Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
geo

What if there was a financial cap put on people and businesses?

Recommended Posts

ok here's my theory...

Put a financial cap on people and companies make ridiculous amounts of money each year. I'm talking about the top 1% money making companies and people making 400 million per year. I think it would kill monopolies like Walmart and kill the need to just hoard cash. What does 1 person need 400 million per year for?

My idea with a cap would be when they reach the cap, they have to give it away to other people or businesses. People you know or like, charities, other companies. When they reach the cap, they need to give it away.

If you don't give it away, then it gets seized... there are seizures with drug houses, cars used in crimes and so on, even drug money. Why couldn't it just be seized if not given away? More motivation to give it away to your friends or other companies and charities. Maybe not even seized but frozen.

I explained this to my friend that told me that's socialism.

Anyway, for the companies and people that make max cap... those people and companies can't outsource jobs. Seeing as how they're making max cap then surely they can pay for domestic wages. Sure they'd complain and say it would bankrupt them, but if you're making max cap, then would anyone even care?

It would balance the wealth and there would be a trickle down effect. It might destroy the stock market though.

JK Rowling is filthy rich. For this latest movie, the studio gave her a bracelet worth $40 million dollars. She could sell the bracelet and give 40 people $1 million dollars. That would change 40 lives hopefully for the better. Those 40 people would buy stuff. Whereas with JK she might wear the bracelet once... Heck she can give 400 people $100,000 and change 400 lives hopefully for the better.

This JK thing was only an example. Filthy rich people and the world's biggest banks would do interviews complaining about the government being against them. But would the poor really care?

What does everyone think?

Share this post


Link to post

And why do you think no? I'm not sure it was a yes or no thing.

Share this post


Link to post

Cool idea, but people will find a way to screw the system. As they do now.

Share this post


Link to post

You chose who to give it to. There could be people giving the money to their 4 year old daughter I guess or they could just give it back to you.

Share this post


Link to post

It's only natural to think that rich people have too much money and don't deserve what they have. Doesn't mean taking it away from them would really help anybody in the long run.

Share this post


Link to post

Rich people and companies don't forget companies. It would prevent Walmart from having a near monopoly. Instead they'd have a near monopoly in 3 different states and other stores would take up the slack.

Share this post


Link to post

I don't think Walmart has a monopoly anywhere, realistically. Do they stop you from going to Target, Fred Meyer, Safeway, or even the small little shops over your city? No, they don't.

As for no, I don't believe it's right to tell people that they're effectively too successful and don't deserve their money.

Share this post


Link to post

This subject is like "socialized medicine". Americans explode at the concept of giving an almost insignificant fraction of their income or interest made.

Share this post


Link to post

You're right technitian. It boggles my mind when people are trying to get out of their Internet bill when they use it to get so much for free.

Share this post


Link to post

I agree with the basic sentiment that the current distribution of wealth is really unfair, especially when insane excess goes to people for the relatively idiotic act of making a harry potter movie while others do much harder work and get paid nothing. Solving some difficult math problem or starting a new scientific theory or something should be rewarded, but you have to deal with supply/demand of joe sixpacks and jane soccermom. How many chinese slave workers could that necklace free, etc.

I don't know, letting free market supply/demand run its course might work a lot better without government. Maybe in a more free society there'd be less of a monopoly in the film industry; easier to compete, like not the same specific 'box office' movies from the same scientologist actors that are shown at all the theaters.

Corporations seem to be in bed with the government that makes laws via bribes/lobbying, so a 'wealth cap' law seems unlikely in the current system. Plus enforcing it requires a 'gun in the room' of government, which might be a bad solution to anything. I remember someone arguing that such a law would just make rich people move to other countries (but if the whole world was a single 'country' I guess that wouldn't be a problem).

I think the root problem to focus on is 'the gun in the room'. Why is it only 'given' to a handful of people, government? To be free either everyone should have the gun or nobody. Without the state, the currency might not have lost 98% of its value, and 50% of your income wouldn't be taxed. That alone might free tons of people.. like lazy people could mow a few lawns or whatever and be set for a few months rent in cheap free market houses that don't have all sorts of bureaucratic costly overhead. Ambitious people would have lots of free time to do whatever they want.

Its hard to predict how 'might is right' could be avoided in a free society. Right now the government which seems to be the cause of most corruption/war/etc has the most powerful weapons (nuclear etc). I just find this video inspiring and this post is just parroting his ideas because that's what I seem to do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG5uL4tkvhA
Could humanity ever not suck?

Share this post


Link to post
chungy said:

I don't think Walmart has a monopoly anywhere, realistically. Do they stop you from going to Target, Fred Meyer, Safeway, or even the small little shops over your city? No, they don't.

Are you fucking kidding? Sure walmart doesn't force you to shop there...except in smaller towns where they literally drive the locally owned shops out of business. And thus have no competition anymore.

Share this post


Link to post
gggmork said:

I don't know, letting free market supply/demand run its course might work a lot better without government.


ROFL That doesn't work. That lets the corporations become government. The result is far, far worse. The free market fails utterly when the big companies just buy all the other ones and can then do or charge whatever they want.

Geo's idea is a bit silly though. We already have a system for this. It's called progressive taxes. On the top 1% of the population you can charge outrageously huge taxes without even hurting them. That never quite happens, but even in America the top tax bracket once hit about 90%. With things like this you can build huge infrastructure, help the poor, invade countries, etc.

Putting hard caps on wealth will probably never work because people with a pile of cash are automatically powerful, especially as a group. It really sucks, but it seems only small societies ever approach something like equality in wealth.

Share this post


Link to post

I'm not left or right. I'm so unpolitical that I don't know what left or right is, but I just come up with my own ideas.

