If you distribute them widely why would that happen? You could even give them to the people who actually work in the business and their suppliers and their suppliers suppliers etc. to make it "fair". Wouldn't want people's hard work to be stolen from them.
As I understand it, it's not a windfall tax. That $8bn is not cash. It's the ownership of their businesses. My point is the government steals 95% of the business, and then what? Who would buy those shares to turn them into cash to spend on vaccinations (or whatever else)? Why would anyone buy shares that the government can take from them?
In your example of taking shares and giving them to other people, why would anyone buy them from the people they were given to? Why buy what the government will just take and give you?
Because a windfall tax is a sensible and boring idea that has been applied in even right-wing capitalist societies with success and general approval, not a slippery slope into totalitarian communism?
It doesn't matter if the windfall is a stack of cash, or an appreciating asset. It's the fact that you got richer without doing anything to earn it that makes it a windfall.
> Because a windfall tax is a sensible and boring idea that has been applied in even right-wing capitalist societies with success and general approval, not a slippery slope into totalitarian communism?
This isn't relevant. Only how it works is.
> It doesn't matter if the windfall is a stack of cash, or an appreciating asset
Can you elaborate on how a windfall tax on an asset works? An example might help.
If you take those shares, who's going to buy them, given you'll probably just take them again.