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All posts Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦's posts Post Back to profile
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Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

> It could never work, because the rich can move / have already moved their wealth elsewhere.

Any such issue is very complex. There are always several things that need to happen to "fix" them.

So, if you react like this to any single attempt ­— "this can't work, as there are other issues to solve first" — then nothing ever gets fixed.

That's basically nihilism. You do you, but if you are so certain it can't work, why even bother commenting on this at all? 🤔

14 January at 17:12 | Open on mstdn.social
20 comments
Clark W Griswold until 25-Dec

@rysiek Lots of people these days are focused on "not" something. You propose a solution (whether it's politics, or technical, or culture whatever) and their reply is "not that." It's easy to say "not that". It's hard to say "we want this" and actually have a viable, workable solution.

When someone replies to my suggestion with "not that" I just immediately reply with "what do we do instead?" Frequently they don't know.

Nobody would live in a house if everyone said "not a cave, not a hut, not a hole in the ground, not a tree, not a bush..." You can't arrive at "I want to live in a house" by naming all the things you DON'T want to live in.

@rysiek Lots of people these days are focused on "not" something. You propose a solution (whether it's politics, or technical, or culture whatever) and their reply is "not that." It's easy to say "not that". It's hard to say "we want this" and actually have a viable, workable solution.

When someone replies to my suggestion with "not that" I just immediately reply with "what do we do instead?" Frequently they don't know.

14 January at 17:17 | Open on infosec.exchange
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@paco 💯

It is perfectly reasonable to say "not that" even if one does not have a good solution. But that has to be related to some specific bad outcome.

Saying "not that, just because I don't think it would work, but no I have no specific bad outcome I am concerned with, and no I have no alternative" is what gets me.

Esp. when it's delivered in an authoritative tone of "this will never work."

Again, if "this will never work", why even bother opposing it? Just sit back and enjoy being right!

14 January at 17:21 | Open on mstdn.social
RedFreljordian

@paco @rysiek Right but if you live in a house that is imperfect but someone suggests that you should live in a cave instead, "not that" is an acceptable answer. Not making progress is better than going backwards.

14 January at 18:07 | Open on mastodon.world
Clark W Griswold until 25-Dec

Let me try to connect your comment to mine. When this hypothetical person says "go live in a cave", even if your reply to them is literally the words "not that", the meaning is more than simple negation. You're going to DO something. You have reasons for doing it. So in our rhetoric we need to move away from negation. Maybe you'll continue to live in your imperfect house. Maybe you will leave your imperfect house and move into something that is neither that house nor a cave, that's what you will DO. Negating the suggestion of living in a cave doesn't say what you WILL do. But we know you will do SOMETHING.

Like when someone says "we will ban abortion" they do not usually identify the kinds of medical care that will be substituted for situations where abortion would normally be the treatment. Banning and negating can't lead to the thing we actually do. Even if we all agree nobody will live in caves, that doesn't mean everybody lives in houses instead of cars. They're going to live somewhere, and saying "not in caves" isn't useful.

@RedFreljordian @rysiek

Let me try to connect your comment to mine. When this hypothetical person says "go live in a cave", even if your reply to them is literally the words "not that", the meaning is more than simple negation. You're going to DO something. You have reasons for doing it. So in our rhetoric we need to move away from negation. Maybe you'll continue to live in your imperfect house. Maybe you will leave your imperfect house and move into something that is neither that house nor a cave, that's what you will...

14 January at 18:44 | Open on infosec.exchange
RedFreljordian

@paco sure. But in most cases there is already a status quo, which is what people tend to mean when they say "not that". As in the situation is not great, someone proposes something and the reply is no that seems bad, I'd rather keep what we have even if I think it is still not great.

Ofcourse it would be even better if they did offer a valuable suggestion, but we can't all have ideas for everything and sometimes it is valid to just say no I do not want that

14 January at 19:03 | Open on mastodon.world
Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek Most countries tax their residents even if that wealth is outside the country. German tax authorities, for example, have been known to purchase evidence related to the Panama Papers release for the specific purpose of being able to levy taxes on people who live in Germany but tried to hide their wealth and income in an offshore site.

14 January at 17:25 | Open on toot.cat
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

> Who exactly would get taxed and to what extent? What would be considered "excess wealth"?

Fair question, not clearly answered.

But this is a very early step in a potential legislative process. This question would get hammered out throughout that process, if it gets in.

It's not like we're voting on specific terms here. Merely saying: "yeah that sounds like something we should spend some EU time figuring out properly."

