suggest, too, could be strong well-architected safeguards against gaming the system.

Imho, the main challenge with super-high marginal tax rates is their (likely) political intractabilty in congress even IF corportate lobbying against them wasn't an issue (eg. no bipartisan support, disagreement even among Dems). Plus, even if such tax rates were miraculously legislated, the first thing the owner/exec class is going to do is park that wealth in structures where they won't apply. It "is" the group that perfected tax avoidance into an artform, after all. lol

But that's why I think Warren is smart for trying to target the specific mechanisms with which wealth is hoarded and manipulated. For example, her proposal to enact strict controls on corporate shares and how they are bought and sold. Like we were talking about earlier in the post, the renumeration and wealth of most owners/execs is in shares, not liquid cash. Furthermore, those shares are the main tool with which wealth is hoarded and inflated because they are used to toy with scarcity, manipulate share price, etc. So placing controls on that activity would hopefully a) disincentivize share renumeration as a practice and b) force reinvestment of market gains back into the business (i.e. wages, benefits, training, upgrades) rather than stock buyback schemes and other supply manipulation tactics.

I'm NOT an economist and probably fucked all of that up (lol), but it seems to be Warren's intent and makes tactical sense. The only thing I question about going after stocks is how the (inevitable) stock market correction would affect savings/investments/pensions/retirement funds of middle class folks. I have read that such an intervention would drop prices like crazy, despite laying the groundwork for a more honest path forward. So hopefully there's a way to implement things such that gains in wages and savings and profits are balanced in such a way every stakeholder group can walk away happy(er?).

But overall, I agree with Buddy 100% about the "too little, too late" vibe of the business leaders' consensus linked above. It would have had to happen sooner or later. To me it reeks of sensing the inevitability of a regulatory smackdown and trying to pre-emptively soften the blow lol.