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Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

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Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#261

Post by johnnyanmac »

CuriouslyC wrote: post #124
tw04 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating. All they can talk about is how they’re all going to leave the state if it happens, but then are more than willing to try to spend more stopping it than they would just contributing their fair share in taxes. Don’t like it? Great, leave - but stop trying to buy elections.

YC is always talking about how important SF is (due to hand waiving reasons like "innovation environment," I would find it highly ironic if a wealth tax was all it took to get top YC people to abandon the state.

You can take your money, but you can't take the pwoerhouse institutions nor good weather California brings. The invisible hand will happily fill any vacancies.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#262

Post by johnnyanmac »

kadabra9 wrote: post #41
tw04 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be hilarious if it weren’t so infuriating. All they can talk about is how they’re all going to leave the state if it happens, but then are more than willing to try to spend more stopping it than they would just contributing their fair share in taxes. Don’t like it? Great, leave - but stop trying to buy elections.

Everyone loves deciding what their "fair share" of other people's net worth (not even income!) is. Sorry, but the state just confiscating 5% of someone's net worth (unrealized or not) is absolute madness, and rightfully opens up questions about slippery slope, how "temporary" they claim this to be, and so on. It's not surprising they are leaving the state or using their resources to try to stop it.

>but the state just confiscating 5% of someone's net worth (unrealized or not) is absolute madness

why? The federal government is taking around 22% from me this year and I'm in a low bracket. If I had the money from my last full time job in tech it'd be 24%. You're saying billionaires shouldn't pay the state they reside in 5% more?

Tanentially, that's only one bracket despite it being triple the salary. gotta love that part time minimum wage work in CA still pushes me that close to my financial peaks.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#263

Post by johnnyanmac »

kadabra9 wrote: post #211
mjamesaustin wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, so you're suggesting 5% is not enough? I'm listening...

You could confiscate 100% of the wealth of every billionaire in this country and it wouldn’t fund the government for an entire year. It is and always will be a government spending issue, the government can’t help itself but to just steal more from the taxpayers to support their bloat.

>You could confiscate 100% of the wealth of every billionaire in this country and it wouldn’t fund the government for an entire year.

1. I see that being 14 trillion. That would in fact fund the government for a year. even for 2 years.

2. taxes aren't about achieving perfect equality. But it's in part to incentivize people to not hoard wealth and spend it in the company. Few of the busnesses in the 50's/60's paid close to the tax brackets they had back then (Which would give modern billionaires a heart attack, despite that being "the times to return to).

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#264

Post by johnnyanmac »

zozbot234 wrote: post #125
bhouston wrote: post #7

He is probably going after Ro Khanna, who comes across as a pretty decent rep (he and Massie got the Epstein files released): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro_Khanna Based on this warning from Garry to Ro re: wealth tax https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns... So this appears to be all about the wealth tax and taken down anyone who supports it. AIPAC is also mad at Ro so it seems that Garry Tan…

A wealth tax is a great idea if your goal is to make everyone a whole lot poorer especially in the longer term, and not very much otherwise. It's pretty much saying that you want pure populist envy to be the priority, over and to the detriment of long-term prosperity.

Compared to the "prosperity" we have now?

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#265

Post by johnnyanmac »

learingsci wrote: post #53
bhouston wrote: post #7

He is probably going after Ro Khanna, who comes across as a pretty decent rep (he and Massie got the Epstein files released): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ro_Khanna Based on this warning from Garry to Ro re: wealth tax https://finviz.com/news/277038/y-combinators-garry-tan-warns... So this appears to be all about the wealth tax and taken down anyone who supports it. AIPAC is also mad at Ro so it seems that Garry Tan…

A wealth tax is not an obviously great idea. It’s worth having a better public debate on that topic.

https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-024

I'm voting for it if it passes. Big if, though. Almost like the 1% opposed have inordinate power in politics.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#266

Post by johnnyanmac »

terminalshort wrote: post #139
pbreit wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reasonable argument I can think of is that the fantastic wealth accumulated at the top was substantially driven by the $37 trillion of debt the USA finds itself in. And it needs to be clawed back somehow.

It's actually much simpler than that. We need to pay down the debt, and because the rich have most of the money they are going to need to do most of the paying down whether or not they directly are responsible for it or benefited from it. It's simple math. But what does this have to do with a wealth tax? The entire concept is stupid. Income an capital gains rates can be increased.

>But what does this have to do with a wealth tax? The entire concept is stupid.

Why do you think that?

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#267

Post by johnnyanmac »

terminalshort wrote: post #146
mattmanser wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see any other solution, can you explain it? The ultra-rich are taking too great a share of every nations wealth. And they keep taking more. Taxes are the only option to redistribute wealth. Or are you talking about enabling strong unions and anti-monopoly laws with teeth to reverse the growth? As I doubt Garry's in favour of that either.

Taking? From who? They got this money by appropriation and not by mutually agreed upon transactions?

Taking via

- government lobbying for tax codes and loopholes, made specifically to benefit them

- abuse of various systems like H1B's and even SNAP (e.g. Wal-Mart) to subsidize their lack of payment to american taxpayers

- extracting value from public research (funded by taxpayers) and creating private products for sale. Sometimes they may even try to patent such breakthroughs for themelves despite public invention

- engaging in dark patterns and anti-competitive, anti-union behavior to extract wealth in ways that would potentially be proven illegal... had they not paid off the judges

- Performing untold of, actually illegal grifts (cases like SBF are only the tip of the iceberg)

And at this rate we may have to throw in "abusing funds to protect against the most heinous criminals imaginable".

Need I go on? There's pratically no such thing as a billionaire who earned their net worth.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#269

Post by johnnyanmac »

diggyhole wrote: post #33
vincentjiang wrote: post #4

hate to see that tech leaders getting into politics

Or do you hate that their politics don't align with yours?

I hate that their politic's explicit goal is to make my, yours, and everyone else's lives actively worse. Government is not a business.

We're not getting better healthcare, more and better jobs, more efficient transportation, better city infrastructure, nor more houses. We aren't even getting the cool things shown in cyberpunk dystopias. Hell, we can't even ask for them to follow the law these days.

Why would I want to support them getting into politics? There's a difference betweeen them having different thoughts on how fund, say, self drving cars (which I'm not a fan of) and then all of that above.

Re: Y Combinator CEO Garry Tan launches dark-money group to influence CA politics

#270

Post by johnnyanmac »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #100
shimman wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone should hate people that believe in undemocratic principles.

Hot take: what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump? If something can't go on forever, it will eventually stop. That applies to any system that gives stupid people the same political voice as the rest of the electorate. I mean, it seems kind of obvious, doesn't it?

>what has democracy done for us lately? Besides re-electing Donald Trump?

You have the order backwards. This is their exact strategy; spend decades breaking government then have the breakers say "see? government is broken!". Lack of functioning democracy got us Donald Trump.

Why do you think this year they are so gung ho on trying to disenfranchise voters for a midterm? Because they know they are cooked if democracy starts to work again. If nothing else, Mamdami's 6 weeks show exactly how a "government that works for its people" can work. Let's keep pushing for that.

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