Great Video ! BUT . . .Sweden's wealth inequality is tiny compared to the United States where the top 1% essentially own the Government and funnel the massive Federal Budget directly into their coffers !
Same goes for my country Denmark, where your LEGO comes from. 80% middle class country (I think the UK only 39% and the US only 50%). We pay high taxes, but our roads and infrastructure look nice and the population is very satisfied. Breaking up private income and outcome, Danes don't pay more in the end in a life circle. And you don't finance through living in debts. Your kids education doesn't depend on your income. Universal healthcare. Less pressure due to social security nets, -happier populations in Scandinavia.
Sweden's wealth inequality is the result of old money. Money that has been in the hands of the same families for hundreds of years goes back to Feudalism. America's wealth is largely new money that has arisen in the last few decades bringing with it technological breakthroughs such as smart phones and electric cars. Not really a fair comparison.
”totally legal tax evasion” (used in an onscreen text label) is a contradiction in terms. What defines tax evasion is that it is unlawful. If it’s legal, it’s tax avoidance. The material here is strong enough as it is and is undermined by using unnecessarily hyperbolic language.
How about what percentage of taxes are paid by each group? I assume, as in most countries, 80% of tax income is from the top 10%. Most in the bottom 50% recieve more than they pay in many countries like france. Need to paint the whole picture. Love your videos btw!
Yep, they always say they want taxes to be fair, they don't realize it would mean their taxes would have to go up. They also don't realize how at least in the us, half of your income tax is paid by your employer, which is on top of the many other ways a company pays tax. Just because a billionaire doesn't pay income tax, does not mean they don't pay tax.
Love the videos too, but I was really wanting to see the same thing in the infographics- what percentage and or $$ amount is paid by each group. I guess I could look it up myself, but it would make this video more complete if it were included.
the problem is that would kill the ideia he is trying to display, I fail to always understand why should group A or B have more tax when it should be why can't have group A or B less tax...
@@rui518 The video clearly is claiming the rich don't pay enough taxes. But yes we should all be focused on how we can increase benefits, decrease taxes, and pay off the debt, which can be done if everyone votes for trump and elon.
I am not swedish , But came across your video about Private equity So I explored your channel. I love the content and quality of your videos. I hope you will achieve success very soon here on youtube, Just give some of your focus on going viral and figure out to beat the algorithm. Regards, Your new loyal subscriber.
Watched two videos and subbed. Nice videos, although not exactly new information, but very professionally done. There cannot be enough channels spreading the information you talk about and you do a great job in making it easy to digest and understand. Only one little addition. Consumption tax, which you glossed over pretty much, is also a deeply unfair tax. A single person who is extremely wealthy will never ever use much of their wealth to actually consume (if they even do it at all and do not circumvent it by covering their expenses through companies they own). So any consumption tax is, like income tax, a tax that hits the poor much harder then the wealthy in relation to the respective overal wealth and in regards to the disposable income that is left after taxation.
Was looking through the comments to see if someone else had already made that point! Many people think of flat taxes like consumption tax as "fair", when the exact opposite is true. And I think it's quite universally accepted among economists that giving money to poor people is great for the economy, since they (have to) spend most of it, while money that goes to/stays with rich people is MUCH more likely to get transferred abroad or - best case - sit in a bank account/property where it accrues minimal tax revenue.
@@ChocookieMonster It is also a big difference in the economy. Money given to the poor ends up almost entirely in domestic businesses usually. So it is an indirect investment into small businesses in your own country, strengthening the domestic economy. Which is the actual backbone for everything else.
you forget that taxes are imposed to provide and maintain common services like roads etc. These services are used more than 90% by the 90% class you mention. So your notion of taxation is just another Marxist poppycock idea. Taxation without consent is tantamount to robbery. it funds kleptocracy, corruption, and government fascism. your rather simpleminded notion that the rich somehow can be taxed to make society fairer is just another idiotic argument made by Marxists. Hasn't 100 years of failure taught you something? One gets better results by restricting government power and reinventing the imposition of forced levies like taxes.
