization. And not to mention the insane pressure of massive student loans just so you can hope to get a job that might eventually pay it off. Such communal stress can't be good for the society long term.
I don't quite buy the argument that the mega wealthy would give up London, NYC or LA because of increased taxes. It sounds easy, but not too many would pull their kids out of school and move to Switzerland for example. I'd like to hear billionaires argue with their spouses that they should move from Manhattan just because the government wants a million more per year, and that's why they should find a new school and social life somewhere else.
spot on.. america is in cultural, political, economic decline and the situation is not improving
Just look at California, some of the highest taxes and most scrupulous business regulations in the country and people are leaving in mass for states that are friendlier to business. Proving even middle class Americans are willing to move for lower cost of living/taxes.
Agree with the communal stress part. I grew up in a Chinese city with extreme income inequality (Beijing, for anyone wondering) and little social safety net. The result is that people are forced to subscribe to the rat race because 1) the door for getting into the top is almost shut, 2) if you don't accumulate "enough" wealth, and something bad, like divorce or illness happen to you, you lose your basic human dignity due to the almost non-existent social security. Notice how I put quotation marks around the word "enough", because "enough" it not a set number. People's anxiety is rarely alleviated which means people work more and more in pursuit of more and more wealth.
Economists like to say how the removal of social safety net motivates people to work harder, and leads to more efficient spending, but I wonder how many Americans really know the downside of anxiety caused by lack of safety net. Some downsides include: anxiety about financial prospect lead to overworking, overworking leads to lack of recreational spending, the pressure to climb the ladder makes people stop cooperating with each other and hurts innovation, inadequate social safety net means people are less willing to take risk which also hurts innovation.
Inequality is an extremely complicated problem. Patrick Boyle discussed many aspects of this cluster mess, but I feel that he focused more on the macroeconomic side of things (which I understand, since that is the area he has expertise in). Average North Americans like us who are stressed about housing cost, gas prices, food prices going up right in front of our eyes do not have enough mental bandwidth to focus most discussions on the zoomed out picture of the economy
The current situation isn't a simple one, and can't be viewed entirely through economic lens. Its not going to have a clean answer because of that. It's not a policy problem, but a matter of politics.
Inequality is a problem because it's a sign of growing concentration of power and businesses, which ends up increasing stress everywhere. Part of it is political changes that has disempowered the working class and small business over the years. A lot of it is technological though. Many of the internet industries are winner take all, which leads to monopolies. There's not a clear policy to solve this, although if I had to offer one up, stopping corporate consolidation and forcing companies to break up would make the most sense.
@@Jameleo No proof for what you are saying
I think the super wealthy need to be convinced it’s better, and in their self-interest, to live in a safe, just, and beautiful society than it is to lock yourself in a gilded prison on the high seas…
Those aren't even mutually exclusive
@@gustopher6500
No, but they should realize that the actual difference between five billion and ten billion really doesn’t affect them.
There’s nothing you can do with a hundred billion of something that you can’t do with fifty billion. At a certain point wealth just becomes a dick measuring contest….
The adage: ‘How many yachts do you need to waterski behind’ comes to mind.
@@Ckom-Tunes did I not agree lmao?
@CoeusQuantitative
‘If you need to be convinced…’ What the hell does that mean? You’re quite the incomprehensible philosopher aren’t you?
@@gustopher6500
Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that I disagreed with you.
For a person who is aware of many angles and elements of financial reality, you have made a few elisions which avoid the real subject.
The purpose of the tax proposed by Sen. Warren is not to obtain the same multiplier effect as spending by billionaires on yachts.
No, it is to systematically support people getting access to full functionality in our society, and make that integral to how our government works. It might help to remember that Warren practiced bankruptcy law. The support of failures which lead to bankruptcy is an important part of the confidence of capitalism.
Your use of the term "confiscation" is a rhetorical device to avoid acknowledging the obligation of us all to pay taxes, and characterize the brackets of taxation at the very top as an offense to a natural right.
I expect a better reasoning from you, and I look forward to seeing a video with an evolved understanding..
