4 ms·

> Nobody who's sitting on $50M of assets is a loser. First of all, we're not talking about "$50M of assets", we're talking about $50M ownership in your company

by bhupy 6y ago

> Nobody who's sitting on $50M of assets is a loser. First of all, we're not talking about "$50M of assets", we're talking about $50M ownership in your company. That is un-diversified. Second of all, a wealth tax necessarily means that you will have to relinquish ownership of your own company unless you're "a winner".

topaz0 6y ago
"relinquish ownership of your own company". Only down to the very generous floor of the wealth tax, and only in the very worst case where you have no other way to access liquidity based on the value of the company, which seems unlikely unless that value is extremely inflated. I see you make your case in a bunch of comments in this thread, and it seems to me applicable to a very narrow case, and even in that case doesn't have drastic consequences.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > very generous floor of the wealth tax > and it seems to me applicable to a very narrow case The floor of the wealth tax doesn't really refute the central argument, because it just means that it impacts anyone who owns a business worth over $50 million. This is a LOT of businesses in the US! > and even in that case doesn't have drastic consequences. That level of liquidation and lost ownership will have potentially disastrous ripple effects on the economy, because for a lot of companies, the theoretical market value — upon which one's theoretical net worth ("wealth") is calculated — is based in large part on that individual maintaining ownership and control of the company. Once a founder starts liquidating large portions of their wealth and divesting their ownership, it's difficult to predict what that could do to the value of the company, and consequently the value of pension funds and portfolios that rely on the stability of the corporate value, and ultimately impacts the employees of those very corporations.
  - theplague42 6y ago
    How many people have 100% ownership of a 50m business? How many people have more than 50/100m net worth (depending on the proposal) in the US?
    - bhupy 6y ago
      You have 2 knobs: - ownership percentage (0-100%) - company value (50M - $2T) The Cartesian product of all ownership * value that work out to > $50M is substantial enough that it's 1) probably not fair to individual business owners to force them to divest to raise a minuscule percentage of the Federal budget, and 2) probably not worth the potentially disastrous 2nd-order effects on pension funds and investment funds that are largely predicated on stable/competent corporate ownership. In any case, it sounds like you've conceded that there is a forced divestiture, and now the argument boils down to: "is that justified?"
      - OliverGilan 6y ago
        Just want to say I appreciate how civil you've been and thorough in replying to the comments. You've added so much knowledge and wisdom to this whole discussion I wish I could save all your comments.
  - tjpd 6y ago
    > The floor of the wealth tax doesn't really refute the central argument, because it just means that it impacts anyone who owns a business worth over $50 million. This is a LOT of businesses in the US! We can actually look at the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances and get a reasonable number here. Household's with >$50m are top 0.07% percentile and there are approximately 84k of them out of around 130 million households.... [1] https://cdn.dqydj.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/millionaires_in_america_5_10_2016.png https://cdn.dqydj.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/millionaire...

by bhupy 6y ago

topaz0 6y ago

"relinquish ownership of your own company". Only down to the very generous floor of the wealth tax, and only in the very worst case where you have no other way to access liquidity based on the value of the company, which seems unlikely unless that value is extremely inflated. I see you make your case in a bunch of comments in this thread, and it seems to me applicable to a very narrow case, and even in that case doesn't have drastic consequences.

bhupy 6y ago
> very generous floor of the wealth tax > and it seems to me applicable to a very narrow case The floor of the wealth tax doesn't really refute the central argument, because it just means that it impacts anyone who owns a business worth over $50 million. This is a LOT of businesses in the US! > and even in that case doesn't have drastic consequences. That level of liquidation and lost ownership will have potentially disastrous ripple effects on the economy, because for a lot of companies, the theoretical market value — upon which one's theoretical net worth ("wealth") is calculated — is based in large part on that individual maintaining ownership and control of the company. Once a founder starts liquidating large portions of their wealth and divesting their ownership, it's difficult to predict what that could do to the value of the company, and consequently the value of pension funds and portfolios that rely on the stability of the corporate value, and ultimately impacts the employees of those very corporations.
- theplague42 6y ago
  How many people have 100% ownership of a 50m business? How many people have more than 50/100m net worth (depending on the proposal) in the US?
  - bhupy 6y ago
    You have 2 knobs: - ownership percentage (0-100%) - company value (50M - $2T) The Cartesian product of all ownership * value that work out to > $50M is substantial enough that it's 1) probably not fair to individual business owners to force them to divest to raise a minuscule percentage of the Federal budget, and 2) probably not worth the potentially disastrous 2nd-order effects on pension funds and investment funds that are largely predicated on stable/competent corporate ownership. In any case, it sounds like you've conceded that there is a forced divestiture, and now the argument boils down to: "is that justified?"
    - OliverGilan 6y ago
      Just want to say I appreciate how civil you've been and thorough in replying to the comments. You've added so much knowledge and wisdom to this whole discussion I wish I could save all your comments.
- tjpd 6y ago
  > The floor of the wealth tax doesn't really refute the central argument, because it just means that it impacts anyone who owns a business worth over $50 million. This is a LOT of businesses in the US! We can actually look at the Fed's Survey of Consumer Finances and get a reasonable number here. Household's with >$50m are top 0.07% percentile and there are approximately 84k of them out of around 130 million households.... [1] https://cdn.dqydj.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/millionaires_in_america_5_10_2016.png https://cdn.dqydj.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/millionaire...