Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

old.reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 504 posts

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#421

Post by [deleted] »

johnnyanmac wrote: post #299
throwaway22032 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always funny to read this sort of thing because it's like you're so close to connecting the dots but don't quite get it. Is it not entirely logical that a cohort that actually pays attention to where 20%, 30%, 40% of their money is going ends up wealthier than one that doesn't?

It may be a horshoe (the poor need to manage every peeny, the hyper rich distort society to minmax their riches), but the American Dream died decades ago. You can't just follow some financial wellness workshop to "save money" when you can't barely pay rent as is. Hard works correlation with wealth has decreased dramatically, very quickly

[deleted]

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#422

Post by throwaway22032 »

littlestymaar wrote: post #417
throwaway22032 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's always funny to read this sort of thing because it's like you're so close to connecting the dots but don't quite get it. Is it not entirely logical that a cohort that actually pays attention to where 20%, 30%, 40% of their money is going ends up wealthier than one that doesn't?

> Is it not entirely logical that a cohort that actually pays attention to where 20%, 30%, 40% of their money is going ends up wealthier than one that doesn't? Many if not most rich never got rich, they happened to be born rich. In the situation I'm talking about, the said family has been wealthy for two centuries. And my in-laws are significantly less well-off than the generation before. Their ancestors may have bee…

It seems that you agree that they are wealthier than they would otherwise be because they try to minimise taxes.

The rest of your comment seems to be a political commentary on whether inheritance is legitimate. You're entitled to your opinion, but it comes across a bit like sour grapes to me.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#423

Post by adastra22 »

Olreich wrote: post #395
waihtis wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not, it's literally what it is. Per default, accumulating wealth contains risks for the individual attempting to do so, and increasingly more and more of the wealth is stripped away while reducing none of the risk. Thats absolutely theft.

Theft is illegally taking something. Taxes are part of the legal system. Literally not theft. Ethically is it right to increase the risk to accumulate wealth? That depends on what you buy with that risk. It’s well-established that people will take risks for fun, and they’ll take significantly more risk when security for themselves and their family is on the line. Folks with hundreds of millions or billions in assets…

Theft/stealing is a concept that predates the idea of law and legal systems. The very first legal system talk about “stealing” and punishment for thieves without having to define the word.

I disagree with the guy upthread, but it’s a bit dense to say that taxes being theft is oxymoronic when you clearly understand what he meant.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#424

Post by AndrewKemendo »

adastra22 wrote: post #313
ta_1138 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that minimizing taxes becomes their #1 priority? What actually happens is that they tell the guy handling your finances to save them some money, and that's their problem. And given their fee structure, they'll go as far as they need to, even though the rich person in question doesn't really think about their taxes all that much. This is the real multiplicative effect of being really rich: It's not kn…

Nah I’ve met a fair number of mega-high wealth individuals. They would go so far as to pick a materially worse deal that allowed them to pay no taxes, over a higher payout that required some taxes paid. It is nuts.

I can confirm that I’ve seen the same.

I don’t think people have fully put together that the same personality type that was a slave owner prior to the 1900s is the same personality type of a venture founder, investor, venture, capitalist, banker, etc…

That is to say their goal in getting rich is to have a dictatorship, not necessarily simply to have a nice boat and a house and raise a family

The goal of the mega rich is the same as it always in history, which is to dominate enslave and basically shape the world to what they want it to look like without being intermediated by people with less power.

Further the more wealth people have, in my personal experience, the less they want to have any constraints by other organizations, specifically governments they disagree with.

If people haven’t, they should read about the “business plot”

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#425

Post by CleanRoomClub »

valval wrote: post #396
T4iga wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fulfilling your obligation to a society that brought you riches, however much risk you took and however much hard work vs luck that was, is not theft. Fueling that society, so that it can persist for your well-being is your obligation as a citizen. If you fully play out your argument, the least wealthy and least successful deserve it the most to have their remaining wealth taken because they are not assuming any risk…

The line of thinking we’re trying to get across to you here is best put like this I find; even if 99% of the village thinks it’s a good idea to march into the most productive individual’s house and rob it clean, it doesn’t become morally right to do so.

