Suppose you live in CH and have a marginal tax rate of 40% and invest in a US company, where the new Corp tax rate is to be 28%. If the company earns 100$ profits before tax that get paid out as dividends, then today you end up with 43$. With the new initiative you would get 29$. I just think it is too much tax
The stated objective is to penalise rich business owners and help workers. Is that really what we want ie push away anyone who has an idea for the next Facebook or Amazon ?
I am definitely not for this initiative.
With regards to Captial Gains Tax, I personally profit from its absense and am happy to do so. I can, however, also understand the arguments for some sort of tax on capital gains.
Hmmm. Funny, I thought that it became clear in that discussion that there are some full blown idiots that lack the intelectual capacity to distinguish between scientifically proven facts and weird internet conspirracy theories.
Seems we all have our own perceptions…
Have you ever been unemployed ? Because it is slightly more complicated than that… And honestly, once you are on Hartz IV or minimal social welfare in France, life is not that fun.
Moreover, I would like to point out the shift of what is socialist taxation. In most countries, taxes on profits have been much higher in the past, especially for the superrich (and mostly under conservative rule). Basically what is considered left now, has been conservative in the past. For instance, the Grenzsteuersatz (not the final tax rate) has been 55% for pretty long, and still we talk about the Wirtschaftswunder in Germany in the 50’s.
Finally, just a point a website which is giving some proper analysis of some tax myths about how high there are for the rich etc.
Steuermythen - Die deutsche Debatte über Steuern und Finanzpolitik
Thought it would be an interesting read for some even if it is in German and for the German case.
Unlikely to pass, it’s just one of those crazy SP petitions…
Seriously, that is all you got to say ? Not even trying to understand the content in an important question because there is a gender star. The thing is, it goes for facts and that is it. But if you are not interested in reading facts, be my guest and leave this otherwise interesting and in my view, important discussion.
You are kidding me, right. First time I ever hear someone saying that ever. Especially compared to France. Especially the amount of hurdles you have to go through just to get RAV seems incredible in Switzerland, but I have no personal experience
Don’t know about your brother and I won’t judge a particular case here without having all the facts on the table. Just back to the facts, 9.5% of people are getting some kind of social welfare, from this, 19.2% are getting a certain category, from which 0.5% get help for home. This makes 0.9% of the total population so about 72’000. That is not a lot considering this includes every possible form of help. like apartment changes for disabled persons (making everything level etc.), funded forms for living for the elderly who need care (which is economocally interesting since kids can focus on their own income and not sacrifice) etc.
Sources :
Sozialhilfebeziehende | Bundesamt für Statistik (admin.ch)
Finally, it is in my view not stealing if a democratic elected government decides to fund some project, be it for other people who might not be able to afford it. Cast your ballot according your beliefs., but stop coming around with that same argument. No one is robbing you.
There is still a difference between wealth distribution and crime against humanity, isn’t it. But if you think this analogy works…
Could you show some numbers instead of just quoting the SVP on stuff where it failed several fact checks ? Just saying something over and over does not make it a fact. Thank you. BTW what is your solution ? Transform prisons into concentration camps ?
AHV is paid through an insurance system, where previously employed people paid in during time of employment. It has nothing to do with taxes. Furthermore, you are asked for 3 jobs applications a week + reporting on that. I am not sure if I would find 3 jobs/week I can apply to.
Property is a social construct you get to enjoy because there is a stable society. Contributing to said stability isn’t robbery.
I’m in favour of making taxation correct. Or “fair”, if you like.
It’s unfortunate that measures taken to ensure fairness and correctness often (though not necessarily) result in higher tax burden. But that’s not a reason to be against a taxation of capital gains - especially where they substitute taxable income (interest, dividends).
You could, on the other hand, argue that wealth tax “implicitly” acts as some kind of taxation on capital gains.
Imagine a world where when you turn 18 you enter a shuffle that determines the amount of money you receive per month until the end of your life. Someone might get 2000 chf per month, someone else 100’000. It is all pure chance.
What kind of tax and redistribution system would you think is the fairest in such a world, given that taxes wouldn’t change anything about the amount people get per month?
Given that there is marginal utility for money, the system with a 100% tax rate would be optimal if you care about general well being.
The luck part is a good enough approximation on how it is in the real world as the ability and will to generate wealth is not controllable by an individual. There is no homunculus in our brain that has control over our behavior. Free will doesn’t have a place to hide anymore.
So 100% of the wealth creation that an individual generates is to be attributed to luck.
However incentives change the will to generate wealth, so the optimal system is closer to the one in the posted 2 minute paper.
Do you mean that your income is predetermined by your IQ and external factors? That could be true to some extent. But this is another obsession of socialists: to make everybody equal, to eliminate any difference, make up for every misfortune and penalize for any luck.
Even if I could understand, to a point, the logic behind it (I feel sympathy for people born with disabilities), there is also the problem of measuring the level of hardship and redistributing purchasing power in a fair way. It requires a huge administrative organ, which follows some arbitrary rules which constantly have to be amended.
