I don’t underestimate our Dear Leader’s ability to do it badly, but isn’t a sovereign wealth fund typically a good idea?
A wealth fund on its own doesn’t create wealth; like any other tax, it’s a redistribution mechanism. it’s the implementation details that matter.
Take three revenue sources:
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Tariffs & VAT: extract wealth on a per purchase basis, so the primary payer is somebody who spends most of their revenue on stuff; normal people & businesses with relatively high OPEX (small business that make physical stuff rather than services) or have overseas suppliers.
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Land value tax: a rent on owning land based on its value, primary payer are people and companies who own lots of expensive land; often rent-seekers themselves.
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Resource revenue tax: typically large companies as they’re the only ones that can afford the scale to profitably extract resources.
And some potential expenses:
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Retirement pension fund: tends to benefit pensioners (duh). Can also benefit workers, whos taxes tend to pay for the pensions of their (gran)parents. whether that actually will translate into less taxes, or those taxes just go elsewhere is another matter.
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Government CAPEX: benefits are spread pretty evenly over everyone who uses govt services (depending on the purchase; a school is more useful than a cop shop). A lesser-known beneficiary are politicians; periodic infrastructure projects get more consistent positive press than e.g. a well funded pension system.
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Recurring helicopter money: I won’t call it a UBI, because that would require a truly massive fund; but a stipend for every resident human would primarily benefit parents who’s wealth doesn’t normally grow when they have kids. Other than that, it’s hard to say how this would play out; will it put less pressure on low wage workers? Will it just be gobbled up by rent-seekers? A flat tax is considered a burden on the poor, so it makes some sense that what is basically a negative flat tax would have the primary beneficiary be the poorest among us. It may harm the transient, undocumented or otherwise unregistered workers by omission though.
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Musk’s pocketbook: if it gets full enough surely some will trickle down, right?
One thing that it will definitely do is swell up
rich people’s yacht moneythe stock market since that’s where it’s stored. This directly benefits capital as a means of wealth creation over labour but considering how many yachts are already there the impact wouldn’t be substantial.-
I’m sure he will decide to put it in his own name as only he is wise enough to know how it should be spent…
if we had this in the 90’s we would be rich with its investment in aol and yahoo and myspace and excite and …
The US doesn’t need a sovereign wealth fund because it already has infinite money. What is the point of such a fund but to further induce asset price inflation, making the rich even richer?
If the US wants to eminent domain companies, making them publicly owned, that would be great in some cases, but these people generally want to do the exact opposite: privatize the last few things left that are still public in the US.
That’s what I’m thinking, that in the right hands a sovereign wealth fund would give the government a more subtle and possibly more effective means to acquire controlling stakes in various corporations than eminent domain.
I’m concerned that the effect would be less of “having a controlling share in many companies” and more “having your fund be deeply tied to the success of these companies”.
If the size of the fund becomes a metric of success, whoever is in charge of it is going to be disinclined to force a company to make an unprofitable choice, even if it’s the right thing to do.
Let’s be real none of the money that Elon Musk is adding to his pile is going to help people.
A vehicle for grift. Buy shares in a company. Convince the government to buy it. Get paid.
Remember when Republicans wanted to privatize everything because government is slow, bloated and inefficient? Now they are endorsing government takeovers of companies.
When you follow a party it creates a shortcut in the brain that stops you from questioning if an action of theirs is consistent with its beliefs. Next thing you know the party has changed all its positions and the followers don’t even realize that it changed but they still follow it.
People voted for Trump because they thought he would ban all abortions. But he changed the official party platform to only want to ban late term abortion. When you show them the text they refuse to believe it even when you have them read it out loud. The platform changed. The platform changed and those single issue voters didn’t care because they believed it didn’t change.
He’s creating a stash account to grab on his way out… Assuming he ever leaves.
Just a giant handout to Wall Street basically. Also a perfect way to put a bullet in the heart of Wall Street reform movements. Can’t fix a broken system if you’re profiting off of it.
He saw what Najib and Jho Low did with 1MDB and thought “I want some of that shit.”
With proper rules and ethics guidelines sure. How do you think this administration will choose where the money goes and who to Enrich. Because that will be happening winners And? Losers.
I guess if it goes to the working class, sure but I highly doubt the recipients of the fund will be us.
