I saw this circulating around and thought it was an interesting read.
Some of these are horrendous, some are funny, and a few made me think “Hmm, maybe not a bad idea”
A limit of $1 million in 1933 inflation adjusted would be $24.4 million today.
How would that work with inflation / deflation I wonder, you hit the limit, can’t make anymore, you retire, all is well. Then what, you need to get rid of 5% of your wealth? How do you define the limit, dollars in X year? Why that arbitrary amount?
We make minimum wage an arbitrary amount untied to inflation. This would be the same.
Tie it to inflation, set the number high enough to maintain an upscale property and life for 100 years (that way babies inheriting money won’t suffer), and enforce it via military strikes on offenders and their families.
A progressive wealth tax with the final bracket being 100% at $24.4 million.
That 1876 session sounds lit
We should revisit those. The senate thing could be moderated with each state getting an extra two representatives. I’d add to the “no religious leader can hold office” one that churches are no longer tax-exempt by default, they can file as a 501©3 like every other charitable organization and show the community work they’re doing.
As a layperson who hasn’t given it too much thought, the 1916 sounds interesting. I assume they’d only use a small percentage of volunteers since having 200 million new soldiers would be a bit unmanageable. The pessimist in me thinks they’d just do “military exercises” and never actually go to war and a vote though 😔
Registering to volunteer would basically be the same as the current requirement to register for selective service (the draft). It doesn’t mean they need to immediately start serving, just that they need to volunteer and serve when needed.
Interesting yes, but also idiotic.
I propose the following law: whether or not the country should have sewage should be put to vote, and all those who vote yes shall be employed as sewage workers.
Or even the opposite: whether or not the country should treat the sick should be put to vote, and all those who vote yes will be signed up for medical school.
Now do you want to have no hospitals, do you want to be a doctor, or are you open to the idea that there may be people professionally in the service of the public and the public may have an opinion and possibly a say on how and when those professionals should be used?
I think this thought experiment is only around voting on things that would cause harm to citizens. If you’re willing to vote to send people to their death, you’d better be willing to join the list.
Like people frequently say representatives who vote against health care coverage for all should have their coverage taken away and they solely rely on private as well
This was an interesting comment that’s opened my mind a little, so thanks for that.
How about: “conscripts can only be sourced from those who voted yes”?
1933 :(
Right? How different would things look today?
It would be common knowledge that deflation is good solely because it benefits those at $1mil
But people having just one million wouldn’t wield incredible political power, so the government probably wouldn’t listen to them as much as they do now.
If I someone hits the $1 mark, they would probably be able to spend/transfer the excess to their children and relatives, and all kinds of shenanigans. It isn’t a terrible idea, but it would require some complex regulations to avoid it being yet another way for the wealthy to spend money to influence things.
High tax rates had the same intended outcome by encouraging them to keep their money in growing businesses and employees reaped the benefits in the 50s and 60s.
to spend/transfer the excess to their children and relatives, and all kinds of shenanigans
Sharing wealth to people who might also do the same once they end up millionaire? Doesn’t sound too bad, especially if any of those wealth transfers were taxed even slightly.
Honestly, there’s nothing wrong with the current system we have except for letting the rich people keep pretty much everything.
Imbalanced game state, rich people OP. Nerf that and shit will be gucci
Higher taxes on high incomes and wealth is better though.
Depends on how much they could change before it was passed an enacted. If they could restrict the national money supply to like $1, then $1mil cap would be no different than if we passed a $240,000,000,000,000,000,000 cap today.
I think you know “restricting national money supply to like 1$” isn’t realistic in any sense.
Economics have to work in practice, it’s not just pure math.
There would need to be an economy, so the minimum amount of money for that economy to work would obviously be more than 1$.
Even during the great depression the US GDP was hundreds of billions.
You could always just make something below cents and make 1 cent = 1 billion of that thing. So $1 would be equivalent to like 10 billion dollars. Granted, somehow you’d have to invalidate existing currency and push that type of policy in a political environment that is able to pass a constitutional amendment to prevent wealth accumulation. So, it couldn’t possibly be that extreme.
Like you say, you’d need to completely rehaul the entire existing currency.
I think you know that’s not reasonable.
2nd and 3rd and last all sound top-notch.
I’m guessing the Council of Three got shot down because the office of the President shouldn’t be that powerful anyway. And yet we slowly made it that way.
The office of the president is so powerful because congress keeps passing more and more responsibility to the office.
Congress is supposed to declare war, but they give the president a bunch of limited power and follow their lead when it comes to military actions.
Congress is supposed to create the budget, but they start with a proposed budget from the president.
Congress is supposed to be the ones leading legislative change in general, but they defer most of that to the president.
etc.
this is highly interesting
