r/politics • u/Murky-Site7468 I voted • 18h ago
Soft Paywall Tax the Rich. They’ll Stay | Zohran Mamdani wants to make New York more affordable by raising taxes on the city’s millionaires. History shows they won’t leave
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/zohran-mamdani-tax-rich-new-york-city-1235414327/1.1k
u/BigGrooveBox 18h ago
The idea that rich people would leave the financial and cultural center of America, if not the world, is laughable at best.
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u/jhkayejr 18h ago
100%. People who believe this are people who have never been to New York City.
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u/wack_overflow Colorado 17h ago
And I mean, it's already way cheaper to go live somewhere else. With this logic, why didn't they already leave...
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u/jhkayejr 17h ago
Really. Ever wonder why Gary, Indiana, isn't stacked flush with billionaires?
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u/MrBartokomous Canada 16h ago
Because they're all living it up in Peoria, everyone knows that.
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u/NewAltWhoThis 9h ago
The idea behind higher taxes on the very rich is that they will pay more but their lifestyle won’t change any. They’ll have less money, but they’ll still have more than enough to be able to live in New York, take any vacation they want, get a new car whenever needed, and send their kid to any private school they wish. Working class Americans *still* will have to live in Peoria or Gary, still wouldn’t be able to take vacations, still would have no option for their children other than public schools, and still will have to make due with patching up a broken down car, but they’ll at least be able to go to a doctor and maybe struggle just a bit less to put food on the table.
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u/Tasty_Bite1984 13h ago
even i wouldn't send billionaire’s to gary, indiana
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u/Particular-Repeat169 13h ago
I wish Elon Musk wpuld go stand at 4th and broadway for an afternoon.
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u/broodmance Texas 11h ago
I would. Fuck em. Let's drop them out there and let nature take it's course
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u/KillahHills10304 8h ago
Naturally they will revitalize the city and make it the envy of the 21st century with their all powerful work ethic. Right? Thats what im told.
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u/wrosecrans 15h ago
Super Rich people are the one group that can afford to live wherever they want, regardless of what it costs. You attract them by making a place that works well and is the nice place that rich people most want to be in.
Rich people will spend 50,000 dollars on a watch that keeps time worse than a $19.95 watch from Target, just so people can see how overtly rich they are. But suddenly they are worried about 1 or 2 percent of extra costs from where they live? The ultra rich are gonna live in the sticks and spend half their lives commuting in to town to get to Wall Street for a $200 lunch? It's inane logic that entirely comes from spoiled rich people wanting to live there and also wanting to keep their taxes down. It's not a real assessment of what will happen if you tax them.
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u/winterbird 11h ago
What the rich refuse to publicly acknowledge is that when the little people around them live better, their own environment improves too. There's less crime when there are fewer desperate people, everything flourishes and becomes more beautiful if people have the means to maintain their homes, the people out and about are more pleasant and put together if they can have healthcare and buy clothes etc. A happy population leads to just a nicer everything all around.
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u/Funny-Mission-2937 15h ago
it doesnt even really make sense. if a billionaire 'leaves new york' it means they went from a resident six months one day to five months 29 days so they can call somewhere else primary on their taxes. its not like theyre staying in a 1br apartment with six other people. its all just paperwork anyway.
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u/dellett 9h ago
Most people that believe this also think that the really rich people that "live in NYC" actually live in NYC already. The people they are thinking about officially live in the Hamptons or Florida or somewhere else on paper and claim they spend just under half the year at their place in the city for tax purposes.
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u/Paper_Clip100 9h ago
My mom who has never visited a city with more than a million people says otherwise!
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u/Van-garde 18h ago edited 16h ago
It’s not laughable. It’s an implanted idea which has become dogmatic in the capitalist setting.
Much of American culture related to classes, wealth, resources (housing being the current hot commodity), taxes, and communities is unquestioned malarkey, used to maintain the current systems.
Edit: apologies for framing my idea oppositionally.
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u/ponderdiggums 18h ago
Precisely. We'd better not misbehave by lobbying for healthier lifestyles for the labor class, lest the billionaires go home and take their ball with them.
