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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

#291

Post by johnnyanmac »

kadabra9 wrote: post #288
johnnyanmac wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. Can you engage with the real point instead of the Wikipedia figure I googled in 5 seconds?

I mean when you just make up a number, you should expect to be called out for it, lol. And I did engage with the real point. Even if it WAS 14 trillion dollars, that wouldn't fund the government for 2 years. And then what? Why is the solution for government bloat and inefficiency always just taking more?

>And I did engage with the real point

You did not and still are not. This isnt about making billionaires cover the entire country's budget. Its about making sure power doesn't consolidate in any one person.

Do I really need to repost the other 80% of my comment (the entire 2.point?) Which part of "high corporate taxes mean business owners invest in business" needs clarification? Are we suggesting that the tax codes in which the baby boomers boomed under did not in fact make America Great?

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

#292

Post by CamperBob2 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #271
CamperBob2 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs...? Answer: because they're stupid. The ones who weren't stupid were impossible to herd to the polls, or at least a lot more difficult. As a result they were outnumbered. Any system that removes the influences you cite will leave the same stupid voters in place, ready to fall for the next con man who comes along. The problem isn't the money. The p…

>why did they give up their agency to these shadowy media oligarchs decades tearing down education is paying its dues. Once again, from the people who are making you feel like democracy isn't working. >I'm tired of giving stupid people so much power over my life. If power is money, boomers still have a lot of power. And they leveraged politics their whole lives to benefit them (even if destruction of the younger gene…

I disagree that education had any meaningful part to play. It's true that less-educated people were more inclined to vote for Trump, but it's also true that we got all the "education" about Trump between 2016 and 2020 that anyone should have needed.

You can fix ignorance with education, but you can't fix stupidity.

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

#293

Post by nullocator »

andy_ppp wrote: post #117
terminalshort wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizens United was the correct decision. I don't understand how you can legitimately restrict political activity. The constitution contains the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. Why should certain groups of people not have this right? The constitution also contains the right to freedom of the press. Why should the government get to decide who gets to exercise this right?

Every other country on earth has spending limits, the constitution isn’t perfect and it’s being dismantled by the current regime. Maybe it could be updated to say covering up for pedo billionaires should carry extremely harsh sentences, for example…

Not sure that would be enough given the regime and specifically the current supreme court. Such amendments to the constitution would be met with interpretations like "ackshually this country has a long and honored tradition of protecting pedos and the major questions doctrine (a thing we kinda just made up) says that we gotta ignore the text of the constitution and instead just vibes decide that pedos are a-okay in our book" [applies to literally any subject]

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

#295

Post by kadabra9 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #291
kadabra9 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean when you just make up a number, you should expect to be called out for it, lol. And I did engage with the real point. Even if it WAS 14 trillion dollars, that wouldn't fund the government for 2 years. And then what? Why is the solution for government bloat and inefficiency always just taking more?

>And I did engage with the real point You did not and still are not. This isnt about making billionaires cover the entire country's budget. Its about making sure power doesn't consolidate in any one person. Do I really need to repost the other 80% of my comment (the entire 2.point?) Which part of "high corporate taxes mean business owners invest in business" needs clarification? Are we suggesting that the tax codes i…

You’re discussing raising corporate or individual income tax rates.

I’m discussing a proposed broad wealth tax on unrealized gains and assets.

The tax rates of the 50s were high, but were filled with loopholes and deductions in that the effective tax rate that was actually paid was much lower.

There are arguments to be made how much those policies contributed to the boom of that decade, but those are separate to arguments about the practical, legal, or efficiency concerns with just imposing a 5% levy across all assets and net worth

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

#296

Post by [deleted] »

terminalshort wrote: post #180
toraway wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's stopping him? Are we all required to be cheering him on for it too?

No one is stopping him, but they would be if the people in this comment section had their way. You are absolutely not required to cheer him on, and in fact you have the right to oppose him. But that isn't happening here. Nobody in these comments is exercising their first amendment rights to argue against any of his political opinions. They are using their first amendment rights to argue that the government should use…

[deleted]

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

#297

Post by root_axis »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #260
root_axis wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we need to get money out of politics Not really possible. There's at least 40 more years of citizens united before any practical ability to restrict money in politics becomes constitutional again. > we need to seriously reconsider how democracy works because it’s currently failing everyone but the ultra wealthy Not true. The plurality that voted in the current administration are generally pleased with the state of…

> but this is what more people wanted. You haven't even tried checking 2026 approval ratings, have you?

His approval has been hovering around 40%, which is pretty typical for him and is still higher than his lowest levels in term one. He has a lot of opposition, but most of those are people who voted against him. Those that did vote for him are generally pleased.

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

#298

Post by airstrike »

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 are conflating the tax revenue from a wealth tax with "funding the government for a year" which is precisely a balance vs cash flow mistake like you rightfully pointed out to someone else in the thread.

So given the government will still collect taxes for every foreseeable year, I ask you, what impact would it have if we used it not to fund the government but to pay down some of the debt?

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

#299

Post by kadabra9 »

airstrike wrote: post #298
kadabra9 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are conflating the tax revenue from a wealth tax with "funding the government for a year" which is precisely a balance vs cash flow mistake like you rightfully pointed out to someone else in the thread. So given the government will still collect taxes for every foreseeable year, I ask you, what impact would it have if we used it not to fund the government but to pay down some of the debt?

The US debt is nearly 39 trillion dollars.

Confiscating all of the assets of the nation’s billionaires wealth would yield 6-8T, depending on what kind creative accounting is done in anticipation of a wealth tax.

So yeah it would help reduce the debt slightly but doesn’t address the bigger culprit - spending and government inefficiency and bloat

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

#300

Post by kadabra9 »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #282
phendrenad2 wrote: post #29

It's way too early to fix California. The average California voter, which HN is a good sampling of by the way, really believes that California is fine, and that there's no corruption or grift, and that they can tax billionaires more without them simply leaving the state (because CA is magical and unique (it's the 4th largest economy in the world, don't you know!) and they'll come crawling back to be a part of it). It…

>and that they can tax billionaires more without them simply leaving the state (because CA is magical and unique (it's the 4th largest economy in the world, don't you know!) and they'll come crawling back to be a part of it) more like because data from other wealth taxes has shown that millionaires don't leave that easily. If they are, they are replaced by others https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DXZMXZCY0I >People pu…

In 2022 Norway increased wealth tax to 1.1%, expected to bring in an additional $146M tax revenue.

Individuals with a net worth of $54B left the country, led to a $594M loss in tax revenue.

https://citizenx.com/insights/norway-wealth-exodus/

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