GameStop Raid Shows It’s Time For a Wealth Tax | Opinion

GameStop Raid Shows It’s Time For a Wealth Tax | Opinion

The ongoing turbulence on Wall Street—with unknown stocks soaring, trading being frozen and elites being shaken—is not just an ideological attack on the gatekeepers of finance.As a former investment banker turned charity executive, I see it as an inevitable result of the systemic inequality and deeply entrenched poverty that we have, for too long, tolerated in some of the world's richest nations—inequality and poverty that can only be remedied with a wealth tax.The GameStop raid, and other similar actions that will surely follow, is an attempt to redistribute trapped wealth through the economy, from the hands of hedge funds to the pockets of the average citizen.These actions have the effect of a wealth tax, but implemented from the bottom up with potentially damaging side effects. Governments should think carefully about engineering the same result in a far more sustainable way from the top down, to reduce inequality and stimulate economic growth post-COVID.GameStop leader "Roaring Kitty," whose real name is Keith Gill, is a 34-year-old long-distance runner from Massachusetts. He screenshotted his $20 million gains and shared them with the media. The question now becomes at whose expense has Gill become wealthy?Many amateur, small stockholders will be keen to follow in