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u/GrafZeppelin127 18h ago
They also have absolutely nothing to say when you start talking about taxing wealthy assets that they can’t just up and leave with, such as a land value tax.
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u/Low_Pickle_112 16h ago
Speaking of which, has anyone ever considered that the wealthy being able to claim "Give us what we want or we will harm your society" isn't cause to be subservient to their demands but evidence that the whole system in inherently flawed and in dire need of a complete overhaul? If anyone is saying that, if they're able to use their resources to convince people that makes sense, they clearly have way too much power and influence for a healthy civilization. It goes way beyond a simple "They're bluffing".
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u/curaga12 16h ago
It feels similar to the trickle down theory that adores the rich and be fond of capitalism which has been around for a long time. Their effect has never been proved but somehow so many people believed in.
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u/Pockydo 18h ago
It also shows a supreme amount of arrogance
They need us more than we need them
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u/hooligan045 17h ago
It’s pretty simple. The world doesn’t need billionaires but the world absolutely needs Joe Everyman.
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u/johnmedgla Great Britain 13h ago
The point that should worry you is that we are approaching a nexus of AI, robotics and automation where the billionaires may no longer need everyone else.
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u/morpheousmorty 2h ago
When I see one single LLM tool you can run unattended I'll start worrying. The rest of AI hasn't advanced significantly.
I think we hit an interesting nexus of the illusion of thought with failure rate that is tempting in the abstract, but 3 years in I'm only seeing the illusion is better, if I go even slightly off the beaten path it still gives me nonsense answers.
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u/Ssshizzzzziit 18h ago
All because their taxes increase by a few points. It's not like the middle class getting destroyed by cost of living increases and HAVE to leave out of necessity.
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u/Nymethny 10h ago
The thing is, millionaire sounds big, but it's a very wide category that includes both the ultra rich at one extreme and the middle class at the other.
Someone who owns a condo in NYC can be a millionaire without being rich at all.
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u/monkeyamongmen 10h ago
There are definitely classes of millionaires. One million net worth? Could just be a property owner. One million in savings? Could be close to retirement, with good investments. One million in annual income? Is it stable? Is it passive? It isn't just about taxing millionaires, it's in how you tax them, and what exactly constitutes a millionaire in the first place. Tax the rich is a great slogan, and I do think the rich and ultrarich should be taxed at near post-WWII levels, but how exactly we get there without accidentally harming older long term savers or younger homeowners needs to be considered.
And the money needs to go directly into communities in ways that are immediately tangible. Tax the rich is the start of the conversation, not even the midpoint.
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u/Stillwater215 18h ago
It a grown up version of “give me what I want, or I’m taking my ball and going home.”
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u/MayorMcCheezz 12h ago
It’s the same shit republicans talk about when they threaten that the higher taxes will force the company to go elsewhere. What are they going to do? Move to a hick town or move to the EU, ME, China or Russia. Yea right.
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u/whatproblems 9h ago
i’m sure they’re flocking! to Mississippi and maga heartlands for sure
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u/BigGrooveBox 9h ago
Oh for sure. A coworker told me his hope when he voted for Trump was, and I quote “the oligarchs will save us.” Like my guy were in fucking nowhere, Florida. They’re never coming near us.
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u/Alive_kiwi_7001 15h ago
As the UK has found, they will bellyache about it like mad and the right-wing media will just pretend they're leaving when they're really just running quotes that are basically: "Hold me back, Smee, I'm leaving. You can't stop me. I'm totally leaving so you'd better hold me back. You are holding me back, aren't you Smee?"
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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 17h ago
Yup, you're not going to get the amenities in NYC anywhere else in the US (including LA). There's a reason why so much wealth is located in that city more so than anywhere else in the country.
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u/Not_Stupid Australia 12h ago
And who is it that supplies all those amenities? Why it's the average working class taxpayer!
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u/_byetony_ 13h ago
Also, who the fuck cares if they leave? I WANT wealthy people to leave. Trickle down is a lie. Many wealthy people cause harm: environmentally, politically, socioeconomically.
