u/fin10g

I just watched Arco and would highly recommend it. He has also made a video about Disney's Strange World (2022), but it has some thorough spoilers so if you're sold on visions of Solarpunk like I am, it definitely has enticing visuals and an optimistic message worth experiencing cold.

On the Rest is Politics, Gabriel Zucman gave an interesting perspective that a 2% tax on 5% average growth is actually a 40% passive income tax. That's technically regressive as if you make 10% it's reduced to a 20% rate. That's a great deal! Do capitalism better and you reduce the rate!

I think Gary has the message discipline to avoid those figures as the double digits will cause a debater to double down on capital flight risk, but those figures did hit me with a new perspective on the injustice of it. Wealth tax sounds like you're nibbling off more and more of what they own every year, which tiny as it may be, is being argued as an asymmetric injustice compared to everyone else's position. A passive income tax of 40% just sounds like they're paying what the rest of us do, rather than keeping the 100% gain that year which nobody else can get away with. The reason that it's not already the case is that passive income has never been put under the same microscope as income. Their position has been systemically obscured but the growth in inequality has finally put it under more scrutiny.

Maybe passive income is the wrong term, but it's what Gary uses. I realise that passive income like rent and dividends are taxed, but Gary always refers to the growth of the value of wealth as passive income to emphasize the lack of effort involved. It's just the contrast of income and passive income that struck a different chord for me in Zucman's interview.

Part One: Featuring Noel Thomas of Independent Ireland; Cillian Keane (Fianna Fail); Míde Nic Fhionnlaoich (Social Democrats); and Sheila Garrity (Independent)

Part Two: Featuring: Sean Kyne (Fine Gael), Mark Lohan, (Sinn Fein), Helen Ogbu (Labour), Thomas Welby, Independent.