I’ve not bagged on tucker Carlson specifically I think. But I’ve said a lot about Bill when he was still on Fox and just fox in general. I’ve never liked Fox. But some of the other news are not really much better.
I tried to scroll through to see if this has been shared already. Apologies if it has.
There is such a thing as unskilled labor.
I recommend it for all trust fund kiddies.
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You know, 1970’s Jan Wong would love you. Post-70’s Jan Wong, not so much.
Comparing rates between rich and poor, personal and commercial could go on forever.
What about things like property tax. Its a somewhat common scenario that long term residents of their bought and paid for land/house end up paying way more tax based on government assessed value over time. This is a huge problem in canada at least. Especially in places like vancouver where things got crazy expensive fast. But they still work the same job, live the same life etc. Yet their taxes are hundreds % more in a decade.
My vacant house (broken as shit and unliveable) and land has gone up double according to government assessment but actual market value has declined. This is a real crime. And is truly morally wrong no matter how much ones heart bleeds.
How does one justify this tax scenario?
Sell?
Financial (and other) security?
Inflation?
Duh…
Here’s another billionaire dissident.
So, with regard to the earlier discussion in this thread, I’m still hoping for an explanation of why it was morally right for radical leftistas to seize the assets of rich people (excluding royalty) in the 1770’s but would be morally wrong today.
Meanwhile, here’s a pair of articles from November 2017. Paywall alert.
Highlights:
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Death tax used to be a much higher percentage of state income, and ghosts used to pay much higher taxes than they do now. Pre-WWII Britons were more likely to qualify for the death tax than to qualify for income tax while living. In the Roman Empire, ghosts paid up to 5% in some cases.
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“[Research] suggests that a large proportion of inheritances are ‘accidental’. People save to insure against personal risks, rather than to pass on wealth when they die.”
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In response to the argument that death tax destroys family businesses: “Yet keeping things in the family has costs. […] Firms that promote family CEOs see declines of 14% in operating return on assets, a measure of profitability. Research by Nick Bloom of Stanford University and others finds that family firms are the worst-managed of any type. Poor management of firms is one of the main reasons why productivity growth in rich countries has been so depressed in recent years.”
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“In an essay in 1891 Andrew Carnegie, an industrialist born in Scotland, argued that the ‘parent who leaves his son enormous wealth generally deadens the talents and energies of the son, and tempts him to lead a less useful and less worthy life.’ […] And according to a paper published by Douglas Holtz-Eakin, formerly of the Congressional Budget Office, and two colleagues, Carnegie was right. A person coming into an inheritance above $150,000 is four times more likely to leave the labour force than someone who inherits less than $25,000.”
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As Thomas Piketty has been telling us for years, inequality is on its way back to 19th century levels, which means the significance of death tax or lack thereof will continue to grow. “…some worry that it could foreshadow the return of an inheritance society in which marriage ends up being a surer route to riches than starting a company or working hard. The incomes attained by the top 1% of French inheritors are already higher than those attained by the top 1% of workers. Across North America, Europe and East Asia the number of billionaires who have inherited their wealth seems to be rising…”
Cross post on a related subject:
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