141–147 of 147 posts
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My collection of funny JPEGs is also a legitimate investment. It's an entirely new asset class, although not as overhyped as Bitcoin.
Right. Your collection of infinitely reproducible picture files is comparable to the first truly decentralized value transfer and storage system. It's clear you have no intention of understanding what makes Bitcoin interesting or valuable.
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Why is it insane? Its like winning the power ball and then blowing it all on scratchers. You owe taxes on the win but can't necessarily deduct the losses. Which, tbh, seems perfectly fine to me.
As someone else pointed out upthread, gambling losses are tax deductible to the extent of your winnings: https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/jobs-and-career/can-you...
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Yes, they are. However, programs which do not require meeting any qualifications are massively easier to implement, which can make them much cheaper overall - think of all of the bureaucracy required for applying for and evaluating if various people meet the thresholds for programs, plus all of the appeals processes. Then it becomes two questions: is the cost of enforcing the thresholds greater than the cost of just…
> However, programs which do not require meeting any qualifications are massively easier to implement, which can make them much cheaper overall - I agree you can get some efficiency gains from eliminating thresholds. Back of the napkin, though, you're talking about an implementation cost delta (ie, only threshold determination costs) that swamps the benefit-and all other implementation costs-by several multiples, may…
No, I am not trying to argue it will be cheaper. It will likely be more expensive and/or worse for everyone involved but I think it will bring us all together. I think it is worth the extra cost or degraded service.
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I sympathize with the consistency of a "pure universal" approach to policy, but like many purist policy philosophies, I don't think it would survive rigorous implementation. For so many reasons. Chief among them, maybe, people are generally reluctant to support governments engaged in transfers of resources from themselves to billionaires.
It's also about helping young people who have parents who aren't filing taxes. I was poor and in this situation in college.
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There's a big difference between complaining about the tax level , or even the tax distribution , and what's going on here, which is completely insane. Paying taxes on a net loss is an absolutely crazy structure that no sane government should be imposing. It's so insane i'm skeptical it's even true, but if it is, he's absolutely right to be upset about it.
Your ethical argument is a bit weak. If society sees Bitcoin as a bad thing then there's no reason why they shouldn't slap a huge tax on any gross transaction, be it 34% or 340%. There are many ways to view cryptocurrencies in a bad light. It is a scheme that some claim seeks to subvert the fiat money systems that are controlled by these national tax authorities, so you can see why they would be upset. It is also, to…
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There's a big difference between complaining about the tax level , or even the tax distribution , and what's going on here, which is completely insane. Paying taxes on a net loss is an absolutely crazy structure that no sane government should be imposing. It's so insane i'm skeptical it's even true, but if it is, he's absolutely right to be upset about it.
Why is it insane? Its like winning the power ball and then blowing it all on scratchers. You owe taxes on the win but can't necessarily deduct the losses. Which, tbh, seems perfectly fine to me.
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>we don't need yet another tax on the most value-bearing (and typically philanthropic) people in society If we assume for a moment that this is true, then why would this state of affairs be okay? Society cannot run on the philanthopy of billionaires. Further, there's not very much evidence that this is actually true. In terms of largest individual contributions, yes, many billionaires make impressive donations and pa…
> Society cannot run on the philanthopy of billionaires. Well, it doesn't run on taxes either. Successful societies runs on voluntary exchange. Given how much of the taxes are paid by the ultra wealthy (most of them), how philanthropic they are (very), and how wasteful the government is (impressively), why would you assume that voluntary philanthropy cannot replace involuntary, state-managed welfare?
Everybody just submitting to the hope that billionaires will take pity on them might even work with a sufficiently benevolent overlord, but you get the same problem as so many alternatives to democracy have: If you concentrate all the power in one person, or a small set of people, it's a breeding ground for corruption. Even if your set of people is entirely benevolent, over time as that set of people change it becomes near certain eventually you'll get people who aren't benevolent, and then everyone is fucked.
Democracy, and taxation-based systems of governmental funding, are less efficient than the best possible case elsewhere, but are primarily valuable for massively reducing the risk and dangers of bad actors. Concentrating power among an elite class has historically always been a fantastic way of increasing the risk and dangers of bad actors instead.