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u/sir-camaris 17h ago
Yeah exactly. There's a reason they're in NYC and it's not because of the taxes.
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u/Multiple__Butts 11h ago
Also the idea that it would be some kind of problem for us if they did leave.
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u/renegadesci 9h ago
It is where they make their money. If they go to Possum Trot, Kentucky what are they going to do? They'll let someone else make money in NYC.
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u/NarfledGarthak 6h ago
Well, yeah. They can already move to lower tax areas in the US and they haven’t. Of course the argument that’ll be made is “well, some more taxes will be too much” but that misses the point that they are clearly weighing something against tax liability.
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u/Megotaku 18h ago
"If you tax the rich, they'll take their resources and leave!" To go where? European countries with higher tax rates, actual enforcement of finance laws that will actually land your ass in prison for your ill-gotten gains, and much stricter regulations? Oh, I know. Maybe China or Russia where they'll literally kill you for trying to undermine the regime with your wealth for personal gain. It's unbelievably stupid that anyone believes wealthy people even can leave the global economic hegemons, especially when their assets are entrenched in the economies in which they're existing.
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u/AqueductMosaic 17h ago
Wealthy individuals don’t even have to leave the USA to reduce their taxes. There are states with no individual income tax:
Alaska Florida Nevada South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington Wyoming
So, clearly wealthy people stay in NYC despite the high taxes.
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u/snerp Washington 16h ago
I wish we had income tax here in Washington but all these weird cuckservatives come out of the woodwork every time and act like it’ll make all the rich people leave. Fuck em, if they’d rather leave than contribute then I think they should just leave
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u/beerandmastiffs 8h ago
Conservatives have zero power in WA state, lol. The state constitution doesn’t allow for an income tax. Even the liberal state Supreme Court has upheld that. For all their talk of progressiveism the Dems here enact the most regressive tax and fee hikes because they won’t challenge their corporate masters.
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u/TheIntrepid1 I voted 18h ago
Devil’s Advocate, here: Dubai
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u/StinkiePhish 18h ago
Anyone wanting 0% tax is free to move to Dubai anytime they want (of course Americans still have to pay US federal tax). It however will be a significantly different lifestyle than NYC with significantly less accessibility to any city in America.
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u/veryverythrowaway 13h ago
The federal tax part is the part that nobody ever mentions. If a wealthy person wants to stop paying US taxes, they have to renounce citizenship after they find a place to flee. I’d love to see how the PR plays out on a move like that.
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u/Megotaku 17h ago
Dubai where they arrest tourists and put them into third world gulags for public drunkenness? Have at it, Hoss.
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u/430_Autogyro 16h ago
You think...that the wealthy--either tourists or local--play by those rules?
Religion, and its rules, is for the poor and the middle class.
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u/Alive_kiwi_7001 15h ago
That works until you piss off one of the local sheikhs by looking at him the wrong way.
Tbf, you won't get locked up.
But you will be encouraged not to stay.
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u/IDOWNVOTERUSSIANS 15h ago
So effectively they'd be paying a tax to uphold their lifestyle? Why leave NYC because of taxes if you're going to have to pay bribes in the new place? Kinda defeats the purpose - at least taxes are predictable
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u/meTspysball California 17h ago
Why do we care if millionaires and billionaires move to Dubai? Rich people are a drain on the economy, not an economic driving force. They hoard wealth by taking up more resources than they produce, and create a bubble around themselves so they don’t live with the rest of us. They gobble up real estate (jacking up prices), use their influence ($) to change local laws to suit them and their extravagant lifestyle. The cops will always show up to serve and protect the rich on your dime. If they aren’t paying taxes, they aren’t adding any value back to the local economy. Tax the shit out of the rich and corporations, it’s the only way to get back to the lifestyle of the 50’s that the GOP says they want to go back to.
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u/old_at_heart 15h ago
Hmm...what's the temperature profile of that city?
From Dubai - Wikipedia
Summers in Dubai are extremely hot, prolonged, windy, and humid, with an average high around 40 °C (104 °F) and overnight lows around 30 °C (86 °F) in the hottest month, August. Most days are sunny throughout the year. Winters are mild to warm, with an average high of 24 °C (75 °F) and overnight lows of 14 °C (57 °F) in January, the coolest month.
