The Death of the Middle-Class Musician

So why not have the worker get/keep more of his money, instead of giving it to a different group of "others"?

Because the taxi driver could keep all of his money and still wouldn't make very much.

Sure, but he'd make more if he wasn't taxed so much.

In my country, from the customer to the persons net paycheck, a bit over half goes to the government (vat, 2x different benefits, income tax).

Every time someone mentiones taxes, the rich and the poor over here, the average (ie. people earning around average income) get taxed more, the rich on paper earn nothing, and the poor get taxed the same (because there's nothing more to take).

I'd much prefer a system where an average joe would pay a lower percantage of taxes (ie. a tax break), and people like bezos would actually get taxed at the same rate instead of paying zero throug loopholes).

> Because the taxi driver could keep all of his money and still wouldn't make very much.

So what does this have to do with income inequality? If you try to make a living from a business and the revenue you get from it is not enough to keep it afloat, what does it say about it's viability and income inequality?

Because the worker doesn't have the ability to be able to protect his interests when he is just keeping his money.

The rich are able to keep larger portions of their income, and then eventually leverage that to be patrons of political power and set the rules for themselves.

You are also not in the same category as the super rich, so theres an unspoken blurring of the terms here as well - theres no sense in considering a normal perso, or a rich person against someone like Bezos, who has the wealth of several countries.

I understand that you don’t like the European taxation regime, where the bulk of the tax burden is carried by the middle class, but I find it strange that then you give Bezos as a negative example. It is strange, because in US, unlike in Europe, it is the wealthy who pay most of the taxes. Our middle class pays very little tax, unlike middle class in Europe.

This seems like a tautology?

By definition, the median person only has a mediocre ability to “protect his interests”.

I was responding to the question:

> So why not have the worker get/keep more of his money, instead of giving it to a different group of "others"?

The quote is implying: "rather than tax people and give that money to others, just have people keep the money they make."

My point is that this would not necessarily help the taxi driver much, since he probably doesn't pay much in taxes anyway. His issue is that his wage is not high enough.

One could argue that taxi driving shouldn't exist or should be relegated to some impoverished underclass, or one could argue that the issue is with the taxi driver's lifestyle expectations and not with the low wage, or that taxi drivers should find other employment, thus reducing the supply of drivers and either raising wages or "rightsizing" the driver workforce.

In any case, I don't agree with the parent poster's implication that lowering taxes is a viable alternative to tax-funded universal basic income.

Lowering taxes benefits most those who pay a lot of taxes, and those are the people who are least directly affected by the removal of tax-funded welfare programs. Sending the money to "others" is the point.

Keep in mind that the taxi driver is just a made up example, and I myself am not sold on the idea of universal basic income.

Consumption matters not wealth. Wealth is just paper ownership, it's consumption that is wasting scarce resources.

And the super rich simply can't consume that much. Bezons isn't eating a thousand times as much as a millionaire. If his kids spend their lives being unproductive, it's only a tiny handful of wastrels. Mansions, yachts and large private airplanes might be a bit of a resource sink I guess .... but how does paper wealth cost society real resources? It's like being made at someone with a rare monkey gif

That should be true, but it doesn't end up working that way because people become corporations right? The actual tax burden is footed by the people making just enough to call rich, but not breaking into the territory where it's worth hiring an army of tax lawyers to reduce it to zero. This is bad.

This is the obvious answer, and unattractive for those with unsellable skills.

If being a taxi driver doesnt making a living if they keep all their wages, then we shouldnt have taxi drivers.

The debate was if workers get taxed, should that money go to artists and op above me said that that money now went to rich people.

I advocated for workers to keep more of their money.

It's not about protecting interests, leverages, political powers, etc., it's just more net pay at the same gross pay for the workers. Why choose where the workers money goes, if they can keep more, and just pay the artists by visitng concerts or buying their music? Why does government have to be involved?

No, that’s just not how it works. People cannot become corporations. You cannot hire an army of tax lawyers to avoid owing any tax. There are no major “loopholes” either that would help you avoid paying tax on actual income you make. You are just repeating some vague bullshit people say on the internet, but it’s just not true.

What of society needs taxi drivers?

if you are a worker, you are not the one who should pay to reduce inequality.

then they pay for it, possibly more if required.

Sure, if you believe that you should most definitely do your best to consume less. Matter of fact, this is what people around the world are doing and reducing one of the highest sources of future consumption - children. I think it was a world bank report that came out recently that showed that people globally are having fewer children, with costs being the most commonly provided reason.