@@ChocookieMonsterMany jurisdictions don't apply consumption taxes to the basic necessities of life (food, shelter, etc.). The poor tend to spend a lot higher per centage of their income on the necessities of life and thus pay much less in consumption taxes. Also, at least some jurisdictions have "luxury taxes" on higher ticket items. If you study macroeconomics, you find that consumption taxes is one of the better ways of taxing, as income taxes tend to discourage people from working harder and earning more.
@@zombi3lif3 being that it is now becoming normalized in mainstream thought, I think we are on our way to progress. However, it does rely on people waking up to the fact that THEY have to get organized, because their leaders will not handle this task for them.
I don t want to break it to you, but if we distribute billionnaire money it will just create an inflation. Money doesn t magically solve everything. The problem in society aren t billionnaires, but millionnaires who hold airbnbs and profit from them.
I think you are missing one most important part is that the income tax in Sweden is way TOO high in the first place. If it had a reasonable income tax, then everyone would benefit from having little / no capital gains tax and no wealth tax. Because having a low income tax would allow people to invest residual money into real estate and stock market and retire early. The fight should be not against the billionaire, but against the system which punishes hard work by taxing the crap out of your income
@@Danny-bd1ch You don't need money to unjustly influence democracy. If people aren't allowed to make as much money as they want, why would anyone work harder than they have to in order to max out their pay? If I can make that maximum amount of money in 6 months why should I work the other 6 months of the year?
That's it. That's why old money and big companies love the Left. They are destroying competition and creating the society they think they're complaining about.
People lose track of how BIG a billion is. If dollars were grains of salt, then avg. lifetime earnings in the US (~$2 mil) will fill a coffee mug. A billion fills a bathtub.
@@edheldude yet the ability of people to move upwards through the wealth categories is less then ever before, so competencies aren't the deciding factor. It's harder and harder than previous recent decades to make a lot of money if you don't start out with a lot of money already.
@@Ocker3 I think people are just more passive, less autonomous, more mentally and physically sick, and many businesses require more intellect and character. Left and old money are also building more obstacles for people but in reality most people don't try to be financially autonomous and try to build a business. On the flipside, this also means there's less compentent competition. I'm on my third business and it feels like the bar is super low.
it's the same here in austria. we had a pretty good tax system up until 1990. but right now, if you work for a company with a good income you'll easily pay 40% of your income in taxes. if you instead own said company you can hoard all your income in a holding company and pay 0%. only when you take money out of the holding you pay a meager 25%. if you also happen to own another company abroad you can shuffle that money around and pay 0% taxes in total.
Yes and we used to have an inheritance tax, but now whenever it gets proposed (even when the proposal is for a progressive tax rate with no tax on the first million (!!)) people freak out because they irrationally fear they might be affected if they manage to save up another 990.000€ and die - stoked by the tabloid press, of course
This is not exactly accurate. Corporations in Austria pay 25 % on all their gains (business tax "KöSt"), and another 27,5 % on all money that is taken out of the companies (capital gains tax "KeSt"), so business owners in Austria pay more than half of their profits in taxes.
@@123jakob1234 except if they don't make gains because you pay the gains into a holding which owns the company. then you don't pay KöSt at all, becaue your company doesn't make any profit, instead you only pay KeSt when you take your money out of your holding. therefore you can accumulate massive amounts of money and assets tax free if you keep everything in your holding. you can use the profits in the holding to buy real estate or stocks or whatever (or pay back loans) and don't pay a single cent in tax because your holding owns all those things instead of you as a person. oh, and KöSt has been lowered to 23% since 2024. and we're not even talking about Gruppenbesteuerung yet.
@@123jakob1234 The money taken out of a company doesn't have to be a gain though. The company can just grow and invest it's income, so it doesn't have to pay the 25%. This leaves only the 27,5% if the assets have stayed in Sweden.
Sweedish: top 1% owns 36% America: top 1% owns +66% One of these has a happy population, the other has rich slave owners that complain about their slaves not being able to live
Not for long. As with any pyramid scheme, eventually the music stops and someone gets stuck with the bill (‘someone’ is read: same person who is getting the bad end of deal now). The main difference b/w US and Sweden is the Swedes can have a conversation (and likely correction) before the pitchforks come out. Here in the US, it is the opposite.
