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Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

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Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#21

Post by dpark »

rayiner wrote: post #10
smitty1e wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't AI proposed the ultimate "fair" taxation scheme?

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

This is not an expert consensus. It’s one random npr story.

Switching entirely to consumption tax is a billionaires dream. Dropping corporate income tax is a CFO’s dream. (Whoever wrote the line about how reinvested money shouldn’t be taxed is also an idiot. Taxes are on profits. Money reinvested in the business becomes an expense and so is not taxed. What is discouraged through business taxation is sitting on large corporate coffers.)

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#23

Post by rayiner »

dpark wrote: post #21
rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

This is not an expert consensus. It’s one random npr story. Switching entirely to consumption tax is a billionaires dream. Dropping corporate income tax is a CFO’s dream. (Whoever wrote the line about how reinvested money shouldn’t be taxed is also an idiot. Taxes are on profits. Money reinvested in the business becomes an expense and so is not taxed. What is discouraged through business taxation is sitting on large…

It's an NPR story with economics experts describing positions that are consensus in their field but politically unpopular.

> Tuesday's show presented the common-sense, no-nonsense Planet Money economic plan — backed by economists of all stripes, but probably toxic to any candidate that might endorse it... There you have it, six major proposals that have broad agreement, at least among economists.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#24

Post by dmitrig01 »

rayiner wrote: post #10
smitty1e wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't AI proposed the ultimate "fair" taxation scheme?

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

To what end? "Best" implies towards a certain goal. Is the goal economic growth? Or is it a fair society? Those are very different.

For example, if the goal is a fair society, then we should have a wealth tax, to disincentivize wealth equality. (And an income tax isn't so bad either in).

Having only a consumption tax makes sense if the goal is (only) to reduce consumption.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#25

Post by fyredge »

throw101010 wrote: post #14
rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

Why would you want to "discourage consumption" by taxing it? Following the logic in your message. I know you are just quoting this transcript/article... but you likely have an idea of how this would work since you classify this as the best solution. Especially interested on how you would progressively tax consumption... How do you apply brackets to the day-to-day purchases? The general answer is to demand people to r…

I was initially skeptical of removal of income tax, but it's replacement with consumption tax makes sense.

Currently, income is "discouraged" through financial instruments such as Securities-Backed Line of Credit (SBLOC), which are very much only feasible in the realm of the very rich. Some part of this loophole can be offset by corporate tax, but corporate tax is based on profit, not income, incentivising all sorts of unproductive spending behaviour e.g. stock buybacks.

To me, the switch to consumption tax does a couple of things:

1. Instill discipline. Higher spending does not equate to higher productivity. By taxing spending, discipline will be instilled in both the consumer and corporation. With consumption tax, there will be no brackets, rather the amount of tax will be based on what the government policy is. Smoking bad? Higher tax. Soy milk more environmentally friendly? Lower tax.

2. Simplify tax situation with "capital gains". You pay tax upfront, now we don't need to evaluate what happens to the value of the stock, that will be the problem for the next buyer. No loophole for capital gains tax with inheritance.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#26

Post by godwinson__4-8 »

rayiner wrote: post #10
smitty1e wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why hasn't AI proposed the ultimate "fair" taxation scheme?

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

This reminds me of a rather odious napkin.

https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_14392...

I wonder if people like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld being at the scene of the crime is part of why "people just don't like the answer". Then again, perhaps it is revealing in some way of the answer offered itself.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#27

Post by rayiner »

dmitrig01 wrote: post #24
rayiner wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already have expert consensus on what’s the best taxes, people just don’t like the answer: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2012/07/19/157047211/six-... (“Three. Eliminate the corporate income tax. Completely. If companies reinvest the money into their businesses, that's good. Don't tax companies in an effort to tax rich people. Four. Eliminate all income and payroll taxes. All of them. For everyone. Taxes disco…

To what end? "Best" implies towards a certain goal. Is the goal economic growth? Or is it a fair society? Those are very different. For example, if the goal is a fair society, then we should have a wealth tax, to disincentivize wealth equality. (And an income tax isn't so bad either in). Having only a consumption tax makes sense if the goal is (only) to reduce consumption.

The goal is economic growth, which matters more than anything else. Fun fact: in 1900, Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world, at about 60% of US GDP per capita: https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/argentina-was-one-o.... Today, Argentina has under 20% of the GDP per capita of the US. The difference is that the U.S. has grown at about 1.7% annually for the past century and change, while Argentina only grew at about 1% annually.

Maybe you're willing to give up 70 basis points in pursuit of a "fairer" society, but that means your grandkids will live in a much poorer society than they'd otherwise live in. This is the trajectory Europe is in currently. Having missed the boat on the Internet, space travel, and now AI, I suspect my grandkids will see a world where people are immigrating from Europe to China the way we see people immigrating from Argentina to the U.S.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#28

Post by dpark »

rayiner wrote: post #16
throw101010 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you want to "discourage consumption" by taxing it? Following the logic in your message. I know you are just quoting this transcript/article... but you likely have an idea of how this would work since you classify this as the best solution. Especially interested on how you would progressively tax consumption... How do you apply brackets to the day-to-day purchases? The general answer is to demand people to r…

I’m not classifying it as the best solution. I’m quoting an NPR article describing the consensus view of economics experts. But as I understand it, the reason is that consumption taxes have the least distortion in terms of deviating from the efficient behavior in the no-tax scenario: https://www.weforum.org/stories/2019/09/using-tax-to-tackle-...

That article spends most of its time explaining why a progressive consumption tax is obviously the right choice, then basically decries liberals as too dumb to understand it and conservatives as too evil to want it, but spends zero words to explain how a progressive consumption tax might possibly be implemented.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#29

Post by skybrian »

jandhdhshhh wrote: post #18
satvikpendem wrote: post #7

Anything except building more housing, it seems. We'll see how the recently passed housing bill goes however.

I’ve been watching this for decades now. I was hopeful in my 20s that it was just a matter of time before supply would increase. But I’ve learned the hard way, The bay area voters and political apparatus is determined to keep housing as scarce as possible

Some YIMBY laws have passed, but it takes time to build things.

For example, it looks like the 25-story Marina Safeway can't be stopped, though they're still trying.

Berkeley has quite a few new buildings, though.

Re: Wealthy AI workers send San Francisco house prices soaring

#30

Post by astrange »

rayiner wrote: post #23
dpark wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not an expert consensus. It’s one random npr story. Switching entirely to consumption tax is a billionaires dream. Dropping corporate income tax is a CFO’s dream. (Whoever wrote the line about how reinvested money shouldn’t be taxed is also an idiot. Taxes are on profits. Money reinvested in the business becomes an expense and so is not taxed. What is discouraged through business taxation is sitting on large…

It's an NPR story with economics experts describing positions that are consensus in their field but politically unpopular. > Tuesday's show presented the common-sense, no-nonsense Planet Money economic plan — backed by economists of all stripes, but probably toxic to any candidate that might endorse it... There you have it, six major proposals that have broad agreement, at least among economists.

I doubt deleting income tax is a popular view among economists.

Income and payroll taxes have the feature that you always have the money when it's time to pay the tax. That also means they're disinflationary. Whereas property taxes can be inflationary because they may require you to sell assets.

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