Wealth tax would be deadly for French economy, says Europe’s richest man
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/21/wealth-tax-would-be-deadly-for-french-economy-says-europe-richest-man-bernard-arnaultOpen linkView original on lemmy.nz920
Comments126
He isn’t the economy. The workers are.
Yep. Bad for the economy, good for the people.
Yacht sales will plummet by 5% though!
I think you are confused, why would it be bad for the economy?
"The economy" = rich people's yachts.
But he's a Job Creator or some shit
Cuase their job creators we have to treat them special. Job creators can't go to jail or anything.
You know who else are job creators?
All of the people doing the actual work.
Vietnam would like a word.
Edit: I'm not pro death penalty (latest update has Vietnam actually removing it for this crime due to this case) but just showing the absolute night and day difference between how they treat capitalist that cause death and poverty through their greed.
When they inevitably try to pretend they are pulling business from new York when Mamdani becomes mayor. Please, everyone, use this as an opportunity to show how evil the structures of capitalism are.
It will be a perfect time to explain class conflict to your liberal friends. The interest of the people of New York will be held hostage by capital. And overwhelmingly popular policy will be talk about as "unrealistic" and "poor economics".
Yes, that is why capitalist must lose their power. They are holding the popular policies of the people hostage. That power should not exist in their hands but the hands of the people.
Capitalism is incompatible with democracy. The economy and politics are not separate. We cannot have a dictatorship controlling our companies and economy and call it a "democratic process".
Fellow socialist 🙌
Okay, but what if the financial sector launches a capital strike?
Cuba is a great example of the results. Powerful worker state, but it is bottled up and suffocated by the US led embargo.
France is not comparable to Cuba in this scenario
I mean you said it yourself, it's an embargo. Good luck doing that to France.
Then the world must go on labor strike. Capital requires our consent. Withdraw consent, seize the means of production and begin the class war. We are outgunned, but they are outnumbered, and we can easily get more guns once they can't get any more numbers.
Viva Revolución, Viva Cuba Libre!
Bernard Arnault is worth 157.3 billion USD. $1 billion dollars is 0.6% of their wealth. That's fucking couch change. These fucking ghouls are so worried about their precious wealth they are willing to doom all of us.
Plus, he looks like the end of a Q-tip.
Did they base Mr Mackey off a billionaire? "Gotta make my nut."
Epstein's bud says it's a bad idea. France has technology to solve this problem.
"Making crime illegal would be detrimental for hospitals, electronics stores and insurance companies among others" says Europe's biggest criminal.
✅️ France running up huge deficits because it can't tax the wealthy
✅️ Wealthy obstruct any attempt to make them pay there fair share
✅️ prime minister after prime minister go down trying to fix the financial crisis
☑️ frustrated
kingpresident calls the estates general...
☑️ this guys head in a basket
Let me fix the first: "France running up huge deficits because Macron spent his whole political career reducing taxes for the ultra-wealthy, and these parasites still pocketed a large amount of France and the EU Covid's relief money as dividends and buyback schemes."
You know, I was just thinking how awfully ironic it is that the guy who least wants his head chopped off is going to the people known for chopping heads off, giving them a reason to chop his head off.
His source is he made it up.
Actually it has some factual basis. He's wealthy, it would be bad for him, he thinks he's the economy. He just has a big, selfish, ego.
These people have the same revenue as a small country, so I can see where they're coming from.
I still think we should use their bodies as fertilizer.
It could actually be true in the sense that producing 1mil things for 1€ each or producing a single overpriced luxury version of the same thing for 2mil€ is a 1mil€ difference in the GDP.
But I'd argue the first is still a better economy than the second. But economists will only like the second one.
Source: "trust me, bro"
Firstly, that's just naked projection. Secondly... GOOD.
