Wealth inequality is the result of a flawed system

Re: Taxing billionaires is not the solution to the

out-of-control government spending, Dec. 11

1. The author says that taking $1 billion from every billionaire in the country would only net $40 billion, so it’s not worth doing. That $40 billion is an enormous amount of money. If it comes to $1,100 per head, that’s $1,100 less per head that Canadians have to spend to repay COVID-related public debt.

2. It does not follow that taxing billionaires is a slippery slope that leads inevitably to greater taxes on middle class people. It is precisely to avoid increasing middle-class taxes that taxes on the most wealthy should be increased.

3. The author argues that billionaires must be allowed to keep everything they earn because that money employs people. This argument article assumes that personal wealth held by billionaires is invested in recruitment or in new ventures that are likely to employ a lot of people. In fact the largest companies, such as Amazon, employ a fraction of the workforce relative to their assets that companies like General Electric and General Motors did 40 years ago. The reasons for this is changing technology.

Moreover, the personal wealth of billionaires is not spent on public goods, such as health care, education, and infrastructure, so it does nothing to boost employment or training in these crucial areas unless it is taxed.

4. Proposing that we spend more money at smaller businesses is laudable. However, it is an unrealistic proposal as a way of redistributing wealth or reducing the market dominance of large companies like Costco and Amazon. People shop at these places for a reason — to save money. That is human nature.

5. We do not have ourselves to blame for wealth inequality. It is a structural problem.

Ross Ward, Peterborough