Dubai summers are also known for the very high humidity level, which can make it very uncomfortable for many with exceptionally high dew points, which can exceed 30 °C (86 °F) in summer. Heat index values can reach over 60 °C (140 °F) at the height of summer.\79]) The highest recorded temperature in Dubai is 49.0 °C (120.2 °F).
Sounds like something really swell your billions will buy you. Oh, well, I guess you can stay inside in the air conditioning.
Come to think of it, Mars has its attractions as well...
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u/LukeSkywalker4 18h ago
A Muslim country where they will kill you for watching mtv?
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u/peanutbuttercult 18h ago
C’mon now. Everyone knows you don’t have to follow the rules in the Gulf states if you’re wealthy enough.
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u/davvblack 17h ago
why’d you put “in the Gulf states”
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u/ItsAlwaysSegsFault 17h ago
Because that's where Dubai is?
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u/430_Autogyro 16h ago
They were trying to be edgy and say that it's everywhere.
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u/ItsAlwaysSegsFault 16h ago
Fair. Demonstrates the importance of being clear with your criticism I guess.
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u/usereddit 17h ago
Florida - And many of them have left to go to Florida already during the pandemic. It’s not an absurd case. Will they all leave? Of course not. Will companies and executives move to the low tax state of Florida? Absolutely and it’s already happened. Ask those who live in south Florida.
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u/Friendly-View4122 17h ago
I'd argue people who would choose Florida over New York had one foot out the door already
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u/Creative-Package6213 Pennsylvania 17h ago
Also Florida will be considerably more expensive because it's natural disaster after natural disaster.
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u/Not_Stupid Australia 12h ago
How's that working out for Florida?
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u/qwertybugs 8h ago
Had a die-hard MAGA in Brickell complain to me yesterday that Florida needs to institute some kind of “controls” so homegrown Floridians can lock in rental rates because all of the out-of-state transplants are making life too unaffordable.
Absolutely poetic and hilarious. 😂
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u/Not_Stupid Australia 8h ago
All those companies moving there, using government facilities and roads, but paying no tax can't be great for the state's ability to support the rest of the residents either.
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u/Ssshizzzzziit 18h ago
And yet it isn't true that rent increases and general cost of living increases have driven out the middle class. They're still here, hanging on.
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u/KnightDuty 15h ago
But if you're not taking them, their "resources" they were taking were useless to us to begin with. Stagnant resources aren't worth shit.
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u/Evilpessimist 13h ago
What resources!? They’re sucking us dry by earning money here, paying out as little as possible to workers and then sending the money out of the city. Investing in stocks and bonds does nothing for New Yorkers.
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u/Indurum 18h ago
If the rich wanted to move to east bumblefuck kentucky they already could have.
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u/camel2021 11h ago
As someone that lives Kentucky, please no. You can keep your oligarchs. We already have plenty. We are full up.
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u/rocketwidget Massachusetts 18h ago
In related news Millionaires tax helps Mass. collect $2b over expectations in 2025 and therefore I non-sarcastically agree with this opinion piece: Opinion | Massachusetts owes its millionaires a big thank you
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u/MaddyKet Massachusetts 17h ago
Yeah when we voted to increase taxes on millionaires here, they certainly didn’t all leave in droves.
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u/KimmyT1436 Canada 18h ago
The bulk of America's population doesn't live in the countryside. The bulk of the population lives in the big cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Big cities are humongous markets enterprising billionaires can exploit by selling the millions upon millions of people who live in those cities stuff they don't need. The headline is true. Billionaires are not going to abandon the biggest market, and the biggest source of money, in America.
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u/ts_wrathchild 18h ago
Ain't nobody leaving New York. If they do, it'll be like the LA to Austin "comedy" crowd - nothing of value will have been lost anyway.
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u/Not_Bears 18h ago
Austin is a cool city...
But I'd rather live in a fucking condo in LA than a mansion in TX.
