How Billionaires Could Race to Our Rescue

[marmar]

from Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality:



How Billionaires Could Race to Our Rescue
September 25, 2010

A modest tax on all U.S. personal fortunes over $1 billion could raise more than enough revenue from the Forbes 400 alone to erase the combined budget shortfalls of every state in the nation.

By Sam Pizzigati


David Rockefeller, Sr., the only surviving grandchild of America’s first billionaire, has achieved still another distinction. At age 95, he currently rates as the oldest billionaire on the new Forbes magazine annual list of America’s 400 richest.

David Rockefeller, on this year’s list, has plenty of billionaire company. Every single one of the 400 deep pockets on that list holds an individual fortune worth at least $1 billion. In 1982, the first year the annual Forbes 400 list appeared, only 13 Americans could claim billionaire status.

Back then, nearly three decades ago, the Forbes 400 held a combined fortune of just $91.8 billion, the equivalent of about $208 billion in today’s dollars. The current top 400, Forbes reported last week, hold over a trillion dollars more in wealth. Their current combined fortune: $1.37 trillion.

The ten richest Americans on the new Forbes list carry, all by themselves, a combined net worth of $270 billion, more than the inflation-adjusted net worth of the entire initial Forbes list back in 1982.

How much of an impact on our troubled nation could these staggeringly massive accumulations of wealth have if modestly shared — or taxed?

One quick answer: A 15 percent “wealth tax” on all personal assets over $1 billion would this year raise $145.5 billion, more than enough to cover the entire $140 billion budget shortfall America’s 50 states are facing in the current fiscal year. .............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://toomuchonline.org/how-billionaires-could-race-to-our-rescue/

[babylonsister]

1. Well, this person is an optimist. It'd be nice. nt

[izquierdista]

2. The only way they will race...

...is if the mob with torches and pitchforks is closing in.

[Scuba]

3. Nailed it.

[valerief]

4. The job of a billionaire is not to help but to harm. That's what they do. Nonstop. nt

[BrklynLiberal]

5. I have not heard about too much volunteering after Buffett said the rich should be paying more taxes

Most of them are still Gordon Gekko acolytes, I guess.

[old mark]

6. If this modest proposal were enacted, the rich would take to the streets

waving their Purdey shotguns and speaking vulgar threats against government by the peasantry...more probably they would have the help do that...


mark

[ehrnst]

9. They would finance the peasantry and FoxNews to do it for them. (nt)

[old mark]

11. HMMMM!!!!!nt

[nxylas]

10. And the peasantry would be right behind them

Mewling about how Muslim Socialist President Hitler wants to take away their hypothetical future wealth and give it to "his people".

[Bitwit1234]

7. He's not perfect but if all billionaires were like

Soros this country would be better off. He seems to care for the people over the corporations.

[Larry Ogg]

8. Why bail out the government when you've spent such a fortune buying it...

Philanthropy can be and has been an evil thing... According to Carol Quigley author of "Tragedy and Hope" a tell all story about the Counsel of Foreign Relations (CFR): In it he talks about how Rockefeller financed Gloria Steinem and woman's liberation, not because he wanted to see woman have equal rights, but because he and the CFR wanted women in the factories and kids in public schools where they could be indoctrinated into a system that would make the peon class into good little workers and pawns.

And then there's Andrew Carnegie who, in 1892 Homestead Pennsylvania, is infamously know for breaking the Steel Union and leaving many dead in the process; fortunately for the predator class the government sided with the ruling elites, I guess that's why we need unions in the first place. But when Carnegie got done making money he became famous for giving it away as a philanthropist… So I have to ask about who controls the curriculum and what positive or negative effect does The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have on American education and culture… So the pretense of philanthropy is once again used to make the peon class into good little workers and pawns.

I’m sure there are exceptions to the rule but I think it’s a delusional fantasy to think that most of these billionaires and millionaires would be philanthropist without any pretense or strings attached that would further empower the predators that are commonly known as the status quo. The best thing for our government or any government to do is to change the currency and nationalize the financial systems and thus wipe these fortunes out of existence. And like Abraham Lincoln said, “The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.”

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Wealth Tax in France

Wealth tax, or 'L'impôt de solidarité sur la fortune' (ISF), is a tax on asset values that strikes fear into the hearts of some expatriates.

Wealth tax does not exist in the UK, and the concept sometimes comes as a surprise to the British, since not only are you paying an annual tax on the value of assets that you built up out of your taxed income, but the authorities also oblige you to list everything you own, which can leave some people feeling that their privacy has been invaded.

However, this is a tax about which French public opinion feels strongly and anyone who followed the various debates on the 2005 French budget will realise that any attempt to reduce wealth tax is considered to be a political disaster, even for the current government which has a large majority. For the first time in seven years, however, the French Parliament voted to increase the various tax bands in line with inflation, thereby halting the gradual increase this tax has seen in recent years.

http://www.frenchentree.com/fe-legal/DisplayArticle.asp?ID=2173

Table: French Wealth Tax Bands 2010
Fraction Taxable         Rate of Tax
Up to €790,000           0%
€790,000 - €1,290,000    0.55%
€1,290,000 - €2,530,000  0.75%
€2,530,000 - €3,980,000  1.00%
€3,980,000 - €7,600,000  1.30%
€7,600,000 - €16,540,000 1.65%
Over €16,540,000         1.80%

http://www.french-property.com/guides/france/finance-taxation/taxation/wealth-tax/rate/

This seems quite reasonable. Looking at those Forbes figures for the richest 400, since 1981 I reckon their assets have grown at an average of about 6.7% per year, above inflation. So paying 1.8% in tax each year isn't that onerous.