Comment on Borrowing money against their stuff to get more stuff to borrow money...
greygore@lemmy.world 22 hours agoThe Pokémon card example is ludicrous - aside from the fact that CCG cards are not “wealth”, or the fact that no one would offer $500 for a card that is only worth $50, a single buyer does not make a market or set the value. Stocks, the source of most outrageous wealth, by definition have a market value, and even the most frothy of assets don’t swing 10x in such a short period of time.
The mom calling about selling the childhood home is very real, in fact it already happens! Guess your friend is unfamiliar with property taxes. My home has tripled in value and the government appraised value went up by a smaller amount, and now I pay taxes. When my mortgage is fully paid off, I will still owe the local government taxes every year. All those “tax free” states lean on regressive taxes like sales tax and property taxes to avoid collecting progressive income taxes, so this problem is even worse in those states.
A while back I owned a small business, and because I didn’t pay myself in stock, I had to pay taxes every year based on how much my company profited. My business partner and I would do a distribution every year to pay those taxes. We paid more every year in taxes on our modest business than Tesla paid last year on $5.7B in income. Also, company “worth” for private businesses is based on appreciated assets and cash on hand… a business owner who “lost” 90% of the business value of a two decade old business in a year has much, much bigger problems than unrealized gains taxes.
Middle class people are already paying wealth taxes. Mutual funds are taxed on unrealized gains all the time, albeit at capital gains rates (because we value capital more than labor). Property taxes are paid on the biggest source of wealth most people own. Even poor people are paying annual taxes or fees on their cars.
I agree, your friend is a moron, but I think most people knew that the second they saw “ancap”.
hector@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
Property taxes are regressive, but having state income taxes doesn’t preclude them, the states just spend the extra money. Here some cities have income taxes, the state, and the feds. And counties do property taxes through the township levels. The state will spend every penny they can get their grasping hands on, currently for pet projects of lawmakers and tax breaks and incentives and money spent to improve locations to lure big business to set up here.
While the small business both parties pretend to care about like yourself pay through the nose, that money is taken from us and handed to the richest companies in the world to set up here without paying those same taxes.
It’s all about leverage, and alone we have none. It’s never been more clear we need to organize, on our own forums, around what we agree on, no matter what we disagree on. On existing social media we are simply turned against each other on issues, oh that person from the other side that rejected their party and came over to our side? They once said this and still say that so fuck them they aren’t pure, even as the people making those arguments originally are the biggest pieces of shit in the world.
Social media is rigged, we need our own forums set up to not be rigged, to not be hooked by government and big business, and providing clear rules enforced fairly. Federated sites on general forums allowing people to cooperate publicly and privately as they see fit, and move between social medias on the same account. Where violations can be appealed all the way to a jury trial of members to prevent the rich, government, and moderators perverting it or abusing their power.