Dude ... the point was, is and will be that there will be ppl with (=rich) and those without money (=plebs). This has been the case during the stone age and is the case today and will be in the future. Currently in the "west" we have a social capitalism - if we had pure capitalism that would mean that 0.1% would own everything (remember the middle age, kings, dukes, etc?).
So the next point is - who runs the system ? I hope you guess it right - it's not you and not the plebs. It's those who have the money and they will make sure that the system will stay as it is - whether it's a Warren Buffet or Nancy Pelosi or Elon Musk or whoever. So get used to it you poor losers - swallow it and get over it. Be happy that anyone rich pays at all some taxes - it's a piece of cake to not to pay taxes as you might guess it.
@Patrick - well done !
He addressed pretty much all points that needed to be addressed, if you are interested you can do a point by point breakdown. You on the other hand have two points, 1) the tax isn't a tax because a politician said something and promised to use it on things. 2) The usage of the term confiscation is wrong. One of your points are wrong, the other is debatable.
Don't tax the rich, don't bail out their businesses either.
LMAO i love the sponsor part picturing Patrick doing EVERYTHING in a suit xD
Nice talk :-) Any chance of a video about land value tax (LVT) in relation to inequality and prosperity? Thanks!!
This is called in DeFi, the opposite of where Boyle works, “shilling his bags”. i.e “I’m a business owner and I’m only paper rich” “please don’t make me pay taxes”. But what he forgot to mention is that those gentleman use their “paper wealth” to serve as collateral for spending loans that are tax deductible! 😂
I pay 25% , you pay 25%. I earn 40k, you borrow 40M. Let’s both pay 25% ;)
Seems mostly reasonable to me (though some people would point out that if their business goes under they'll lose all their collateral) I guess in this scenario you would be taxed on a home equity loan as well if your house's assessed value went up?
are you suggesting business owners borrow against their assets to pay taxes on unrealized gains? What if the assets go down in value? Do they get a refund?
@@mikehallrealestate if you borrow against something that has appreciated in value it's hard to argue that it's an unrealized gain. If the asset decreases in value and that drop is recognized by the bank/lender then maybe you should get a tax write off for the next year just like when a company loses money.
@@j03man44 you’re missing the broader picture. When you borrow against assets it’s done to inject money into the economy and/or grow your business with that money pulled out. If you’re just removing equity from firms to completely lose on taxes, you’re just weakening them. Like hollowing out a tree.
Think about being forced to take out a heloc on your home every time the value rises to pay Uncle Sam.
@@mikehallrealestate that argument seems valid against any form of taxation. I would grow the value of my house more if I wasn't paying a 20% tax rate. I would invest in a more fuel efficient vehicle. I would save more for my children's education. There's a whole lot of liquidity to be gained by abolishing taxes in general and we can have that discussion but you haven't persuaded me that it would be any more harmful to recognize borrowing against an appreciated asset as a gain than taxing someone's labor.
In my opinion, increasing the tax rates for high income households and spending this additional revenue on subsidising public education is definitely not a zero sum game. Neither would be just giving it to low income households, since they have a higher marginal propensity to consume compared to high income households. This money would find its way back into the economy by spending it on consumption goods instead of keeping it in the bank or on the stock market..
You make a good point. Having now been at both ends of the wealth spectrum, I now spend far less of my income and increased net worth in the economy. Instead, I'm making sure that next year when I pay for that expensive sailboat I've ordered I'll still be flush. Your points support why a universal basic income would be far better for government, business and individuals than allowing the mega-wealthy to pay no taxes. Money is utility. If it's just piling up it's not doing much. Musk's 'money' (20% ownership of Tesla) is working very hard, but that $11 billion in taxes he's just sold shares to pay will make an impact, as will the $5 billion he's set aside for charity. (I hope he opens his engineering and science university.) When he sold those shares my Tesla investment dropped noticeably, it's dropped even more because of other factors - I'm not worried.
Define high income
@@samwiseganja4071 doesn’t really matter, all I’m trying to say is that it is not a zero sum game. Let’s say the top 10% for arguments sake. Besides income tax there are numerous other ways to do this btw, higher estate taxes, higher capital gains tax etc
@@WillN2Go1 if you are interested in this kind of thing you could read “the price of inequality” by Joseph Stiglitz or “Utopia for realists” by Rutger Bregman.