So, if you believe consumption is the issue, rejoice! It seems to be a problem that will resolve itself in a generation or two.

>why does government have to be involved.

>Taxes

If you have taxes, you already have a system which redistributes wealth to places that society requires, so government is already involved.

So the question becomes how the government is involved.

In any system with competing interests, a no holds barred contest favors the most willing to maximize their advantages. Wealth even concentrates even in video games.

To ensure a system where there is some degree of fairness between humans, to ensure that your position in society is not locked in to your inherited fate, or even to ensure that fewer taxes are taken from workers, you need the power of a shared government.

Also: The American position is usually to have no trust in government, which is encouraged by having a right wing media sphere that is dedicated to inserting as much distrust into the system as possible.

So by default in an American context, it’s hard to conceive of a government with high trust, and the default is to never give money to it.

I'm more talking about fairness than environmental issues, but it still is valid to say CO2 has more or less peaked and will decline faster due to population declined.

Wealth is power. Power matters, as with it you're in a position to decide what can be consumed to begin with. People that control wealth control what policies get implemented, which projects get funded, etc. They will not support policies that reduce consumption because it would reduce their income and power. They will support projects that waste resources if it makes them more money and power.

Denying it won’t make these loopholes go away.

The US’s CGT base cost uplift on death is insane, and only does not get repealed because it enables the super rich to never pay tax via the ‘buy borrow die’ strategy.

The US’s carried interest rules for hedge funds and private equity partners are insane and only exist because the affected individuals bribe lawmakers and presidents.

I was born in a socialist country, with red stars, a dictator, government owned everything, and smuggling jeans and coffee across the border. I'm still here, but the country doesn't exist anymore. Now, our parts over here makes us a small and pretty OK doing EU country with a relatively nice living standard.

I don't trust the government. Why? Because they can't properly operate with the money they're given by us, the workers. Same goes for many recepients of that money, especially the ones outside of "social help".

Yes, we fund art, we have public tenders, artists apply, they get a few thousand euros, produce something to fit "the current political theme" (eg. everybody is talking about ecology, let's make a performance where they throw trash at eachother), 10, 20, maybe 30 people see that, mostly family and local homeless people coming for the free wine, papers are stamped, checkmarks on all the right places, and money has exchanged hands. I would much rather live in a system where workers get to keep that money and spend it for art in whatever way they want. Even in a "semi-mandated" way (eg. tax benefits if you spend X euros yearly on art stuff).

And that's just peanuts compared to other stuff our government spends money on, our healthcare system is beyond broken, forcing you to pay government healthcare insurance (deducted by your employer, at 14.92% of your gross pay + 37.5eur extra, around 5keur yearly per average worker) but when you need an ultrasound for possible kidney stones... well, the waiting times are 6 month, but if you pay out of your pocket for a private clinic, somewhere around 100 eur, you can get one today or at the latest, tomorrow. If you're sick for up to 28 days, your employer covers your sick pay (80% of normal pay), if longer than 28 days, the government pays for that... sounds ok, right? We have people on sick leave for two, three years (24-36months * 80% of ~2500eur average monthly gross) waiting for eg. a knee surgery, that costs 3-5k eur at a private clinic, even less at a government one, but because our government insurance decided to pay only for 20 such surgeries yearly, and the waiting line is 70 people, you're screwed.

So yeah, I don't trust the government. I trust an average homeless alcoholic more with money management, especially because he's operating with his own money for his own benefit, and he'll make sure to get the most booze for whatever he managed to gather and not spend more than he has.

Well then it should dishearten you to know, that the 2024 Economics Nobel, was won by people who showed that good institutions cause nations to be wealthy, not just correlate.

You’re obviously educated and on HN, so you can appreciate how much harder showing causation is.

Sadly, that does mean, the citizens need to get together and make their system more trustworthy. Getting more money in the hands of workers will not result in a better overall system.

Or in simpler terms - Distrust in the government is the enemy, and all the factors that cause it, real and perceived. Corruption, weak information economies, weakened judiciaries, depleted citizen capacity to build consensus.

We need those systems to work.

But we the citizens have very limited possiblities of what to do... we can vote for basically one of two options and that's it, and both options are bad. Newcomers have no chance of breaking through (unless they're cherry picked by one of the options and pumped up by the media... which one side does every 4 years).

The government has the monopoly on violence. We pay the government, we pay the people that should check that they didn't do anything bad/wrong (police, anti-corruption services, etc.), we pay the court system, but they don't do anything. Things that work in every corporation (eg. procurement offices and oversight over them) are broken in many if not all governments, including ours.

