Elizabeth Warren 2020 Megathread v2 (pg 35 - Emily List support)

[OSR stands with Israel]

No research of knowledge lmao:

https://taxfoundation.org/impact-piketty-s-wealth-tax-poor-rich-and-middle-class/

Quoting a rightwing think tank is not research.

 You said Bezos selling stock would make Amazon stock price crash, I showed you how he sold billions of dollars of stock and nothing happened. So what's the dispute?

First of all to pay for the wealth tax Bezos would have to dump over 6 billion in stocks which is a significant increase from 2.8 billion and unlike when he sold 2.8 Billion in stock this time Bill Gates would have to dump billions in stock he has in Micrsoft, so would Mark Zuckerburg in Facebook, so would Elon Musk in Tesla, etc all in a very short span and so on and so with many other companies.



 

 Says who?

 He sold nearly 3 billion in stock in a single week and there was no tangible effect on markets or Amazon stock price.

 A six billion dollar tax bill could be broken into 4 quarters and would be $1.5 billion, very doable. And it would fund tremendous social programs that would have their own stimulative effect on the economy. Like millions of women working because they had competent childcare, or students studying fields that could lead to new innovations and close the skills gap instead of chasing a job in finance because it offers job security and healthcare benefits.

LMAO its just not 6 billion of stock value being sold on the market, as that is just from one person . The total amount of stock being dumped would be far far more than that and would destroy capital investments as well. By the way its just not her wealth tax to its her mark-to-market capital gains tax plan which will tax capital gains annually then you know when you actually make a gain . Its lunacy in everyway possible


Tell me how do you think it is possible for the economy to grow without capital investment


Also there is nothing wrong with trying to get a job in finance, its an excellent job to have.

[GP270watch]

Also there is nothing wrong with trying to get a job in finance, its an excellent job to have.

If you want it but not if there's a brain drain because of massive income inequality, where intelligent people are stuck working in tax avoidance field and finance because that's where all the jobs are. Something that completely kills innovation in the real world.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Also there is nothing wrong with trying to get a job in finance, its an excellent job to have.

If you want it but not if there's a brain drain because of massive income inequality, where intelligent people are stuck working in tax avoidance field and finance because that's where all the jobs are. Something that completely kills innovation in the real world.

There are more jobs in IT but I see you didnt address the other points I made .


Also without a good amount of investment, there will be little to no innovation

[Sorenroy]

What an apt title. Tens of millions of people in the United States struggle with hunger, wildly expensive healthcare, and just general cost of living, but I'm glad y'all can all come together and make sure that billionaires aren't losing 2 to 6% of their pile of gold coins. Thanks guys.


Edit: To be clear, I am referring to the bevy of posts by GeneralMacArthur and co. which prove the ironic title. I actually like the title.

It's not 6% of their wealth.  Bill Gates said he wants to lose 10% of his wealth.

It's 6% per year, compounded annually, on the same $1.  By the time Bill+Melinda Gates are Warren Buffet's age, that would be 90% of their wealth.

You guys keep acting like you're defending a 6% tax, and then when pressed on the fact that it's actually far larger than that, half of you go hide in a corner and the other half just try to ridicule me into shutting up.

And that nicely mirrors Warren's strategy.  "LOL BILLIONAIRE TEARS"

At least the bona-fide socialists have the balls to defend eliminating billionaires.  You Warrenites just want to do it sneakily and hope that nobody notices when I call out your "it's only 6%" rhetoric.

Preferably, billionaires would no longer exist, as their existence really only serves to hold up wealth in the hands of a few powerful people which leads to both damage to our politics and a lack of innovation such wealth could create were it put in the hands of more than one family and its slew of lawyers and managers. However, a wealth tax is a decent way to split the difference and hopefully avoid a full scale fleeing of billionaires to other countries.

And I am well aware that it is 6% per year (for what it's worth, it looks like that may have been amended down to 3%), which seems fairly reasonable to me considering that those great fortunes are not just sitting their stagnating in value but rather rapidly increasing in worth due to re-investment. I'm not an expert in stocks and their returns, but a quick Google search shows a 7-12% rate of return on stocks is not unreasonable. As such, a 6% tax is less of a wealth confiscation and more of a stabilizer on those living off of their already amassed fortunes.

And all of this ignores the fact that that tax rate is only on wealth above $1 billion (2% >$50 million). So you could live a life of leisure with a mansion in every state and be barely touched by the tax. We're talking about people here who could bankroll a small country and not feel a substantial pinch on their pocketbooks. No one here is being driven into poverty by Warren or Sanders's tax plans.