@@blox1990 it does matter, ultra rich, rich, middle class ? Cause I can say that middle class is heavily taxed.
I don't understand your logic behind why taxing the rich isn't worth doing just because "it's a relatively small amount". So what? So are the taxes I pay each year, but I still pay them.
Man, it is not about tax the rich -- it is about rich to pay their fair shares. The current tax system in US has such giant holes to allow rich to evade tax legally. US will collapse one day because of this.
How is a progressive tax rate “fair” to begin with?
They already do accounting for 70-80% of all taxes paid.
Meanwhile Patrick is flexing on us with his champagne collection in the background
To help offset that he could have Elvis in velvet on the wall
I appreciate your work and analyses. This episode though…I find a number of assumptions with which I disagree and some are based on political statements, which are not reality. Bottom line is we have some very well off people contributing very little proportionately to the common good, and benefitting hugely from systems the masses sustain. How they are held to contribute is the sticky wicket.
Assume we distribute the entire net worth of America's 1% to the population of the United States. Then remember that this wealth in large part is not a salary but net worth so you don't get to repeat this every year. How much did you benefit? If you actually do the math you see it's not solving any real problem other than making you feel happy about eating the rich.
@@Oscar-vd4cvDid you read what I wrote? Since I believe everyone should contribute, how that is done is the “sticky wicket.” You appear to assume I support a fixed proportion of wealth be contributed.
@@jaymacpherson8167 in the united states, the rich already pay a much higher proportion already in taxes than the non rich. I didn't say you were in support of a fixed wealth contribution, but by doing that thought experiment, it shows that the source of problems isn't solved even if we completely confiscate the entire net worth of the 1%. It's meant to make you realize the differences in wealth are not the source of all our problems, and if completely confiscating their wealth doesn't solve anything how is taxing it more even close to one of the solutions.
@@Oscar-vd4cv Because this is just a perfect solution fallacy. Obviously there is no single solution to solving the problem of debt. However taxing rich people from a cost/benefit perspective is about as good as it gets. So it should be a cornerstone of any serious attempt to pay down the debt.
Also he is cherry picking hard. Using overly inflated numbers that include pandemic relief spending. And ignoring the fact that rich people, are probably going to get significantly richer over time, as they tend to do.
''which are not reality''.......you meant to say......not YOUR reality.
3:35 When people spend their money, it works it's way through the economy, to grocery stores and transportation paying those people's wages, so on and so on. Poor people, by definition, spend all their money, while the wealthy, by definition, do not. So if the sole goal was maximizing money spent, would that not be in *favor* of taxing the vast majority of wealth and distributing the resulting money to people who would spend all of it?
For me, the problem isn't that people are buying absurdly expensive items nobody truly needs. Hell, great works of art have cost obscene fortunes but are certainly a win in my book. The problem I have is that while there are a lot of people suffering due to a lack of opportunities and low income these people are spending their vast wealth on buying these boats instead of attempting to use their wealth to better the world. Jeff Bezos for example could easily spend half his vast fortune on helping others while still being so very rich he need never worry about living in any condition other than extreme comfort. Whether taxes are the solutions to this though, considering the often inept systems governments have in place, I honestly can't say, and I personally have my doubts if that'll be a one trick fix. It also certainly does not help that the companies under the wing of these billionairs are more often than not accused of under paying, over working, and generally treating staff poorly. *Cough* Amazon cracking down on unions *Cough*
I found this to be a more nuanced look at the feasibility of a wealth tax than what economics explained did. But I am a little bit disappointed that Patrizio neglected to cover why there are calls for a wealth tax in the first place. Because the mega rich are using creative accounting to avoid paying taxes. Both on their earnings and their companies earnings. Yeah they are two separate issues technically but they overlap when looked at more broadly in terms of widening wealth disparity. The rich are getting richer while the working classes are sliding into poverty as the cost of living skyrockets all around
If you were a billionaire how would you like politicians spending your hard earned money on absolute garbage?