To which extent do you wish to help the unlucky ones? Can’t he find a job, because he wasn’t smart enough, or her father was an alcoholic, or he’s just lazy? What if someone can make money, but is not attractive, and thus, unhappy. Physical appearance, but also personal character, are also, to an extent, not our fault.
And why limit ourselves to only helping the people in our own country? Borders are just a social construct, right? I guess 99% of people in Switzerland are ultra rich in global terms. We should tax ourselves and send foreign aid to help all the suffering people and let in all refugees that want to come, or?
Primates don’t have free will.
The book is really good. As already said. There is no place where a homunculus with free will can hide.
I do not know for you, but I research a company at least for 2 days before I make an application. Otherwise you can just throw the letter in the paper bin, will have the same effect. And I have not written the letter yet.
These are some psychological considerations, in which I don’t have the capacity to get into.
But if free will is an illusion, then it should be even more doable to “program” humans to behave in a desired way. That’s why prisons are a thing.
To promote the right incentive, you need to know what is the point of living. I guess a socialist would say there is no point, so we should at least try to reduce all suffering for everyone alive. Then we could sit down by the fire, hold hands and sing kumbaya.
For me, I don’t know what the point of life is. But I am excited by scientific research and I would like for humanity to survive for thousands of years and study the universe. At the same time, I am an individualist and not a collectivist. I see dangers in collectivist thinking, also dangers to the survival of humanity. I think we should have a high degree of independence and apparent chaos in our actions, because if we never all do and think the same, then we will never all be wrong at the same time.
That is why the 2 minute paper is so interesting. At least for a start.
The real world is quite a bit more complicated, but the general goal should be to maximize the well being of as many people as possible.
It isn’t a moral failing or a moral success if you earn little or much money.
Regarding the effect of wealth transfers to poorer people, I’m pretty sure that there is evidence that they reduce crime and don’t have a big impact on the wealth creation of poorer people. However a large portion of your argument rests on the assumption that there is a big impact on the wealth creation if there is a transfer of money.
Do you have any evidence for that assumption?
You’re pretty sure of the existence of evidence for your case, yet you demand evidence for my case. But why I’m against too much redistribution and too high taxes, on a fundamental level: nobody asked to be born, also the smart people. As an individual, I don’t like when the society is entitled to the fruit of my work and also tells me what to do. Don’t you see how oppressive that is? If the World consisted of a single country with same laws everywhere, and every aspect of human life controlled and measured, you could either accept to live in such a World, or, I guess, kill yourself.
Sure, it’s interesting. And somehow I think if you built a good model, accounting for human psychology, and aiming for the maximization of some meaningful goals, and not “equality”, the end result would be quite free market, with some control over monopolies and some safety net to provide equality of opportunity.
It probably depends a lot on how skilled you are. If you are just looking for some random manual labour job, it’s maybe a reasonable strategy to shotgun your applications everywhere.
E.g. for me as a software engineer in my location there are maybe only a handful of companies that could really use my specific skill. If I randomly and quickly apply to them all, then what?
Realistically I probably wouldn’t even bother with getting unemployment benefits if it was bound to such conditions, since it would probably ruin my chances of getting a decent job.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w24337
The effect of unconditional cash transfers on labor supply is small or insignificant. However health and educational outcomes are improved and criminality and drug use are reduced.
When we ask ourselves what a “fair” society might be, we could turn to the American philosopher John Rawls and his “Theory of Justice.” In principle, he said that a social order is just when everyone could agree to it before knowing what place they will occupy in society. The first principle is: In a fair state, all citizens have the same basic freedoms. But since people are differently talented and have different interests, social and economic inequalities naturally arise. One person is more efficient than the other, has more business acumen, or is simply more fortunate. There is nothing one can do about that. In order for the state to continue to be determined by fair principles, Rawls mentions a second principle: Social and economic inequalities cannot be avoided, but these inequalities are only acceptable if the least fortunate people still enjoy the greatest possible benefit from them.
And to achieve this equilibrium is naturally difficult. Maybe it’s the most important and most difficult task that a society can have.
What worries me is that we, as a society, seem to have increasing difficulties finding this equilibrium.
I would not decide against FIRE because my neighbors wouldn’t approve. But it would sadden me nevertheless, in a way.
As Tiziano Terzani said: Every revolution will fail because the human nature will never change, and it’s an absurdity that it’s still being tried, again and again.
This matter is far from settled!
For example, see here: Free will: it's a normal biological property, not a gift or a mystery | Nature
I like the idea that the quantum uncertainty principle and free will might somehow be linked.
PS. It’s somehow funny to see @Patron and @Patirou go into battle against each other. Similar sounding names, similar looking icons, completely opposite opinions! 
I don’t really see how free will as an emergent property should work.
Besides there are so many things that we know have an influence on our behavior that there isn’t much space between them for free will to hide.
How so? Doesn’t Quantum Mechanics bring, at most, randomness into the picture?
But randomness would be exactly the opposite of what is required to have free will.