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Comment by spicyusername | Hacker News Reader

    More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022

And the country is better off without them, good riddance.

This is obviously a propaganda piece for why we shouldn't have progressive taxation. Articles like this are a clear attempt at keeping the Overton window[1] on the side of regressive tax policies.

Sorry, I'm not buying it. There's no fundamental right that you should be allowed to siphon that much wealth out of the global financial system. Pretending that everyone would actually be better off if we continued to let these people lock up all the wealth is a joke.

This little shell game they're playing only works today because the global community is only just now waking up to the grift that's been taking place.

1: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

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How is this a propaganda piece? It seems quite neutral, including both perspectives of the debate, and The Guardian itself is biased to the left! The article doesn't seem to include anything beyond factual reporting.

Its subtle, but its definitely not neutral.

The issue is that the (extremely short and light on any meaningful discussion of the issue) article is presenting this situation from the perspective of the inconvenienced Billionaire and from the perspective of how much tax revenue is being lost.

This immediately frames progressive tax policies, in the readers mind, as having "bad" outcomes, since the outcomes for the Billionaire and the tax base are "bad". No government policy is going to have completely positive outcomes for all parties all of the time and cherry picking two "bad" outcomes is the problem.

Assuming for the moment that it should even continue to be legal for people to amass that level of wealth, the challenges the Billionaire class face should be the absolute lowest possible priority for public policy. The fact that it's the first talking point is the issue.

There are myriad ways this article could be written that don't focus on how "hard" these policies are for the Billionaire class and instead focus on how good they are for everyone else.

> The Guardian itself is biased to the left

I would describe The Guardian as being biased towards neoliberalism

100%, I keep seeing this argument being trotted out like every country should have a race to the bottom to keep billionaires within their borders whatever that means.

Im not sure what you're complaining about.

People left, thats not opinion it’s fact. Reporting facts isn't propaganda.

Policies have consequences. Governments are free to enact them and people are free to leave if they dont like them.

they aren't free to leave if you setup the right policies.

just seize all their assets through imminent domain and don't allow them back in the country.

Obviously a little extreme but there are a lot of policy options between do nothing and the most extreme.

That would be illegal. Private property is private property. It belongs to the individual, not the state. The state can use eminent domain if it wants to build a road for example, but not to retaliate against a person leaving.

Presumably the suggestion is to enact legislation under which the state would effect such seizures, which wouldn’t facially be unlawful. It might be unconstitutional, or impermissible in a rechtstaat, or inconsistent with a basic structure, but that wouldn’t be the case everywhere. In the Norwegian case the unconstitutional operation of a law is disapplied inter partes but not erga omnes at least de jure, although the state may take a hint.

Even better, make it like East Germany and set up barbed wire and guard posts to prevent people from leaving. Life would be so great.

Sounds like a great way to make sure nobody invests in your country in the first place!

i.e. Argentina and their constantly poor choices

I'm trying to point out there are a spectrum of policy options and the whole thing is not black and white like most people look at it.

taxes are knobs and dials not on off switches. also, the levels of those taxes make sense based on the economy and the outcomes desired.

some services can be managed better by private enterprise and others by the government. It takes money to fund those government services.

I expect better from The Guardian to be honest

What would have made the reporting better?

I don't really think you can stop them at the global financial system level, but I would think at the national level, a country could at least control their financial system; it doesn't seem like you have much sovereignty over your nation otherwise.

I don’t see any propaganda here. The Guardian lays out the facts and obtains quotes from both sides. Reporting a statistic is not propaganda.

There is an argument to be made that all journalism is intrinsically biased and the simple decision of _which_ statistic to publish is meaningful.

So, the guardian should have suppressed these facts in an act of non-propaganda?

Actually, that would _also_ be propaganda.

Sounds like the game is rigged.

The Guardian is overwhelmingly progressive already. Its writers are generally pro-worker and anti-corporate. I don't see how publishing one article about one statistic points to an anti-tax bias.

If we were talking about the WSJ I would agree.

Your comment that the rich "siphon that much wealth out of the global financial system" is wrong and is an argument often made by people with limited knowledge of economics. The pie is not fixed.

> The pie is not fixed.

Nor is it infinite.

It is true it can grow and shrink.

It is not true that the growing and shrinking are always non-zero sum.

It is also not true that the growing can go on forever unbounded.

It is also not true that the growing should be the most important priority.

It is also not true that the benefits of the growing or the deficits of shrinking are always distributed equally.

Protecting the vulnerable from the above is one of the core responsibilities of the state and is the exact purpose of progressive taxation.

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