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

Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

coindesk.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

931–940 of 1001 posts

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#931

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #604
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…

A wealth tax implies a tax on unrealized appreciated assets, which is beyond bizarre IMHO. So you buy a house for $500k somewhere. It surges in value to $1.2 million. You therefore have an unrealized capital gain of $700k. You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it, and when you do you are going to pay a whopping amount of capital gain tax. But a wealth tax implies you pay that capital gain tax now. Okay…

Maybe billionaires should be forced to realize a fraction of those unrealized gains from time to time, and pay taxes on them.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#933

Post by sifar »

space_fountain wrote: post #896
sifar wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

corporations have personhood.

Sure, in some senses, but I think much of the logic there traces back to cooperations just being collections of people

No not in some sense but legally. And what the OP was saying that the tax burden is split unequally between individuals and corporations. While corporations enjoy the legal benefits of personhood, the same doesn't apply to them when it comes to taxation.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#934

Post by bojangleslover »

toephu2 wrote: post #170
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…

> there should be a heavy wealth tax that makes it hard to become a billionaire Why does everyone want to tax the billionaires? What are you going to get out of it? Do you think taxing the billionaires is actually going to help the poor people? If so, riddle me this: Name one efficiently-run government organization.

We will get something out of it, but only for a year or two. It won't go as far as you think.

https://taxdude.substack.com/p/should-we-actually-wealthtax-...

Now if your goal is just to spite them for the illusion of justice, there are other ways of doing that.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#935

Post by dlp211 »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #920
okasaki wrote: post #906

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the value of the land goes up with increased economic activity, but you're not economically active enough to continue living in the area, how is it unreasonable to be expected to sell? The other side of every "family was forced to sell" is "another family was very happy to move in".

What's the purpose of buying a house if you can't stay in it more or less indefinitely? (Yes, I know people sometimes buy houses planning to only stay in one place a few years, but I would wager most don't.)

You can stay in that house as long as you pay the property taxes. If you can't pay the property taxes, that is a forcing function to get you to move. You aren't entitled to live somewhere all your life. You aren't entitled to have your taxes be subsidized by the next generation of folks so that you can keep living somewhere. It is placing the burden on the next generation of people because you happened to be there first and creates bad market incentives.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#936

Post by entropi »

Aeolun wrote: post #649
Johnny555 wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that the same? If my house is worth $1M in 2022, I pay tax on that $1M of value. If it goes down in value to $500K in 2023 (and is reassessed), I'd pay tax on $500K value in 2023. If I own $1B of AMZN in 2022, I'd pay wealth tax on my $1B holdings in 2022, if the market tanks and AMZN is worth $50M in 2023, then I'd pay the wealth tax on $50M in 2023. Just as with property taxes, a wealth tax is generally annua…

It feels weird I’d have to pay anyone just for owning something. Besides, how would you price private companies? Are those just going to be free?

I mean, it also feels weird to have to pay anyone just for.. making money through labor. Why owning something should be any different than making the money to buy it in the first place? If anything, taxing money as it is earned really hurts the potential compounding effect.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#937

Post by manholio »

stevenjgarner wrote: post #604
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…

A wealth tax implies a tax on unrealized appreciated assets, which is beyond bizarre IMHO. So you buy a house for $500k somewhere. It surges in value to $1.2 million. You therefore have an unrealized capital gain of $700k. You are NEVER going to get that money until you sell it, and when you do you are going to pay a whopping amount of capital gain tax. But a wealth tax implies you pay that capital gain tax now. Okay…

The solution to these problems is not to tax the person, but the company itself: every year a certain faction of stock is nationalized and distributed to the population of the county without which the company would not be possible.

It's the only realistic option to provide a UBI: in a world where human capital is quickly depreciating, provide people with financial capital so that they can still be a part of the resource distribution and consumption game.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#938

Post by tomcam »

Johnny555 wrote: post #333
tomcam wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who determines excessive? How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires?

How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires The same way most of them do now -- through venture capital firms. Or maybe if they had more tax revenue, the US government could sponsor more speculative research and companies.

Venture capital firms are often formed by… billionaires, at last check.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#939

Post by tomcam »

Apocryphon wrote: post #416
Johnny555 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires The same way most of them do now -- through venture capital firms. Or maybe if they had more tax revenue, the US government could sponsor more speculative research and companies.

It would be nice if there was more public funding for basic research. Why aren't the benevolent billionaires this thread is talking about paying for that ?

Are Microsoft, Google, and Tesla not doing basic research?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#940

Post by tomcam »

epicide wrote: post #340
tomcam wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who determines excessive? How do high risk ideas get executed when there are no billionaires?

Perhaps part of the problem is that we incentivize high-risk ideas too much.

Well most high risk ideas fail, which is why it’s handy that we have billionaires willing to risk. Why should taxpayers be on the hook?
Post reply on HN