> Even totally confiscating that income and redirecting it to the bottom 99% would only increase income for the bottom 99% by 5.5%.
Your unstated assumptions are that capital gains are the entirety of value and this is a zero-sum game. I posit that CEOs and the 1% are playing[0] a negative-sum game by shipping jobs overseas and underpaying their workers. Even though it is a net-loss to the system, their incentives are such that they defect at every turn since they gain more from a "loss".
[0] All shareholders benefit, not just the 1% - but the lower segments don't gain as much, and lose in their non-shareholding, employee roles
>Your unstated assumptions are that capital gains are the entirety of value and this is a zero-sum game. I posit that CEOs and the 1% are playing[0] a negative-sum game by shipping jobs overseas and underpaying their workers. Even though it is a net-loss to the system, their incentives are such that they defect at every turn since they gain more from a "loss".
It's not a net loss to the hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians who have been lifted out of poverty in the past couple decades. Their gain has vastly outweighed what the American working class lost.
Your unstated assumptions are that capital gains are the entirety of value and this is a zero-sum game. I posit that CEOs and the 1% are playing[0] a negative-sum game by shipping jobs overseas and underpaying their workers. Even though it is a net-loss to the system, their incentives are such that they defect at every turn since they gain more from a "loss".
[0] All shareholders benefit, not just the 1% - but the lower segments don't gain as much, and lose in their non-shareholding, employee roles