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Just Be Rich (2021)

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Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#221

Post by chrismcb »

virtualwhys wrote: post #200
bko wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think wealth is just a large Scrooge-McDuck pile of money sitting in someone's vault and a wealth tax means just sharing some of that money with others. But most wealth is owning and running extremely valuable companies. So taxing someone like Elon 2% or whatever of his 'wealth' per year, would mean some random Blackrock bozo passive investors running the companies after a few years. You're basically…

Define wealth. I wouldn't confine wealth to just the billionaire class; I'd say wealth is anyone with 5 million+ USD in liquid assets (specifically, that sum of money in stocks, bonds and cash). The poorest of the poor in the United States (that have to pay tax), make around $12K per year, and pay more in tax, percentage-wise, for their work than an individual doing absolutely nothing but passively investing in the m…

Wealth has a definition. It is what you own (minus what you owe) now whether you are wealthy or not is another question. Someone making 12k a year is not going to pay much on taxes. Some sales tax, maybe some property tax. That is about it. Meanwhile a wealthy person is going to pay gobs in taxes. Sure they may pay a lower percentage of their total income (and even lower of their total wealth) but they will be paying plenty in taxes

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#222

Post by abenga »

WalterBright wrote: post #137
marmadukester39 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but we do get NASA

Musk's rockets cost less than 10% of NASA's. Plus, SpaceX has not cost you a cent, while you've paid plenty of taxes for NASA.

The highest NASA's budget has ever been as a percentage of the federal budget is 4.5% during the Apollo program, totalling 650b nominally over the years. Saying anyone here now has paid "plenty" of taxes to nasa sounds … disingenuous at best.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#223

Post by WalterBright »

skybrian wrote: post #198
WalterBright wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People living and spending their money in the same place is irrelevant to the local economy? The taxes they pay into the local economy have produced obvious civic booms in places like Redmond and Bellevue. BTW, the Ferrari dealer moved to be close by the Microsoft campus.

I think it’s relevant, but also, there are a lot of people coming and going. If housing prices are high and traffic is bad, pointing at some rich people leaving seems sort like saying “nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.”

Rich people leaving isn't going to reduce the traffic significantly, but it will reduce economy significantly.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#224

Post by eigart »

AlOwain wrote: post #205
eigart wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obtaining excessive wealth is the same as winning the lottery (the billionaire founder class). Edit: Q: If you downvote this comment, do you believe someone like Zuckerberg was predestined to be a billionaire?

He was certainly not predestined, but his inclinations and temperaments did distinguish him. True some luck is involved; it is a necessary part, but individuals are often what induces the procuring of wealth.

If you monte carloed it, I’m sure he would do way better than average, but given how rare the current outcome is, I firmly believe it is mostly luck.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#225

Post by WalterBright »

fragmede wrote: post #195
WalterBright wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't like the USSR, provide another example that suits your position. Also, why are the FAANG companies all American companies?

I don't understand how you can see videos like https://youtu.be/925wmb-4Yr4 of skid row and conclude, y'know what? American Capitalism is the best thing ever and there's no possible way theres anything wrong with it so anybody trying to say that, hey, it's not perfect, is automatically a Stalinism Communist because that's the only way there could remotely be any sort of problems with American Capitalism. There's a ho…

The free market in the US turned the country from subsistence farming to superpower.

It's been very successful.

A video of skid row doesn't change that.

Drunks and drug addicts choose their poor lives.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#226

Post by WalterBright »

abenga wrote: post #222
WalterBright wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Musk's rockets cost less than 10% of NASA's. Plus, SpaceX has not cost you a cent, while you've paid plenty of taxes for NASA.

The highest NASA's budget has ever been as a percentage of the federal budget is 4.5% during the Apollo program, totalling 650b nominally over the years. Saying anyone here now has paid "plenty" of taxes to nasa sounds … disingenuous at best.

4.5% is a terrific amount of money.

You paid $zero for SpaceX.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#227

Post by pants2 »

virtualwhys wrote: post #200
bko wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people think wealth is just a large Scrooge-McDuck pile of money sitting in someone's vault and a wealth tax means just sharing some of that money with others. But most wealth is owning and running extremely valuable companies. So taxing someone like Elon 2% or whatever of his 'wealth' per year, would mean some random Blackrock bozo passive investors running the companies after a few years. You're basically…

Define wealth. I wouldn't confine wealth to just the billionaire class; I'd say wealth is anyone with 5 million+ USD in liquid assets (specifically, that sum of money in stocks, bonds and cash). The poorest of the poor in the United States (that have to pay tax), make around $12K per year, and pay more in tax, percentage-wise, for their work than an individual doing absolutely nothing but passively investing in the m…

Basically, capital gains tax should be much higher than income tax. That seems obvious to me. Someone working for a paycheck should pay a smaller tax rate than someone who randomly bought NVDA stock a few years ago and watched the number go up.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#228

Post by carlob »

WalterBright wrote: post #63
TrackerFF wrote: post #56

I live in a country with wealth tax (Norway), and I'm a bit conflicted on it. On one side, it is effectively the only real tax a many in the "ownership class" are paying - relative to their wealth. On the other side, it is a really problematic tax for entrepreneurs. It is downright horrible for startups and scaleups - critical funds that should be used to grow your company, has to be given out in dividends to founder…

Sweden, France, California, Washington state and NYC have discovered once again that taxing the heck out of rich people causes them to leave. And when they leave, they take their spend/invest/hire money with them.

This is patently false for the only case I have data on. The wealth tax in France had quadrupled its collections in a time where the French GDP had doubled, and all this was without an exit tax.

Unfortunately Macron got rid of it a few years ago and replaced it with something that only applies to real estate.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#229

Post by gmac »

WalterBright wrote: post #226
abenga wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The highest NASA's budget has ever been as a percentage of the federal budget is 4.5% during the Apollo program, totalling 650b nominally over the years. Saying anyone here now has paid "plenty" of taxes to nasa sounds … disingenuous at best.

4.5% is a terrific amount of money. You paid $zero for SpaceX.

In this context, surely the whole point is that we could have taxed Musk’s wealth instead, so we have collectively paid whatever amount we didn’t tax him.

Re: Just Be Rich (2021)

#230

Post by shakow »

WalterBright wrote: post #184
shakow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you have to build a wall around your state to keep people from fleeing It's not really about building a wall around your country to keep people from fleeing, but to prevent gadgets sold by people leveraging arbitrage in an unfair way to get in – or, as we call them for now millenia, tariffs.

Arbitrage is a major reason why free market companies prosper. It's taking advantage of the Law of Comparative Advantage. For example, consider Bob and Fred. Bob is good at hunting, but stinks at growing blueberries. Fred grows luscious blueberries, but he's likely to blow his own foot off when hunting. Bob brings home twice the meat he needs, and Fred grows twice the blueberries he needs, and they trade. They are bo…

> It benefits consumers.

On the short term and reasonable spatial scale; sure. What's currently happening in the West is that common people are discovering that on the long term and at world scale, it does not really benefits them for a myriad of reasons, among which unevenly applied norms, difference in regimes, different social models, etc.

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