11 Shocking Things The Richest Americans Could Do For The Country (But Never Would)

[DainBramaged]

http://www.upworthy.com/11-shocking-things-the-richest-americans-could-do-for-the-country-but-never-woul?c=bl3

[Dreamer Tatum]

1. I hate shit like this

First of all, that's not $1.3T in INCOME, that's $1.3T in WEALTH.

OK - let's say we confiscate that wealth to do everything in the graphic. Gee, you have to monetize that wealth, don't you? I mean, Toyota doesn't to be paid in real estate or restricted stock for the 100,000,000 cars we'll be buying from them.

So let's put an ad in Craigslist and sell that shit to get the money to pay Toyota. Oh, wait - you took the wealth that people had to buy most of that stuff, and you've glutted the market, anyway. That $1.3T suddenly isn't worth $1.3T, is it? Flooding the market and carving out the buyers will do that to you.

[ErikJ]

2. The point is that their taxes are way, way too low.

Historic low rates. And they keep accumulating more and more wealth until like Jefferson feared they can easily buy the government and become the new monarchs through their wealth alone.

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. Fair point.

But the graphic assumes complete confiscation, not a 90% tax (for example) on income, interest income, and so on.

[ErikJ]

4. If theyre not careful

that's exactly what happens. The peasants rise up and take all their wealth............... and their lives too. That's how FDR scared the plutocrats into a 94% confiscatory tax rate, by telling them that there are a lot of communists and unionists out there ready to start a bloody revolution.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. I get that, but how a peasant takes 100,000 shares of AAPL is questionable.

It isn't like the old days, where you clobbered a guy with a rock and stole his gold pieces.

Not to mention that the actual revenues from those high tax rates on the wealthiest 400 would be lower than
the revenues from the 10th wealthiest 400 - because of income vs wealth.

[ErikJ]

8. Dividends top tax rate only 20%

they make massive money from dividends but theyre only taxed 20% on that (if that!) Same with their cap gains.

But some European countries actually DO have a wealth tax of about 1% or so. So we could think about that too.
But the wealthiest 400 probably make a million a day in dividends alone. So taxed at say three times higher than now would eventually help to even out the record wealth and income gap we have now.

[adieu]

16. I agree with you

the concept of wealth has transferred from being something tangible like gold or real estate or actual cash stuffed under the mattress and turned them into just a number in an account. Communists and unionists can't access that account anymore than any other person. And even if the money's taken out, one look at the account and recognizing that there's been a massive withdrawal, the bank will correct it and find where the money went. The trail is much easier now than ever before.

The only way now to access that money in those accounts is to be the government and either freeze those accounts, thereby making them unusable and thus irrelevant, or actually lawfully extract the money out.

The rich have those two options snuffed out by buying out the government.

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. Historically low since when?

the tax rate in 1913 was 1% on incomes up to $20,000 (over $400,000, inflation-adjusted). In 1929, the top rate was 24% on incomes over $100K ($1.3 million, inflation-adjusted), and capital gains were taxed at a rate of 12.5%. "Historically low" since the Depression, yes.

[ErikJ]

14. Since WW1 when the top tax rate was 77% on BOTH

income and capital gains. The Republican Harding administration lowered them to 25% and the cap gains for the "investor class" plutocracy has remained very low since. Because thats where they get most of their money from.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Interesting, but the wrong way to go about it

It is not reasonable to expect rich people to give up ALL their money. The way I would phrase it as a talking point would be to look at the how much more money would be available if the 1% didn't have all these loopholes that allow them to pay less tax (percentage-wise) than the rest of us.

For example, a hedge fund manager whose $1 billion income is taxed (if taxed at all thanks to tax dodges) at around 15% (the capital gains rate) instead of being taxed as ordinary earnings. What could we do with the extra $150 million a year in tax revenue (leaving the poor dear to struggle by on a meager $650-$700 million a year)?

By my calculations, $150 million would pay for an additional 2,500 teachers. And this is just ONE billionaire, we have 425 by last count.

Also, removing the cap on income subject to social security currently around $100,000, would fully fund the the program until Captain Kirk was ready to retire.

[truebluegreen]

12. I think this is more a description of the problem

than a plan of action. Of course it is not reasonable, nothing about the situation is "reasonable".

[erpowers]

7. Warren Buffett

When it was announced that Warren Buffet was giving all, or most of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I felt it would have been better if he had allowed the money to be used to pay for scholarships for students. As for the things on the above list; the richest Americans do not even have to do those things. I would like it if they used their money to create jobs and invest in small businesses. Investing in small businesses would help create jobs. Job creation would help many people in America.

[DainBramaged]

11. "Investing in small businesses "

How?

[adieu]

17. Approach a local Chamber of Commerce

not the national CoC; they're a bunch of greedy pricks.

Set up a $50,000,000 fund for small-business loans. Do what banks do, but using one's own money, instead of the depositors' money. Small businesses request the funds for specific items, like capital to pay for producing widget X that already have a purchase order.

The problem now is that banks aren't doing the job of being banks. They're not loaning out money. They're just sitting on their money. They're not loaning out money even if you can show you have a purchase order once the products are made.

That is, you say, "I need $500,000 to ramp up production of X. Company Y will pay me $1,000,000 for X. They will pay once they get ahold of X. Can you lend me the $500,000 for 90 days?"

Banks are just saying, "No." And that's why we have low manufacturing and low production here in the US.

If these rich folks were to say yes in lieu of the tight-fisted banks, they'll get richer and we'll all get richer.

[erpowers]

18. My Plan

Rich people could look for small business owners who would like to expand their businesses. Once they find businesses in need of money, they could then give the businesses owners the money they need to expand their businesses. Another option would be to seek out people who want to start businesses, but do not have the money. If it can be proven that the business idea has a chance to succeed, rich people could give the aspiring businesses owners the money needed to start their businesses.

[alc]

9. some one time (i.e. temporary) fixes

Once they've spent all their wealth on these, they can't do it again next year. Next year's income won't be anywhere near enough to repeat.

Better things they could do would involve business

* Create VC funds with a goal of companies that don't care about revenue. Guarantee the entrepreneur a good profit if they succeed, and take back a reasonable profit themselves to re-invest in new startups. Then run the business for no profit.

* Bailout companies and turn into non-profits. Just think what GM would be now if unions and wealthy liberals who complain about capitalism had taken over GM. When they were at the bottom it was not an unreasonable goal to secure funding to buy majority share and rebuild the company. Then show what can (or can't) be done by removing profit and high exec pay.

* For significantly less money at a time start buying franchises in various chains and running them for no profit and paying employees better. Like the VC idea, they could take enough revenue to pay back their initial investment and fund the next franchise. And they could make it employee-owned with small amounts of revenue going to employees over and above their salary/wages.

The uncaring rich aren't going to do the 11 things in the OP. But there are lots of rich people who complain about capitalism and corporations and excessive profits who may be able to be convinced to develop a non-profit-driven economy.

[JHB]

10. I think this sort of argument ends up promoting the RW line about "confiscating wealth"...

A better thrust would be ending it with "Why do you have to keep adding to it? Why is it such a burden to merely slow down how fast you get even more wealthy? You can't shunt some of that off to paying people better? Or paying a bit more in taxes?"

[ErikJ]

15. It might be the only way is to threaten them with confiscating

ALL their wealth as FDR was hinting at when the unionists and communists were much bigger threat than now.

[Scurrilous]

19. K & R

[Pablo Guachupita]

20. Wow

enlightening.