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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#91

Post by throwaway984393 »

sneak wrote: post #72
chasd00 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving $7B to the gov changes zero. Not a single function of the government will change not a single thing. They should have just thrown it in the trash. At least go pay off student loans with a lottery until the money is gone or something, that could help. Maybe pay all the mortgages in a small town or something. What they did by giving it to the gov is the same as setting it on fire in the front yard. It’s kind of…

The logical conclusion of this line of thinking is that you must then believe there to be a moral obligation to always pay service people in cash and avoid paying taxes at every possible opportunity. Do I understand your position correctly?

[dead]

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#92

Post by 6stringronin »

bko wrote: post #79
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Why is that obscene? Presumably the person created something very valuable to the world. Sure there are zero-sum ways to generate wealth (e.g. suing people, theft, front running trades) but generally that kind of wealth comes from actually generating something that people value.

I'm sure the value they created trickles down?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#93

Post by ilammy »

sneak wrote: post #72
chasd00 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving $7B to the gov changes zero. Not a single function of the government will change not a single thing. They should have just thrown it in the trash. At least go pay off student loans with a lottery until the money is gone or something, that could help. Maybe pay all the mortgages in a small town or something. What they did by giving it to the gov is the same as setting it on fire in the front yard. It’s kind of…

The logical conclusion of this line of thinking is that you must then believe there to be a moral obligation to always pay service people in cash and avoid paying taxes at every possible opportunity. Do I understand your position correctly?

Don’t put your words in their mouth.

Giving government money doesn’t really change the way government operates. The government has the budget for the year and that’s the spending for the year. If government needs something done, an item gets budgeted, money is borrowed, and paid out to get stuff done. Giving money to the government only offsets the debt; nothing else changes from that besides the number in the spreadsheet.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#94

Post by Jedd »

A fascinating reddit post was mentioned here about a month ago - about the mildly famous (if a little macabre) 'Buy, Borrow, Die' cycle used by the obscenely-wealthy to - multi-generationally - avoid tax obligations.

https://old.reddit.com/r/BuyBorrowDieExplained/comments/1f26...

HN comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41408772

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#96

Post by iJohnDoe »

IAmNotACellist wrote: post #54

I can't imagine something more useless than an estate giving money to the US federal government rather than secreting it away via legal tax loopholes and re-investments in new industry.

Agreed, they should have just set $7 billion on fire in the middle of the street. This is an inconsequential amount to the US gov, but a tremendous amount to schools, communities hit by devastation or other terrible events, non-profit hospitals, etc.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#97

Post by randomdata »

dweinus wrote: post #62
IAmNotACellist wrote: post #54

I can't imagine something more useless than an estate giving money to the US federal government rather than secreting it away via legal tax loopholes and re-investments in new industry.

TIL that in 2024 people are still trying to claim that trickle-down economics works. Given all the wealth at the top these days, I'll expect my trickle-down check in the mail any day now.

Who claims that “trickle-down economics” works? The term was literally coined as a joke about how it doesn’t work.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#98

Post by ksec »

This may be off-topic.

>Billionaires are like black holes. We deduce their existence from the fundamental laws of capitalism, see their gravity pull politics into their orbit, even detect signals of their existence in the public markets.

I dont know about others. This is very beautifully put. But I am wondering if anyone has an counter argument. Because this basically means money > power;

> "As gravity pulls politics into their orbit."

It may be true in US or other democratic nations. It certainly isn't true in Russia or China. If what was described was fundamental laws of capitalism, Could we argue those nations where power is greater than money are not capitalism?

If so, what is the opposing force against the laws of capitalism? And are there anything in physics such as opposing force of the laws of gravity? Without going into Space Time?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#99

Post by sdenton4 »

mynameishere wrote: post #58
jrockway wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can make a voluntary contribution to the United States Treasury: https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html

I always wondered if there was a way to effectively "burn" one's entire wealth, creating a small deflationary event that would increase the value of existing dollars. How could one do this? Donate to the Federal Reserve? Or would you literally have to cash everything out and burn it?

In fact, dragons are important stabilizing influences in dungeon economics. The hoard of gold isn't inflationary until the adventurers liberate it and start buying wands and stuff.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#100

Post by chgs »

bawolff wrote: post #53
mmmpetrichor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's draconian to have some upper limit on wealth? what if a small number of people managed to, legally, extract wealth to the point where we all became vassals? (Or is that what we've already gone very far towards?)

I think anti-trust laws are generally more effective at dealing with that than wealth limits. When capitalism is functioning well, what cones up must go down, and the main trick is to make sure the ultra-wealthy can't leverage their wealth to prevent anyone competiting with them.

What goes up accumulates and is effectively removed from circulation, allowing money to be printed at a minion level while still struggling to avoid deflation.
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