Limiting the number of houses someone can own and controlling rent prices fixes the housing issues
While oil is expensive because companies make it expensive
food is expensive because china is hoarding it to sell for indebting africa and asia
Like the gates foundation. Most of the money spent in "charity" goes back to Bill Gates clean because he employs his own companies to do the charity work for him.
@@rumplstiltztinkerstein yeah the charity is a scam, but if i was a billionaire i'd trust my own companies to do the work better, if it was actually for charity.
@@thatundeadlegacy2985 if I were a billionaire I’d happily pay taxes in full if the government was using its tax revenue to maintain a robust social security network so that everyone can afford healthcare and education and that the government was investing in maintaining and developing critical infrastructure needed for future economic growth
@@unstoppableExodia oh sure i'd be fine with an equal % as everyone else, but politicians get a MASSIVE HARD ON TO EXCESSIVLY TAX THE RICH. caps.
All questions of taxation aside, it does seem inherently obscene that one person might control the income and resources of thousands of average people, while others struggle to afford a home, an education, or even starve. A society that is comfortable with this situation seems a bit unhinged to me. The 99 percent just taking a ton of wealth, by taxation or even force, would seem almost like a logical outcome. Submitting to increased taxation might be a smart PR move for the truly wealthy at this point.
You're in unhinged. Equality is a pipe dream.
I 100% agree. I also know a lot of people have tried to solve this in the past, a lot of people died.
"...free services like Facebook and Google..."
To me, I think we have to actually redfine the value of data, because obviously Facebook and Google aren't running off donations and the will of the people. There is money there, and that money lies in the data. Ipso facto: data is money. Many would like to discredit this position, as the uncertain terms of data makes it so that the general consumer or investor doesn't really know where the money comes from. Therefore I don't distinguish. Data is money. Your private data is money.
I'm not a fan of the idea that "data" is what is valuable. It's the advertising space that is valuable, not your data. More data just allows for more effective advertising.
Excellent,
Patrick, you hit the nail right on the head.
I don't mind that Jeff Basos has a big boat, what I mind is that I, as a tax payer, paid to build his warehouses.
And about the lack of modesty and consideration by Billionaires; when Jeff Basos dumps his wife, mother of his children and the woman who helped him build Amazon in the lean years, for a younger, sexier model that is none of our business, it is his business but it is our business, being that Besos influences society, how we judge his actions.
Capitalists do not enjoy the fruits of their labor as they do not work. They enjoy the fruits of OUR labor, and that is a problem. The capital owner does not work, they make others work for them.
Strongly disagree that collecting through tax and redistributing through grants is a zero sum gain. To work everyone needs food, needs housing, needs the basics... If that is made possible by taxing the top and elevating the bottom then it CANNOT be a zero sum... You're essentially enabled a workforce that is going to pay the return through wages, how can that be zero sum?
When the US gov bail out big banks, back in 2008, I thought they received equity in exchanged? I think US fed received their ROI in early 2017 or 2018, from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
I believe they did.
Nice jacket
Nice champagnes at hand!
Genuine lol at your exercise and oven cleaning clips.. Great content as always with bonus lol
'Inequality' is complaint that's way too vague to take seriously. It's politics - it is a perfect justification for 'eat the rich' demagoguery since it's not even specific.
Like, unless we're talking about *everyone* being equal, what is an acceptable level of inequality? Why should it be expected?
I did not think this was needed to be pointed out, but 10% from 1B equates to far more taxed money, than your 40% on a 60k average salary.. Don't get caught in flashy headlines.. 👀👀👍
Come on, Patrick, you know trickle down economics doesn't work. Like a turbocharged car, our whole successful societies all work on cross subsidy and that includes some form of progressive tax system. And remember, except for those like your mate Hugh Hendry, people want to migratev to such countries.
agreed. if elon musk stopped working when he made his 100 mill, then someone else would have done what he has with spacex and tesla!
@@itemushmush Like take a billions of taxpayers and retirement fund money and burn that cash for something that normal company in industry can do for 1% of the cost.
Kind of misleading calling Singapore a low tax country when you have to pay such a high tax on things like cars. Sort of like calling Texas no tax when the property tax is so much every year.
