Thread by @EpsilonTheory

The other day I said that I'm ok with a wealth tax on the very rich, for which I was caned by libertarian-twitter.

My apostasy: I’m supporting wealth redistribution by a bad-intentioned central gov’t, and that slippery slope will ultimately get us all.

I get it. Honestly, I do.

People, that ship of wealth redistribution sailed years ago, but not in the direction you think.

Through oligarchic capture of monetary policy, trade policy, antitrust law, mass media and the tax code, we have endured *decades* of wealth redistribution TO the very rich.

Wealth redistribution TO the very rich accelerated post-GFC with ZIRP and QE, accelerated again with Trump, and is now at insane levels with the 2017 Tax Cut and (LOL) Jobs Act and rampant self-dealing masked by stock buybacks.

Yes, the 2017 tax cut IS wealth redistribution.

Over 10 yrs, the 2017 tax cut takes $1.5 - $1.9 TRILLION in revenues formerly used to pay for gov’t services and redistributes that money, mostly to corporations.

The narrative is that the redistributed wealth would be used to invest in and grow the real economy.

LOL.

Why would any rational business manager take the risk of investing in the real economy with windfall tax gains, when their corporate financial objectives and personal wealth objectives can be achieved SO much more easily through buybacks and dividends?

epsilontheory.com/yeah-its-still…

And stop with this idea that the shareholders who get a “return of capital” invest in the real economy. It’s just empirically false. The wealth gets recycled into financial assets, with some overflow into real estate.

Yay, trickle-down economics!

It’s exactly the same thing with Fed policy over the past 10 yrs … prop up asset prices with the balance sheet, make oodles of cheap money available for corporate borrowers, and yet be mystified as to why productivity and business investment is so weak.

epsilontheory.com/this-is-water/

Our Fed Chair is a centimillionaire from Carlyle.

Our current President is an on-the-make billionaire, and our most recent former President seems hell-bent on becoming one.

Lawyers from Citadel write our securities regs, and VPs from Boeing run our Defense Dept.

OK, Boomer.

Corporate managers become billionaires – not by invention or outperformance – but by stock-based comp at scale.

Asset managers become billionaires – not by invention or outperformance – but by asset gathering at scale.

OK, Boomer.

I believe that our country has been systematically hollowed out by the very rich for decades. It’s a bipartisan thing. It’s a Zeitgeist thing.

Worried about losing your freedom to a redistributive State?

I think you’ve already lost it. Just not in the direction you thought.

Am I happy about wealth taxes and wealth redistribution of ANY sort? NO.

But I don’t know how else to separate the very rich from their control of monetary policy, trade policy, antitrust law, securities law, mass media and the tax code … except with a flamethrower.