[Whale biologist]

Originally Posted by Toehammer [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What sane economist would use tax on wealth growth as a metric? With stocks/investments you get taxed on profits (i.e. when you sell), called realized capital gains. If my portfolio doubles in 5 years but I don't sell anything, those are unrealized capital gains, and are not taxable, as they shouldn't be. Wealth is equivalent to unrealized until you sell! https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c..._gains_tax.asp I haven't sold any of my stocks in the last 10 years, so my only taxable capital gains are dividends. If someone taxed me on my "wealth" that would be crippling to any investment whatsoever:annual negative compound interest working against the growth. Nobody would invest ever.

Billionaires have "wealth" in the billions, but typically not taxable income/gains. Also if they tried to sell billions worth at once (couldn't really) the value and thus their "wealth" would likely drop precipitously due to oversupply. Bezos has "gained/lost" billions in wealth in a single day.

All this talk about "wealth" or "wealth inequality" really is just commie/socialist dog whistling. Enough already. "Wealth growth" lol, there's a goofy one. People seem to forget that economics is not a zero-sum game... only fools/lazy care how big someone else's slice of pie is when they didn't steal it and you can make your own damn pie.

Wealth taxes are stupid and also stealing.