Billionaire brawl: all the latest on the cage match between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg
VergeMAY 2023
For a small minority of the world's super-rich, 2022 was a year to forget, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine supposedly forced central banks across the globe to raise interest rates that caused high inflation. However, let's not forget that a new billionaire was born every 30 hours on average during COVID, while over 160M more people were forced into poverty. If the world's top 1% lost 99.99% of their wealth tomorrow, they would still be more prosperous than the remaining 99%. Redistribution through taxation is vital.
Taxing the overall wealth of the world's richest people won't actually help with redistribution, but would rather reduce the amount of capital available for investments and impede economic productivity. Instead, as has worked in Europe, rich countries should tax the consumption of these wealthy individuals. While it may be difficult to transition to such a system in a place like the US, it's a far better option than ruining economic opportunity for the middle and lower classes.