So, that sounds reasonable to me. Plus, Thomas Pikkety is involved. 👀

14 January at 17:57 | Open on mstdn.social
Riley S. Faelan

@rysiek I'm inclined to argue that an optimal, self-regulating, taxation level might be determined based on criteria such as a percentile, such as applying wealth tax starting from a level that exceeds, the minimum wealth level of the top 5% of wealthy people in a country for a short-to-medium term, or something like 3 standard deviations above the population's average for a long-term approach.

In an ideal world, the idea should be neutralising the wealth-based social stratification, so I'm entirely okay with a system whereby a zillionaire can reduce their wealth tax by making all the poor people around them a little bit richer and thereby nudging the average upwards.

@rysiek I'm inclined to argue that an optimal, self-regulating, taxation level might be determined based on criteria such as a percentile, such as applying wealth tax starting from a level that exceeds, the minimum wealth level of the top 5% of wealthy people in a country for a short-to-medium term, or something like 3 standard deviations above the population's average for a long-term approach.

14 January at 18:03 | Open on toot.cat
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
504DR

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

Relying on selfish rich ppl for funding social welfare programs has proven as false and destructive as capitalism has, bc it's a part of capitalism.

Healthy societies don't need charity.
Healthy societies take care of all of their citizens equally.

@riley @rysiek

We have that here in America.
It's called charity.

And the wealthy figured out long ago how to get around it.

They create their own charity, which just gives their money to causes that help the ppl and causes they want to help, and it's hardly ever to the ppl who need it most.

Set up with hefty pay to the administrators of the charity, most often times very little money ends up going to the cause itself.

14 January at 18:29 | Open on climatejustice.social
Riley S. Faelan

@504DR I did not suggest measuring how much the zillionaire "donated", but how much the wealth of the people around them arose. And, obviously, if a zillionaire is motivated to raise the wealth of a bunch of random people, the poorest people are the ones cheapest to enwealthen.

@rysiek

14 January at 19:24 | Open on toot.cat
504DR

@riley @rysiek

Again, from an American perspective - good luck finding an altruistic zillionaire like that.

Maybe it's different across the pond. 🤷

14 January at 19:31 | Open on climatejustice.social
Silly Jim - webcomic

@rysiek There website has this question in the faq. :)

It depends per country, as an example they state:

"..In Belgium, for example, we propose that anyone with 1.25 million euros in assets in addition to their main home and business assets should qualify as "ultra-rich".

Sounds like a good starter.

tax-the-rich.eu/home#info

14 January at 18:11 | Open on mastodon.social
Alberto Cottica

@rysiek not true, the definition is quite clear. The example for Belgium: you would be taxable if you have, NOT counting your house and any assets committed to your business, over 1.25 million euro.

14 January at 18:32 | Open on mastodon.green
Alberto Cottica

@rysiek that said, your broader point obviously stands. 😊

14 January at 18:51 | Open on mastodon.green
J. "Henry" Waugh

@rysiek I would also reply to "the rich can just move elsewhere!"

Governments know this, and have an incentive to act collectively. Slowly but surely, they are:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_m

14 January at 18:04 | Open on chaos.social
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦

@jhwgh1968 what I love about this is that this is basically governments doing collective bargaining with the capitalist class. :blobcatlaugh:

14 January at 18:05 | Open on mstdn.social
J. "Henry" Waugh

@rysiek while I see it more like an "18th century law of the sea" or "universal jurisdiction for tax evasion", that is absolutely true

14 January at 18:07 | Open on chaos.social
Nicole Parsons

@rysiek

The problem of mobile anti-democracy money is being addressed by Biden's rapid approvals of tax treaties.

There are fewer and fewer places for the rich to hide their money and evade taxation, as a result.

whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/s

Europe could do the same. Support a global minimum tax.

14 January at 18:05 | Open on mstdn.social
stefan
@rysiek This is generally an interesting proposal. Though the regulations will have to be pretty tight. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

The general problem with taxing the wealthy was always that they could just likely evade the tax by moving to another country in the EU or using one of the various loopholes, that just exist.

Taking this on at european level makes that more difficult for sure. Though Switzerland and Great Britian still exist as "safe harbours" in Europe (since both of them are not part of the EU and you live very comfortable there).

Another thing to generally keep in mind is that wealth tax is a fairly difficult tax to a) actually determine since there is a lot of different assets and b) to actually collect since likely not all wealth should be taxed.

We had such a tax in germany like almost 30 years at this point. Collegues at work that I asked about said that the tax quite bad to determine...

So it will be interesting to see if this comes to fruition and how they will solve the challenges associated with it (and how many loopholes they conviently "forget" in there)
@rysiek This is generally an interesting proposal. Though the regulations will have to be pretty tight. It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

The general problem with taxing the wealthy was always that they could just likely evade the tax by moving to another country in the EU or using one of the various loopholes, that just exist.
14 January at 19:39 | Open on akko.lightnovel-dungeon.de
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