Europe’s richest man is whining about a proposed wealth tax for France. But of course, he is not complaining that it would hurt him personally, which would be very selfish, but that it would hurt the entire economy, which makes him a noble crusader and protector of the economic health of the country.
Europe’s richest man, the luxury goods magnate Bernard Arnault, has said that a wealth tax that could cost him more than €1bn (£817m) would be deadly for France’s economy.
The French founder of LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton said in a statement to the Sunday Times that calls for a 2% wealth tax on all assets “aims to destroy the liberal economy, the only one that works for the good of all”.
The idea of a wealth tax has steadily gained ground in France because of a political crisis, with the government trying to push through unpopular budget cuts. The idea of a 2% wealth tax on fortunes worth more than €100m has been proposed by Gabriel Zucman, an economics professor who has become a household name in France.
…Zucman is a professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics and the École normale supérieure, and last year wrote a prominent study on the wealth tax for the G20. In June, Zucman wrote in the Guardian: “Unprecedented wealth concentration – and the unbridled power that comes with such wealth – has distorted our democracy and is driving societal and economic tensions.”
But Arnault insists that his motives are pure and that those who are pursuing this tax are doing so because, for some reason, they want to destroy the economy.
“This is clearly not a technical or economic debate, but rather a clearly stated desire to destroy the French economy,” Arnault’s statement said. “I cannot believe that the French political forces that govern or have governed the country in the past could lend any credibility to this offensive, which is deadly for our economy.”
Really? They ‘clearly stated’ that their desire is to destroy the economy? Where and when did they say this?
People like Arnault should continue to speak out like this so that people will increasingly see that what greedy, selfish jerks they are.