Why do content creators never mention the absolute amount of tax paid by the billionaires. Or the total amount of tax share paid by billionaires. I suspect the rich pay more than their fair share in absolute amount. Maybe 1% of billionaires pay 30 % of total tax paid? Do better research please.
@beerharmien Because A) if you got 10 billion, paying 1 billion in taxes has no impact on you. If you got 100 bucks, paying 10 means you go hungry. And B) if you got 10 billion, your money makes money. After paying 1 billion in taxes, next year you'll still have 11. If you only got 100 bucks, losing 10 takes away from your ability to invest in the future. That's why poverty is a vicious circle and inequality increases.
@@ericdane7769 That’s not my question. For fair reporting, content creators should also present how much taxes are paid by the top 1% compared to the 99%. In my country, only 3% of people pay income taxes, and people are still complaining.
@@ericdane7769 Now to address your points. For A) Are we talking about wealth or income? If you are taxing wealth, that's a communist system. The rich will have to start selling assets when they reach $1mil, $10mil or $100mil? They will never become rich in the first place. No Spotify, no Tesla, no free Google or RU-vid because nobody will bother. If we are talking income then yes, 10% is nothing but nobody makes 10B a year income consistently. And B) That's the whole point of amassing wealth right? Your money makes money and your capital doesn't get shrunk by inflation. That's the whole point of retirement planning also. I agree, poverty is a vicious cycle. Everyone must be given an "opportunity" to escape poverty but only if they act on it. Or else, you are just creating handout nation.
We don't expect, we know. Do we know evenly spread wealth is good for a society, we know. Do we know how to spread wealth, we know. Do I know why the population of sweden still uses spotify, I don't know?
Same in Belgium. Employers are moving out to countries where they gave to pay less tax and and where salary costs are lower. Many self employed people (like myself) have to quit. We pay a lot of social security and taxes.... while getting almost nothing in return. Other people, normal salary workers, have more benefits.
The part about the 1990s tax reforms benefitting the bourgeoisie at the expense of the salaried folk is interestingly basically identical to what happened here in Finland around the same time. The same trends in terms of income and wealth inequality can be observed here as well. I suppose these reforms were meant to harmonise our (Finland's and Sweden's) tax regimes as we joined the EU. Maybe someone else could shed some light on this...
Sweden was doing economically very poorly between 1970-1990, when the tax system was distributing a lot, and standard of living was growing very slowly compared to other western nations. This is a really important fact that was completely ignored in the video.
@@Andre-ct4fq Many countries removed similar tax systems in the same period, basicly when one country started, this forced other countries to follow or they'ld lose a lot of money moving to those countries.
Maybe if Sweden stopped supporting comunist regimes they could have focused on dealing with their tax reforms. Angola is still suffering from the communism that Sweden helped to implement there.
Its called neoliberalism and it came to europe after the fall of iron curtian and all ex socialist countries were basically forced onto them Same thing happened in 91 in croatia People call it homeland war, i call it bourgoise revolution
Snälla, gör denna video på Svenska också. Svenskar behöver förstå detta om vårt eget land, hur de ändrar på saker och vad som hänt de senaste åren. Folk har ingen koll och det gör saken ännu värre varje val. ❤🇸🇪 (Såg din kanal första gången nu. jättebra video! 👍)
Very interesting video - thanks for the insight. I have recently moved to Sweden and just got approved for f-tax as a sole trader. I am absolutely not a wealthy person, but Skattevrket wants me to pay 65% tax altogether haha, utter madness!
hear hear. The least you could expect when you have to pay 65% tax is that extremely wealthy have to pay at least as much taxes as you. Unfortunately, that's not the case in Sweden
Don't do business as a sole trader, unless you'll bring in less than roughly 612 000 SEK per year. Anything above that and a limited company (aktiebolag) is the way to go. Also, as a sole trader you're unlimited liable as your own person for any fuck ups, tax problems etc, you as a trader might run into.
