“War is bad. Don’t start one. But we’re already in a class war and we’re losing. Where by “we” I mean most people; the winning side comprises, roughly, the richest 0.1% of the population, who are morphing into a hereditary aristocracy. So, what to do in a war one didn’t choose?”: https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/202x/2026/05/03/Life-During-Class-Wartime
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@timbray that graph is chilling. It'll take massive coordination to achieve a global wealth tax, but, here's hoping.
How do you get around the issue of the super wealthy just moving their money around? I mean it'd still be a good thing to tax them, but, would that 2% tax end up in just a handful of countries?
@psdavey Zucman, maybe the world's preeminent tax researcher, published research that only 10% of wealth held by citizens of developed companies is effectively hidden. [linked in blog piece] So we at least know where it is. But obviously you're right, international co-ordination would be a big deal here. Also forced disclosure of the beneficial owners of financial and real-estae assets.
@timbray yup absolutely, the opaqueness is key. I was amazed that seemingly not much came out of the Panama papers.
A pretty good book in this area is "treasure islands: tax havens and the men that stole the world". All about hiding your wealth. Infuriating
@timbray I'm going to write a post of how increases in inequality lead to actual war. Tldr; Rich in a country once they reach a level of inequality can't exploit their own country anymore and must go exploiting somewhere else leading to war.
@timbray You, me and pretty much everyone reading this, are economically closer to starving street child in <pick a country> than people who have 1% of the wealth of Bezos or Musk. But too many people don't even understand how broken that is.
@timbray Heading for the guillotine inflection point.
