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I think your premise that they will experience French Revolution like consequences is overlooking the fact that unlike the 1700s. Up and taking your money to an

I think your premise that they will experience French Revolution like consequences is overlooking the fact that unlike the 1700s. Up and taking your money to another country that still likes you is the click of a mouse and a private jet flight out. So no they won’t capitulate to higher taxes of earlier times. They will just leave. Like they already are at the threat of it.

adjkant 6y ago
Maybe a percentage will, but I think when people are trying to guess and assume what these people will do as "rational economic agents", they miss the human factors. No one is going to pick where they go to college based on the taxes on the ultra-rich unless they are obsessed with money. Once rich, are you going to uproot yourself entirely from any family, friends, and connections in the US? You have to consider that rational economic behavior still has to consider what the point of it all is, and money for the sake of money doesn't tend to be the answer even among the hyper-rich. What these people will come to terms with is a pretty age-old lesson - there are things more important than just how rich you are, and most of those are human. So long as they can maintain their lifestyle, I think many will want to stay. Needing to find 20K in a couch cushion to pay for your 5M in assets each year that you make 300K on won't be the thing that makes you move. Of course, the rich today also have many legal shields and layers that will protect them from real french revolution violence. But I think anyone can feel the shift right now. Go on Tiktok and see just how many young people are getting real into eating the rich :)
- DennisP 6y ago
  Changing countries is hard, but changing states is easy. People do it all the time. If you have a private jet for visits to other states, it's especially easy.
- admiralspoo 6y ago
  Plenty already have. Eric Schmidt, for example, is now a citizen of Cyprus https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rich-americans-increasingly-are-looking-for-second-passports/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rich-americans-increas...
  - Scarblac 6y ago
    Which is why the proposal is based on where time is spent, not what you're a citizen of.
    - daenz 6y ago
      Why does a wealthy citizen of another country have to physically spend 60 days in California? You're suggesting that the wording of the law is not trivial to circumvent, especially for people with large amounts of wealth.
      - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
        it's not like SF or NYC are tourists paradise. you cant walk down mission st without some random homeless person trying to attack you. Gavin Newsom and London Breed should just convert Moscone center into a homeless shelter. problem solved.
  - tafda 6y ago
    An EU passport is nice to have, doesn't look like he's moving out of California though: https://variety.com/2020/dirt/moguls/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-buys-31-million-santa-barbara-mansion-1234765879/ https://variety.com/2020/dirt/moguls/ex-google-ceo-eric-schm...
  - vondur 6y ago
    Not to mention Elon Musk, Joe Rogan. I’ve also seen a few high profile YouTuber’s leave recently too. The amount of people fleeing to Idaho from California is causing housing issues there.
- true_religion 6y ago
  You don't have to leave the US, just move back to the sanity that is called the "eastern seaboard". If we're comparing high-tax states, I think NY is better run, and more interesting overall than California. The only think Cali has going for it is tech (relatively unimportant to the super rich), and warm weather.
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    outside of the city, NY is sort of an odd proposition. beautiful place (much more so than the midatlantic, imo), but with surprisingly high taxes and overall COL for mostly rural areas.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    WA is way better than any eastern state for taxes.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > Maybe a percentage will, but I think when people are trying to guess and assume what these people will do as "rational economic agents", they miss the human factors. No one is going to pick where they go to college based on the taxes on the ultra-rich unless they are obsessed with money. Once rich, are you going to uproot yourself entirely from any family, friends, and connections in the US? You have to consider that rational economic behavior still has to consider what the point of it all is, and money for the sake of money doesn't tend to be the answer even among the hyper-rich. I think this is probably true once someone has a career and a family, but the college part doesn't pass the sniff test for me. the "just graduated college" group is probably the most mobile slice of the overall population. especially if you chose a college away from your hometown, you are pretty likely to either move back home or pursue a career somewhere else entirely at the end. I think other folks are also more mobile than you give them credit for. unless they currently have children in school, I find people are pretty likely to move if they see an opportunity for a significantly better combo of salary/COL/taxes.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
WealthVsSurvive 6y ago
And when those countries do the same and desperate people follow them for vengeance the world over, where will they go then?
caymanjim 6y ago
While this proposed California law is unlikely to be Constitutional, there are federal laws that prevent people from simply leaving the country and taking all their money with them to avoid taxes. You can try, and with good lawyers and accountants, you can certainly shelter a lot of it, but in the end you can't avoid tax liability just by leaving. Plenty of uberrich get away with it, but it's still not legal. You can't even completely avoid it by renouncing your citizenship if you're a dual national; there's still a liability. I know that the uberrich get away with dodging taxes all the time, but there are potentially high costs, like having your assets confiscated, or having to hide out in your island fortress and never return to the US lest you end up in prison.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
ashconnor 6y ago
Begs the question why haven't they left already. Is there some sweet spot of taxation before the majority the people being taxed resort to capital flight?
- imoverclocked 6y ago
  How many people do you know that have left all of their bad relationships on day 1?
matthewdgreen 6y ago
The idea here is that it’s easy to find a safe, welcoming host nation with low taxes, and still be able to benefit from the functioning economies of the nations you left behind. However this is a pretty artificial system that only exists when there’s a lot of broadly-shared wealth and stability in the world. This kind of capital flight to the bottom is going to systematically undermine that stability. At the point where things start to seriously malfunction, nobody’s going to give a crap about a little bit of tax.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
  Seriously. When 10000 m/billionaires decide to flee the states they're going to have bigger problems to contend with. These people have spent so many decades ignoring the poor they won't know they're actually fucked until their mansion in Beverly hills is on fire.

