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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#981

I think if employees feel slighted by being fired, they're fooling themselves. The best mindset is that you could be gone tomorrow. It gives you clarity and purpose. It also happens to be the truth. Coinbase was also extremely generous with severance. 12 weeks plus two for every one year at the company, I think. I've had the experience of being let go without notice and without severance. Devs seem a little more griz…

Anecdote: I had an old co-worker who was given 6 month's notice that he'd be let go from a previous job, and his manager at the time helped him look for a new gig + gave him shining reviews and references. After the 6 month period was up, they still gave him several months of severance, even after he had found a new gig. Some companies/managers actually do care about you, and it seems like Coinbase is roughly in that…

Posthumous comment for transparency's sake and to give a good company credit: This was Carrier, the HVAC/refrigeration place.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#982
post #899

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I was comparing buying real estate in a high end part of Chicago with San Francisco.

The places cost the same per month. But in SF, almost all of that was going to the premium/interest.

In Chicago, a massive amount was going to taxes and HOAs.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#983
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think billionaires should exist, but I also don't think these employees have been wronged. That is a pretty generous severance package.

How much money should people be allowed to have?

I think billionaires should exist.. but to answer anyway:

the most fair approach is probably starting with "how little money should people be allowed to have" (UBI) and then what ever is leftover is fair game.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#984
post #955
post #824

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, pick one and deal with it. This whole "billionaires are geniuses and figure out the world's hardest problems but simultaneously can't figure out how to be taxed" shtick has run its course. Of course, no solution will be perfect. That's life and how everyone else deals with things. There are several ways to accomplish taxing the mega-rich that don't require rewriting the laws of the universe. It's just that…

Serious question, where has this ever worked / is currently working?

Middle-class folks are taxed at 20-35%, so it literally works all the time for everyone else. Inequality continues to rise and wealth continues to concentrate. This is because taxes that used to work and be in place for the rich are no longer there. The wealthy used to pay much more tax.

Are you seriously okay with the ultra rich living by completely different rules than everyone else? I think it's probably underestimated how much they get away with not paying.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#985
post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>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?

I don't think the loan and tax rates are particularly preferential.

Thanks to his twitter deal, he's had to publicize some info about how he gets his money. The interest rates on his loans range from SOFR+3% to SOFR+10%. Those rates aren't that low— even as a non-millionaire I could get similar ones from my bank (https://www.schwab.com/pledged-asset-line).

I pay 2.75% interest on my mortgage. So even Elon's best loan has an interest rate well above my mortgage. By the end of the year, his interest rate is on track to be around 3x higher than my mortgage! And like my mortgage, his loan has a large upfront payment and a minimum amount that must be repaid every year, it's not free money forever.

My effective federal tax rate is 20%. That's lower than the rate that a typical billionaire would pay on capital gains (23.8%).

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#986

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What source are you basing that on? You can find countless sources that show the 0.1% owning an ever greater share: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/nov/13/us-wealth-i... "Over the past three decades, the share of household wealth owned by the top 0.1% has increased from 7% to 22%."

I'm basing that on global numbers, not national numbers. Sure, I don't doubt that in developed economies inequality is getting worse. But in the past 4 decades, I'll remind you that around 800,000,000 Chinese (that's eight hundred million people) were lifted above the global poverty line and were able to stop subsistence farming. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/l... So to say that global in…

Inequality is about the ratio of high earners to low earners. What you have linked to is a different concept, i.e. absolute income. Income inequality in china also increased, see figure 5: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/businessreview/2019/04/01/income-ine...

Imagine you live in a neighbourhood of 50 people. Everyone starts earning more, that's absolute income increase. Then imagine your richer neighbours income has increased 100x faster than anyone else, that's income inequality.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#987

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you really suggesting you want to leave Denmark to go somewhere with lower tax rates, then when you need social healthcare, you'll move back to Denmark and take advantage of the healthcare system that you didn't pay for? Isn’t that the point of their healthcare/retirement system? It’s socialist, not user pays. That it covers everyone irrespective of their tax contributions. Otherwise it would exclude the unempl…

Isn’t that the point of their healthcare/retirement system I don't think "Encourage people to move out of the country during the working years and move back to the country when they are old and need expensive healthcare coverage" is the point. It may be the result of their system, but it's not the point. But if it became a problem, they could require that you buy back into the system after an extended absence out of…

> they could require that you buy back into the system after an extended absence out of the country.

And if you can’t buy back in? Won and lost your fortune overseas (or never won at all and remained poor all your life) and returned “home” destitute? What then?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#988
post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property taxes are a bad idea too.

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…

Got it, so the widow living on a fixed income, in her modest home that was once in a lower middle class neighborhood that has now gentrified, is forced out so that someone really contributing to society (like FANG employee) can live closer to work? She now has to live somewhere else, what property was freed up exactly, (so no net new housing creation)? (Not even going to address paying tax = good for society)

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#989
post #893

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 k…

Lol I’ll just be taking your bike or equity/stock, don’t like it, ugh you’re so naive, “ownership is just a human construct”

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#990
post #500
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (and probably some luck) I'd reverse the skill and luck relationship. Success at that magnitude is almost entirely luck (and probably a little skill).

When one becomes rich because of one IPO that went right - ok, let's say it's luck. When one creates several successful businesses in a row - no, sorry, I can't say "it's just dumb luck" anymore, it's more realistic to assume there's something else involved.

Why? A good reputation and wealthy, powerful friends are very helpful. "When you're rich, they think you really know." Further, how many people were nearly identical after that first success, but then failed to continue with a second?
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