Great video again! You should look into Pillar 2 tax framework this is basically the idea to have a global minimum tax which would prevent these billionaires from threatening what they do to get tax breaks
It makes a big difference talking about % or absolute numbers. When comparing a rich person and a normal income, the rich one pays more tax in % and very much more in absolute numbers. When comparing a extremely rich person and a normal income, the rich person may pay a lower % but still way more in absolute numbers.
The biggest problem with wealth inequality in my view is the influence that a minority can have in society. That said it seems to be impossible to tax the wealthy effectively
The wealthy are just massively more productive than the average person. Who's more productive, the 130 IQ chemical engineer who innovates and founds his own company, or a horde of average people? And more intelligent people increase productivity enough to free the intelligent from less productive labor before anyone jumps on the "you didn't build that" argument. Wealth per se is not the problem rather it's rent-seeking from bad actors particularly in the political class which will not be solved by giving government bureaucracy more money. Money going into the government is a sure sign the social issues the programs ostensibly address will never be solved and the economic multiplier is less than 1
@TheThreatenedSwan hedgefund managers and Wallstreet types aren't productive at all for humanity. Don't assume someone who's wealthy is automatically brilliant. Sure a chemical engineer with a high iq contributes a great deal more to humanity than the average person but a significant amount of people who collect capital gains are not at all
@@TheThreatenedSwanyou have it completely backwards. The wealthy aren't productive at all, as the video describes, they gain wealth from investing their already existing wealth. They do nothing and gain money. It's an incredibly dumb system and taxing them until they can't do this is a good solution. The government can provide goods and services without needing profits which in itself is an inefficiency in the system because it pools wealth in the hands of those that already have everything. We need to take their wealth until they can't buy rules in their favour which is what we have now.
@@TheThreatenedSwan That is such a silly take. To equate wealth with productivity is just outright idiotic. The highly productive may generally tend to become more wealthy, but the opposite is FAR from true. Much wealth is generational, as another commenter pointed out, the worth of your run-of-the-mill hedgefund managers / speculators to society is close to zero, or in most cases, actually negative.
Naw, the algorithm is reasonably accepting of this kind of politics. It's not going to get wide distribution, but it also won't get suppressed like some other styles (not at all a left/right issue, for clarity).
@@Grandude77You do understand they _create_ wealth through their businesses? It benefits everyone. Government and taxes just destroy wealth and produce nothing.
Unfortunately, your discussion of wealth tax completely misses the most important point: the difference between wealth that the owner has produced by his own efforts and wealth that is produced by government and the community, but the private owner is legally entitled to take for himself, especially the unimproved value of land. Taxing the former is unjust; not taxing the latter is unjust. As the Henry George Theorem shows, all government spending on desirable services and infrastructure is a subsidy to landowners. The entire unimproved value of land is NOTHING BUT the market's estimate of how much the owner will be legally entitled to steal from the community by owning the land.
"...and wealth that is produced by government..." ... the government don't product any wealth... only steal... and steal... and steal... the goals, the target, the objective of the government is only steal... through feigning good... thats everybody know what government is not...
What is considered wealth in these studies are actually influence. Real wealth is food housing vehicle health care i.e goods and services consumed . I don't think 1% is consuming 35% of food , or hospital beds or housing or transportation.
Taxes shouldn't be unfair but in too many countries they are. The middle class has to pay for everything while the rich nearly pay nothing and the corrupt politicians support them by getting richer and grow the hate against the poor and ill people... It's insane... Taxes are there to pay hospitals, streets, railways, healthcare, supporting poor people to get a life and paying workers that are important for society like police, fire fighters, nurses, teachers aso! But corrupt politicians pay with that the rich when they let their companies get bankrupt and "need" tax money to protect the jobs while the rich get richer... 2:02 and this problem so many countries have thanks to corruption. The irony: corruption is illegal for EU members but because the most corrupt German party, the CDU, controls most important parts of the EU it mostly gets ignored if no one reports to the EuGH... And also another Irony: the conservative party's may be against social politics but at the same time they do this politic system for themselves! Free train tickets, payed vacations, money without working aso... The ex politician Nico Semsrott made a comedy show about his time in the eu parliament... He showed a big scandal but no one is talking about it... That shows how much power the CDU has .. 8:51 they aren't scared of the rich they are scared to lose their corrupt benefits! Free luxury travels, luxury food, high class sex parties, contacts to have more money and power. That is what scares them! - that they would leave the country is bullshit! And even if they would do it in the end nothing would change because the middle class would still pay for everything else. But without those greedy rich people the country could change to be better...
