Mario Kart economic theory
Posted by Beetle_Facts@reddit | CrazyIdeas | View on Reddit | 3 comments
If you're in first place (billionaire) you don't get any bonuses or help at all.
In the middle class you don't get the big handouts like blue shells, golden mushrooms, or stars. However you can use red shells and mushrooms to try to advance/hold your place.
If you fall off the track, you get a star to instantly put you back on your feet.
And if you're in poverty you can use a blue shell to steal $20k from any billionaire. It won't hurt them, it'll boost the economy, and it'll be a morale boost for everyone else.
(True credit goes to Drew Witte on TT)
StarChild413@reddit
and how is this not just rob-rich-give-to-poor that doesn't force our entire life into planet-of-hats-ing Mario-themed go-kart racing (and even then unless we were, like, literally trapped living on the track or w/e some of your metaphors won't apply)
OctopusParrot@reddit
This is the basic idea behind progressive income taxes and phase-out of benefits by income tier. Their effectiveness seems to vary by geography and implementation, but the principle is the same.
The essential problem is that billionaires and centi-millionaires are HIGHLY incentivized to create, identify, and exploit what might be small loopholes in these structures. A 1% benefit to them can be really beneficial, and a series of them adding up to 8% tax savings can be massively lucrative. Whereas for people with less money it doesn't really pay. So there's an entire cottage industry of lawyers, lobbyists, and accountants who work to create these loopholes (things like the carried interest deduction, or S-corp pass-through income benefits, or annual depreciation of real estate value, that most people probably have never heard of but generate very rich people a lot of money). Those are probably the "benefits" that you're talking it - the overall structure is designed in such a way as to put what you're proposing in place, but it's hard to keep it that way with so much incentive from the well-heeled to stop it from being airtight.
Imajzineer@reddit
Partypooper!
Go away with your knowledge and analytical thinking - this place is for feelgood feels ... not serious talk about the ideas put forward!
😉
It was, however, an interesting suggestion to start with and that was an excellent response, so ... this time ... I think we can let it slide - next time, however, make sure you say something funny, dammit!