Sincerely, we need to treat people who can't or won't conceptualize 'enough' as hoarders with mental illness. He can never use his immense opulence or spend all of what he has, and he can't be happy with it either. He should be separated from it, given a stipend that will meet all his needs and desires from it while he GOES TO REHAB, and the rest should be reinjected into the economy for social gain, and used to pay for the public programs and systems that made society work to begin with. Mostly because if it never worked he would never have had this opportunity to destroy it for his own pride.
Or we could go back to the precedent of the Middle Ages, and have him learn to free himself of worldly things by spending the rest of his life as an anchorite. Build a cell around him, attached to some remote church, and leave a slot at the bottom for bread and water to go in and shit to go out.
I mean, I can't tell if this is sarcasm, but also, yes.
Every fucking time.
Goddamned, insatiably greedy motherfucker billionaires.
Confirmed by this quote in the article. Certified motherfucker.
But they didn't have more money.
I think about this clip from The Boondocks more and more lately
They killed kings and queens with unbelievable wealth in France centuries ago and the country is still here. It proved that a nation can survive without a handful of people with massive wealth.
The point you're trying to make is true, but your example doesn't support it. By the time of the French Revolution, rich private citizens were already wealthier than the aristocracy, and those guys got even richer during the revolution after having bought former church or emigre land for pennies on the dollar. The French Revolution was a disaster on the wealth redistribution/"eat the rich" front.
Practice makes perfect! If you don't succeed, try, try again!
Yeah… They didn’t kill the king because he was rich. They killed him because he was believed to be a traitor to the nation and to the revolution.
And because they just didn't like him. Murder as a method of social transformation (basically ideology eugenics) was one of the constants of radical leftwing politics during the French Revolution, so killing was just the "natural" way of getting rid of a monarch you don't want in your republic. That's where the whole "no man can reign innocently" thing comes from; the pro-execution wing (aka the Mountain) tended to think of Louis XVI as categorically deserving of death, with what he actually did being mostly secondary. I mean, these are the guys who would run France during the Reign of Terror.
The time for talking about taxing the rich is over. Bring out the guillotines already.
Seeing that he is French, one would think he should know better than to invite this to happen.
Who asked the grass about mowing?
It's worse, it's like asking the parasite about it having to somewhat share what it has stolen from the host.
"Rich guy says that forcing the rich to pay for their fair share of the costs of having a Society where they can make lots of money, would actually be bad for those currently having to make up for the rich not paying their fair share"
Apart from this guy obviously being biased and a super villain: Nobody who held this opinion was ever able to even give me a rough idea of an explanation how it should supposedly damage the economy. The excessively rich don't spend most of their wealth (which would induce growth through demand), they sit on it and watch it grow. Taxing it takes not a single cent out of the economy.
In this case we're looking at proposed 2%. The fortunes of the excessively rich grow by 10% and more in a year. So with this tax they would still get richer and richer. Attach another zero to that number, then we'd be getting somewhere.
Because if you tax the rich, they move away! And that's clearly bad because...
They take their wealth with them! Just think of all the jewellery that will hang of people's necks in other countries and all the overpriced art that was never publicly displayed, now not visible elsewhere.
And of course they'll take all the housing and factories and the land they're built on, stuff it all in their pockets and fly away with it.
Just think of all the jobs. Not the jobs, companies are already offshoring now, of course.
And ignore that companies make such decisions based on productivity, available infrastructure and supply chain networks.
No, they'll move to less profitable countries because clearly not paying taxes is more important to rich people than making more money.
And of course, we can't tax people when they move away, so we shouldn't tax them to avoid this.
Yup. This wasn't a warning about the economy, it was an ultimatum.
I think the point of the previous poster is that they can't take with them the stuff that they value the most (for their own quality of life) or the stuff that matters for the rest.
Hence "they’ll take all the housing and factories and the land they’re built on, stuff it all in their pockets and fly away with it." (emphasys mine)
Those threats are complete total bullshit.