[GP270watch]

I see you didn't address the other points I made .

 I did you just don't like my answers. The United States Government and the American taxpayer is the greatest investor in innovation that ever existed. The very foundation of all these technologies that these tech billionaires built their companies on would never exist without government. And the most honest among them don't even pretend that isn't the case.

 That's why it's such a tragedy that we do not tax their wealth appropriately. We could have more innovation with a bigger investment in the public good than what is happening now.

 We would have more technological, engineering, and medical innovation if PhD's went to work in research instead of going to work for hedge funds. I don't even understand how people could make a serious argument against that.

 

[izixs]

I see you didn't address the other points I made .

 I did you just don't like my answers. The United States Government and the American taxpayer is the greatest investor in innovation that ever existed. The very foundation of all these technologies that these tech billionaires built their companies on would never exist without government. And the most honest among them don't even pretend that isn't the case.

 That's why it's such a tragedy that we do not tax their wealth appropriately. We could have more innovation with a bigger investment in the public good than what is happening now.

 We would have more technological, engineering, and medical innovation if PHD's went to work in research instead of going to work for hedge funds. I don't even understand how people could make a serious argument against that.

 

A an out of work STEM PhD who refuses to work for a hedge fund, I'd love for there to be more opportunities to actually do things in the vein of what I got my degree in. Especially ones that didn't require ridiculous 80+ hour work weeks for some rich twerp's vanity projects because no one's got time for that nonsense.

[Heebie Jeebie]

https://twitter.com/AdyBarkan/status/1197138187140792322

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Corporate owned media.


That's a meaningless slogan for when someone prints anything leftists don't like.

 There are less independent news sources and massive consolidation has happened in the news media space by big corporations. I think it's a pretty accurate label. You watch MSNBC which is supposedly "leftist" and its owned by Comcast.

Of course there is media consolidation.  That doesn't mean newspapers merely consist in whatever it is "billionaire" CEOs supposedly dictate is written on a day to day basis.

Besides which, NYT is pretty much its own thing.  Yes they're a corporation, but so is the Independent Daily Podunk Gazette or whatever.

[Morning in Atlas]

https://twitter.com/AdyBarkan/status/1197138187140792322

Every time I get nervous about whether Warren's MFA plan is feasible, I remember good progressives like Barkan and Pramila Jayapal think it's reasonable. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

[GP270watch]

https://twitter.com/AdyBarkan/status/1197138187140792322

Every time I get nervous about whether Warren's MFA plan is feasible, I remember good progressives like Barkan and Pramila Jayapal think it's reasonable. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

'I live on the street now': how Americans fall into medical bankruptcy

 We have clear choices to make and we can't allow this to continue.

[Heebie Jeebie]

Every time I get nervous about whether Warren's MFA plan is feasible, I remember good progressives like Barkan and Pramila Jayapal think it's reasonable. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Jonathan Cohn is my go-to guy for all things health care and has been since the Obamacare debates,  and he thinks Warren's approach is smart. That's good enough for me. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/warren-sanders-medicare-for-all_n_5dd44ec9e4b0fc53f20a08b5

[Badger]

Alright, this megathread is live.

Title is subject to change (ideally I'd like to have a page number giving the most recent big story) but given there's some precedent for leeway with titles of megathreads, I'll leave it as is for now.

What does "Think of the billionaires" even mean?

I get the sense that it's supposed to be mocking people, like me and OSR, who think a wealth tax is unfair and outrageous because it would screw over billionaires by eliminating their wealth.

The implication is that, lol billionaires have it so good, so why am I wasting my time defending them?  Why am I upset that everyone else just wants to f**k them and steal tens of billions of dollars from them?

And going even further than "it doesn't matter if we f**k them, because they can take it" is a sentiment I've seen from some of the further-left posters on here, that "we SHOULD f**k them, for its own sake... because they deserve it."  At this point it's explicitly about revenge and completely disconnected from whatever good Warren claims she would do with the small amount of money a wealth tax would actually raise.

I'm not going to apologize for this, I think the justification given for the wealth tax is fundamentally immoral.  It's saying that you are going to take a group of people, an "other", and treat them totally unfairly, explicitly seek to harm them, ostensibly for marginal benefit (although the benefit isn't really the point), and the fact that they can deal with it makes it OK.