Money is sent "into" the economy by government mandate. It is extracted from the economy through taxation. When you give the wealthy tax breaks, assets increase in price. They increase in value - wealth increases in value - the system breaks. Taxation isnt "theft". It is balancing the books OTHERWISE that capital stays in the economy - in the form of inflation and inequality. When the Corporation Act gave companies the same legal rights as people - that meant rights AND obligations. Not just what was convenient or expedient.😅
I grew up to a single mother in the bottom 40% . Went to college, got a professional job, married a professional woman and lived a normal life but put away money every week. At 70 am now worth 2 plus millions and a federal pension. So I’m in the top 10%. So how do I not deserve it ? Explain
In the Netherlands politicians protect the board room form tax, because the will one day be selected for these positions....the job carousel as we call it.
In the USA, groups of people were shown charts showing distribution of wealth without naming any countries and 92% (including the vast majority of those on the right who generally favor low taxes for everyone including the wealthy) picked Sweden as being closest to what they thought was ideal. It gets more interesting because what American BELIEVE the ACTUAL US wealth distribution is in the USA is as far removed to what it actually is compared to what they believe the ideal wealth distribution is. So if the ideal is X what Americans believe it actually is is 2X and what it actually is is 4X. So part of the problem is that ordinary citizens have absolutely no idea how preposterously concentrated wealth is and how it is becoming ever more concentrated as government engineers society to benefit to donor class wherever possible.
Actually tax evasion is not a problem, if you implement a wealth tax correctly because most of the wealth that the super rich own is concentrated in assets, that are local (like companies, real estate or land) and cannot be moved anywhere. And getting to that wealth also seems entirely possible as we have seen during the russian invasion in ukraine, when governments all over europe confiscated the assets of russion oligarchs. The problem is currently that most people don't know about this important issue and there are no democratic majorities pushing for wealth taxes. And one more thing the Bengt Jonnson guy likely does not need to work at all, because if he invests his wealth of for example €50mio at a market rate of 5%, he will be making his €2.5mio a year without doing anything. This gets even worse with billionares, with €1bn you make a €1mio every week just by investing conservatively into the markets, but likely you can invest very differently with those kind of sums and get even higher returns. Very good visualizations again in this video ; )
Doing nothing = providing liquidity for investments and carrying the risk? You do understand people need reinvested money for new businesses and development?
@@edheldude Yes investments are always necessary and can be extremely helpful. However if you look at how billionaires invest, the problems reveal themselves. Very little of the money will be used to push small startups without any personal strategy to increase the billionaires power. Instead it is just way less risky to crush smaller companies or influence entire markets because as long as the authorities don't step in (and they rarely can) you can create revenue very predictably. And if authorities step in it is rather in not allowing certain transactions than actually punishing behavior that is very harmful. Even the authorities are through political leadership at their mercy and can be pressured at any time with job losses or local investment stops. I recommend watching the channel how money works for some examples of how billionaires invest. Once you have very large sums of money investments can work very differently. So there might be very little risk to carry and the investments very often harm the society at large.
@@edheldude In the case of just investing broadly into markets to get the 5% interest, you'd also just buy stocks that have likely IPOed a long time ago. So there is no liquidity provided directly and it would not change the markets overall. But this obviously does not use the power the billionaire has optimally, so it's not really a good investment strategy for them to just invest broadly. This would be literally doing nothing and watching the money increase
@@pericvlor Most big entrepreneurs just want to solve big problems of humanity and create something cool. Money is just a tool, and an energy to make things happen.
