Let’s call him “BeeGee.” Like all capitalists, he attempted to create a monopoly for a product that everybody wanted, and he came so close that he made a major amount of money, too much in the view of his social policy critics. So what if his enterprise employed thousands of people who willingly came to work. By the metric of oversized income and assets, BeeGee has to be confronted. Therefore, it is resolved that the government confiscate a substantial portion of his assets and use the monies to house the homeless and fix the roads. But please do not create any obstruction to BeeGee’s ability to invent products that millions use every day.
The prototypical hedge fund manager is stereotypically a bad guy because his activities produce nothing. His wealth is because each day he says to the mirror, “I Can,” and he risks substantial capital to back up an observation that some securities are overvalued and some are undervalued. He has no right to use his money to pay $100 million for a painting. Therefore, it is resolved that the government confiscate a substantial portion of his assets and use the money to pay the college tuition of financially challenged young people. I am not worried about his ability to make money in the future; he is really smart, works 24/7, knows every paragraph of the tax code, and has broken no laws.
Some 0.1% wealth category people are like oracles. They see the future well, and their brainchildren assist the entire evolution to TechnoWorld. But should somebody be allowed to spend $100 million on a boat race, like one of these people did. No, that is not helpful to society. Therefore, it is resolved that the government confiscate an equal amount of his assets, to be devoted to the food stamp program.
Both the bank account and annual earnings of this MD are clearly excessive (even by doctors’ standards). However, I, and millions of others, am using his terrific product, so by that definition, he has to be considered a good guy. But how can I give him a pass—he is superrich. Policy problem?
And now there is a new entry in the super-rich classification, the winner of the Powerball lottery. He or she (or they) will have created nothing, risked but a few dollars, hired nobody, and have had no impact on anybody in the process of gaining said wealth. If history is any guide, the winner will be portrayed as something of a hero … and will proceed to dissipate a good portion of his largesse.
Overall, how do we assess the legitimacy of one’s income and assets, fairly earned? Can we talk about income inequality as we sip coffee priced at double that of the little place around the corner and put more money in the pocket of Starbucks? How should we think about the wealth of Mark Zuckerberg when we regard his service as indispensable; in fact, we cannot even remember life before Facebook.
Did Apple become the world’s most valuable company because of a singular coherent decision by a governing entity? Of course not; it is the result of most of us (worldwide in fact) loving a product so much that we do not care about the wealth we are creating for people who financially are already “beyond category,” as they say in the Tour de France.
Once the projected policymaker gets past closing various tax loopholes and simplifying the tax code itself, all to the good, how does he think about the actual tax rate?
Clearly it should be raised for upper income individuals. However, to couple that advocacy with a suggestion that high incomes and large asset positions are to be considered the evil consequences of an ugly economic system, that is somehow separate from the cumulative decisions of the rest of us, is to be completely hypocritical as this short enumeration of different situations demonstrates.
Maybe Bernie has a consistent answer to the question of which billionaires should be bashed.