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Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

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Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#971
post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that employers are unfairly collecting economic rent from their employees doesn't require it to be a zero-sum game.

Who’s paying less than they expected in today’s market? If anything it’s the other way round right now—lots of people are taking jobs for more money than they expected.

It doesn't matter what's "expected in today's market" from this perspective, either, since the market can be extremely skewed in terms of bargaining power.

What matters is 1) how much wealth any given employee generates, and 2) how much of that generated wealth they retain. Anything that doesn't end up in their pockets, and is not a business expense otherwise, is economic rent collected by their employer.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#972
post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the serious wealth tax proposals I've seen have a rather high floor. A more practical hypothetical would be a person with 10m other assets worrying being taxed on the gains from their 5th vacation home.

This hasn't stopped people from complaining about things. My grandparents are constantly complaining about how the inheritance tax is going to prevent them from willing their timeshares to the family. Even if we show them the IRS website they don't believe us when we say it doesn't kick in below $12m.

I've encountered similar cases, though nothing that drastic, and it baffles me. There are plenty of real problems to complain about with the government, why do people go around inventing fake ones?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#973
post #247
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm more comfortable with wealth in the hands of progressive billionaires than a government that's likely to go on a regressive tear every four years.

You're making a big assumption that billionaires are or will remain "progressive," whatever that word means to you.

I mean it in the dictionary definition of the term: a person advocating or implementing social reform or new, liberal ideas. I'm aware there are conservative billionaires. I don't think that negates my view that you're more likely to see long term progress on many issues through private funding. US government budgets swing wildly every few years depending on what ideology is in power. By design, that's a conservative force (in the traditional sense). My government is simply not designed to do a lot of the things we sometimes want it to do, like cure malaria.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#974
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate the sentiment, but I'm more comfortable with wealth in the hands of progressive billionaires than a government that's likely to go on a regressive tear every four years.

False dichotomy?

Only because the comment I originally replied to started it billionaires should not exist at all.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#975

How can they even have 1100 employees? That's more than the East India Company needed to run a whole subcontinent, probably.

East India Company employed 260,000 soldiers alone, not even counting the entire rest of the company. That took 20 seconds to find. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company

To quote exec1995, I made the number up for dramatic effect.

https://twitter.com/OrwellNGoode/status/1537137362391678976/...

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#976

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…

What you say may sound good in theory. But how will you implement it?

Everyone who is worth billions has their worth in shares. so if it goes beyond a billion, you tax it away. What if it falls, will you give it back? so you will keep redistributing and giving it back?

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#977
post #933

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The extent of the point I'm trying to make is sense people are the only things making decisions any tax you can levy on a cooperation can be equivalently thought of as a bunch of taxes on individual people. The situations are the same

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#978

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

What exactly is the issue? Company predicts that the market is not going their way, and they are tightening their belt. Sucks to be on the receiving end, but are they supposed to keep all employees forever, business conditions be damned?

The issue is the complete lack of integrity.

Crypto is a fucking scam in the first place, so obviously I don't expect the CEO to have any sort of integrity at all, but deliberately overhiring people when they KNEW what their burn rate was... it's a whole new level of scum. Armstrong went from just another crypto dipshit to actively ruining people's livelihoods while taking a massive golden parachute.

Non of this is okay, it's not acceptable, and Coinbase (and the crypto industry as a whole) should be ashamed.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#979

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the point of a company is to provide a net value to society. This often (but not always) correlates with generating profits.

This comes up as excessively naive/idealistic and doesn't match up with the realities of the world.

The comment I replied to was making a normative statement, not a descriptive one. If we were talking about the realities of the world (which we weren't), then I would have agreed with you.

Re: Coinbase lays off around 1,100 employees

#980
post #890

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those loans have to be repaid. They aren’t a gift ffs.

They are repaid to the bank, which is obvious. No one said they are gifts. They are loaned at ridiculously low interest rates, and the government never sees an ounce of tax from the individual, which is the entire point. Like the person you replied to said, the mega-rich don't operate on income like the rest of us. Why does that make them completely immune to taxation?

How do you think those loans get paid?
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