the most ridiculous thing is: they tried to recruit me 8 months ago. it was all unicorn and rainbows and bullshit this is the future. so if just 8 months ago, the CEO who has a 110 MILLION DOLLARS house couldn't see 12 months into the future, and required 18% reduction in headcount because of some unforseen crypto winter, who really is at fault here? what a fool that CEO is, and glad I turned the job down and feel ba…
Can you please explain why you believe a CEO should be able to see into the future and correctly account for all of the interactions of the global economy? If you can't, I guess just complain about billionaires instead or something.
The most productive decades in the US correspond with its highest relative tax rates, between the fifties and the eighties. Thomas Piketty: "if you look at the long-run evolution, we’ve seen less concentration of wealth. So the top 10 percent of the wealth distribution today would have 60 percent in Europe, 70 percent in the U.S., as compared to 90 percent before World War I in Europe. This did not destroy the econom…
>>>The most productive decades in the US correspond with its highest relative tax rates, between the fifties and the eighties. The most productive decades in the US also correspond with a period when the US was essentially the only industrial power not absolutely shattered by World War 2. In global economic terms, the post-war period was a huge anomaly, and I would be hesitant to tie too many conclusions/correlative…
This is Piketty, and therefore has a pile of non-US data to point to on this front as well. (Though USians are typically quick to ignore any evidence that isn't from the US.)
Not if people living in 'reasonable' properties are not taxed much at all. If a family lives in a 100sqm house, probably should be nothing additional. If they live in 2000sqm mansion, they probably can afford a decent sized tax. Of course size is not the only factor, which makes it complicated. Land or property value is probably a good proxy. If you house is >$1M it probably means you are wealthy. Now you get one of…
The problem with this logic is that real estate values are out of control. In my city not uncommon to see stories of families who have owned a home for generation or more being forced to sell it because the value of the land went from $200k to $800k in 10 years and is now taxed as such.
Maybe you're not aware how these "unrealized" capital gains (at scale) are indirectly realized in the form of loans taken against value of the asset. Massive wealth doesn't operate in income or even in typical capital gains advantages you're referring to. It operates at a scale where the value of the assets are so great, banks compete to give loans to them, which are not taxed like income. It's totally absurd to argu…
>It's totally absurd to argue that loans from assets isn't income That seems kinda whack to me. If I get a $500k mortgage, it's not like I received $500k of income that year-- the house belongs to the bank, and I'll be making payments for 30 years. If I stop paying my mortgage, I'll lose "my" house and have nothing to show for it except an insane tax bill (just like Elon would have to give up some of his Tesla stock…
A mortgage of that scale isn't even remotely close to how the mega rich operate. How is that example relevant to a discussion about multimillionaires and billionaires? Such a mortgage requires a massive down payment via cash (that was taxed), a non-trivial interest rate, and monthly payments again with taxed cash. The tax rates of such income is likely higher than the capital gains tax. The mega rich get loans in the tens of millions all the way up to billions with paintings, watches, houses, unrealized investments as collateral at ultra low interest rates. They repay the loan with money siphoned off at low tax rates, such as through dividends and even other loans, while the things they used as collateral continue to grow unchecked in value. Like seriously, the capital gains tax is much lower than the income tax rate I pay. How the hell is that not whack if not totally fucked up? Do you think it's okay that the mega rich are incentivized to continue to get richer and richer while receiving the massively preferential loans and tax rates they get? What normal person is getting rich off of a 30-year mortgage, where payments on make up double digit percentages of their monthly income?
Maybe you're not aware how these "unrealized" capital gains (at scale) are indirectly realized in the form of loans taken against value of the asset. Massive wealth doesn't operate in income or even in typical capital gains advantages you're referring to. It operates at a scale where the value of the assets are so great, banks compete to give loans to them, which are not taxed like income. It's totally absurd to argu…
Are these loans ever repaid or are you suggesting Bezos/Bill Gates etc have slowly accumulated loans to be paid in some long future. If so there must be some public info. about its stats
I would assume that, yes, these loans are often repaid via other similar loans or instruments that continue to leave unrealized gains as unrealized and avoid taxation. I doubt many multi-millionaires and billionaires publicly disclose or publish the techniques they use to siphon wealth off of society.
People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…
A wealth tax implies a tax on unrealized appreciated assets, which is beyond bizarre IMHO. So you buy a house for $500k somewhere. It surges in value to $1.2 million. You therefore have an unrealized capital gain of $700k. You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it, and when you do you are going to pay a whopping amount of capital gain tax. But a wealth tax implies you pay that capital gain tax now. Okay…
What’s funny is youre describing the only wealth tax in common practice in the US - property taxes.
The point of wealth taxes (see Texas real estate prices) is to disincentivize rapid asset appreciation.
Texas and California are different in many ways and this is the main one (California income tax vs Texas real estate tax).
California showed (shows) that income taxes only sort of disincentivize inequality, whereas Texas shows wealth taxes very much disincentivize inequality, so much so that the government has to actively lobby to get truly high paying jobs there.
Not if people living in 'reasonable' properties are not taxed much at all. If a family lives in a 100sqm house, probably should be nothing additional. If they live in 2000sqm mansion, they probably can afford a decent sized tax. Of course size is not the only factor, which makes it complicated. Land or property value is probably a good proxy. If you house is >$1M it probably means you are wealthy. Now you get one of…
The problem with this logic is that real estate values are out of control. In my city not uncommon to see stories of families who have owned a home for generation or more being forced to sell it because the value of the land went from $200k to $800k in 10 years and is now taxed as such.
Then make it price adjusted for that to some extent. Use medians.
And being forced to sell to some degree is by design. One elderly lady hogging the land that could house 100 apartment dwellings in the middle of a city for example.
“Owning Land” is a human construct.
And it would be no worse than compulsory purchases by government for infrastructure.
Or someone leasing where the landlord wants more rent so they get kicked out.
I thought things are capped in California, that Under Proposition 13, the annual real estate tax on a parcel of property is limited to 1% of its assessed value. This "assessed value" may be increased only by a maximum of 2% per year until, and unless, the property has a change of ownership? No such joy in Texas (yet).
That’s probably one of the reasons real estate prices are so high.
It's definitely One of the reasons. I've compared some real estate prices in some low-cost areas to relatively high-cost areas, and found that once factoring in property tax, the actual cost was close to the same.
USDC. They see something really bad on their books that's separate from their core business. Just like how Lehman Brothers was a profitable bank that got shredded by one risky trading strategy. These stablecoins have been devoured one by one, and each time they fall more people start trying to get their money out. USDC will experience a run and it might not be survivable without liquidating user account holdings, whi…
“These stablecoins” lumps together some very different implementations of “thing that is always worth $1”. USDC: fully collateralized by cash or cash equivalents held in US banks - basically a money market fund Terra: partially collateralized by crypto assets + algorithmic magic Tether: like USDC but not held in US banks, and the actual collateral may be partial or of lower quality Dai: overcollaterelized by crypto a…
> basically a money market fund
When money market funds were all about to break the buck in 2008 the Treasury department stepped in with a $50 billion insurance program and the Fed started buying commercial paper to prop them up. Will they do the same for USDC?