Absolutely love how you can present such a controversial topic in all its complexities. Really adds to the conversation about wealth inequality instead of just reading the same talking points over and over again.
I don't know. It sounded like the standard 'rich people create jobs' talking points.
@@davidjohnston1799 well yeah….that’s because they do. 😂
@@davidjohnston1799 Yeah, I can't help but feel this was by far the least well argumented video of his I've watched in the last year or so. It also ignored facts like how Walmart makes so much profit by pushing competition out of the market, which in turn is accomplished by paying below-poverty-level wages, to the point that large swathes of their employees require welfare to survive - and this is just ONE example.
Also some factual errors like Musk "starting up" Tesla. He bought his "founder" title, he was not an actual founder of the company.
There was also nary a peep about how one of the greatest golden eras of US was when the rich had 90% tax rate, which would suggest taxing the rich is actually good for the country.
Patrick, your analysis is excellent and you obviously strive to show multiple viewpoints. What would you think is a plausible solution? Make a video on some options! Thanks.
I love the juxtaposition of some couple doing tai chi on a super-yacht, with a masked guy on a balcony with head in hands.
5:19 you claim that taking money from the rich and redistributing to the poor is a zero-sum game. By that logic, why bother having taxes at all, as it is just a zero-s game? How about letting the poor who could benefit from these transfers of wealth to continue to live in poverty while working barely livable wages for companies like Amazon, Uber, and Walmart? It's a "zero sum game" in that companies won't be able to reinvest their profits for growth made made off of the workers who gain none of the benefits and own none of the capital.
You could also put that money towards infrastructure, public healthcare, military etc. Because then the money would be spent again
Not all taxes are a zero sum game... Just the ones where you take from one person and give it to another with out the creation of a product. Noone is saying taxing people to build roads is a zero sum game because the roads that result from that tax improve the efficiency of the economy and therefore create wealth.
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I've enjoyed many of your videos, and I enjoyed your perspective on this one, but I completely disagree.
Warren's "wealth tax" is a silly idea. But taxing the pants off of INCOME seems very reasonable. All income is income. Tax it at the same rate. If you happen to own a giant company and hold your wealth there, that's great. And THE COMPANY has all sorts of tax loopholes and incentives to encourage them to invest in growth and diversify. But the second that money hits your bank as income... tax it. As income.
And we live in a society where we all get a say in what's important to our government, which is supposed to be responsive to our social desires. Philanthropy is by definition spending on what one rich guy likes. He wants to endow a foundation for left handed knitters with $5billion? He can, and he gains the exact same tax benefits as if he funded food banks for the hungry. I say the government absolutely spends our money "on citizens" better than any random rich dude. Tax them and let the government spend on larger programs of social good. If we don't like what the gov does, we can elect different leaders. What makes Bezos or Koch's opinion about "beneficial programs" worth more than the collective opinion of 300 million of us?
I have no objection to the existence of billionaire's. I wish I were one. But anyone making billions a year in INCOME needs to either pay a boatload of taxes, or claim deductions and exemptions that benefit all the rest of us. Not by endowing his left handed knitters foundation. And with the billions they have left, they can buy all the yachts they want, with the secondary job benefits you touted. No difference. You buy ONE yacht, you stimulate X jobs. It's not like they're going to buy 6 or 7 yachts. Their consumption, no matter how conspicuous and grandiose, will NEVER equal the consumption value of the rest of us circulating whatever money we get in benefits or reduced taxes. 100 million average people will spend more than 1000 rich guys. Every year. And we'll spend it on food, clothes, transport and everything else, thereby creating and driving far, far more jobs across the economy.
Intrensic Vs. Equitable value. Everyone wants to be wealthy. However, few actually understand how to use that wealth in a way that provides any actual value. Intrensically or otherwise. Some COULD have been wealthy, but they lack forsight and finantial discipline. Much less seeing value if it even existed to begin with.
I took screenshots of you doing sit-ups and cleaning your oven in your suit. That is gold. Thank you.
"the worst outcome is when you spend somebody else's money on somebody else".
Truth!
