I would argue he should be forced to divest from those shares as part of the tax, no one person should control that much of anything. If that crashes the price of his stock, so be it. It didn’t deserve that price if it does crash from that. The wealth was imaginary in the first place, so there’s no true loss from its destruction.
There is a loss though. By instituting this process, even if it was only applied to Tesla, you would crash the entire stock market because investor confidence would be lost.
You could say nothing would be truly lost in a stock market crash, but real people would still be severely impacted. The market crash would lead to bank runs which would topple the banking system, and then ordinary people wouldn’t be able to buy food or other necessities. It would be a disaster that would cause people to demand the old system be restored.
If investor confidence would be lost by appropriate taxes, then it must be unjust confidence. If the shares can’t be sold without impacting the stock price, then clearly they’re overvalued.
Their value is based on confidence in the current system. Change the system and the confidence is lost.
It’s like tickets to a movie. They’re valuable before the movie starts. After the movie’s over they’re worthless.
Put a total wealth tax on the stock market is like throwing sand into the gears. The whole system will fall apart. You can argue that it shouldn’t be that way but you’re currently in the system. The challenge is not to imagine how it ought to be, it’s how to get there without the whole house of cards crashing down around you.
I would argue he should be forced to divest from those shares as part of the tax, no one person should control that much of anything. If that crashes the price of his stock, so be it. It didn’t deserve that price if it does crash from that. The wealth was imaginary in the first place, so there’s no true loss from its destruction.
There is a loss though. By instituting this process, even if it was only applied to Tesla, you would crash the entire stock market because investor confidence would be lost.
You could say nothing would be truly lost in a stock market crash, but real people would still be severely impacted. The market crash would lead to bank runs which would topple the banking system, and then ordinary people wouldn’t be able to buy food or other necessities. It would be a disaster that would cause people to demand the old system be restored.
If investor confidence would be lost by appropriate taxes, then it must be unjust confidence. If the shares can’t be sold without impacting the stock price, then clearly they’re overvalued.
Their value is based on confidence in the current system. Change the system and the confidence is lost.
It’s like tickets to a movie. They’re valuable before the movie starts. After the movie’s over they’re worthless.
Put a total wealth tax on the stock market is like throwing sand into the gears. The whole system will fall apart. You can argue that it shouldn’t be that way but you’re currently in the system. The challenge is not to imagine how it ought to be, it’s how to get there without the whole house of cards crashing down around you.
“People have no actual confidence in capitalism if it can’t be quite so exploitative of people”
Tell me more
No, I’ll just block you because you’re putting words into my mouth and arguing in bad faith!
Sorry, not sure how else I was supposed to interpret that