[quote=AN][quote=SK in CV][quote=AN]Although economist might not advocate for it, but that’s the best solution to shrink the wealth gap. Historical data proves that it works. [/quote]
Sorry, that’s just wrong. Severe market crashes invariably lead to high unemployment. Unemployment invariably affects the lower and lower-middle economic classes disproportionately. Only in backwards world is that a path towards closing the wealth gap.[/quote]
Where have you been in this last crash? Yes, there were a lot of unemployment, but there were a lot of foreclosed upper middle class people too. Everyone was destroyed pretty evenly across board. Even the ultra rich were taken down a few notches.
With that said, I agree that it would be a backward world. But that’s the only proven way to reduce the wealth gap. I don’t think your tax proposal would do it. But we’ll never know.[/quote]
No. Everyone was not destroyed across the board. And I never claimed that there was no damage done at the top end of the economy during the recent crash.
Families whose fortunes went from $500 million to $300 million were not destroyed in the same way as those families who lost their upper middle class jobs, and had their homes foreclosed were. Nor the same as the lower income group that lost their jobs and didn’t get new ones for 2 to 3 years. The former group was angry they lost a lot of money. The latter two had their entire lives turned on its head. They are not the same.
A crash is not the only proven way to reduce the wealth gap, though I’ll admit that economic models are sketchy at best for taxes doing the trick. Calling those models proof could be an exaggeration. However there are some reasonably strong economic models that tie the ever increasing wealth gap to the tax preferences shown to capital over the last 35 years. It’s not unreasonable to argue that reversing that policy will also reverse the wealth gap. It’s surely preferable to a crash that is sure to put millions out of work and cause significantly more suffering than the wealth gap does. Killing the patient with the cure isn’t the answer.
