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You have to read these kind of pieces from the frame of: the author does not think anyone should have $300 billion in net worth. Until Elon Musk is worth far l

You have to read these kind of pieces from the frame of: the author does not think anyone should have $300 billion in net worth. Until Elon Musk is worth far less than this, the author is going to find ways to frame him as not paying sufficient tax. It's not about the income tax, or capital gains, or any of the details. It's about Elon having "money". The article does not attempt a good-faith argument, and it's a mistake to engage with it on those terms.

beepbooptheory 5y ago
Just curious but what is the significance of scare quoting "money" here?
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I don't really view questionably-liquid stock in your own company, which has run up in value over the past year largely because of QE and other Fed money-pumping, as dollars in the bank. Elon has a lot of paper money but it's not like he can trade it for $300 billion in potatoes even if the fancy struck him — any time he sells even 10% of his assets, the valuation (and thus the value of the remainder) drops massively.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    So it seems like your critique here is overdetermined: you want to say that the author has certain ideological biases relating to wealth in general, which are mobilized in a certain disingenuous rhetoric towards fallacious arguments, but at the same time you want to say that even if they weren't biased or fallacious, they are wrong to attribute the amount of wealth to Elon that would justify the critiques in the first place. Is that right?
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think the statement simply highlights the fallacy of the authors argument. There is a selective failure to differentiate wealth and income.
  - noahtallen 5y ago
    While that’s definitely accurate, that stock is a better asset than cash most of the time. There’s a reason most rich people have their wealth in stocks: because it’s more effective in the long run for generating wealth than hard cash. So I don’t think saying “it’s just in a semi-illiquid asset” really detracts from the fact that it’s a huge amount of wealth. In fact, if it was all in cash, Elon would be “worse off” in the long run. (In that it wouldn’t be able to grow the way that it needs to to generate more wealth.) Obviously there is more nuance, but “it’s not real money” is a very common counterpoint to someone saying “they are very rich,” and usually used to make it seem like the rich person isn’t as rich. But they’re actually richer for having stocks.

beepbooptheory 5y ago

Just curious but what is the significance of scare quoting "money" here?

bpodgursky 5y ago
I don't really view questionably-liquid stock in your own company, which has run up in value over the past year largely because of QE and other Fed money-pumping, as dollars in the bank. Elon has a lot of paper money but it's not like he can trade it for $300 billion in potatoes even if the fancy struck him — any time he sells even 10% of his assets, the valuation (and thus the value of the remainder) drops massively.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  So it seems like your critique here is overdetermined: you want to say that the author has certain ideological biases relating to wealth in general, which are mobilized in a certain disingenuous rhetoric towards fallacious arguments, but at the same time you want to say that even if they weren't biased or fallacious, they are wrong to attribute the amount of wealth to Elon that would justify the critiques in the first place. Is that right?
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    I think the statement simply highlights the fallacy of the authors argument. There is a selective failure to differentiate wealth and income.
- noahtallen 5y ago
  While that’s definitely accurate, that stock is a better asset than cash most of the time. There’s a reason most rich people have their wealth in stocks: because it’s more effective in the long run for generating wealth than hard cash. So I don’t think saying “it’s just in a semi-illiquid asset” really detracts from the fact that it’s a huge amount of wealth. In fact, if it was all in cash, Elon would be “worse off” in the long run. (In that it wouldn’t be able to grow the way that it needs to to generate more wealth.) Obviously there is more nuance, but “it’s not real money” is a very common counterpoint to someone saying “they are very rich,” and usually used to make it seem like the rich person isn’t as rich. But they’re actually richer for having stocks.