I like Ayn Rand as much as the next HN consumer, but let’s be a bit more judicious in how we apply her ideals.

If you earned your wealth through driving on public roads, after receiving a public education, without it actually being blatantly stolen due to a public police force, etc etc etc.

Then it is also your responsibility to pay for these items so that they dan continue to be used for future generation.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#426

Post by throwaway48476 »

dendrite9 wrote: post #356
shigawire wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I (not the previous poster) envision this working is not that you can opt out of taxes, but you can skip certain items. So I don't pay Israel's defense budget, but that money is reallocated evenly to everything else. I find it hard to believe a meaningful number of people would opt out of libraries and schools assuming their overall tax burden is unchanged.

This sounds like a good way to accidentally create an industry of reverse lobbyists where the government contracts them to convince tax payers to allocate money to their department. I might be too pessimistic though, I tend towards liking the idea but I'm concerned about the changes it could cause.

That already happens. Why else would Northrop advertise a stealth jet at the superbowl.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#427

Post by loeg »

w4 wrote: post #404
zkelvin wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing unrealized capital gains already isn't all that radical -- property tax is effectively a tax on unrealized gains of property value, and essentially every municipality has that tax.

In addition to what everyone has already said, property taxes paid are also very explicitly deductible from income taxes. They’re more like an indirect transfer from the Federal government to municipalities, and don’t necessarily result in a substantial aggregate increase in tax burdens.

Deductible modulo SALT cap.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#428

Post by dsign »

chii wrote: post #337
adastra22 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah I’ve met a fair number of mega-high wealth individuals. They would go so far as to pick a materially worse deal that allowed them to pay no taxes, over a higher payout that required some taxes paid. It is nuts.

> They would go so far as to pick a materially worse deal that allowed them to pay no taxes, over a higher payout that required some taxes paid. I find that hard to believe. I highly suspect that the "materially worse" deal you speak of is simply less liquid cash, but more retained wealth.

As a poor person who doesn't fully own his own house but pays in taxes 60% of their income, and much of the rest in house loan interest and principal, I can see how that would play in my own case. If I were to come up onto a lump sum of money by, say, some creative endeavor of mine, and that money is going to be taxed at a 65% tax (such is the law in Sweden for income taxes), I might consider to do a number of things with that money that prevents that tax from being realized, including donating it to charities or investing it in hopeless enterprises. After all, if I can't enjoy the money myself, but I have a bit of agency over it, well the least I can do is enjoy that agency.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#429

Post by ripe »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #372
dymk wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare, school lunches, diversion programs, research grants

The US already spends more on healthcare than just about every other country and the inefficiency of that spending is an obvious problem that should probably be addressed before throwing any more money into the fire. But if it was addressed then the amount of spending needed would go down rather than up . That other stuff doesn't even cost a significant amount of money by comparison and could be well-funded from the…

Our healthcare is horribly wasteful and inefficient. But since the US government isn't in charge of it for most people, you can't blame them here. Our ultra-capitalist healthcare "system" achieved this spectacular waste all by itself.

Re: Buy, Borrow, Die – Explained

#430

Post by adastra22 »

dsign wrote: post #428
chii wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They would go so far as to pick a materially worse deal that allowed them to pay no taxes, over a higher payout that required some taxes paid. I find that hard to believe. I highly suspect that the "materially worse" deal you speak of is simply less liquid cash, but more retained wealth.

As a poor person who doesn't fully own his own house but pays in taxes 60% of their income, and much of the rest in house loan interest and principal, I can see how that would play in my own case. If I were to come up onto a lump sum of money by, say, some creative endeavor of mine, and that money is going to be taxed at a 65% tax (such is the law in Sweden for income taxes), I might consider to do a number of things…

But would you just say “no thanks, I don’t want the money if it’s going to be taxed”? That’s what was going on here.
Post reply on HN