@@edheldude Ideally yes, in practice this is sadly often not the case. But humans have a tendency to improve things so maybe we can solve these problems one day.
@@thehammer9599 😂😂😂 you don’t even know what that means. And you also believe in a fantasy that capitalism is perfect and there are no potential weaknesses or exploits of capitalism that end up being bad for society. Your brain is a joke 😂😂😂
@@thehammer9599haha, that's so pathetic. As if labelling someone "commie" would shame them into believing that the system isn't rigged against them. Go somewhere else with ur stupid words.
As far as I am aware Sweden used to be so poor that 1/3 of its population was emigrating in 1800 and early 1900. In 1930s "socialist" policies have been implemented with progressive taxation. this somehow has not ruined the country but resulted in its rapid development into one of the richest countries in the world. Than in 1980 socialist policies went too far and started taxing too much, which affected economy very negatively. And later neoliberals stepped in an they got rid of many taxes on accumulated wealth, capital gains taxes etc. Since than Swedish people get gradually poorer and poorer with inequalities rising and gang warfare spreading in poorest areas.
Bra video, men hur är det med beloppen i nominella termer? Och varför ligger fokus på att omfördela resurser alternativt öka skattetrycket, snarare än att få så mycket valuta för de gemensamma skattepengarna som möjligt?
The poor want to eliminate “income inequality” and the rich want to give tax breaks to the wealthy. That’s expected, it seems to me that the more interesting question is one of value. What do we as a society think is fair for everyone regardless of the implications to ourselves.
Man, it's good to know that other countries have to go through this same crap as the US does. I was beginning to think that exceptionalism claptrap was actually real. Admittedly, I've long thought our idea of exceptionalism meant that we were somehow excepted from learning the lessons of history, but... still... good to see that other peoples are getting screwed over by the same kind of greedy mofos in their countries.
@@edheldude It's just balancing the books on the economy. The money amount is finite, so if the national budget has a deficit then the money is held elsewhere. Or, to use a different metaphor, taxes ensure that the money flows where it needs to rather than pooling up behind the dams of the rich. However, you needn't worry your pretty little head too much about the efficacy of government taxing the rich, for the rich have bought out government long since.
@@angelsy1975 That's why old money and the left work together. They both want a society that stops competition so old money is not disrupted. If you wanted to reduce poverty, you'd support more economic mobility and help people produce wealth. Also, money is not finite, not rare, and is constantly created through loans. With good enough idea or story I can right now go to the bank and they'll create tens or hundreds of thousands for me. If you have proof of good business skills, there's no limit to the money they'll create for you. That's the bank's business - they _want to give money_ if they know you can pay it back.
@@edheldude Funny how this comment of yours was blocked and I only just now realized you had replied to me. Hitting "sort by" newest comments seems to reveal missing comments. Of course, then you have to locate the thread the comments were made in - good thing my original was only posted a day ago, else that could have been quite a tedious search, lol. At any rate, snark aside, I don't have enough buy-in to really continue this conversation, beyond to say that you're correct about the fractional banking system "creating" money on the balance sheet to be paid back in "real" money - and that in effect is what taxes are, replevying existing monies from out in the wild... thus, balancing the sheet of the economy. Monies held in pool, untaxed and otherwise unused, are effectively seigniorage in private practice, lol, like all those two-dollar bills that get handed out at Christmas and go on to never be spent. Kind of like how the "new money" corporate overlords must rely on loans to survive, using their stock value as collateral, since their real income may in fact be very low - especially if they aren't offering dividends on their company's stock. Always seemed like a bad sign if a company has a high valued stock but low or no dividend. But ah well, maybe you'll see my comment too, eventually. 🙂
One inherent problem is that as you grow the pie (the whole economy, or GDP), the slices do not distribute proportionally, and more inequality will result. So if inequality is your main concern, then it does look like our society is getting worse and worse. However, if you also include a historical perspective you can notice that (ignoring comparisons between people that can foster envy and jealousy) nearly EVERY individual today has a higher standard of living than their counterpart just 50 (30?) years ago. (100 years ago it wouldn't even be close, and with technology, close to everyone has a higher standard than even monarchs 300 years ago.) So it's hard to say that we're not on a remarkably good path, by at least some metrics. The rising tide is lifting all boats, but it's lifting some boats much faster. No one has figured out yet how to both grow the pie AND have the slices stay relatively the same size, because, as you point out, the billionaires will leave and take their large slice with them. But if you care only about inequality, then what's the problem? With them gone, equality has increased a lot, yes?
