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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#281

Post by Johnny555 »

jerry1979 wrote: post #278
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

Does that do something to the power relationships in the world?

The fact that you're even asking that is a reason we shouldn't have billionaires -- world power relationships shouldn't be based on the wealth of individual citizens.

For example, what did Musk really talk about when he met with the president of Brazil? Did he represent American interests, Amazon Inc's interests, or Elon Musk's interests?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#282

Post by googlryas »

Apocryphon wrote: post #235
googlryas wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain how it is a strawman? I've never seen any kind of wealth tax proposed that takes into account how the wealth was acquired, or what form the wealth was in.

It is an incredibly contrived, fantastical scenario that is too grating to even consider.

Of course it is a contrived, fantastical scenario. But the point is: Does it meaningfully deviate from the key points for any wealth tax scenario?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#283

Post by PuppyTailWags »

jerry1979 wrote: post #278
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

I'm not settled on this yet. I'm from the USA, and one thing that concerns me is the geopolitics of billionaires. What happens when USA taxes billionaires out of existence? Russia and China still have billionaires. Does that do something to the power relationships in the world? Is there such a thing as "our" billionaires? The other question I have has to do with feudalism. If we let "our" billionaires exist, does tha…

Chinese billionaires still only exist at the mercy of China. Jack Ma, anyone?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#284

Post by Johnny555 »

freyr wrote: post #277
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

Reminds of a CEO’s tweet yesterday that software engineers making $400k+ are the real problem, and it got lots of likes. Today we day a billion is too much. Where do you draw the line (obviously, start with the billionaires and not with the workers), and who gets to decide?

I don't think reaction to a twitter post is a good judge of how it would be received here -- many of the software engineers here are probably already earning over $400K in total comp. Well, at least before the recent market drop.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#286

Post by corrral »

adastra22 wrote: post #137
Johnny555 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

> Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealth tax on assets kicks in? In my experience from having known a couple of mega-rich CEOs, yes. Even those who are not principally driven by the money or three-commas social signaling,…

Cool. They can retire and one of the thousands of other people who can (and want to) do their job can step in. If that starts causing problems, companies need to work on training programs for their leadership. It'd be an amazing side-effect if this pushed us toward it being more common to "rise through the ranks" and end up CEO. And if it caused us to start generating tens of people with a $100m net worth for every one one billionaire we'd have had otherwise.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#287

Post by dlp211 »

evandale wrote: post #196
CardenB wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it is less about the tax revenue and more about preventing power imbalance. Why is it good to have so much power concentrated in the hands of one person?

I firmly believe Musk, Gates, and Buffet to name a few do more good with their money than if any government got their hands on it. Not all the billionaires are bad.

Taxes != spending so this is the wrong frame to view taxes through.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#288

Post by Aarostotle »

Johnny555 wrote: post #45
sillysaurusx wrote: post #15

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…

People keep pointing to Armstrong's $110M house like it's some sort of injustice. If you think billionaires should exist at all, then that's one of the least-bad injustices imaginable Ok, I'll admit it, billionaires should not exist at all, there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire. Will a CEO work less hard if he (and his peers) can only ever gain $100M in net worth before a wealt…

That's up to the CEO.

Recognize that you — and everyone else — are relying on him to work just as hard, to take on just as much responsibility, while sacrificing more and more for every incremental dollar of value he creates.

Your question implies a hope that the CEO will continue to take on massive responsibility and produce massive wealth, even when the main beneficiary of his productiveness will be the government, not him.

If he doesn't choose to work harder, every incremental dollar disappears and the scheme fails. What happens then?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#289

Post by vkou »

pojzon wrote: post #255
criley2 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically it was much, much worse. The only way you can make an argument for saying inequality is greater now (when global poverty/subsistence farming is at the lowest % since human settlement 12000 years ago) is to point to the sheer amount of wealth we generate compared to any other period and nit pick about it's allocation. That's fine, but if you want to go back to farming for your life, like most humans for m…

Thats completely true, tho a peasent was working for his master a lot less than we currently do for our masters. When we get 3days work week and 4 days of „time for my stuff” we can go back to discussing that.

The peasant was working for their master a lot less because if the master asked for more, the peasant would literally starve to death, because he wouldn't have enough hours in the day to work for himself.

The ruling class will happily soak up all spare productive capacity - and as the amount of work necessary to keep someone clothed, sheltered, and fed went down, that spare productive capacity grows, and more of it flows upwards.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#290

Post by qbasic_forever »

eweise wrote: post #274
qbasic_forever wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can put a wealth tax on billionaires without putting taxes on poverty level workers ($500/month in the US). You're making bizarre nonsensical arguments here--slippery slope, strawman, etc.

Most of the wealth is in unrealized gains. How do tax that? Let's say I buy a painting for $1 and discover its a Van Gogh. Now its worth $50 million. Should I be forced to sell it to pay taxes?

We already have this issue for our existing tax system. You have to declare your income and use a huge set of tax rules and laws to determine your AGI and appropriate tax bracket. Taxing billionaires changes nothing here other than deciding once your AGI has enough zeros you get more taxes applied.
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