Can We Appropriate the Rich? (Re: Surplus NOT from Capital GainsReceipts

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Jul 28 14:55:24 PDT 2000


Andrew English wrote:


>However, I wonder if you are underestimating
>much we could get out of the top 1% in the best of all
>worlds. Bill Gates' $40 billion alone could go a long
>way.

Bill's billions are fictitious wealth. If he tried to liquidate more than a small portion of it, the value would shrink markedly - not only because of the effect of his selling, but because other holders of Microsoft stock would see Gates selling and probably bail out themselves. That's not to say, of course, that Gates isn't spectacularly rich - it's just to say you can't assume you could expropriate a large portion of his wealth at current values. Plus, could you imagine what would happen to stock prices in general if a government came to power hellbent on expropriating the expropriators? Or what would have happened to stock prices in general before such a government even took office?

Doug



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