It's like saying, boy I hate WWE wrestlers, I'm going to make a crew to go beat them up with baseball bats and take their wallets.  It's OK because they're big tough guys so they can take the beating, and they're rich so they won't miss their wallets.  And don't worry, I'll give the money to starving orphans, so it's doing good.  Plus, wrestling sucks and they deserve it.

Oh lol John Cena said in an interview he thinks this policy is unfair?  Well of course he would say that, he's a WWE wrestler.  Let's make a website mocking him and call him a crybaby on Twitter!


I mean you could make this same argument about any out group!  Today it's billionaires, because turning people like Bill Gates into the hated enemy is Elizabeth Warren's MO.  Four years ago, it was immigrants who were the out group we were going to solve our problems by f**king.  In four years, who will it be?  I just hope it won't be Jews.

This is the root of Warren's appeal.  It's why I lost my respect for her.  She used to be an actual intellectual.  She was someone who had a reputation for digging into the nitty-gritty details of problems and figuring stuff out.  But as a presidential candidate, she's transformed into a rabid populist.  And all populism is based on an us-vs-them foundation.  To be a populist, you have to pick an out group, demonize them, blame them for all your problems, make policies targeting them, and claim only you have the real solution and everyone else is corrupt and bribed by the out group.  For Trump, it was immigrants.  For Warren, it's billionaires.

Nothing about this is clever or original.  It's a tired strategy that, to my neverending frustration, continues to work, even though history shows us time and time again that it's the road to disaster.

Insert not sure if serious gif here

[lfromnj]

>increasing capitals gains tax
>6% marginal top rate wealth tax
Hmmmmmm

[pepper11]

Well she peaked to early. Bye bye Liz.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Harris and Warren are done

[Pericles]

Warren is in a strong position and could easily surge again.

[izixs]

Insert not sure if serious gif here

Oh he is serious. He's just lost is gd mind.

Like, equating the targeting of a vulnerable group with little power or influence who aren't actually causing the claimed issues by Trump to the targeting of billionaires who are not a vulnerable group, who have massive power in our society, are excessively influential to the point where if they want to be on TV to talk about any old thing they can get it, and who can suddenly have a working presidential campaign suddenly out of no where this late in the process and everyone just be fine with it... is nuts.

Coaching it in 'oh I don't like it when people target specific groups in society in general' is a cover, at best. Idiotic given the actual state of affairs at worst.

Everyone here should really put MacArthur on ignore asap because he's not adding anything to the conversation at all.

[politicallefty]

Every time I get nervous about whether Warren's MFA plan is feasible, I remember good progressives like Barkan and Pramila Jayapal think it's reasonable. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Let alone being a system that works far better in many other industrialized countries with far better overall results.

I'm afraid of running anyone against Trump right now. It's not because he's invincible or we have bad candidates. It's because there's so much as stake and nothing is a sure thing. I am sick and tired about hearing about electability, not the least of which reasons include Hillary having a 20-25% lead over Trump in 2015. John Kerry was the electable candidate in 2004. John McCain was the electable candidate in 2008. Mitt Romney was the electable candidate in 2012. Hillary Clinton was the electable candidate in 2016. I don't want to hear anything more about electability.

I believe in Elizabeth Warren because she is not straying from the fight and the major issues that are actually facing this country. I don't think anyone in the race is more equipped and ready to fight against the Trump campaign. If there's anyone I believe that can keep Trump off balance, it's her. So far, Speaker Pelosi has been the only one capable of doing so as a direct opponent. I think Warren can do it as well.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

They have tried Harris, Warren and Buttigieg, to try to rid the Dems of Biden and non of them seem to stick; as a result, there is no alternative to corporate Biden. BIDEN, is corrupted, politicians get dirty money, called Soft money, which is a form of Bribery. After the nomination,  we will hear nothing but Ukraine, as we heard about Benghazi in a Trump impeachment trial

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Every time I get nervous about whether Warren's MFA plan is feasible, I remember good progressives like Barkan and Pramila Jayapal think it's reasonable. If it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me.

Let alone being a system that works far better in many other industrialized countries with far better overall results.

I'm afraid of running anyone against Trump right now. It's not because he's invincible or we have bad candidates. It's because there's so much as stake and nothing is a sure thing. I am sick and tired about hearing about electability, not the least of which reasons include Hillary having a 20-25% lead over Trump in 2015. John Kerry was the electable candidate in 2004. John McCain was the electable candidate in 2008. Mitt Romney was the electable candidate in 2012. Hillary Clinton was the electable candidate in 2016. I don't want to hear anything more about electability.