I've never had any urge to leave Austin and I'm there often for work. The entire state of CA is amazing and I love that no matter where you go, you'll find cool shit and people.
My buddy is from just outside Waco and lives in LA now, the way he describes the more rural parts of TX makes it sound like a foreign country lol
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u/barneyrubbble 18h ago
That the rich would leave has always been the threat. It has always been a lie. Not having to leave is one of the benefits of being rich.
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u/ape_spine_ 11h ago
It baffles me that people think if the rich all got together and left, that nobody else would be smart enough to replace them.
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u/mediocre_remnants North Carolina 18h ago
Of course they will. Nobody lives in NYC because it's a cheap place to live or because it has low taxes (because neither of these things are true...). And the extremely wealthy won't even notice a tax increase.
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u/MorningHelpful8389 15h ago
Massachusetts passed a millionaire 4% surtax in 2022. Detractors said millionaires would leave. The result? Mass has more millionaires than they did when the law passed AND they raised 2.2 billion from that tax alone (to be used for education and transit) - more than double their projections.
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u/uieLouAy New Jersey 10h ago
Same exact thing happened in New Jersey a few years earlier. Billions more in tax revenue, and the number of millionaires keeps growing.
In the same way we all live where we do for various reasons that have nothing to do with the tax code — having roots, family, friends, networks, jobs, liking the community, etc. — millionaires are the same way.
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u/bleat_bleat_bleat 17h ago
The fact is they have more money than they can spend in a lifetime. They just whine about wanting your money as well.
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u/Rare-Peak2697 18h ago
I love when conservatives start quoting Ayn Rand when this topic comes up like “who is John galt?”??? It’s almost like a fictional book about a libertarian wet dream is somehow a sound economic theory. But these are the same people who use a Jewish guy from the Middle East who said love thy neighbor as justification for their nationalist bullshit
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u/Shalazah Canada 16h ago
To give credit to Rand, Atlas Shrugged makes for an excellent doorstop.
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u/sleeplessinreno 16h ago
I remember many moons ago, I had to do some make up classes to catch up and one of the assignments was reading that book. I just looked it up and the plot summary and wrote the report just talking out my ass. I passed.
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u/Shalazah Canada 16h ago
I have read it entirely. I envy you being able to do that, and I can assure you you didn't miss much.
The John Galt speech alone is a marvel in how long-winded it is.
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u/sleeplessinreno 16h ago
I figured as much. I literally put in the bare minimum and it was acceptable. So, the book must not have much nuance to it. Mind you, this was almost 30 years ago as well. So my memories of it all are very hazy.
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u/winterbird 11h ago
They didn't leave because real estate got more expensive. They didn't leave as just about everything else got more expensive there too. They don't stop buying cars because prices go up. They don't stop shopping because goods go up in price.
They're fine with parting with money. Despite whining & threatening people with a good time by saying they'll leave... they'll stay. Because ultimately that they're ok with spending money. It's benefitting others that they hate.
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u/parasyte_steve 18h ago
If they leave GOOD they're making everything too expensive. I had to move out of NYC... would love to be able to ever move back or at least have the option but I'm officially priced out of my home town.
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u/tacs97 18h ago
Where will they go? To a red state? Fuck em! Let the rich all live in their cesspool of low taxes and hate for anyone not wealthy. Mathew 19:16-26. This is a good one for any of you so called religious republicans. That term is such an oxymoron. There is literally nothing biblically religious about republicans except that they are siding with satan. Religion is a fucking scam anyways used by low IQ people to hide from things they are afraid of.
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u/ATLfalcons27 18h ago
People say and believe that billionaires would shut down shop if they were taxed this way because "why would they work so hard to have all their money taken away".
First of all let's just ignore that people who are billionaires can't really just shut down their businesses.
Even when you get to the millionaire part it's still ridiculous.
Someone is just going to stop because instead of raking in 100 million a year it's 70?
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u/jhkayejr 18h ago
Ever been to NYC? It's one of the greatest cities on earth. People will pay a premium to be in New York. Some might leave, but others will come.
