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Models of market capitalism do, after all, require equal access to capital for all.

What models are these?

32 thoughts on “They do?”

  1. So Much For Subtlety

    Well anyone can walk into a bank to ask for a loan. Absolutely anyone. Pretty sure that is not what he means though.

    Still, while your bank manager might prefer someone with assets, there is a whole world of venture capital which gives large sums of money to dubious college drop outs with wild ideas. Sometimes for the best. So it comes close to giving equal access. All you need is a good idea.

    However this is just how the West structures its economic system. It is not a theoretical requirement. I expect that Germany makes it much harder to get a loan if you did not go to school with someone important at a big bank.

  2. This, I argued with my students, means that …

    Good, his students are arguing back. Perhaps the course has some use to students: it teaches them how to spot pseudo-economic bullshit.

  3. Oh God the clock has stopped at wealth tax again. The most important tax of all for the man today – tomorrow it will be stamp duty or something. Doesn’t he know how impractical it is, how much it costs to administer and how little tax it actually raises?

  4. Doesn’t he know how impractical it is, how much it costs to administer and how little tax it actually raises?

    It is confiscatory. Doesn’t matter how much it raises, or even how much it costs. The primary aim is to confiscate.

  5. The stupid is strong with this one.

    The only thing I can assume is he’s talking about laws banning certain people (women, minorities) from owning stuff.

  6. Yesterday the big man declared that it was time to face the big issues. Unfortunately, it was not a detailed consideration of what kind of toilet paper to buy, nor a discussion of the editorial policy of the magazine of that name, both of which are just about within his intellectual capabilities. Instead it was just more of the same turgid drivel about global warming and remaking capitalism and, probably because I didn’t have the interest to read it all, the urgent need for MOAR taxes.

    I hope that frees people from delving into that slime pit of intellectual decay

  7. “Just checked the Netherlands. Wealth tax brings in 30m of a tax take of 220,000m. MOAR taxes!!!!!”

    And it’s also used as an alternative to taxing income on savings, so partly replaces certain interest/capital gains taxes.

    The dutch also have a really punitive gift tax.

  8. It’s his conflation of issues that really, really bothers me. The fact that poor families only have £95 in “savings” (or as I call it, “lunch”) has nothing to do with how much money the top 0.1% have.

  9. Diogenes

    ‘I hope that frees people from delving into that slime pit of intellectual decay’

    As a description of TRUK this is hard to beat…

  10. “Models of market capitalism do, after all, require equal access to capital for all.”

    Doesn’t everyone already have equal access to capital? If you and the seller can agree on a price – bam! There’s some capital for you. Same as anyone else.

  11. Bloke in Costa Rica

    “What models are these?” Given the exiguous mental capacity of The Great Tuber™, probably Plasticine models.

  12. “The Great Tuber” invokes an image of Charlie Brown and Linus waiting in a potato field waiting for the Great Tuber to appear.

  13. @Diogenes
    Just checked the Netherlands. Wealth tax brings in 30m of a tax take of 220,000m.

    What’s your source for that?

  14. Bloke in Costa Rica said:
    ““What models are these?” Given the exiguous mental capacity of The Great Tuber™, probably Plasticine models.”

    Didn’t he claim exemption from business rates for his shed because his model railway was in there? Presumably he’s now redesigned it to model the global economy. If he can just get the points lined up correctly and blow his whistle shrilly enough he can abolish poverty.

  15. Thanks Diogenes, I see the table shows that in the Netherlands wealth tax was E30m in 2005 and now no longer exists.
    But as someone who fills in a Dutch income tax form every year I know there are some substantial items that go into the calculation of an individual’s ‘income tax’ liability, which by any reasonable use of language are equivalent to taxation of wealth rather than income.
    In short, the boundary between ‘income tax’ and‘wealth tax’ is fuzzy.

  16. Thanks for that Bart. I imagine that some of the recurring property taxes might also come into the wealth tax. But it is still a very small proportion of the tax revenue of the Netherlands, I suspect.

  17. Your house is part of your wealth, right?
    Every year the Dutch tax authorities calculate 0.6% of your house’s value, and more for any value over E1m.
    They add that figure into your total taxable income, on which your income tax is calculated.
    That is only one example of how they blur the distinction between income tax and wealth tax.

    I doubt whether the OECD manages to cope with that sort of thing in making tables that compare countries.

  18. Bart, in the UK the government publishes tax data tax by tax. I was surprised that I couldn’t easily find the Netherlands equivalent. It is misleading if your government does not make separate real/direct income and imagined /imputed income. But I was surprised that wealth tax decreased to 0. Do no Dutch people own shares or paintings or rental land or properties, or yachts?

  19. Diogenes, there is no separate wealth tax in the Netherlands.
    But assets are certainly taxed.
    The taxation of assets is integrated with the income tax system in ways analogous to what I described above for property (not that I know exactly what happens with more esoteric assets such as paintings and yachts).

  20. Diogenes, this is quite a handy thing:
    https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/prinsjesdag/inhoud/miljoenennota-rijksbegroting-en-troonrede/huishoudboekje

    You can click on an item for explanation and breakdown.

    Google Translate will give a rough idea.

    Notes: The financing of the welfare state is very different from in the UK.

    There is no mention of any wealth tax, although in fact, as I’ve been saying, some elements of the income tax calculation are really taxing wealth.

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