If they really prefered an environment free of government intrusion (including taxes) they would be living and conducting their business in a country with no real government, like Somalia.
I think he already moved to Belgium to avoid some of the French taxes.
Or in other words: if an environment free from government "meddling" and taxes is such a great thing, why aren't they all living in a country with no proper government, like Somalia?
I always wondered what would happen if a big company just left. Like the building, staff, infrastructure and demand for the product/service are all still going to be here, its just "the big money" that moves away.
Whats to stop the country just sticking the flag on the building, writing "National [business]" over the door and just carrying on? The HR dept already knows what staff there are and what they do, the workers already know their jobs. Its only really the people in charge of accounting and resource-purchasing who would have a real challenge.
Extra bonus is that the country is now getting all the profit, so can spend it on schools and hospitals and shit.
Am I being overly idealistic? I can't think of realistic reasons why not.
We do see this in reality sometimes.
When a company leaves, they usually still own the buildings (assuming they didn't just lease them). Typically they would try to sell them off. It's not unheard of that a similar company picks up the location and hires back some of the staff.
Think of one supermarket closing shop only for another to open in the same location.
What happens if a company does not sell depends on the country.
When companies left Russia, several stores were continued under new management and afaik some businesses were not sold off but seized. Whether the owners were reimbursed for that seizure I do not know.
All that said, I want to repeat that businesses leave countries usually due to lack of profitability. It has no (rational) link to a personal wealth tax.
Small correction: Them sitting on it and growing isn't quite it doing nothing - for it to grow, the money has to be somewhere in the economy "doing" things. Then the rich person gets money for doing nothing because the company (and by extension its workers) are partially "theirs".
The benefit of a wealth tax is less freeing up that money, and more so not enabling rich people to spend the money they get for doing nothing on excessive luxuries that only serve to pollute the planet and take up resources that could be used for useful things (and also doing something against excessive wealth accumulation in general, which is imo capitalisms greatest flaw - money leads to more money, and money = power, and we are living in the reality resulting from that)
I think it is more of a threat along the lines of "if you tax me more, I will play even dirtier to keep my wealth, lay off people in companies I am a major shareholder of etc and therefore economy will be worse". And politicians know that many people will blame the government for any damage to the economy and they therefore bend the knee not to lose their seats. Everything really would be better if people understood who their real enemy is.
In the current day an age, when Rent Seeking is a massive fraction of the Economic structure, people with tons of wealth are actually the main problem since they're using that wealth to take limited resources away from the reach of the rest (with their higher wealth they can outbid the rest on price) to then rent those resources to the rest, extracting money from them - so for example, they can buy residential and commercial real estate and then rent them to people who need a place to live or conduct business.
I mean, in a way he is right: taking money away from the rich would damage the Economy as it is now and as measured by GDP because so much of what is counted as GDP nowadays is some people extorting money from the rest because they own assets which the rest need in order to merelly survive. If the big asset owners doing most of the Rent Seeking were forced to pay taxes on assets owned, they would have to divest from at least some of those assets, thus reducing their rent seeking activities which in turn would make the GDP number go down (at least at first) simply because the money flows from asset renters to the asset owners would be less and or in other words, there would be reduced trading in the Economy (that this is unecessary trading is irrelevant for this number).
However, less rent seeking would actually be better for everybody else, so the median quality of life would go up even whilst the GDP number would be implying that the Economy was getting worse.
Personally, I would argue that taxing them is helping the economy.
Basically, even with only a 2% wealth tax, that's money that would otherwise just sit in some account as shares or something that would only serve to make the wealthy more wealthy.
By moving the funds to the people by way of taxes, the money can be utilized for social programs, like housing and healthcare for the poor for example. Which would then give those people an easier path to sobriety (if needed), a "fixed address" so they can enroll in job training or simply get a job, since most jobs require you to have a fixed address for seemingly no good reason...
My point is, the money could be used to enhance the lives of all citizens. Rather than just people like that asshole.
