Comment by Ray20 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ray20 | Hacker News Reader

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>we need to substantially raise taxes on the rich and reduce them for everyone else

The problem with these solutions is that the math doesn't add up.

Either there are too few rich people in reality, and even if you can collect 200 percent from them - it won't affect the overall picture (and in the end there will be even fewer of them, and you'll have to raise taxes for everyone).

Or, if we expand the category of rich - a poverty funnel is created, where taxes on the "rich" protect the "super-rich" from competition. What difference does it make that you have to pay 90% if all the money is yours, because no one will invest in competing with you, since success will bring them 10%, and failure will take everything?

Everywhere in the world, the rich pay less. Even in countries with formally progressive tax rates, there are a huge number of subsidies and programs that in the end of the day boil down to the fact that the effective tax rate for the rich is lower (even if this means simply reducing their competition so that they get more money and pay a "progressive" tax on it).

Because the problem is not inequality, the problem is poverty. And any measures that discourage production in the end of the day increase poverty. For this reason, any construction of socialism always ends in hunger. Because what difference does it make what just and fair distribution system you came up with if your production fell ten, a hundred or a thousand times because of such a system?

Many of the problems we face stem directly from inequality itself. For example, the rich have dramatically greater say in our "democracy" due to their ability to fund politicians and lobbyists. They are above the law due to their ability to hire expensive lawyers and shield themselves through corporations. They can use the law as a weapon due to their ability to sue people who can't afford to fight back. Some of them are rich enough to avoid the consequences of destroying huge swaths of society (i.e. Musk with Twitter).

You are being just as dogmatically blind.

While there is truth is what you say about simply redistributing money is going to directly get people the goods and services required since that is not directly production.

It does have second order effect of changing the weighting of what society produces. If people are too poor to afford food why would you bother to grow it.

Taxing should be about keeping winner take all effects in reasonable check to keep markets actually functional for a good proportion of the participants.

>If people are too poor to afford food why would

There is no such thing in economic as "people are too poor to afford food". Growing food - is like in the start of economic chain, if people can't afford food - they starting to grow it themselves, and unaffordability disappears. Food can be unaffordable only if you hinder the production of it with your "smart" and "fair" taxation system, for example like socialists do.

Being poor + a natural disaster absolutely causes famines with real deaths.

Certain areas are too densely populated to produce food.

Typically, you need land to grow food or keep livestock, many poor don’t own land.

That said, it is unlikely to dip that far.

You just literally stated that people can be too poor to buy food on the primary market so they have to set up a secondary market in order to get food.

I probably should have been more clear in my statement and put "farmers" instead of "you". It wasn't really a statement about food but about market access and participants ability to signal demand.

You second statement is just boringly stupid.

Why would you need to raise taxes on everyone in that scenario? That's not clear.

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