Consequences of Privatization: A Case Study of Public Utilities

It’s often the easy excuse on how to fix the problems of wealth inequality - just tax the rich more. Former trader turned YouTuber economist Gary Stevenson argues regularly that it’ll fix a lot of the problem. He’s right that the wealthy own assets and the richer they become the more the price of those assets increases. Take land as an example. The government is on a push to build more houses to benefit lower income earners. But who owns the land those houses will be built on? The rich? So, who wins from the demand for more land? Gary’s argument is if you tax hard enough the rich  will be forced to sell assets which will bring the price down. Steve’s less convinced, simply because the uber-wealthy have always found a way to avoid taxation. But he thinks the argument also ignores (or isn’t aware of) the fact that government deficits create money. Perhaps the focus should be ore on where that deficit spending ends up. Maybe we should get Gary on the podcast.

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