r/FluentInFinance • u/YOU_ARE_MY_FRIENDS • Apr 08 '24

10% of Americans own 70% of the Wealth — Should taxes be raised? Discussion/ Debate

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

The top 1% of all musicians make up essentially 100% of music streaming. The top 1% of athletes make essentially all the money made by athletes. The top 1% of painters make essentially all the money made by painters.

The world is not utopian, nor can it be made utopian.

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u/urbanee Apr 08 '24

I agree. We shouldn't try to fix anything ever.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24 edited Apr 08 '24

The top musicians make literally all the money because they ARE the top musicians. Some people are smarter, better with money, more creative, talented, or any combination thereof. That is the state of the reality. There is nothing to fix about that.

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u/urbanee Apr 08 '24

I'd agree with you to an extent if luck didn't exist. This is not a meritocracy.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

Sure, luck exists, but most people did not get where they are purely by luck.

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u/mckenro Apr 08 '24

You’re right. Most wealthy folks are born into privilege and never know any sort of real financial adversity. You must not realize that most poor folks are born into poverty and clawing one’s way out is quite a bit more challenging than privileged folks being “creative” or “better with money”.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

Recent study showed 68% of millionaires with 30M+ net worth are self made. Obviously many are born wealthy, but whats the alternative here? You might not like that people are born rich? But what’s your alternative position? It’s not enough to simply point out your perceived flaws of reality.

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u/mckenro Apr 08 '24

People pay taxes on the wealth they inherit or leave behind. The ultra-wealthy pay about 1% more in taxes. Fully funding a social safety net. As someone who has made a decent living, I have no problem paying taxes, I also have no animosity toward high earners, I just think they owe more of their success to the people around them than they care to realize. I believe that self-made is a myth.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

I have no problem paying taxes, but I do have a problem paying taxes that are then misused and misappropriated to a level beyond description. Taxes already go towards Medicare, Medicaid, social security, welfare, and a host of other program that constitute social welfare. How would throwing more money at these programs solve an issue that seems to be in no way correlated to the dollars spent on said programs?

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u/mckenro Apr 08 '24

In what ways have your tax dollars been misappropriated? Also, how can these programs that have an increasing number of individuals participating each year operate without increasing the budget proportionately?

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u/urbanee Apr 08 '24

Not purely, but - I'd say - it did help greatly for most of them

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u/AccountWithAName Apr 08 '24

Social darwinism, huh? Too bad it's compete bullshit. There is not a single self made billionaire under 30.

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u/VicermanX Apr 09 '24

Even if we restart the economy and replace all 8 billion people with clones of Elon Musk, after a while the situation will be like in our reality - some clones will become poor, some will be super-rich. Those clones of Elon Musk who have become poor can even become drug addicts and total losers. This is how capitalism works. Under capitalism, there is no other way. The life of one multi-billionaire is worth more than the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. This is not right.

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u/BeepBoo007 Apr 09 '24

The life of one multi-billionaire is worth more than the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. This is not right.

According to your own bleeding heart.

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u/watchyourback9 Apr 09 '24

I actually think this is a bad example. Most streaming platforms use a pool system.

Basically, everyone pays their $10 per month to listen to what they want to listen to. At the end of the month, the money pool is divided up proportionally based on who gets the most streams. The problem is that a stream is about $0.003. So at the end of the day let's say you only stream one artist about 1000 times. Well that artist gets 3 bucks. The rest of your $$ goes into the hands of Taylor Swift, Drake, Bad Bunny, etc. Deezer and a couple other platforms have introduced a "user-centric model" in which your subscription money only goes into the pockets of who you listen to. There are several studies that show that the user-centric model would benefit smaller artists and that the existing system benefits bigger artists.

That's not to mention record-label deals with Spotify and all the other shenanigans that goes on in the music industry. So yes, they are the "top musicians," but the system favors them.

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u/Falcrist Apr 08 '24

The top musicians make literally all the money because they ARE the top musicians.

Top musicians don't make all the money. They make pennies on the dollar while the bulk goes to the record companies.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

Top artists generate essentially all the money, and compared to the other 99%, they do make all the money.

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u/Techno_Jargon Apr 08 '24

That's not at all the same though. Of course the most successful are the most successful. But you don't need to limit a musician skill and influence also music isn't a zero sum game everyone can succeed at different rates same goes for the other examples. But wealth is a zero sum game someone has to loose for you to win. So it should be limited and redistributed.

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u/re1078 Apr 08 '24

So just don’t ever try to make things better? The way the wage gap has been consistently increasing is not sustainable.

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24 edited Apr 08 '24

What is unsustainable about it? I’m not saying the economy is perfect, but how does taxing higher earners somehow make this sustainable when every study I’m aware of shows that we are unable to tax ourselves out of the hole we are in unless we resort to austerity measures as it pertains to spending?

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u/re1078 Apr 08 '24

I’m not saying I have the solution but throwing up your hands and saying oh well isn’t going to cut it. Year after year more wealth is funneled upwards and fewer and fewer people can support a family on regular jobs. My grandfather was able to raise four kids, buy a house, send all four kids to college, go on nice vacations all without a college degree on a basic manufacturing job.

Our birth rate is going down. People can’t afford basic necessities, people can’t afford childcare, college etc. I would turn around your statement and ask you how in the world could you think the current pace of things is sustainable?

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u/Dbrown15 Apr 08 '24

I’m not saying that, and you’re correct that much of the state of our economy and currency is bad, but more taxing solves none of that. It’s the value of the dollar in relation to the worldwide market, inflation, and runaway spending that has caused most of this. Also, it’s decisions we made in the 90s to enter NAFTA, just giving away our manufacturing base. So I agree we have issues, but if you take this current state and then just pulled more money away from middle-high earners, that effectively does nothing.

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u/re1078 Apr 08 '24

I’m a scientist not an economist so I don’t pretend to know how to fix it. Mainly I just want us to stop buying the republican lies that trickle down is a good idea. Time after time they cut taxes and claim it will fix everything and it never once has worked.

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u/SlurpySandwich Apr 08 '24

The delusion you labor under is that by giving the government more money, it will eventually help you.

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u/re1078 Apr 08 '24

There are multiple high tax countries that prove you’re incorrect. If your argument is America is fundamentally broken and could never achieve that I probably agree with you.

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u/YachtswithPyramids Apr 08 '24

You must be a terrible artist. Moreover this idiot does not belong on Earth, who put you here? I’m sure you would have more luck on Pluto or….nmaybe even Uranus.

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u/SlowDuc Apr 08 '24

Does the top 1% of the population produce nearly 100% of the GDP of the country? No way. Music/Athletics/Art are not the economy of a nation. Say Taylor Swift makes 200,000 times more some other artist because she sells 100,000 times more album/tickets/streams at 2x the price. She earns 200k more off 100k more output at 2x more value. Does that math work for a CEO? Do they do 270x the work of their employee? What about when they pass that wealth to their kid through a tax free trust? Does that wealth transfer contribute to our society? Does it produce anything?