It wouldn’t. The wealth the billionaires have is imaginary, not a checking account with lots of zeros. It’s in assets that people speculate is worth a specific amount.
That’s why it’s always estimated net worth. To get the wealth from their assets you’d have to find enough people to buy them.
I like to think of it as a number reflecting how much of our labour they have reserved for themselves. When that wealth “disappears”, it basically means that we get that labour back for ourselves. So in a way, it actually gets split evenly amongst all of us.
You might see it that way, but it’s not the way it works. A company’s valuation isn’t directly tied to labor output, and the wealth doesn’t just disappear. It’s not something that can be redistributed without nationalizing a publicly traded company (there are pros and cons to this).
The major problem is that banks will give them loans using speculative assets as collateral. Easy fix is to both tax the collateral as a realized gain, and the loan as income.
But their wealth is mostly in non-liquid assets, not a bank account.
It wouldn’t. The wealth the billionaires have is imaginary, not a checking account with lots of zeros. It’s in assets that people speculate is worth a specific amount.
That’s why it’s always estimated net worth. To get the wealth from their assets you’d have to find enough people to buy them.
“Imaginary” is one way to put it.
I like to think of it as a number reflecting how much of our labour they have reserved for themselves. When that wealth “disappears”, it basically means that we get that labour back for ourselves. So in a way, it actually gets split evenly amongst all of us.
You might see it that way, but it’s not the way it works. A company’s valuation isn’t directly tied to labor output, and the wealth doesn’t just disappear. It’s not something that can be redistributed without nationalizing a publicly traded company (there are pros and cons to this).
i think this is a poor understanding of how it works in practice, but in theory this is nearly correct
It’s not a poor understanding, just simplified.
The major problem is that banks will give them loans using speculative assets as collateral. Easy fix is to both tax the collateral as a realized gain, and the loan as income.
But their wealth is mostly in non-liquid assets, not a bank account.