this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2026
-47 points (14.9% liked)
Showerthoughts
40155 readers
1448 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
And would a "wealth" tax not have an inherent loophole in that the "rich" could avoid paying tax by simply spending faster than they earn, or even staying in debt, as many "milllionares" do?
And would it not punish poor people who try to save up, by taxing them more the more they save up?
Would it not make renting vs owning even more of a problem? Poor people would be encouraged to rent as much as possible in order to have as little "wealth" as possible? While the rich could continue to charge whatever they want to cover the costs.
They are already doing this. 'Spending faster than they earn" you are still thinking like income tax. They need to spend their wealth. Staying in debt, like they need to borrow money, what are they gonna do with the money? They still need to buy something which increases their wealth.
So, think about wealth, not income. If you think like this, we will never be able to tax the rich. If that's what you want, Idk
Yea. I said that.
What do you mean by income tax? Because clearly you aren't understanding what I mean.
I mean ALL income. Of any kind. No loopholes. The problem isn't conceptual. It's practical. The law hasn't kept up with the bookkeeping shenanigans the rich get up to. In fact, the rich actively influence current legislation to their benefit.
You're arguing for a complete conceptual shift for no reason, when the actual problem is corruption.
What's really needed, is just look at how the rich are avoiding taxation, and closing the legal loopholes they use. Which your "wealth tax" won't do. Especially as "wealth" doesn't actually have a value until it's bought or sold.
Wealth has a value, land can be valued easily, we have data for years all around websites and in government about the lands everywhere. The houses are also like this. You can value a company by the factories it has people it employs etc, money it earns etc. This three is more than enough. The rest of wealth may not count, it is not important.
You cant fix loopholes without taxing all billionaires until none exists, because they will constantly bribe government. Even if you fixed loopholes, they will create intentionally.
Exactly. How is your proposal a solution?
Of course assets have value. But to tax them fairly, that value needs to be defined! Impartially, too boot! And can you imagine the governmental overhead of constantly defining the values of shifting assets for tax purposes, regardless whether they are being bought or sold?
Your suggestion is as exploitable as the current system. Maybe worse!
Start by taxing everything above 10M dollars, then spread wealth control to all people, than start taxing wealth, not work because if you don't tax wealth it will again cumulate and we will have to start over.
The fuck do you mean by "wealth control"?
Are you referring to UBI?
It sounds like what youre sctually arguing for, is an asset cap. Where any property above a certain cap goes to the government.
If the cap is 10M, how do we fund UBI, infrastructure and emergency services once everyone is below that cap?
Current economies are powered by the movement of money. So we tax the movement of money. No-one gets anything without spending their assets in some way, including the rich.
You are suggesting that taxes would somehow work better, if we taxed value that was sitting still. Which isn't entirely false, but you are also claiming that taxation of moving money should be ended entirely. Which simply won't work. That would eventually lead to the end of public funding.
Wealth control means giving them the wealth, and not owning by the government. Because when the government owns everything, that means the people in government become rich.
Why does, not taxing moving money end public funding? Okay, it can be 2%, and this is enough.
Because eventually everyone is below the "wealth cap". Which means no-one pays any further tax. Why would anyone accrue more wealth at that point?
If we're taxing all transactions, then yes, sounds about right.
Are you suggesting we privatize everything?
Ok, but how do decisions get made then?
Government are systems. Just because you change the structure, doesn't make it not a government. It sounds like you want better government, not "no government".
Thanks dude, I think we agreed in a lot of ways and some disagreements may happen, no need for further discussions.