I don't actually care about the economy. Improve my material conditions please
Hey y'know what other famously French thing will be deadly for rich people if they're not taxed?
Not taxing the wealthy is deadlier
And where they gonna go? Sure, a bunch might fuck off to Costa Rica or some other accommodative place, but those countries only have so much capacity to support the wealthy without the locals eventually demanding their cut. These people act like they’re gonna go to some tax free utopia out there beyond the ice caps like John Galt.
Here in the United States, you think assholes like Lutnick are gonna leave New York?
Please.
Fuck ‘em. Take the money.
We don't even need to to that! If they move to another country, let them get taxed there! If they still have business in this country, we will still get some tax revenue from them!
If they really move everything to some tax-free place like Somalia, fucking who gives a shit? Let them find out how well that will go for them.
The point is it takes a particular kind of very wealthy sociopath to hate their country for taxing them so much that they’ll leave, and you probably don’t want those people around anyway.
these people will still live in high tax countries, while trying to not pay taxes, they wouldnt live in places that have low taxes, because those are usually shitty places to live, or its controlled by a authotarian government.
Or ridiculously expensive. Monaco comes to mind.
Tax is bad, says rich guy who doesn't want to pay tax, and just arrived on his private jet, to enjoy some relaxation on his yacht, while half a dozen servants take care of everything for him, including wiping his ass.
Because billionaires getting their ass wiped, is good for the economy, average people living decent lives is not. Don't believe the evidence, believe the billionaires!
Next on:
Schools are bad for education, says 8 year old who doesn't want to go to school, but wants to play all day.
This in my opinion is a very moderate suggestion. I would like 1% from €5m-100m too. If you have €5m you already have more than you need.
Best part is this tax wouldn't have the slighest impact on his quality of life. His wealth would still grow faster than the rest of the economy.
I dunno, man, does that sound like a threat to anybody else? Bro's talking about tanking France if him and his lil' buddies have to build roads and fund hospitals. :( :( :(
You see a lot of this coming from the rich and their lap dogs. But its never not been bullshit. Pick any country you want in the world. Force Amazon, for example, to pay its full share in taxes. The muppets will say "But then Amazon will leave, taking all those jobs with them!". So... they would leave a space in the market, right? So someone else would come along and replace them. You can apply this to any industry that tries to scare people with "but X would leave". Who cares? Theres always going to be someone looking to make money. And being able to make a fuck load of amazon money would be quite awesome. And thats even with paying fucking taxes.
And as for individuals threatening to leave X country, fuck um. We dont need them sucking up all the money anyway.
There needs to be an overhaul in our various societies. Its 2025, and the idea of billionaires in a world where children still starve to death is disgusting. No one needs billions. Hell, no one needs millions. The world, if we could all agree, should limit personal wealth to 100m. Thats it. Once you start earning, through any means, that puts your wealth, in any form, above that number, you pay a 100% tax rate. Or, you can just fucking retire, and let the next generation earn their fair share.
The poor are the majority. And the rich and powerful dont fear us nearly enough...
Imagine being upset that the freeloader sleeping on your couch and eating all the food in your fridge without contributing anything leaves.
This is the most disgusting kind of discrimination! The kind against me!
"Objection! It's devastating to my bank account"
It wouldn't. His wealth grows at a 5--6% rate minimum every year.
It would be a handicap in the billonaires race to "who will contribute the most to the collapse of civilization?", though!
What? Do these people need a reminder about what happens in France when the filthy wealthy become absolutely detached from the oppressed?
Here in Mexico, these assholes kept telling everyone, for 30 years, that raising minimum wages would cause hyperinflation. Six years after ignoring them and raising minimum wages, suddenly, 13.5 M Mexicans got out of poverty, and inflation is okay. Ignore these hacks!
Like another comment pointed out, the revolution can also be seen as the filthy wealthy getting rid of the people who stood in their way to power. So France may end up without democracy if history is repeating.
