If I Were King
Jul. 29th, 2017 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tigertoyI spend a lot of time thinking about what's wrong with our economy and what might be done to fix it. Of course, the rich and powerful would never allow things to upset their happy apple cart, so pretty much the only way they could happen would be if they put me in charge.
I dashed off some of my thoughts in a chat group I'm in and I thought I'd record them here, for my own interest if nothing more.
(other person) I'm genuinely relieved that at least one person in here knows the difference between capitalism and corporatism.
(me)Capitalism devolves to corporatism when the playing field is tilted in favor of huge companies. Specifically a tax system and regulations that are so complicated they stifle small business and can only be navigated by companies large enough to have teams of dedicated experts, and an advertising culture that throws out competition on price or quality in favor of mind control based on who can have the slickest and most effective ad campaigns, despite the fact that big companies routinely make horrible decisions. Many of the horrible decisions are the result of how the rules are tilted toward apparent short term gain at the cost of long term success.
Some reforms I would propose to the stock market: capital gains on sales of shares would be considered regular income if sold within one year and gradually shift to a more favorable tax rate over the following years; shareholders' voting authority on their shares would vest on a similar schedule; losses on one stock could not be used to offset gains on another; diversification of holdings should be restricted in some fashion, because the more different investments an investor has , the less time they have to follow each one in detail so they only concentrate on price; qualified investor rules should be scrapped so that local people could invest in small local companies and direct investment would not be restricted to people rich enough to buy their way into the club; day trading should be illegal (stock orders would only take effect after 24 hours); and hedge funds that operate in secret would be outlawed.
Some reforms to taxes: advertising services should be taxed heavily and corporate income taxes lowered to make it revenue neutral; nominal corporate tax rates should be lowered but loopholes eliminated; companies that hide their earnings offshore should face tariffs.
Reform to regulation: regulations should be enforced on a sliding scale by the size of the company rather than requiring a small business with 10 employees to jump through all the hoops that Exxon does.
Reform to the civil law system: all expenses for the case should be made public, and if one side is paying more, they should be required to pay the other side to even the scales.
Reform to lobbying: make it illegal
(other person)So we can agree that corporatism need to die in a fire while being drowned in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide.
(me)Yeah, I was just trying to specify in detail how hot the fire should be.
I dashed off some of my thoughts in a chat group I'm in and I thought I'd record them here, for my own interest if nothing more.
(other person) I'm genuinely relieved that at least one person in here knows the difference between capitalism and corporatism.
(me)Capitalism devolves to corporatism when the playing field is tilted in favor of huge companies. Specifically a tax system and regulations that are so complicated they stifle small business and can only be navigated by companies large enough to have teams of dedicated experts, and an advertising culture that throws out competition on price or quality in favor of mind control based on who can have the slickest and most effective ad campaigns, despite the fact that big companies routinely make horrible decisions. Many of the horrible decisions are the result of how the rules are tilted toward apparent short term gain at the cost of long term success.
Some reforms I would propose to the stock market: capital gains on sales of shares would be considered regular income if sold within one year and gradually shift to a more favorable tax rate over the following years; shareholders' voting authority on their shares would vest on a similar schedule; losses on one stock could not be used to offset gains on another; diversification of holdings should be restricted in some fashion, because the more different investments an investor has , the less time they have to follow each one in detail so they only concentrate on price; qualified investor rules should be scrapped so that local people could invest in small local companies and direct investment would not be restricted to people rich enough to buy their way into the club; day trading should be illegal (stock orders would only take effect after 24 hours); and hedge funds that operate in secret would be outlawed.
Some reforms to taxes: advertising services should be taxed heavily and corporate income taxes lowered to make it revenue neutral; nominal corporate tax rates should be lowered but loopholes eliminated; companies that hide their earnings offshore should face tariffs.
Reform to regulation: regulations should be enforced on a sliding scale by the size of the company rather than requiring a small business with 10 employees to jump through all the hoops that Exxon does.
Reform to the civil law system: all expenses for the case should be made public, and if one side is paying more, they should be required to pay the other side to even the scales.
Reform to lobbying: make it illegal
(other person)So we can agree that corporatism need to die in a fire while being drowned in a bowl of hydrogen peroxide.
(me)Yeah, I was just trying to specify in detail how hot the fire should be.