Here’s the brutal truth about why this inequality gospel doesn’t make sense: 1. The amount of wealth made by an individual is in direct correlation to the ones impact to the world 2. Law firm partner vs secretary example 1st it assumes that the secretary does not progres in her career for 70 years which is crazy, 2nd the law firm, in order to hire a secretary like Asa has to be earning 10x more in order to keep her job, otherwise its counterproductive and Asa is going to be fired 3. Ultimately all people call the shots for their lives and when you’re making consisten salary like Asa, that comes with the pay check every month, you can calculate that it is not the way to millions, billions or whatever financial amount that pleases you… YET most refuses to do anything with it, because of how pleasant and secure their pay check makes them feel Good videos brother
That is true, but there are two other important aspects to it that are often overlooked: inflation and incentives. Taxation on consumer goods increases the costs of living and taxation of income makes it even harder to keep your standard of living. Now, with inflation, the state earns MORE from both income revenues (I hate to call this robbery an income) and at the same time, their debts get less and less. Thus, the state has ZERO F-ing incentive to keep the prices stable! Now, if people would revolt that would be a different story, but they are good at gaslighting their population and pretending that inflation was low and that it's not inflation but their inability to make a decent living that's the cause of this generation having a lower standard of living while working more! Similarly, big companies can set both the prices of consumer goods and have an major impact on wages. Thus, they profit significantly from inflation as well and some of them are big enough that they can profit like the state from inflation diminishing their debts! They further profit from increasing prices faster than wages! Don't forget that consumer taxes are often accumulative considering that every step in production is taxed... To make things worse: inflation destroys the benefits of a minimum wage and as good as setting a minimum wage sounds or restricting price gouging, these policies have many negative effects worthy of a separate comment. In addition, if you get a raise, then taxes will eat it away as you end up in a higher tax class and that despite not making more but less money thanks to inflation. Again, this is not a flaw, but per design! Basically, inflation is an invisible tax which also keeps you, peasants, in your place... Personally, what would I change? As mentioned: having the state control prices and wages is a communist lunacy and they either F it up big time or abuse it to their benefit. Similarly, I think that paying tax money back to the poor is also a bad idea. If someone works full-time, he should not need welfare! A better way is to remove taxes from income and consumer goods. That way they actually spend their lifetime of work for themselves and not the state. Also, if they still can't afford food despite working full time, then they'll riot and that's what the state and companies would deserve! To add to this: what's the F-ing point of government handouts when it pays better to be unemployed than working in essential jobs??? Also, I hate the idea of taxing stuff that has already been taxed. While many people want an inheritance tax, this also takes away form the middle class and not from the rich! Think about it: if you earn companies, then inheritance taxes don't apply as you can't sell your company to pay them... Similarly, I dislike property taxes that need to be paid annually. Again, they increase the costs of living and they are taxes on something that has already been taxed. Instead, I would tax gains from trades. This would be the one thing that would be the fairest. Be it buying and selling land, or making income on speculation.
The tax system changed over the years because the country was going bankrupt. The problem is when you tax the over achievers they just go somewhere else. The middle class in Northern Europe pay high tax because they choose to give up some of their freedoms to depend on the government.
Wealth tied up in assets does not confer nearly as much advantage as the difference in wealth would suggest. A better comparison would be access to consumer goods.
