4 ms·
I'm just saying that, sure, that $500mn purchase doesn't exclusively benefit Americans, but if you want to force all Americans to 'Buy American,' don't be surpr
by RC_ITR 5y ago
I'm just saying that, sure, that $500mn purchase doesn't exclusively benefit Americans, but if you want to force all Americans to 'Buy American,' don't be surprised when your employer's earnings/valuation go down because foreign customers stop buying their products as their economies shrink.
If your argument is that we should 'Buy American' to subsidize low-skill/low-income workers while limiting the earning potential of high-skill/high-income workers, then I dig it, but honestly the easier/better solution is a more progressive tax regime/welfare state.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoWe're talking about tax and the ultra-wealthy. We're talking about what happens when the world's richest person (+/- 2) spends US$500M of realized capital gains outside of the country of residence. I am not talking about "forc[ing] all Americans to "Buy American".
- RC_ITR 5y ago> It's important to keep in mind that even when that money is spent, there's no guarantee it'll be spent domestically. This is literally the comment I was replying to. As far as I can read, the parent comment was about the location of consumption and the effect that has on an economy (which I think is significantly more nuanced than the parent implied) It’s also 100% worth noting that we have no idea who bought those shares from Jeff (ignoring the fact that his liquidity is mostly from loans against his holdings). The US majorly benefits from foreigners buying shares in our companies and (surprise) that’s one of the major reasons we can support our trade imbalance. So I’m mostly just confused about your point, I guess? I think we agree that progressive taxation is probably good, but do we disagree about the effect that non-domestic consumption has on the US economy?