I believe in Elizabeth Warren because she is not straying from the fight and the major issues that are actually facing this country. I don't think anyone in the race is more equipped and ready to fight against the Trump campaign. If there's anyone I believe that can keep Trump off balance, it's her. So far, Speaker Pelosi has been the only one capable of doing so as a direct opponent. I think Warren can do it as well.

Hillary's polling lead over Trump had fallen to 4 % by this time 4 years ago.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

As I've said before, the main problem with Warren's tax "plan" is the sheer impracticality of it, without even getting to consideration of the potential economic effects.  As currently formulated, her "wealth tax" is an ad valorem property tax and there's lengthy precedent that such taxes are considered direct taxes under the Constitution and thus would require its collection be apportioned among the States, which which means that to be Constitutional, the tax rates would have to be higher for those living in poor States than those living in wealthy States.  Taxing unrealized capital gains is from an accounting standpoint, sheer idiocy, and all it does is rob the future of tax revenue to collect it now.  I haven't bothered to examine the economic results of her tax "plan" because it is so impractical that it ruins the assertion that she's a thoughtful wonk with practical plans for the problems we face.  There are other ways to sock the wealthy without running foul of these practical problems, such as reinvigorating the estate tax, raising income tax rates for the top brackets, excise taxes on luxury items such as private planes and yachts that are not assessed on an ad valorem basis, to name three.

[Heebie Jeebie]

As I've said before, the main problem with Warren's tax "plan" is the sheer impracticality of it, without even getting to consideration of the potential economic effects.  As currently formulated, her "wealth tax" is an ad valorem property tax and there's lengthy precedent that such taxes are considered direct taxes under the Constitution and thus would require its collection be apportioned among the States, which which means that to be Constitutional, the tax rates would have to be higher for those living in poor States than those living in wealthy States.  Taxing unrealized capital gains is from an accounting standpoint, sheer idiocy, and all it does is rob the future of tax revenue to collect it now.  I haven't bothered to examine the economic results of her tax "plan" because it is so impractical that it ruins the assertion that she's a thoughtful wonk with practical plans for the problems we face.  There are other ways to sock the wealthy without running foul of these practical problems, such as reinvigorating the estate tax, raising income tax rates for the top brackets, excise taxes on luxury items such as private planes and yachts that are not assessed on an ad valorem basis, to name three.

Her wealth tax is a campaign gimmick that nevertheless gives us a clear insight into her priorities and basic approach to tax policy.  "Two Cents" is a lot easier to chant at rallies than "Reinvigorate the estate tax, raise income tax rates for the top brackets, and excise taxes on luxury items." It's a mistake to think of her plans as if they were actual legislative bills.

[Gustaf]

I mean a wealth tax isn't really a practical policy. Sweden abolished it for good reason.

[izixs]

I mean a wealth tax isn't really a practical policy. Sweden abolished it for good reason.

I've heard pitch that it isn't practical for a variety of reasons that usually boil down to the ultra rich hiding assets. To that I say that sure, that is how it is now, but pushing for a policy like this necessitates the creation of systems that make that kind of shenanigan more difficult or even impossible. That whole mother of invention thing.

With the regards to the charge that it would be in effect a tax on future financial activity (which is sometimes taxable) is a little absurd but also irrelevant as to one of the primary side effects: a tax on what one has will encourage spending of that money now. This might come in the form of starting new businesses, putting that money in a separate entity which may or may not yield returns for the billionaire, and if it does, they might pump the money right back into it, encouraging fast growth of the new company, or start another one and another after. It might encourage that thing that many are super happy to talk about but never seem to wish to work on increasing, charitable donations. If its going to be taxed away, might as well put it in your absurd pet project to give everyone in Africa a medicinal yo-yo instead, right? And there's that whole maybe encouraging the ultra rich to be more okay with paying people on top of all this too. If they don't want their dollars going to fund schools, maybe they'll opt to have some of that money go to paying people who work for them better instead.

I don't think that side of the coin is talked about nearly enough honestly. That if structured well, increased taxes can actually be used to encourage financial activity because the rich really hate paying taxes.

[Tintrlvr]

Her wealth tax is a campaign gimmick that nevertheless gives us a clear insight into her priorities and basic approach to tax policy.

So, is she the diligent candidate with a credible plan for everything, or a couple of underwhelming Senate terms removed from being another Andrew Yang?

A candidate who bills herself as the most serious person in the race cannot get away with this.

I mean, you can have a serious plan that nonetheless may not pass Constitutional muster. That's an indictment of the poor drafting of the Constitution, not Elizabeth Warren.