I guess that would include the basic research that is the actual foundation for pretty much everything that our oligarch class loves to take credit for. Yeah, that Milty Friedman really saw the big picture....
Defending trickle down economics without calling it trickle down economics. Clever.
YES. I thought this guy had some coherent analytical skills but there he goes right of the mark with this vid. Its so weird!
The problem isn't trickle down economics in and of itself. It's that it's ill-fit for golbalization. If rich people make jobs in America, well and good. Problem is that so many of the benefits in the last 30 years have been put in China.
Right. There’s a reason he’s an quantitative investor instead of macro economist I guess. Just adding this comment I made to point out why his whole argument is faulty with just a tiny bit of logic
The problem with your first point is that it neglects to apply the same logic to taxes. When the government taxes rich people, that money goes back into schools, public work projects, higher minimum wage, etc., which then gives more money to poorer people. These people then spend the money as well, putting it back into the economy and multiplying it as well.
Trickle down economics is not 100% the solution to every recession, that is just stupid
The economic multiplier of money going into the government is less than 1 which is really remarkable given the things they could theoretically, but show me a Western government that actually tries to improve the population, do things with public health that have big returns. Instead the government actively promotes moral hazard, and does things like replacing the population. If you think the government is better in charge of your money, make a cash donation. No one is stopping you
tax avoidance = "distortive behaviour". OK, good to know.
Tax evasion
The problem with your first point is that it neglects to apply the same logic to taxes. When the government taxes rich people, that money goes back into schools, public work projects, higher minimum wage, etc., which then gives more money to poorer people. These people then spend the money as well, putting it back into the economy and multiplying it as well.
There's a double standard when you describe taxing the rich as "zero sum" versus allowing them to spend their money, which apparently multiplies through the economy.
The point of taxing the rich is to get that money into the hands of people who are poor. Once poor people have money, they're gonna spend it on food, clothes, etc. Whether one rich person spends a million dollars on a yacht, or 100,000 poor people spend $10 on lunch, the money circulates equally. Money don't care who spends it.
Additionally, there seems to be a bit of doublethink going on when you make these opposite claims:
"it's actually good when rich people spend their money (instead of being taxed)" as well as "rich people actually don't have much money to spend. It's all tied up in the businesses they own"
If their money is locked inside of their businesses, how are they paying for mansions and yachts?
This is a video where I have the uneasy feeling that Patrick is out of his depth. Designing the tax structure with regard to the wealth and income distribution of an economy is a massive macroeconomic topic. Patrick sticks to the financial and basic economic principles, producing a good reminder of how some simplistic proposals are wishful. But the video overlooks externalities of transactions and involuntary transactions in private sectors, such as wage theft. The repeated phrase “free market transactions” actively neglects the unfree market transactions. The argument that building the yacht provides jobs is an especially weak one, since taxed money goes to jobs via government spending. In the end the video lacks a overarching framework tying the scattered points from different perspectives together. It leaves not a feeling of empowerment that if I want to go deeper this is where I can go, but a sense of confusion and paralysis.
🤔 They could increase the wages of their employees instead of buying super yachts.
It's mostly individuals who buy Mega yachts not corporations.
@@MOFOSGTFO Its most individuals who fuck with the workers and hates the poor.
@@MOFOSGTFO It's mostly the CEO's/ COO's whom collect large, sorry RIDICULOUS sums of money from their companies. These people could afford to improve their workers lives financially instead of spending insane sums of money on items that scream Morgan....big M ....little organ.
I'm a fan of your channel Patrick but feel you missed on this one. Seems a bit more ideological than factual. The Dutch folk who want to throw rotten eggs at the superyacht may not believe in greater wealth redistribution but are offended by these gross displays of wealth by the super rich. Councilers from the Dutch city promised the bridge wouldn't be disassembled again as it has already been in the past from a previous super yacht (not Bezos') and it is a unique and much appreciated bridge in that city. So they resent the gross display of wealth and making special rules for some people based entirely on what they can buy.
I highly doubt people would be throwing eggs at the yacht if it was a touch more modest.
