Ask Lemmy

I would be happy of your stocks got a new basis every year. The delta between the old basis an the new basis is ordinary income and you owe taxes based on that income.

The "make every company a cooperative" concept has been proposed before. For certain companies it could make sense, but it gets a little tricky when it's anything that needs significant funds to get off the ground.

Corporations were invented for a reason: it creates a mechanism whereby investors can put money in up front in exchange for a share of possible profits once the venture gets going. For example, that makes it possible to build a billion dollar nuclear reactor with 100 staff people who couldn't each pay 10 million dollars.

The mechanism that creates billionaires is only sort of related. Elon Musk, for example, built up his wealth through tangential involvement with a series of really successful companies.

I still think capitalism is a useful tool. But by are we letting it use us rather than the other way around?

Government was arguably created to establish a market, needed for any economic system to work. You need consistent legal structure, money, a way to do business.

But our failure is government getting owned by the market rather than shaping it for the good of their constituents. Let capitalism be our tool in a market that factors in externalities, fairness and that rewards work.combine that with a progressive tax system like what we claim, and things are looking up, with what seems like minor changes.

• why does the market fail to account for environmental destruction in the cost of doing business?
• why is the market based on a legal structure that exploit individuals?
• why do the richest people have the lowest effective tax rate?

I read through almost the whole thing wondering how it would connect to “socks”. Is he a shill for “big footwear”?

You need a way to invest in companies, especially for any to grow, and you need to motivate people. A central economy might budget tax revenue, typically on a multi-year plan, but it tends not to be responsive to real world messiness nor motivating. Capitalism means anyone can invest in a company, getting partial ownership and partial benefit from gains and responding quickly to the whims of the market. People are motivated by profit. Are you proposing a third way?

Why don't you think taxing the super rich is great?

Our beef supply would vanish overnight

You just reinvented a Co-Op.

However, at what level does this get enacted?

Does little Tommy's summer lawn cutting "business" with his 3 neighbors as customers need an elected board in order to operate?

If I run a business and need a secretary to take care of some mundane things while I do the actual money making part of the business, doors that secretary suddenly get 50% vote over all decisions?

Maybe just give rid of the 2ndary market. You can only buy stock directly from the company, and you're entitled to a % of profit share as a result of that. When you're done, you can sell the stock back to the company

Why do all solutions need to be destructive? The stocks and companies exist to make one thing - maximize the stakeholder value. So, to get rich, one just needs to - hold stocks, and the company works to make you money. Nothing more, nothing less. But why are so little people actually owning stocks? Because you don't get tought in school about financial literacy.

Money is actually on the table for everyone to grab, just that majority of the people lack basic knowledge - where is the table and how to get to it.

Just teach people in school how to manage stocks, and everyone can ~~be rich~~ have a lot of money.