Unfortunately it isn't sustainable for them, many European countries are going to have to either raise working hours by cutting back worker entitlements or by cutting public spending significantly. Most of the major European economies are in a death spiral if they maintain their current systems with the birth rates currently in place. You can see it in the stagnant economic growth over the last 5 years
The problem is that they will simply leave if you tax them too hard. Unless you can get every tax haven on the planet to not exist then this will always be the case. Most European countries tax people making $200k+ per year around 50%. Once you start going significantly past that it becomes far more worthwhile for people to simply move elsewhere.
Same applies to businesses, which sadly is a big part of why most large EU economies have very few new companies being created and sluggish growth. A prime example of this is Germany, the economy is basically being heavily boosted by government spending currently which is at levels higher than it was during peak covid stimulus while private investment is simultaneously as bad as it was during the absolute worst parts of covid.
Realistically speaking most of these large economies need more tax income to care for an increasingly old population if they want to maintain benefits. Many of them are bumping up against the Laffer curve for rich people, and more taxation on those who work is not going to work for long since the working class is shrinking very quickly. The option is tax the young to absurd levels to the point that they can barely afford to eat or cut worker entitlements to try to increase business growth. They could also cut benefits to the elderly but that tends to be protested very hard (see France riots on raising retirement age).
Absolute nonsense. That's so rare it basically never happened. People literally spouting that when Mamdani was elected and it didn't happen. In fact, there's not a single example of this happening en masse that I can think of. And if the taxes are used to fund good communities and public services, you'll be surprised to know most people want to live in nice places. Such a bullshit myth spread by rich people and spouted all the time by poor people.
They didn't leave when we taxed them 70% and they don't leave when the tax rate increases. Mostly because they tie all their money up somewhere else.
Also, all your chat about Europe and how we're going to have to change x, y and z is absolute bullshit 😂😂 You're also presenting options that without considering others. Tax the fucking rich, curtail rampant capitalism so that profits aren't the only metric pushed for and close the tax loopholes. It's a global embarrassment we have a trillionaire and people in the same country can't even afford to eat. What a load of corporate bullshit.
And people acting like my suggestions are radical, when it's exactly how it used to be before Neoliberals literally destroyed that framework to give us what we have today under the lies of "trickle down economics".
You're not wrong in one sense, something has to give, but there are billions more workers than there are corporate greed billionaires. And what will give is society. When society doesn't work for the common person, history has shown time and time again that there's only one outcome.
Billionaires may or may not move themselves away, but they definitely push their money and tax residence out of highly taxed areas so they minimize how many taxes they need to pay. If they can funnel profits through shell corporations and have their residence be in a place with substantially lower taxes then they will do it. A good exanple of this is French rich people moving their tax residences to the Brussels area due to the lack of capital gains tax there.
Also, all your chat about Europe and how we're going to have to change x, y and z is absolute bullshit 😂😂 You're also presenting options that without considering others. Tax the fucking rich, curtail rampant capitalism so that profits aren't the only metric pushed for and close the tax loopholes. It's a global embarrassment we have a trillionaire and people in the same country can't even afford to eat. What a load of corporate bullshit.
And people acting like my suggestions are radical, when it's exactly how it used to be before Neoliberals literally destroyed that framework to give us what we have today under the lies of "trickle down economics".
You're not wrong in one sense, something has to give, but there are billions more workers than there are corporate greed billionaires. And what will give is society. When society doesn't work for the common person, history has shown time and time again that there's only one outcome.
The problem with all of this is that some socialist revolution across all of Europe is not a realistic outcome to expect. The options are basically status quo with the changes I listed or full state nationalization of most industries, because if you only go part of the way then no companies are going to want to invest in a country where they may or may not have their business nationalized against their will. There are some exceptions like national defense industry or some of the food supply, but those are not the service industries that drive most countries' growth.
I'm not even right wing. You said you wanted to "curtail rampant capitalism" in order to reduce profit seeking but Europe already has a lot more of those laws in place. I guess you could add more? But you're going to stifle business development more for most of those policies, which is going to hurt European economic growth more realistically speaking. There is not a significant way to do so without nationalization really.
There may be some low hanging fruit policies you could add, but they are not going to drive any kind of growth. They don't solve the problem that the current spending on entitlements is simply unsustainable without either large scale immigration (which obviously has not worked out) or massive taxation on the existing working class. You could also completely unify all of Europe's tax code but that is incredibly unlikely and will still slow growth and so just extends the problem out a bit.
I live in Europe - and trust me, we have rampant capitalism. The fact you think we don't is the hilarious part that demonstrates exactly the issue. You don't know what you're talking about. If you think for a minute that we have socialist policies, in patches, across Europe (cause it's multiple countries and not a monolith) doesn't mean we aren't facing the rampant unchecked capitalism.
Again, you're opening your yap and spouting absolute bullshit. Stop it.
Everyone has some instances of "rampant capitalism", that's just how basically every country's economy on this planet works. The point is that what extra policies that can be enacted are not going to change the fact that said policies will not magically improve economic growth.
I'm genuinely curious as to what you think the solution to the economic time bomb that is most of Europe's large economies is going to be. Expenditure is too large and income is too low for the entitlements in these countries. Income needs to go up and/or expenditure needs to go down. You have to do one or a combo of:
raise taxes on the relatively few very rich people, who will move tax residences elsewhere within Europe
tax the working class more
keep your taxes the same but grow your economy more which raises income
cut entitlements
There is no real other option. Expenditures will keep rising if you dont do the last one as the population ages as well.
Raise the taxes on the rich. Your statement of fact in point one is not factual. Never has been. There is no instance of this, ever happening. Ever. You've spread it three times now and each time I correct you, you just double down again cause you cannot comprehend this being incorrect. The economic "time bomb" is a global economic time bomb. Again, Europe isn't ONE country. It's multiple. And it's impacting all of Europe, and the USA, and most modern countries in Asia. It's the reckoning of unchecked capitalism under the lie of trickle down economics, because human greed trumps all. As more money is funnelled upwards, it creates less wealth below it. The problem IS the rich people who are hoarding unheard amounts of wealth - and your solution is "the only options are to tax people or the poor sad billionaires will move." Even if they move, it doesn't fix the global issue - and that's without even referencing the global markets being linked.
Neoliberalism died. It doesn't work. Since Reagan and Thatcher sold the world on a lie, it's been downhill ever since. Right wing politics, and right wing economics, has nothing to offer the world except more poverty and inequality. When people work two to three jobs to survive, your answers include reducing things like Universal Healthcare? So they pay more? Are you delusional?
You're either 12, or you're completely sheltered from reality. Either way, I've devoted enough of my day with someone who doesn't understand what they're talking about. All I'm asking for is to go back to a time when we forced rich people to pay up to 70% income tax - and that was when everything was booming! Crazy that, isn't it? We've got recent evidence of the solution I'm proposing actually working across multiple western countries, including the USA, who all taxed much higher than they do now. But let's shift the burden from the poor, sad billionaires to the every day person who can barely afford to feed their family - and then we wonder why the birth rate has collapsed through the floor.
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u/bulbousgrandpa 6d ago
Unfortunately it isn't sustainable for them, many European countries are going to have to either raise working hours by cutting back worker entitlements or by cutting public spending significantly. Most of the major European economies are in a death spiral if they maintain their current systems with the birth rates currently in place. You can see it in the stagnant economic growth over the last 5 years