That’s always been my favorite hypocrisy of The Industry. The vast majority in Hollywood are for higher taxes, but only on everyone else’s corporation. The NEED tax breaks to produce instate.
A few years ago, I attended a panel sponsored by UCLA’s business school, and the alum from the Industry was bemoaning California’s high taxes on “them” and explaining why it was cheaper to film in Canada, which rolled out the red carpet – not only in tax breaks, but in local permits to close down streets and in waiving regulations.
1% ers also have a lot more in assets. The top 1% asset-wise has $8.4 million or more in the bank.
I own a small business snd my income fluctuates. Some years I’m in a high tax bracket, some years not. Some years I pay AMT, some years not. And that is fine with me. It is the price we pay for a civilized society – and I mean that literally. A society that allows too much income inequality is not a stable society. In fact, much of the unrest we see now is due to that issue and the continued growth in inequality. Many voters were fooled into voting against their interests in this area, and I expect the unrest will get worse. This tax plan makes it worse, not better.
I see Walmart is investing in robots to stock their shelves. Soon a lot of jobs that smaller communities have come to count on will go away. They gutted Main Street, and now will eliminate the new jobs. Walmart does not need a tax break.
Since Hollywood is such a big industry it might be hard to generalize so easily. Actors and technicians might not mind paying more in taxes, but producers and the finance guys might have an issue with that.
I just saw that Tesla is going to be rolling out driverless trucks. If that works out in 10 years or so, another whole industry of relatively well paying jobs for high school graduates goes away. But on the other hand, I don’t think that government regulations or anything else will stop a change that is happening organically. You can’t stop ‘progress’.
The number one job in the US by number of people employed is truck driver - 3.5 million people. Add in millions more jobs in support industries like restaurants and motels, this will be a major disruption.
I’m wondering if we are going to see a backlash against increasing automation.
Technological change always destroys jobs while creating new ones. Historically, new jobs enabled by technology resulted in increased productivity and hence economic growth. In many cases, the new jobs were readily accessible without large amounts of costly education and training, so that those displaced from destroyed jobs could move into them, with the result is that the benefits of economic growth were distributed across society.
However, the concern today is that the new jobs being created (a) are fewer in number, and (b) have a higher barrier to entry in terms of skills, education, and (re)training. If this is the case, the economic and social implications for the future are unpleasant to think about, particularly if access to education and (re)training is more limited in the future: there will be large numbers of unemployed and unemployable people who have no way to become employable, due to the high barriers (like cost and length of education and training programs) to learn needed skills for the work that does exist.
Will the few who do have work be willing to pay taxes to offer welfare to the unemployables? Given the declining willingness to make education accessible (as evidenced by this tax bill and other general trends), probably not. Will some of the unemployables turn to crime to finance their lives, making a negative instead of positive contribution to society? Will many of the unemployables resent their situation, creating social unrest, possibly in support of unpleasant political ideologies like communism, racism, or religious fanaticism?
“I just saw that Tesla is going to be rolling out driverless trucks.”
They are planning to roll out electric trucks that someday will have driverless capability. Judging by the performance of our enhanced AP, I would not bet my bank account on that happening anytime soon for long haul trucking. Not all freeways are flat and well taken care of. Throw in a few random construction zones… And who is going to chain up the truck when the wintry weather strikes?
From everything I have heard and read, I think long haul trucking will be the first to see automation. Routes that are all on freeways are the most predictable. You often see double or triple trailers on highways now that are met with additional tractors at exits to split them up and take them off freeway (where they are not legal). Human drivers can meet the automated trucks and then drive the more local routes. Deliveries in big cities sound like they would be much later to be automated (some I have seen do not believe it will ever happen). Certain long haul routes may not be appropriate (such as in winter weather conditions). But that doesn’t mean others are not ripe for automation.
Ultimately, I think the impact of automation will be the world’s greatest challenge going forward. How do we balance everything. No easy answers and unfortunately in a world that thinks that 140 characters should be a limit to discourse, it is that much harder.
My car practically drives itself on highways now. Cruise control which is programmed to slow down when approaching another car, vibrates when going out of lane; blinking lights in mirrors when another car is passing. It even tells me, when temp is below 32, to watch out for icy roads.
I think if trucks become fully automated it’s likely a driver will still be needed. Like airplanes now with auto pilot.
Given that (1) there is a floor of income below which one can’t survive in non-squalor conditions, and (1a) those expenses, being a fixed amount, take up a larger proportion of poor people’s income than they do of rich people’s income, and also since we’ve made the choice that (2) we use mechanisms such as the standard deduction to not tax at least part of that fixed income floor, then (3) yeah, it seems totally reasonable that the rich pay more, even much more, in taxes than their proportion of total income.
(Not to mention that the rich actually tend to use more in government services than poor people—so yeah, they’re not using food stamps, but they’re flying a lot more—so paying a bit more proportionally seems reasonable there, too.)
Also, insert a line here about the regressive nature of sales and payroll taxes.
That’s what some of the commentary on the Tesla truck says – the driver will still be there like a pilot in the airplane. The autopilot takes care of easy monotonous situations, while the human handles more complex situations.
It’s not uncommon for taxes and usage fees to add 15-20% to the cost of a ticket.
I’m not arguing against a progressive tax system (although I could argue for a truly flat tax with a large standard deduction as the only deduction), but when it starts to get confiscatory, a lot of people will vote with their feet.
Granting your claim solely for discussion: Considering that we in the United States are currently one of the lowest-taxed populations in the industrialized world, particularly when it comes to taxes on the wealthy (and that our corporate taxes, in terms of effective tax rates, aren’t actually all that far above the rest of the industrialized world), where would you suggest people are going to go?
Perhaps another way of putting this is that the rich need to pay enough taxes to prevent the poor from rising up and taking everything. I sort of feel like that envelope is being pushed right now, especially if this legislation passes.
Even before that happens, when more people are poorer, they are less able to buy what rich people’s businesses are selling, resulting in a smaller economy where even a larger share for the rich is smaller in absolute terms. Also, when education is inaccessible, rich people’s businesses may find it difficult to hire employees for more skilled jobs, reducing the businesses’ capabilities to earn more money.
But then those who have the extractive mindset or who care more about relative social status than absolute benefit may still prefer to have a larger percentage of a smaller economy than a smaller percentage of a larger economy, even if the latter is larger in an absolute sense.
Personally, I think it’s inevitable that we’ll have a guaranteed minimum income, because it will be necessary for large numbers of unemployed people to still be consumers. I’d rather see us move toward that end peacefully, though.
There are lots of tax havens with reasonable standards of “civilization”.
Granted the exit tax makes it expensive to walk away, but that’s a one-time hit.
And even if people don’t physically walk, the more burdensome the tax the more people will move their businesses/money out of the country. Even the Queen of England got caught with money in a tax shelter.