Share this post


Link to post

For people, why not (it's not a realistic expectation but it wouldn't do harm in theory); but for business it doesn't seem like a good idea since some fields may require immense capital (especially in insurance and finance). "Sorry, I can't give you your money back because the law required me to give your money away." It just wouldn't work.


The solution isn't to put an arbitrary cap which would just encourage people to cheat (e.g.: "that money isn't in my name; it's in the name of my senile grandpa, I'm just managing it for him") or use anonymous offshore bank accounts. The real solution is to medically graft spines to politicians so that they'd stand up to the lobbies of the wealthiest people and corporations.



Also, the invisible hand never works. Capital attracts itself. If you don't compensate for that with wealth redistribution mechanisms -- such as taxes and subsides -- you end up with a few financial blackholes devouring the whole world. The result for common people is a series of crises, perpetually renewed; pretty much exactly what we've been into since the 90s. It's funny, but the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst thing that could have happened to capitalism. By removing the image of an alternative, it lead to the "TINA" belief that encouraged it to fall into extremism, free of the checks and balances that existed before. There has been a big craze about deregulation and self-policing, which meant letting the financial sector choose what it is allowed to do and enforce its own rules over itself. The end result being companies like Goldman Sachs orchestrating the ruins of nations for their own profit, with not the slightest form of oversight to prevent damage and punish malfeasance.

Share this post


Link to post

meh I get it, bad idea. People do what they want no one can control them. Like parents can't watch their kids 24/7.

Share this post


Link to post
Aliotroph? said:

That lets the corporations become government.


Here's stuff I mostly copypastad:
How would corporations exist in a free market if corporations are, by definition, companies chartered by big government?
corporations pay tax bribes to government in exchange for exclusion from liability.
A lot of corporations' nastiest behavior is inspired by the legal requirement to create profit for shareholders.

If bitcoins are unstoppable as a decentralized anonymous currency, even if made illegal, they might even the playing field:
http://dailyanarchist.com/2011/06/21/how-and-why-to-get-to-silk-road/

Share this post


Link to post
HWGuy said:

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

Honestly, the monetary value of brow sweat would probably be a lot lower than the OP's proposed wealth cap.


Plus, the guys whose work make them sweat profusely tend to earn a lot less than those whose work let them stay daintily fresh.

Share this post


Link to post
Gez said:

It's funny, but the collapse of the Soviet Union was the worst thing that could have happened to capitalism... The end result being companies like Goldman Sachs orchestrating the ruins of nations for their own profit, with not the slightest form of oversight to prevent damage and punish malfeasance.

It's also funny that it's pretty much what Marx said would happen :P

Share this post


Link to post
geo said:

Wealth cap distribute if over cap


There are issues with this:

Distribution of the cap surplus. This system would be open to incredible amounts of abuse/corruption. Bureaucrats could direct the funds to front institutions and pocket the money for themselves or their colleagues.

There would be rich people with large amounts of hidden undeclared income, which would fuel black market economies.

Much like people that can just barely make it into a higher tax bracket: Cap out at your current bracket so you make more money than you would if you barely made the higher bracket. Outside of selfless humanitarian goodness, few would go beyond what they themselves can take home.

Share this post


Link to post
POTGIESSER said:

There are issues with this:

Distribution of the cap surplus. This system would be open to incredible amounts of abuse/corruption. Bureaucrats could direct the funds to front institutions and pocket the money for themselves or their colleagues.

There would be rich people with large amounts of hidden undeclared income, which would fuel black market economies.

Much like people that can just barely make it into a higher tax bracket: Cap out at your current bracket so you make more money than you would if you barely made the higher bracket. Outside of selfless humanitarian goodness, few would go beyond what they themselves can take home.


Yeah, like I was saying, we already have this. It seems to work ok for western countries that aren't America. Funny about that.

Except for the last bit. Why does nobody understand how tax brackets work? It's not possible to make less money by being in a higher bracket. The new rate applies only to income higher than the threshold.

Share this post


Link to post

I believe our (Canadian) taxes are much higher than Americas, the more income or interest made, the higher the tax bracket.

Share this post


Link to post
HWGuy said:

Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow?

No says the man on the internet. It should be given to someone less successful. Forced "charity" for all!

Share this post


Link to post
Xeros612 said:

No says the man on the internet. It should be given to someone less successful. Forced "charity" for all!

But dat dare would be socialism. Let dem lazy boys work.

Share this post


Link to post

Sheeeet, working's for the chumps. Working for da man, making him rich! And not only that, but they treat you like some nasty slave, lower than dirt. Gotta take random drug tests, piss in teh cup on command! Gotta sit in cubicles farms all day long, like a bunch of cattle! Gotta play by the rules, go through all the mind games and pretend to like it! Gotta go to those meetings and pretend any of that shit even makes sense, and not rock the boat, or they be firing yo stupid ass, cause there's always another poor motherfucka out there who wants yo job, and he'll do it for real cheap cheap!

But you gotta keep showin up every day at 9am sharp, cause you got a mortgage, car payments, family to feed, and those damn credit card companies always jackin up yo rates. And pray you don't get fired, cause your wife'll leave your sorry ass and then it's divorce courts and shit just keeps on getting worse...

Share this post


Link to post

I'm all for taxing the rich more and putting stricter regulations on corporations, but this idea just seems ridiculous.

Share this post


Link to post

Butthurt about rich people much, commie? You give me the impression of a left-wing extremist, mostly by suggesting that crashing the stock market would be a good compromise. Do you have any idea how many lives that would destroy?

Robin Hoods are not welcome in egalitarian societies.

Share this post


Link to post

Yep. Because trusting rich people and corporations with the economy has worked so well.

Share this post


Link to post

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×