Thread by @muckrakery

If 660 U.S. billionaires were forced to forfeit their gains, then every family in poverty could be handed—paygo/tax neutral—$105K. They could increase their skills, lower their expenses, or both.

U.S. billionaires hold an estimated $4.2 trillion. 40 million live in poverty here.

I should clarify: every *person* in poverty could be handed $105K. Some families would get two or three such checks.

“Poverty” is roughly $17K/year for a family unit of two, or $22K/year for a family of three.

But it’s worse. ~3 years ago, Brookings found 42% of US residents—that’s 150 million people—only make subsistence in their community. Median income in that category is $17K/year per adult. “Poverty” should be redefined to include all 150 million of these people.

So this is a “dangerous” thought for Musk and the other 659 (or 662?) US billionaires.

But the far more dangerous thought is that it’s not necessary to keep the national budget of a country that prints its own money net-neutral.

Every family within this revised poverty calculation could be handed $100K per adult tomorrow if the political will to not have destitute people existed in Congress.

Wouldn’t that make inflation worse? you might ask. Maybe a little. Less than 5%, most likely. (@gabriel_zucman might weigh in on this). But it would increase a $33K/year family’s spending power by 600%, so they wouldn’t notice.

You might cry: “Companies would (‘artificially’) inflate their own prices just because they could!” My answer: Sure… if they were allowed to. The gov’t can literally prohibit prices from being raised by more than X% per year. That could easily be part of this redistribution bill

If you’re a business that wants to go beyond that, you’d have to submit extensive documentation as to why, and there could be explicit reasons, spelled out in the redistribution bill, that a business could raise prices (and other reasons that aren’t good enough).

Imagine the votes a party could get by embracing this economic theory (Known by geeks as “modern monetary theory”) and promising $100K—or even $80K—checks for each adult in the “subsistence” category, AKA 150M people, and smaller checks on up the tax bracket, up to say $100K.

Evolutionary biologists must ask “what do we see now, and based on that, how might we have gotten here; how MUST we have gotten here; and what’s our evidence for that?”

(Wait for it, there’s a point to this analogy)

I ask you: how did we get to the present moment, where the party that appeals to human compassion does not embrace the above strategy EVEN THOUGH it would clearly win them landslide victories?

I’ll leave that for you to ponder. No possible answer is a pleasant realization.

So. The current inflationary period. Research points to the idea that it is caused by knowing, willing, price hikes mostly NOT to cover wage bumps/materials costs, but to increase profits.

Thus the current inflation seems mostly to serve as political cover to increase profits.

This didn’t have to happen. Remember: the government could regulate price increases above an amount it deems normal. (Even without a redistribution bill attached.) It has chosen not to. Why? The powerful newsrooms of the world need to focus on this question.

The funny part—I laugh to keep from crying—is that inflation to increase profits IS ALREADY REDISTRIBUTION. It’s just redistribution in the opposite way we discussed above. It steals from the poor to line the pockets of the rich.

If you ever learned about why “flat tax” sucks, you’ll know: sales taxes disproportionately affect the poor, b/c poor ppl buy necessities with 100% of their income. To tax the rich more than the poor, you’d need higher estate taxes/capital gains taxes, & to institute a wealth tax

In this “modern monetary theory,” what are taxes for? Mainly to take money out of the hands of the v rich.

You might ask: How is that alone, for it’s own sake, a good thing?

With vast money comes vast power to rig the system in their favor. To ensure things never change. Scary

It doesn’t take a smarty pants to understand it’s bad for change when one person with interest in perpetuating the current system of low taxes and high subsidies owns the platform of political dialogue, and another with the same interest owns the legacy paper of politics & policy

The point of this thread is to let people know that it doesn’t have to be this way. Musk could have been prohibited from buying Twitter. Bezos could STILL be forced from ownership of Wash Post.

We make society, and we could just as easily make it differently.

Congress could have, and could still, prohibit price hikes unless a business’ profits are $0; unless your CEO makes <100x the lowest worker; unless you can prove your inputs have risen X%—and even then, you might only be allowed to hike prices X%.

Present society is manufactured

Present society is manufactured. It could just as easily be made differently.

“But the oligarchs have all the power, and they make sure it doesn’t change. What I do can’t change anything.”

I have periods where I’m dejected, too. But that statement above is false. Actions by one person are the only thing that has ever changed anything.

I’ve been devoting my Instagram to spreading education on topics like this. Just because that’s where a core group of my actual friends, who I know in real life, have been lurking and ended up connected to me. If you want to follow me there, I’m at “whatanicegreenday”

But sharing knowledge isn’t all I should be doing, and it’s not all you should be doing either. Get in touch if you want to brainstorm some actual action.

I’ll conclude, for now, with a reminder that:

equally as dangerous as the “take billionaires’ money, make everyone whole” idea is the “federal budgets don’t have to be neutral” idea. (This must include what we know for sure about the root causes of inflation. We know a lot.)

If you’re with a publication that wants to examine the hard evidence on the root causes of inflation, it’s a prime moment, for readers, to do so.

There’s nothing people, of all stripes, care about more. And there’s no bigger need for this info if we want an informed electorate

(Hit me up if you want my help on nights and weekends, or some independent editing.

Of a day, I’ll keep building small houses, as I do for fun and money.)

I think this’ll work if you want to read this in essay form… @threadreaderapp unroll