Give them a public museum name for each $B for all I care!
Or more generally, just let them pick which program they want to have their face/logo on. “The Musk EV car subsidy” etc.
Let's say I earn over the threshold, and I can now either choose to continue to try and innovate and add value to society, or retire to a private island and just become a carbon contributor, I mean, why work myself into the ground if I can no longer benefit?
Most people have assets not liquidity too, so it's like saying, if you own too much, you have to stop. Well, what if Elon stopped and we reverted back to dropping rockets into the ocean? What if Bill Gates stopped and never did any of the philanthropy that he does?
I feel like this is used by people as a cheap excuse for a problem they can't solve.
That's a good question for the current situation -- why does Bezos still go to work? Once you have $100B, what tangible benefit do you get from more? Surely he's not doing it for the money, another $1B, or even $100B isn't going to change his lifestyle.
If a world-class marathon runner is 4 minutes ahead in a race, and can see the finish line, do they start walking? Or do they try to push themselves even harder to see how much more they can win by?
People are competitive, and are always motivated by achieving “more”, even if it doesn’t change the outcome for them. Does society benefit by billionaires pushing for more? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the answer is clearly “no”.
Does society benefit by billionaires pushing for more? I’m not sure, but I don’t think that the answer is clearly “no”.
I think the correct question is "Is there a net benefit to society", not any benefit at all.
Especially past 100M
It’s not like my increasing savings bring me any material benefit.
Not sure what your point is here--Bill Gates is not getting paid to do his philanthropy...he is in fact trying to give his money away. Are you arguing that it's a greater benefit to society for him to acquire his billions and then give some portion of it away after the fact?
It's an interesting thought experiment--how might the world be different had Gates's assets been capped at $1B back in 1987 or whenever, and whatever earnings he made been allocated to a social wealth fund?
[1] https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2015/06/basics.ht...
Let's not pretend that billionares are working 1.44 million hours a week to earn 18000 times what the janitor earns working two jobs in an 80 hour week. The quality of a billionaires 'work' is different than 'real work' so what you feel intuitevely about work may not be a great touchstone for how billionaires should be taxed.
They are already doing that, so what would be the difference?
Your suggestion is to give it to the government, which will more wisely spend it?
I think not.
There are a universe of people who earn and have a net worth much less than you who would be very happy with that ceiling figure. But would you?
Western politicians who float this idea are hilarious too - they're all multi-millionaires themselves, but a wealth tax is always proposed at a level that is "slightly more than what I have", never below.
If you set the limit much lower than my net worth, the government is going to have to support me.
But I'd think that someone with "only" $100M of net worth could scrape by on their own.
But most of my net worth came from taxable ordinary income that was invested into retirement accounts that are tax advantaged and untouchable until I retire. If Bezos was drawing a salary of 3 billion dollars for the past 30 years, paying 37% income tax on that income, then we probably wouldn't be talking about a "wealth tax"
Doesn't have to be much lower, just low enough to free you of the wealth you don't _need_.
> But I'd think that someone with "only" $100M of net worth could scrape by on their own.
Certainly. Someone with $10k of net worth and a minimum wage job could scrape by too. Nobody _needs_ more than that, surely?
> But most of my net worth came from taxable ordinary income that was invested into retirement accounts that are tax advantaged and untouchable until I retire.
Sounds very wealthy and privileged, to be honest. Surely you don't _need_ that it could be much better spent now helping less advantaged people who have never worked and don't have any savings or retirement. If, when you retire, you need further assistance after selling your house and other possessions, the government would be glad to step in and provide you a subsistence income and housing thanks to this wonderful redistribution scheme.
I agree though. Cap it at $1B
and usually universities are funded by governments.
private companies ruined internet actually.
you can argue that has been a net negative for the Internet, but it is clearly better for society generally.