| ▲ | hedora 6 hours ago |
| What’s the problem? We’re committed to destroying livable human habitat for 100M’s to 1B’s of people via global warming. That’ll be less painful if there are fewer people. Lower populations should lead to lower emissions growth too. |
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| ▲ | arbll 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| There's a significant risk it will lead to a large reduction in living standards. A lot of things like retirement funds are built with the assumption of infinite growth. This assumption will obviously break one day and when it does I don't see how it could go smoothly. On the plus side, it will likely lead to lower emissions, assuming it doesn't lead to massive wars or other destructive behaviors due to the instability it will bring. |
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| ▲ | triceratops 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | > retirement funds are built with the assumption of infinite growth Of workers. Because retirement funds take money from workers to pay for retirees. Assets and productivity, on the other hand, can grow a lot more than the population. Right now it's considered communism to tax assets. Once we get over that taboo things'll go a lot smoother. | | |
| ▲ | RickJWagner 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | That would destroy the incentive to save. Why put aside a dollar now, only to have it taxed every year? Better to spend it while it’s whole. That changes future value calculations, too. These are things not to mess with lightly. | | |
| ▲ | triceratops 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > That would destroy the incentive to save. Why put aside a dollar now, only to have it taxed every year? Ok? If you choose to spend a dollar instead of saving it, that implies some business will get that dollar. That implies someone will still invest in, build, and run businesses. > These are things not to mess with lightly. I agree. It requires a lot of thinking, discussion, deliberation and all that. But the basic math doesn't lie. We will have fewer workers in the future. Machines will make more and more stuff. If you want to continue supporting retirees as promised, then taxing the machines is the only answer. Otherwise you'll have to break some promises to retirees and pensioners; now that's a real disincentive to save. | |
| ▲ | danny_codes 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Depends on implementation. For example, a wealth tax that has a "cap" at some ludicrous amount of wealth, like $10M, would effect very few people and therefore be insignificant for the average worker. So 99% of people would continue saving with no change at all to their behavior. The externalities could be nice though, since it'd distribute capital more efficiently. Sort of a general stimulant to the economy. | | |
| ▲ | WarmWash an hour ago | parent [-] | | This line of thinking though assumes it would have no impact on the largest players though. It hinges on a "calling their bluff", that high NW individuals won't change anything despite now being forced to annually liquidate assets to cover taxes. And this doesn't even touch on the immense impracticality of annually valuing assets. Or how to manage assets in illiquid markets, or how to sell 30% of a painting to cover 1% of it's mark-to-market value by year end. The reason wealth taxes never go anywhere is because when you sit down and learn what wealth is, how it works, and what is practical, it makes the most sense by far to just tax things whenever they go back to cash. Really the only genuine tax loop-hole is the step-up basis on inheritance. Everything else is just an elaborate deferral to pay taxes later. |
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| ▲ | red-iron-pine 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | we have property taxes, and its taxed every year. and somehow people keep trying to buy yet more property. plenty of incentive to put money there, ditto for saving. a saved dollar does not stimulate the economy, either. the whole idea of microloans is that the money gets spent ASAP and goes straight into the economy | |
| ▲ | thrance 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Better to spend it while it’s whole. Yes, that's the whole point. That's a good thing. Money is meant to be spent, not be hoarded and slept on forever. Money velocity is terrible right now, capital generates more income than wages, this is neither healthy nor sustainable, and certainly isn't fair to the ones actually doing the productive work. In the ideal society there'd be no Epstein or Thiel, everyone would have a rewarding and productive economic activity. |
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| ▲ | profdevloper 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Who's 'we' in this context? USA? China? Developing nations? |
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| ▲ | MSFT_Edging 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Global economy. You cannot shift the consumption blame onto the country producing the good for another. The pollution in China created to make phones for Americans is part of the same transaction. It's like when the US used to ship our plastic waste to China, and China stopped accepting it. China only had a plastics pollution problem because it was a cheap buck to sweep an American problem under a Chinese rug. |
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| ▲ | jorblumesea 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| most retirement systems assume at least stable population growth. if the system can't sustain itself, debt borrowing can be done but eventually creditors will come calling. what it means in practical terms is the destruction of the modern social safety net. some declining birth rates are ok but places like Japan, Spain, and South Korea look disastrous. |
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| ▲ | hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
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| ▲ | hilariously 6 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | What indicators do we have that we care enough to solve the problem? It may be doomer to think we must slow down, but "the other side" just hand waves all the problems and says we'll magically fix them with future technology magic - its not reassuring. | |
| ▲ | chipsrafferty 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Ah yes let's "make progress" on a planet where people refuse to consume less and we have finite resources. | | |
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