alt Hacker Newsnot a fan of defending billionairs, but is mostly a useless populist slogan*
You can do full Dekulakization (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization) on them and it won't change anything in current economic situation.
Confiscating 100% of all billionaire wealth (~$8.4T) covers - ~1.1 years of federal spending (~$7.4T) - ~4.4 years of deficits (~$1.9T) - ~23% of debt (~$36T):
and pretty much kills US ability to rely on private sector (and I dont think we have a way to rely on public sector)
The sooner we all start focusing on things that actually matter -- like improving democracy, quality of education (btw spending more may not solve it) etc -- the faster we will improve situation.
Cities like NYC pretty much can afford UBI (look at per capita spending on homelessness, public schools etc). Taxing more may not be the answer.
*it should be studied what motivates people to repeat it
Replies
> Confiscating 100% of all billionaire wealth (~$8.4T) covers - ~1.1 years of federal spending (~$7.4T) - ~4.4 years of deficits (~$1.9T) - ~23% of debt (~$36T):
Adding a wealth tax doesn't mean eliminating existing income taxes.
> Cities like NYC pretty much can afford UBI (look at per capita spending on homelessness, public schools etc).
Perhaps , but what about poor states like West Virginia or Alabama. It's not universal if they don't receive benefits also.
IMO its a useful populist slogan because it solves a different problem: The power that comes with being a billionaire. E.g. its all well and good to focus on fixing democracy instead, but if (some specific) billionaires are focused on deploying their wealth to destroy democracy, then what?
I've generally come around to believe that we need to limit wealth from a purely power / control point of view.