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OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

theguardian.com

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Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#71

Post by cmrdporcupine »

bilekas wrote: post #21

This feels a bit off.. How is the government supposed to be able to regulate them impartially when they're literally invested in them. What if a competitive startup startup starts to really take away from OpenAi's profits and then all of a sudden requires some approval for merger with Anthropic for example, I don't know if I would trust the government to be fair in their decision here. Leaving aside the potential for…

The Trump/Bessent/Lutnick grouping has no interest in regulating "impartially." Quite the opposite. That's the illusion of US capitalism 30 years ago.

Today's is explicitly more like Putin's Russia: the state has been captured by a series of private interests, one of whom is kingmaker, and you have to pay to play.

It's transactional and parasitical, not bureaucratic or regulatory. As long as the King and his friends get their cut your bridge can open, your new AI model can launch, or the US gov't will back up your crazy business with gov't debt.

It's not a stable system, but it's a system.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#72

Post by ProllyInfamous »

myrmidon wrote: post #62
ProllyInfamous wrote: post #19

I know OpenAI has delayed their IPO by a year (i.e. not publicly traded, yet; so: no dividends), but wouldn't it be better for the Government/bottom 95% if instead of taking ownership, they taxed all tech-related stocks 5% every time they're traded – this is a perpetual stream of income, and would likely reduce speculative short-term trading... source: middle-aged electrician, owns a little stock (and would happily p…

An interesting proposition. Not sure if the outcome would be good, though; one result could be that "tech-related stocks" just stop being traded directly by bigger players, and people instead trade assets that hold such stocks (which reduces trade volume, and might result in the "trade tax" only being paid by small traders like you). I find the concept of taxing stock trades in general interesting, but I believe it c…

>I find the concept of taxing stock trades in general interesting, but I believe it could have a bunch of undesirable side-effects.

My most-desired effect would be to reduce stocks that are traded (roundtrip: bought and sold) within MICROseconds. Even adding a 0.5% tax on all short-term holdings (i.e. less than a year held, within US) would effectively prevent non-human trading from occuring. I've worked in multiple datacenters in my career, and fibercable length can literally be a detectable factor/handicap [so exchanges e.g. make all cables the same length!].

Fun fact: 2025 was the first year that most publicly-traded stocks were transacted (officially) within darkpools (i.e. not sold on public exchanges, reducing the true effect of "price discovery").

----

I live in a workingclass neighborhood, and am bluecollar myself; most of my friends/family/clients are Top 5%ers... their failure at perspective is that crimes happen for reasons... and a major reason on my street is literally that single mothers are starving in order to feed their children. If a man is around, he's probably not the father, and is probably living as another child to both Momma and BigGov (certainly not working; with rare exception, the only men that work on my street live alone).

In a non-military sense, "eating crayons" is similar in compliment: it's a satyrical poke at self that one might be highly "regarded" == not wise in a traditional sense [" 'g'==>'t' "]. But seriously folks: don't eat crayons ("silver" tastes best and makes sparklypoo).

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#73

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #65
glimshe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrifying idea that would destroy the tech stock market as we know it. We already have incentives in capital gain taxes to encourage longer term ownership. Feel free to send a 5% donation to the government in your taxes every time you trade your tech stocks.

This is an order of magnitude less than Bernie's 50% per-tech-trade tax (obviously impossible & bad), which he suggested as a means to fund the inevitable UBI [turns out former presidentical candiate Michael Yang wasn't wrong, just early , with his 2020 prediction]. Having never sold any stock on a short-term basis (i.e. I am a long-term value investor), I also disagree on the abysmally low tax rates I pay for long-t…

It's not about the aggregate tax burden. You're a long-term value investor because you live in a country where stock trading is an easy and low-friction thing the average person can do. A 5% transaction tax isn't really compatible with that; we would end up regressing to the global norm, where stocks are an esoteric hobby for rich people and the normal way to save for retirement is a savings account or cash piles under your mattress.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#74

Post by glimshe »

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #65
glimshe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a terrifying idea that would destroy the tech stock market as we know it. We already have incentives in capital gain taxes to encourage longer term ownership. Feel free to send a 5% donation to the government in your taxes every time you trade your tech stocks.

This is an order of magnitude less than Bernie's 50% per-tech-trade tax (obviously impossible & bad), which he suggested as a means to fund the inevitable UBI [turns out former presidentical candiate Michael Yang wasn't wrong, just early , with his 2020 prediction]. Having never sold any stock on a short-term basis (i.e. I am a long-term value investor), I also disagree on the abysmally low tax rates I pay for long-t…

The issues you raise aren't fixed by your proposal. A 5% transaction tax will hurt both the rich and small investors.

If you want to tax the rich, raise the cap on the capital gain tax rates for higher income (we already have the NIIT but you could raise it). If you think that capital gain taxes are unfairly low - they aren't, but let's say they are - just raise them. But a transaction tax is regressive and nonsensical. Being better than Sanders' proposals is no consolation in my book.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#75

Post by cucumber3732842 »

bilekas wrote: post #21

This feels a bit off.. How is the government supposed to be able to regulate them impartially when they're literally invested in them. What if a competitive startup startup starts to really take away from OpenAi's profits and then all of a sudden requires some approval for merger with Anthropic for example, I don't know if I would trust the government to be fair in their decision here. Leaving aside the potential for…

>This feels a bit off.. How is the government supposed to be able to regulate them impartially when they're literally invested in them.

Was the government impartial to begin with? Or were they stomping things and handing out favorable treatment based on the political whims of the minute?

Seems to me like "hey buddy you own some (but not too much) of this too so play the long game" provides somewhat of a counter incentive.

Will it work? Will it do the opposite and make things worse? Heck if I know.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#77

Post by khalic »

gordonhart wrote: post #22
khalic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes are theft lol what a weird way to start this post

Objectively it’s absurd to have an organization take a significant portion of your money on threat of imprisonment just to invest it in a corporation

First, the form: Starting a sentence with Objectively is not a magic way to make the sentence objective. It's a declaration of your intent to be objective, which isn't the case here, you're doing a reductio ad absurdum.

Second, the actual issue: socialisation of common costs seems reasonable to me. You use it, you participate, it's not an absurd concept.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#78

Post by red-iron-pine »

Sol- wrote: post #24

Seems to be a very bad mechanism to ensure democratic control of the technology. There must be better ways, even naively assuming that OpenAI is somehow genuine about wanting to broadly share its stake in the future.

what about the behavior of the US government currently has you thinking it would be democratic?

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#79

Post by exabrial »

gordonhart wrote: post #22
khalic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxes are theft lol what a weird way to start this post

Objectively it’s absurd to have an organization take a significant portion of your money on threat of imprisonment just to invest it in a corporation

Precisely. But don’t worry a bunch of responders will soon tell you that the end justifies the means.

Re: OpenAI ‘in early talks to give 5% stake to US government’

#80

Post by stetrain »

bityard wrote: post #10
micromacrofoot wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thats for employees so they don't profit from government deals

You're saying it's not bribery if the CEO does it?

Have any CEOs been held criminally liable for bribing government officials lately?
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