"I highly doubt people would would be throwing eggs at the yacht if it were a touch more modest." 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Completely ideological (and full of examples that lack any sort of basis - e.g. sure, millionaires going on a spending spree do have some trickle-down effects on the economy, but you're far overestimating the number of people who benefit from that vs direct use of those resources for tackling wealth inequality. I suggest Patrick reads Piketty on this. But maybe he think's Piketty is a commie or something), and ending the video with Milton Friedman's attempt at cosplaying an anthropologist-psychologist sealed the deal for me - I've just unsubscribed from his channel, I don't trust his takes.
“Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?”
― Thomas Sowell
With philanthropy we trust 1 or few people. In a democratic process of redistributing money we have discussion, elections, debates and many people. Is Bill Gates smart? Sure! Do I trust him more than a democratic process, no. And not everyone is like Bill Gates. Charity is very arbitrary and we have unelected people redistributing.
And the claim, that in Germany we don't do charity and pay taxes is just plainly wrong! Without food banks funded by large companies: (international) retail chains like Aldi, Lidl, etc…; and better-of private citizens a big pillar of our care for the poor would vanish and It'd surely have great consequences.
Hello Dr. Boyle, big fan of your content! Couple of questions:
1. Concerning the zero-sum game theory about redistribution through taxes. Are the varying marginal propensities to consume taken into account?
2. Do you believe there can be a solution to the issue of wages staying stagnant compared to productivity growth after the 70's without fundamentally changing our economic and incentives systems?
Keep up the good work!
Redirecting into a zero sum game, the working class would use that extra money to buy much need necessities or male needed repairs. So the money would then go back to businesses for exchanged goods and services, and the companies would now grow more organically
5:29 : "On the other hand, when money is taken from a person as a tax, and given to another as a grant, that is really a zero-sum game". Not sure I follow you here. Government will spend money on infrastructure and transfers, and this grows the economy. BTW, not sure if Amazon would be a multi-billion dollar company today if there is no government-provided infrastructure and services. BTW2 : Good luck selling on the Internet if it was not created by the army and universities (both subsidized by the government).
Good point. Governments don't hoard money at all.
Regarding infrastructure your argument is flawed in the same way. There is no fundamental difference if the infrastructure is built and maintained by the government or by a company. In case of the internet Amazon is with it's huge data centers (AWS) probably the biggest infrastructure provider itself. Yes they leverage the infrastructure of telecom companies, but telecom companies use the infrastructure of power companies and so on. Everything is intertwined. The same is true for research. It happens in state funded entities and it happens in companies.
The wealth transfer doesn’t grow the economy. To believe that, you are only looking at one side of the balance sheet. The transferred wealth would have been spent (likely far more productively) by the private sector. Both lead to “growth” in the sense that the money continues to circulate and have a multiplier effect through the economy. However if you are suggesting that the government is significantly better at managing capital in comparison to the private market, you are simply wrong.
Let's be clear, government should not spend money on investments that the private sector already does well (don't worry guys, not a commie). Government should mostly stay out of the economy (which it already does in western countries).
The are some investments that the governments are better placed to do, or that lead to better outcome than the private sector.
My only point was that Patrick's way of presenting it seems to suggest that taxes go in a big black hole of nothingness, which does not compute for me.
I do agree with some of Patrick's points BTW. For example, most people underestimate how much "rich people" contribute in taxes (in absolute terms). Many people on the left imagine rich people as paying no taxes, which is a gross oversimplification.
@@shbehna fair enough. I think Patrick was generalizing, because only a tiny fraction of government expenses are actually infrastructure. Most of the government budget is just transfer payments (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.)
@@LegalAutomation Nope, he wasn't generalizing. He was building a straw man and using it to hold up a very shoddy "argument".
A 2% wealth tax doesn’t sound so bad when you remember that the government just prints the money it can’t tax resulting in inflation.
Where does their personal wealth come from? - From the value of their companies.
Where does the value of their companies come from?
- large market share in their industry
- cheap and easily replaceable labour
- govt subsidies and tax breaks
We don't need to "tax the rich", we need to eliminate the handouts, increase worker rights and minimum wage and break up the monopolies to fix the underlying problem.