To be fair, I don't think targetting people with 10m+ assets is "everyone else".
I do, actually.
This is the #1 problem with the modern conservative line of thought. Starving the democratic government ensures the path to corporate feudalism will continue. It's like you guys almost figured it out under Trump with the backlash to both corporate wokeness and corporate censorship, but can't quite make the leap that actual Adam Smith free market capitalism can only exist under the umbrella of a democratic government powerful enough to prevent it from reverting to feudalism.
Anecdotally easy to verify. Florida you can look up the property owners very quickly. At least in the winter garden area a fucking lot of houses are owned by the developers and being rented out or by institutions.
You think blackrock would be buying up house after house if interest rates where 5% or more and massive inflation was occurring? Of course not.
Anti-trust is very hard, and extremely hard post-Bork. You have to prove that the consumer is being harmed, and ultimately once you do prove that, you have to seize entire companies to break them up. That requires an extreme exercise of government power. Meanwhile, governments have always had the ability to tax, it's not new. Progressive taxation is what's supposed to stop wealth accumulation, and therefore the accumulation of political power, but what's actually happened is that we've reverted to a regressive taxation scheme, where the professional class/upper-middle class and mid-size companies pay the bulk of the taxes, while ultra rich individuals and rich corporations pay effectively nothing in taxes.
Elected politicians in both parties align themselves with corporations for political purposes (and the few that don't are labeled socialists, go figure.) It's the same reason Mitch McConnell said "corporations should stay out of politics, but keep donating money to politicians."
They absolutely would, because if interest rates were 5% or more, getting a mortgage would be much harder and more expensive for your average home-buyer, making those houses even more worth the investment. Blackrock is always going to be able to get better loan terms than your average home-buyer.
Then why didnt that occur in 2006? Because there wasnt inflation.
because some day I'm going to be as rich as Jeff Bezos god damnit!
It's investing-relevant because these very same topics are discussed on investing podcasts. It's very hard to talk about the current investment market without talking about anti-trust and inflation at the very least.
You are talking about political tax policy of 'what ought to be', that is solidly in the realm of politics.
Anti-trust is very hard, and extremely hard post-Bork. You have to prove that the consumer is being harmed, and ultimately once you do prove that, you have to seize entire companies to break them up. That requires an extreme exercise of government power. Meanwhile, governments have always had the ability to tax, it's not new. Progressive taxation is what's supposed to stop wealth accumulation, and therefore the accumulation of political power, but what's actually happened is that we've reverted to a regressive taxation scheme, where the professional class/upper-middle class and mid-size companies pay the bulk of the taxes, while ultra rich individuals and rich corporations pay effectively nothing in taxes.
The less taxes the ultra rich pay, the more YOU have to pay to make up the difference. Why anyone in the 125k-300k income range would be against taxing the uber rich is beyond me.
Elected politicians in both parties align themselves with corporations for political purposes (and the few that don't are labeled socialists, go figure.) It's the same reason Mitch McConnell said "corporations should stay out of politics, but keep donating money to politicians."
Ultimately, it's not about the elected officials, they are all effectively whores for as long as they have to continue collecting money to get re-elected. It's about the courts. Republican-appointed judges are more likely to decide in favor of more corporate power, while Democratic-appointed judgements are more likely to decide in favor of workers or consumers. That's what this is about. The reason our anti-trust enforcement has been lax for 40 years is all because of Robert Bork, a Republican judge who Ronald Reagan tried to put on the supreme court.
The Antitrust Paradox - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Further, Republican-appointed judges are more likely to rule in favor of unlimited corporate political spending, while Democratic-appointed judges are more likely to rule to limit corporate political donations.
So yeah, both parties are taking us on the road to corporate feudalism, but one of them is at least hitting the brakes occasionally while the other is stepping on the gas the whole time.
