Which economy? The lived economy of the general public or the artificial economy of finance?
Capital isn’t injected, it’s hoarded.
The rich are already doing fine. They’re doing better than they have since 1920. As a class, they have so much money that they’re able to do stock buybacks because investing it doesn’t give moneygasm-style returns. We’re nearing the point where they can Scrooge McDuck-style swimming pools full of cash.
The problem with the current economy is very much not that the wealthy don’t have enough free capital. Quite the opposite, really.
The problem is that they have so much free capital because they’re addicted to non-productive methods growing their wealth.
Your comment seems reasonable until you actually question the details:
How would forgoing a capital gains tax benefit the working public? Any answer you give will basically be “trickle down” economics, which has been proven to not work. Giant corporations and obscenely wealthy individuals hoard capital like a greedy dragon, they certainly don’t inject it!
EDIT: Of course they couldn’t answer that one simple question…
I have no idea, but I’d like the powers that be to recognize that there are two economies and to prioritize the lived economy.
I first became aware of the difference when “the economy” was starting to boom in the 1980s even as we were busy returning to breadlines under the name of food banks.
I’m not sure we even need the finance economy. A pure stock market is one thing, but by the time you get to rents over profit on actual production, the financialization of housing, derivatives of derivatives and all the other distancing from actual production, it’s just shell games with no benefit to society.
Precisely. What capitalism was supposed to do, it did long ago and now we’re mostly dealing with mentally insecure people at the top who think more about money than actual human relations.
The wailing of hedge fund managers and the minions of the super rich is what lets us know the government is doing the right thing.
LOL at billionaires crying about being taxed.
More than just billionaires. Anyone who invests. But that’s disproportionately richer people, so it’s good. My complaint is that the tax isn’t raised enough.
No, it’s not “anyone who invests”. The change is only for capital gains above $250,000. If you’re reporting $250k or less in capital gains each year, you see no change whatsoever.
What retail investors are making those kinds of realized returns?
We can already see the opposition’s false equivalence rhetoric take hold. Here’s the difference:
Say you had 1M$ a couple years ago to invest (lucky you, was it a gift from your parents?). Say you didn’t do much research and invested in a stock that was pretty low at the time and you sell after the new tax at which point you see a return of an extra 25% (you were pretty lucky to beat the market with little effort). This means you get back 1.25M$ before taxes. The extra amount of money you have to pay with this new tax is exactly 0$ more than before! This is because your gains are 250k$ and you still haven’t reached the new limit.
If on the other hand you were even luckier and somehow managed to get 30% extra (!!!). You’re only going to pay the increased rate on 50k$ that’s above the 250k$ you made.
Now if you’re starting out with 10M$ and get the same kind of return that new tax is going to bite.
Ask yourself though, who is playing with that kind of money. It’s not the vast majority of “people who invest”. It’s going to be the extra rich.
Rich people’s yacht money says what?
It’s an interesting thing that has happened to businesses lately, where making money isn’t good enough, they have to be making outrageous amounts or it’s not worth the effort. They’d rather close up shop than be forced to endure only modest profit