If the government wants trust, then they must earn it. So far they haven't. And I'm talking about the whole pyramid, from the top politicians, to the lowest traffic police officer not doing his/her job. And in the system where a politician steals money, the investigators dont investigate and the courts don't prosecute, we can reduce the money they get, because they obviously are not doing the jobs we are paying them for. Jail 10, 20 politicians, and I'll gladly support more investigators (paid by the taxpayers). If they don't, we don't need the ones we already have.

Remember, its citizens that made the country in the first place. These are all systems, and they operate under either stated, or unstated rules.

Either way, no one is coming to save you, other than your own ability to understand the system, its tolerances, and to effect change / build alliances.

You can even achieve this by doing something small, like cleaning up a local spot, or other parts of your daily routine.

We learn how to operate very complex systems regularly.

As Milton Friedman has said, Market Failure is preferable to Government Failure. You are perfectly free to start your own coop or run a business to go against incumbent, and capital and government nowadays is quite enthusiastic to support you in that endeavor.

Americans also have never really lived under a heavy handed government, and that's reflected in the tone here of frustration of market failure. But when the government fails, it's not frustration that takes hold, it's fear. Are you willing to risk that?

Consumers also don't support policies that reduce consumption because that would reduce their quality of life. Consumers happily take flights, hot showers, run their AC, etc. if it makes their lives easier.

A billionaire consumes less of their income and invests more than a regular person. Wealth is power, but virtually everyone would spend on the same things.

The wealthy pay the majority of taxes in the US no matter how you draw the lines. Whether or not they should pay more is another issue, but it's wrong to say that Bezos pays "nothing" when he sells Amazon stock at a 20% tax rate.

There are many insane things about the US tax system, but it is ultimately funded by the rich and only a little by the middle class.

Personally I think LTCG should be taxed as income and not at a flat 20%, but because that might actually work nobody proposes it and our lefties want a "wealth tax" instead.

Making a choice to consume as an individual is different from supporting a policy that would affect everyone. Taxing consumption and fossil fuels does have a lot of support. People are willing to reduce their quality of life if everyone else does as well, but their not willing to make the choice not to consume as an individual if everyone else can continue to do so.

A billionaire has the power to affect policy in a way that the average consumer doesn't, and is more likely to use that influence to make themselves richer than to push policies that benefit everyone.

Bezo's wealth come on the back of unsafe products flooding the market. On the back of Amazon warehouse workers having to see in-house doctors for repetitive stress injury and getting biased opinions in order to protect the company. Amazon warehouse workers are treated so badly (to build Bezo's wealth) and paid so little (to build Bezo's wealth) that Amazon has to consider running out of people willing to work their facilities.

Velocity of money matters. Builds. Bezo's sucking up wealth instead of paying workers retards the economy.

There is a reason Smog the Dragon is 'villian' prototype told by humans since forever. I get modern American conservatives think it is a model to emulate and is actually the highest for of being, but it's not.

The "buy borrow die" strategy is a meme. It just doesn't work the way you think it works. People just repeat stuff they heard on the internet with no real understanding. It is useful to avoid paying the capital gains tax in the very short term, but is useless for periods over 4-5 years, because it loses you more money than you'd spend on taxes.

To be specific: let's say that you own $1.1B worth of stock, $1B of which is unrealized long term capital gains. If you sold it all today, you'd owe $200M. Let's say that you're 40, you spend $5M a year, and you die at 80. So, you need $200M to finance your lifestyle, and then the remainder is a part of your estate. If you just sold $240M today, you'd pay $40M in tax, and had $200M after tax cash in your checking account to spend over the next 40 years. If you instead borrow $5M a year against your stock at very attractive terms like interest rate of 5%, and no payments until your death, you'll owe $200M on interest over these 40 years. Just paying the tax would have saved you $160M! It's even worse if you get more realistic terms, because 5% rate on a personal loan is too good to be true, and you'll need to borrow even more to make the regular payments.

What about the remainder of your estate? Depending on whether you just sell as you go, or borrow to finance your spending, your estate is left with something between $500M and $800M. Guess what, now they owe estate tax, which is 40% of this sum (minus $30M exemption). Oops!

You can avoid the estate tax, though, but the kicker is that all of the ways of doing that do not allow you to step up the basis upon death: they just allow you to avoid the gift tax, but they do little to escape the capital gains income tax. No free lunch here either.