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u/naththegrath10 12h ago
You know who is leave the city? The fucking working class who are being priced out by the rich
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u/Ametalslimedr_wsnear 18h ago
Let them have a few sleepless nights and pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
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u/Shalazah Canada 18h ago
They'll probably leave because they're cowards, but taxing them is the right thing to do anyway.
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u/MaddyKet Massachusetts 17h ago
They didn’t in Massachusetts.
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u/Shenanigans_forever 7h ago
It's a wee bit different. There isn't really an easy commute to Boston from outside Massachusetts. There are suburbs all around NYC that are an easy commute away.
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u/Herbivoreselector 15h ago
Working people will be OK without billionaires. Billionaires won’t be OK without working people.
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u/Mission_Progress_674 9h ago
I remember the same bs in the 80s and 90s when corporations threatened to leave Scotland if the people didn't vote Conservative.
The result was that zero Conservative politicians won their elections because the Scots voted strategically for whoever had the best chance of beating the Cons, and not one single corporation left Scotland.
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u/Lootthatbody 7h ago
What’s funny is, most politicians aren’t even advocating for a total redistribution of wealth. They just want to, like, increase taxes from basically zero to a couple percent.
These fucking scumbag billionaires will spend billions in ‘donations’ to save millions in taxes, it just makes no god damn sense. You could be using your hoarded money from the labor of others for good, but no. You’d rather take that money and funnel it to buying off politicians to keep you from paying even the slightest bit more in taxes.
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u/limbodog Massachusetts 17h ago
It's like people saying they'll move to Canada if so-and-so wins the election. Typically it hasn't happened (current regime excluded)
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u/Decent_Video_1465 14h ago
If this tis true, why are we only raising taxes 2%. Raise them bitches 20%!
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u/billfwmcdonald Massachusetts 12h ago
Everyone thought business leaders and corporations would leave Massachusetts once the millionaires’ tax was implemented. The result? Not many have left and MA generated almost $2B more in revenue last year, which is a great cushion to offset the blows delivered by cuts in federal funding. It’s a no brainer for NYC
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u/manzanita2 12h ago
Some people think that all decisions are financial decisions.
And there are a few wealthy people for whom "winning" a race is the motivation.
But for many the reason to be wealthy is to make decisions which are NOT purely financial, like to live in an amazing city like NYC and to be able to spend their money on music, shows, food with interesting people.
For this later group, anything which makes the city MORE amazing is good, regardless of the amount of money.
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u/KinkyPaddling 10h ago
Hell, Bloomberg ran on a policy of raising taxes for the rich at 25%. Compared to that, Mamdani’s promise of 21.5% is generous. It just shows you how much power the oligarchy has now as opposed to 18 years ago that Mamdani’s policy is being decried as socialism, while the literal billionaire’s was a-okay.
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u/glouscester 10h ago
If they aren't contributing to the tax base now...who the fuck cares if they leave.
They are parasites. Let em leave.
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u/Agile-Music-2295 9h ago
Let’s go Mandami, this better be just one of the many changes you make.
Time to wake up America.
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u/Flux_State 8h ago
It should be a crime to charge more in Rent than the mortgage you're paying on said property
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u/LunarWhale117 3h ago
They can move literally anywhere uncle Sam is coming for that money. No matter where you move you owe taxes to the US
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u/ChillyFireball 17h ago
Even if they leave, that just makes more room for small businesses that aren't run by sociopaths. Win/win.
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u/Major-Clock-6443 17h ago
If the cost of starting a business is low enough, then yeah NY would see more small businesses.
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u/Obvious_Chapter2082 17h ago
Incredibly dumb article. Millionaires/billionaires don’t actually have to pack up and leave NY in order to avoid higher NY taxes
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u/XtraMayoMonster 11h ago edited 11h ago
Lmao, holy shit what a dumb article. Yeah they don’t have to actually leave to avoid these taxes. Your DSA guy is toast.
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u/Slumunistmanifisto 17h ago
Gentrification of the billionaires! Some may be priced out but theres plenty of homes in ohio and Nebraska.....
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u/Jeanlucpuffhard 17h ago
Simple reason. They can afford it. Cause they make millions each year. It gets replenished.