adjkant 6y ago

Maybe a percentage will, but I think when people are trying to guess and assume what these people will do as "rational economic agents", they miss the human factors. No one is going to pick where they go to college based on the taxes on the ultra-rich unless they are obsessed with money. Once rich, are you going to uproot yourself entirely from any family, friends, and connections in the US? You have to consider that rational economic behavior still has to consider what the point of it all is, and money for the sake of money doesn't tend to be the answer even among the hyper-rich. What these people will come to terms with is a pretty age-old lesson - there are things more important than just how rich you are, and most of those are human. So long as they can maintain their lifestyle, I think many will want to stay. Needing to find 20K in a couch cushion to pay for your 5M in assets each year that you make 300K on won't be the thing that makes you move. Of course, the rich today also have many legal shields and layers that will protect them from real french revolution violence. But I think anyone can feel the shift right now. Go on Tiktok and see just how many young people are getting real into eating the rich :)

DennisP 6y ago
Changing countries is hard, but changing states is easy. People do it all the time. If you have a private jet for visits to other states, it's especially easy.
admiralspoo 6y ago
Plenty already have. Eric Schmidt, for example, is now a citizen of Cyprus https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rich-americans-increasingly-are-looking-for-second-passports/ https://www.seattletimes.com/business/rich-americans-increas...
- Scarblac 6y ago
  Which is why the proposal is based on where time is spent, not what you're a citizen of.
  - daenz 6y ago
    Why does a wealthy citizen of another country have to physically spend 60 days in California? You're suggesting that the wording of the law is not trivial to circumvent, especially for people with large amounts of wealth.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      it's not like SF or NYC are tourists paradise. you cant walk down mission st without some random homeless person trying to attack you. Gavin Newsom and London Breed should just convert Moscone center into a homeless shelter. problem solved.
- tafda 6y ago
  An EU passport is nice to have, doesn't look like he's moving out of California though: https://variety.com/2020/dirt/moguls/ex-google-ceo-eric-schmidt-buys-31-million-santa-barbara-mansion-1234765879/ https://variety.com/2020/dirt/moguls/ex-google-ceo-eric-schm...
- vondur 6y ago
  Not to mention Elon Musk, Joe Rogan. I’ve also seen a few high profile YouTuber’s leave recently too. The amount of people fleeing to Idaho from California is causing housing issues there.
true_religion 6y ago
You don't have to leave the US, just move back to the sanity that is called the "eastern seaboard". If we're comparing high-tax states, I think NY is better run, and more interesting overall than California. The only think Cali has going for it is tech (relatively unimportant to the super rich), and warm weather.
- leetcrew 6y ago
  outside of the city, NY is sort of an odd proposition. beautiful place (much more so than the midatlantic, imo), but with surprisingly high taxes and overall COL for mostly rural areas.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  WA is way better than any eastern state for taxes.
leetcrew 6y ago
> Maybe a percentage will, but I think when people are trying to guess and assume what these people will do as "rational economic agents", they miss the human factors. No one is going to pick where they go to college based on the taxes on the ultra-rich unless they are obsessed with money. Once rich, are you going to uproot yourself entirely from any family, friends, and connections in the US? You have to consider that rational economic behavior still has to consider what the point of it all is, and money for the sake of money doesn't tend to be the answer even among the hyper-rich. I think this is probably true once someone has a career and a family, but the college part doesn't pass the sniff test for me. the "just graduated college" group is probably the most mobile slice of the overall population. especially if you chose a college away from your hometown, you are pretty likely to either move back home or pursue a career somewhere else entirely at the end. I think other folks are also more mobile than you give them credit for. unless they currently have children in school, I find people are pretty likely to move if they see an opportunity for a significantly better combo of salary/COL/taxes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

WealthVsSurvive 6y ago

And when those countries do the same and desperate people follow them for vengeance the world over, where will they go then?

caymanjim 6y ago

While this proposed California law is unlikely to be Constitutional, there are federal laws that prevent people from simply leaving the country and taking all their money with them to avoid taxes. You can try, and with good lawyers and accountants, you can certainly shelter a lot of it, but in the end you can't avoid tax liability just by leaving. Plenty of uberrich get away with it, but it's still not legal. You can't even completely avoid it by renouncing your citizenship if you're a dual national; there's still a liability. I know that the uberrich get away with dodging taxes all the time, but there are potentially high costs, like having your assets confiscated, or having to hide out in your island fortress and never return to the US lest you end up in prison.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

ashconnor 6y ago

Begs the question why haven't they left already. Is there some sweet spot of taxation before the majority the people being taxed resort to capital flight?

imoverclocked 6y ago
How many people do you know that have left all of their bad relationships on day 1?

matthewdgreen 6y ago

The idea here is that it’s easy to find a safe, welcoming host nation with low taxes, and still be able to benefit from the functioning economies of the nations you left behind. However this is a pretty artificial system that only exists when there’s a lot of broadly-shared wealth and stability in the world. This kind of capital flight to the bottom is going to systematically undermine that stability. At the point where things start to seriously malfunction, nobody’s going to give a crap about a little bit of tax.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
Seriously. When 10000 m/billionaires decide to flee the states they're going to have bigger problems to contend with. These people have spent so many decades ignoring the poor they won't know they're actually fucked until their mansion in Beverly hills is on fire.