I feel like every opposition I read to wealth taxes is someone saying that we shouldn't do it, because it won't be perfect. Without offering an alternative to the status quo, which is nothing.
We can iterate on taxes if they're ineffective, but it's unforgivable to not try and do something in the face of so much inequality.
I sort of implied that it needs to be predicable (annual) and less arbitrary (bracketed). A one-off tax sends the message that you can be taxed whenever and for whatever. Unpredictable policy sends a message that somewhere isn't a stable place to live or do business.
This is not my reaction to just you. This is my reading of "any time a wealth tax is brought up." My recommendation to you, given you seem to be acting in good-faith:
Make it clear "What you want a wealth tax to look like instead" But also, it's easier to destroy than it is to create, so I think any state setting the grounds for how they're going to try this, is worth supporting and iterating on.
There's an old Chemistry joke, that I've reapplied to Software Engineering, and it goes something like:
A New Engineer (NE) shows up on their first day on the job, notebook in hand ready to learn. They get assigned to shadow an Experienced Engineer (EE) for their first day.
EE: Now, the thing is, for any project on our team, you only need to change about 3 lines of code.
NE, preparing to write down notes: Which 3?
EE: Well, it depends.
(Originally about Material Safety Data Sheets, and there only being 3 relevant lines on them).
I think this is what people miss about Software Development.
I feel like we need to hold Gov't Contractors to higher standards.
Like half of these ballooning budgets are things that Private Businesses brag about on the other side. "I got a $200B Private contract with the CA Gov't." Is a big win for the company, and a big loss for the taxpayer. To some extent I think CA should be able to reclaim a large portion of their contract (in some way) because costs ballooned.
The same for Military contractors. There needs to be better enforcement of "this is the budget that you bid, we won't increase that, and you still have to deliver."
Imagine if companies ended up having to sell part of their company to the gov't if they failed to deliver their contract.
Yeah, why don't people talk about how my model s tried to drive itself into oncoming traffic more? Not just anyone can drive themself into oncoming traffic.
But like, actually the reason is that the cars consistently make dangerous decisions when they're not being used as "glorified cruise control", and the sensors mean they only even get to do that during "perfect driving conditions"
Feels like the world that he created by hoarding vast sums of wealth, and limiting people's free speech, and cutting social safety net programs that put more and more people at risk as the world becomes less and less stable.
I would much rather have lived in the world where he could walk into a pizza place without security and fear. But I also would much rather have lived in the world where people had healthcare and they didn't have to fight companies like UHC tooth and nail to avoid getting their claims denied at every turn.
And the stability of this all comes from trust in Government regulation. Which he gutted, when he gutted the programs that were targeting him for committing fraud.
> I think I’m okay with there being some remaining consequences for things you do to other people,
I would rather live in the world where they hadn't done those things to other people. Not that I would rather people forgive them and let them into a pizza shop. It's a pizza shop, who cares, they have a million other ways to get pizza if they want it. Ostracism is the last response we have for the wealthy doing unacceptable things.
The wildest thing to me about the 2010s, was that the war on taxes got framed as a "class war". And everyone didn't understand that to mean "a war on anyone who is not the top 1%" Even reading through this comment section, people mistrust that Taxes are useful to prevent undue power gathering in the hands of a small number of people. They also then help fund programs which can help the underclass.
But the fear and dislike of taxes has clearly been weaponized by the ruling class to wage war on minimum wage workers and immigrants, in order to funnel as much wealth and power to the elites as possible.
The war on taxes was never "America vs Taxes" it was "The Wealthy vs. The Poor" and the wealthy were able to leverage the media to trick the poor people into reacting in fear that "The gov't is coming for your money." By just parroting their own fears about the gov't coming for their money and saying "it could happen to you too."
TBF, the Media really let/fueled this happening, likely because they were captured by corporate interests.
Site looked interesting, so I was just like "what would it look like to have a top tax rate like we did in the 1950s-1980s (Before Reagan dropped it)?" [1] And the hilarious thing is the propaganda it spews without any backing of data:
>At a certain point, increases in tax rates will not raise more revenue. Once someone's tax rate becomes sufficiently high, they might work less or try harder to evade taxes. Based on existing evidence, this simulation assumes that increasing this group’s tax rate beyond your current level is unlikely to raise more revenue.
And then it pretends like the maximum amount of income you can get out of the richest 1% is $203B.
This is rich people's propaganda that we've bought into by pretending that Rich people don't need this country. But that's a lie. If it were true, they would just move, instead of fighting tooth and nail for tax cuts in every single election.
Also the breakdown of spending categories and the way they're represented are pretty clearly politically motivated, and the Numbers look a little suspicious to me. They don't even align with the CBO numbers.
Another really obvious thing missing is a "Capital Gains Tax"
Which is currently pegged to like 20%, and how CEOs get all of their income. So If Capital Gains was taxed as income, I think that would at least start to make the Income tax realistic.
Sorry, this is russell's teapot falacy.
"the burden of proof lies with the person making an unfalsifiable claim, rather than on others to disprove it"
If there is evidence this is related to cameras, then the onus is on companies making these cameras and claims to provide the data. Not on others to prove that they don't stop crime.
There's a reason you always start with the null hypothesis.
You didn't ask for data... You asked: "In what way do cameras make life harder for regular people?"
That requires a specific example, which you were provided with. This reads to me as a pithy response that doesn't want to wrestle with the ways this can be misused.
By this same argument ANY police makes life hard for regular people because they sometimes fuck up, so let's just get rid of police too. What's the worst that could happen.
The general sentiment in the thread is that this is too powerful a technology in the hands of unqualified law enforcement. In the same way that I don't trust federal law enforcement in the post-Snowden era, I don't trust local law enforcement with mass surveillance tools.
Luckily we don't have to use the poor as a crutch for this argument. Public camera networks capture everyone sleeping on the sidewalk, regardless of their income level.
It's not self-evident, or the person wouldn't have asked for a source.
And you have numbers that you're pulling from "somewhere" without sharing a source for them, which means it's even further not self-evident.
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