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u/spazz720 17h ago
It’s not that they’ll leave but you better believe they will do their best to shield their earnings from the tax man.
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u/xxBeepBopBoopxx 17h ago
It was done during all the major wars and the rich didn’t leave; they won’t leave now
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u/430_Autogyro 16h ago
It doesn't matter if they leave or not. Their money does. Their money already did in a lot of cases. I
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u/SillyGoatGruff 16h ago
History shows they may not leave, but the present shows they'll happily embrace fascism instead
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u/NickyTreeFingers 16h ago
If the newspapers they own start reporting on how it's a bad idea, you can bet it's not.
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u/Milestailsprowe 16h ago
One or two will leave and complain about how the city isn't good for tax reasons like Joe Rogan or the In n out owner but the majority will be fine
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u/Thund3rF000t 15h ago
they will not leave they want to live there to live in the sky scrapers and expensive new york housing because it is a status symbol living in the greatest city in the world.
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u/moonravenx 15h ago
They get away with everything in NewYork. They can't afford to do the things they get away in New York in any other state or country. Just pay now to prevent more losses later.
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u/Humble_Ad9815 15h ago
Where the going to go, sinking Florida, or unregulated rouge Texass, where an extra microwave oven can take down the grid.
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u/old_at_heart 14h ago
Eliminate all the tariffs. The economy will start to roar, it will tend to overheat, but that can be moderated by taxing the rich.
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u/Pete_maravich 14h ago
What are they going to do? Move to Wichita? No, they are going to stay right where they are close to everything
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u/notinterested10002 14h ago
I hope this happens not just because it would be good for people but because it would shut up the little cottage industry of pathetic writers and bloggers (and redditors!) who tirelessly cape for billionaires and neoliberal capitalism.
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u/Polar_Vortx America 13h ago
Also, even if the choice was no taxes or they leave, either way you only claw some money back out of the second choice.
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u/mrpickleby 12h ago
Tell people what they get for their taxes. Advertise it.
It's the ultimate argument against the no-tax platform.
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u/withwhichwhat 10h ago
Once they realize that their more classy rivals look down on them for their demeaning whining about taxes, which shows how little class their money buys them, they'll shut the fuck up and start funding libraries again... so long as they get recognition ceremonies for their donations.
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u/Euler007 9h ago
The trick is balancing income tax for fairness and usage based fees for quality of service. Also balancing total compensation for public employees versus equivalent private sector employees.
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u/PBPunch 7h ago
Or they do.. ask yourself is it worth it? You suffer so they can have more than you could ever acquire doing the work to keep the city moving? You and your family get subpar healthcare, education and general wellbeing because they need one more penthouse? You don’t deserve dental because they want to pay off that trip to Bezos evil villains lair? They act like they will suffer to help those who support them. I’ve lived at the bottom, they’ll be ok with a 2 percent contribution to their community.
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u/danodan1 5h ago
Just raise the tax on the rich by just a few percentage points and they likely won't even notice it, especially the billionaires.
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u/Successful-Syrup3764 4h ago
This is the absurd part. It’s like, where else are they gonna go?
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u/Dannyzavage 4h ago
Bro the absurd part is watching them say this and argue all these crazy points. But you point out the fact that California did this and it brought more rich in lmao.
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u/Prestigious_Cold_756 3h ago
People are to lazy to cancel their Netflix when the price increases… You think they gonna move when taxes are raised? They will whine, rant and buy newspapers to write articles about how everyone is mean to them… and then pay up.
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u/Important-Ability-56 3h ago
It’s a good thing when you vaccinate against a disease. Let them leave. Some geezer with a big portfolio sitting his decrepit ass on Park Ave. is not a source of economic productivity.
They don’t even build museums anymore. They build stupid open-concept phallic symbols and sell chunks of them to foreigners who never even go there.
I’m sure they’ll stay, but I for one welcome them to go enjoy the weather in Dubai.
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u/HeisenbergWhitman 1h ago
Taxes don't matter to the rich, even when they do pay them. So why not raise them?
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