The greedy weasel should pay his taxes and the French people do not fuck around when they know they are about to get screwed.
Wealth tax or Guillotine?
Your honor I object!!
Why?
Because its devastating to my case!!!
Western society: "Overruled"
Plenty of his money comes from France. He won't leave, if he does, others want that exploitable population he'd leave behind.
Fuck your hollow threats
Do it, France. The wealthy are leeches.
Isn't he the asshole who said he would help pay for that famous church that burned down a while ago and never gave them a red cent?
Pretty much every billionaire who promised was a lying sack of shit.
Fuck off rich asshole. Tired of them acting like they know better.
Tax wealth not work.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
I like that term. Gonna call it financial obesity from now on.
The existence of an article specifically about his opinions on a theoretical tax shows just how disproportionate the power of being wealthy is. When is the last time any of you were consulted on a tax policy that would affect you?
"Cats are a bane upon society." Says dog to newspaper.
Stop the mail carrier onslaught! Bark now!
Does being Europe's richest man imply that he would be the person who would pay the most wealth tax?
If so, the headline isn't going hard enough.
you guys already don't have musk, trump, bezos, ellison, zuckerberg, trump! All of them choose not to live there due to your repressive laws! Do you want to lose arnault as well! If he leaves he may never become prime minister or president. Do you really want that?
169bn?
Dudes upset about getting taxed at 0.5%
wealth taxes and handouts to the people would stimulate consumerism and make the economy run hot.
We should push the trickle up method.
You give all the cash to the poor and middle class, they guy all the goods from the wealthy and they get their money back. Easy Peasy
Maybe the evaporation method
yep, 100%, i gotta remember that phrase.
Yes, but have you given a thought to those poor billionaires?
"Less chickens running free will harm the farm" - the fat fox
Is a wealth tax actually possible
how to convince your friends to back wealth taxes
Instead of just making the comment I would love to see him lay out exactly why and how it would destroy them so we can laugh some more at how ridiculous this is.
Everyone else screaming: That is the point you rich fuck!
Uhh what? You admit that the point is to ruin the economy?
You guys should be more loud about this. Yell it from the rooftops.
So tax it is!
yes! tax the poor! /s
I don't see any potential conflict of interest here whatsoever
Is that a threat?
If the ultra rich say your idea will ruin the economy - congratulations, you've got a great idea.
That's often my reply. "well we haven't tried it yet. We've tried trickle down economics for almost 4 decades. Why don't we try a wealth tax for 20 years? You know, for science? Just to see how it works. THEN if it doesn't work, we can roll it back. How does that sound?"
Some people really like being pissed on by rich people. Apparently.
Is he showing any of his work, or is he just making stuff up? Seems like he's just making stuff up.
Also, everyone should look at the "wealth to scale" webpage: https://dbkrupp.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ . Humans are not good at scale, and this helps visualize it.
May the separation of his cranium and rump lead to new insights
not the onion
Yes, additionally work on making it a EU-wide tax
"Communism is when the powerful have to abide to the same laws as our serfs" - some powerful libertarian
I've heard guillotines are deadly for the French economy too.
But the French already saw that movie so they're probably trying to get in front of any repeat episode.
Probably a good idea, if the money is used well and not just to maintain status quo. Paying off loans, building good infrastructure and financing Ukraine would be some excellent ways to use such money.
How?
Fuck France's economy then! Burn their cash!
We could just eat them imho...
We should mulch them. I'm not into cannibalism.
I would eat the resulting food from using their decaying biomarker as fertilizer tho.
Excellent time to go forward with this tax and make it even larger.
If a rich man's opinion about taxes shouldn't be trusted, why should the French trust an English newspaper about it?
Indeed. Because their mother was a hamster and their father smells of elderberries.
Touché. I wave my private parts in your general direction, you son of a window dresser.
I told him we already got one
Yes. And?