Good video but it’s a bit too angled for my taste and has some holes. Some of your examples lack context, especially the Spotify example. One more reason Spotify wanted to exit Sweden was due to it being very difficult to compete and make it lucrative for people to want to work there. Moreover there are other things, them not being allowed to have night time workers, not able to give shares as salary and at one point they also wanted to enforce board members gender equality by being 50/50 ratio or men/women. So while I agree that there are issues with the wealth distribution I don’t agree much with making it difficult for companies to operate. Many times companies are attacked and portrayed as the problem and suggestions say to put more restraints on them. I think it should be the other way around, make it easier for companies. With that said, we should have both, aka make it easier for companies to operate AND also deal with taxes and wealth distribution in parallel. As it stands today anyone with a lot of money will have influence almost everywhere - that to me is what is most unfair with the gap.
The tax to GDP ratio is wrong in video for my country because we pay more than 40% first as income tax on salary together with social participations like mandatory health insurance, mandatory pension pay, and so on. After that we pay 8,5 and 22% VAT, where lower rate is only for food, while the higher rate is for everything else. When you put numbers at the end of the month on the paper, you can see we pay more than 50% of our income to country, which is effectively unconstitutional as we are being slaves for our country, because our income is not ours, but mainly of our government. The rest is "ours", where majority goes for food and housing to pay another tax just to exist. This is the reason why we have so much tax evasion here and corruption. Also government is giving us examples how to be corrupt and get away with it. A never ending cycle.
On the other hand, what's really so bad about inequality? It depends a lot of the _kind_ of inequality at play. For instance, do people starve to death in Sweden? I seriously doubt it. On the other hand, not being able to afford luxury is what drives ambition, and so people get jobs or start companies, which means that they'll also contribute more to the tax coffers - until they get so big that they provide jobs. Then they start getting those tax rebates, since they contribute to the underlying system that makes it possible to deduct tax in the first place.
Great video! Could you please include the solution as well? I've noticed that on RU-vid, the focus is often more on the problems than on discussing solutions.
Bra video och har själv sett detta under senaste åren. Du borde göra en video på isk konton och vem det gynnar mest. Har inte hört några andra länder som har det eller något liknade (kan ha på tok fel)
Bra jobbat, bra video kvalité och intressant innehåll, jag har prenumererat! Det är sjukt hur Sverige har blivit en skatteparadis för de rika, vi måste fixa det!
And then people will say "its your fault for not using these tax cut loopholes" yeah, and what happens if everyone gets them? Might as well not even have a government after that.
For that to be true the tax would have to be levied in absolute terms as well. Like a medieval "head tax." Welcome to the future, we have maths here. 🙃
Income tax is about the middle class and working poor, rich people make capital gains, and own more property. Moving up property taxes tends to punish middle class in retirement, since the values of their home increase against the mostly fixed income.
Taxes themselves are unfair, it’s not fair to force someone to pay more just because they have more. After all they get the same or even less social benefits from the government. And they are less likely to rely as heavily on government services as people who pay less. I get that in practice, there is a need to tax people. But talking about fairness in this context is just plain wrong.
You reached of the edge, almost fall in rabbit hole... but lack a push... to you is needed Tax always is a Theft... Tax is a Theft always... Tax is a Theft...
Consumption and Capital Taxes should not exist in my opinion, as they only complicate the system. Income tax is easier and can't be avoided. Wealth tax is also unavoidable so it's a good system.
Capital gains is one of the ways the wealthier get richer without paying any tax. It's why we have capital gains tax. However what we should do is make capital gains tax progressive. Thus a very wealthy person making their money from generating capital gains will pay commensurate with the level of gains.
Why? We live in a Mercantile society of Thomas Mun (East India Company) where whoever has the most wealth manipulates governments, monarchies and whole countries by wanting importers to pay tariffs to protect internal markets (Corn Laws) and, in return, free markets to export to create monopolies. Just change the name from the East India Company to any giant tech, pharma, food, petrol/chemical, service company, etc. We have never had or operated the 'free market' fantasy of Adam Smith, who opposed Mun with his great work 'The Wealth of Nations' (secret in the title, and mostly, as it turns out wrong, destructive and fanciful theory, that Marx, the materialist easily tore apart), thus not the 'wealth of companies' or in 2024 corporations. Reform, transparency, and financial consequences can be used to expose these corporate thieves. There is no white-collar crime; it's just crime!
