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I, too, would love to live in this magical world of bad math. Let's check your numbers one at a time. Here's your premise: > If every US citizen was required

I, too, would love to live in this magical world of bad math. Let's check your numbers one at a time. Here's your premise: > If every US citizen was required to pay a one-time tax of $200 towards the fund, that'd be close to $70B, which is a good start. At a conservative 5% annual return, the fund would begin growing by $3.5B/yr. After 3 generations, or 60 years, the fund would probably be over half a trillion dollars and increasing faster than ever. In another 3 generations, just part of the return could pay everyones' taxes and still have plenty left to keep growing the fund. 260 million US adults * $200 = $52,000,000,000 invested in 2022 (already off by 25% in step 1... let's see where this goes) $52 billion at 5% annually = $2,600,000,000 / year Per your instructions ("3 generations, or 60 years"), we wait for 60 years, at which point the $52 billion will have grown to $971 billion. Wait another 60 years ("another 3 generations"), at which point the fund has grown to $18 trillion. So, it's now the year 2142. Your fund has $18 trillion to work with. The US population is only projected to grow to about 450 million, with about 350 million adults. At 5%, this would generate $900,000,000,000 / 350,000,000 = $2,571 each year per citizen. (at this point, you somehow came to the conclusion that the fund could generate $5 million annually per citizen, which is off by over 19,000%! Any time you have inputs like $200/person and outputs like $5 million/person, that's a sign that you might want to step back and reflect on your logic.) So already we're in a pretty disappointing place. All that work, over a century of saving, and we're only getting returns of $2.5k per person? But wait, it gets worse - $2.5k sounds like a modest amount of money in 2022. What kind of purchasing power will it have in 2142? Well, one way to guess is to see what $2.5k today would have equated to in 1902: About $75. That's how much extra purchasing power you'll be passing on to your great-great-great grandkids with this scheme. The equivalent of someone giving you a "free" $75/year, today. Congratulations, you've reinvented a savings account! If it were possible to park one-time investments of low amounts ($200) into low-risk vehicles (5%), wait a century or two, and get to "won't need to work or ever worry about housing and feeding themselves again" money, then our whole monetary system would have imploded long ago.

Maursault 4y ago
> I, too, would love to live in this magical world of bad math. You do, apparently, because your math is terrible. >Let's check your numbers one at a time. Here's your premise: >> If every US citizen was required to pay a one-time tax of $200 towards the fund, that'd be close to $70B, which is a good start. At a conservative 5% annual return, the fund would begin growing by $3.5B/yr. After 3 generations, or 60 years, the fund would probably be over half a trillion dollars and increasing faster than ever. In another 3 generations, just part of the return could pay everyones' taxes and still have plenty left to keep growing the fund. >260 million US adults * $200 = $52,000,000,000 invested in 2022 (already off by 25% in step 1... let's see where this goes) Hello, there are over 331M US citizens. Again with the terrible comprehension and a straw man, here you have inexplicably turned "US citizens" into "US adults". > $52 billion at 5% annually = $2,600,000,000 / year Being that you changed the premise, this calculation is wrong to begin with, and you've failed to understand the concept of compounding interest. Only the first year will $72B generate $3.6B. The second year, the principle has increased to $75.6B, so the interest gained increases to $3.78B, and so on and so forth. > Per your instructions ("3 generations, or 60 years"), we wait for 60 years, at which point the $52 billion will have grown to $971 billion. Wait another 60 years ("another 3 generations"), at which point the fund has grown to $18 trillion. Wrong, but again, you counted the number of US adults, not the number of US citizens. > So, it's now the year 2142. Your fund has $18 trillion to work with. The US population is only projected to grow to about 450 million, with about 350 million adults. I'm not sure why you are obsessed with US adults when population count includes everyone. >At 5%, this would generate $900,000,000,000 / 350,000,000 = $2,571 each year per citizen. (at this point, you somehow came to the conclusion that the fund could generate $5 million annually per citizen, which is off by over 19,000%! Any time you have inputs like $200/person and outputs like $5 million/person, that's a sign that you might want to step back and reflect on your logic.) Your straw men are coming apart, as now you've acknowledged I had referred to all citizens, not merely adults. Even with your misinterpretation of the premise, $2,571 will pay most of their income tax, as I had stipulated after that amount of time. But I was very specific about those returns after 14 generations, or 280 years, not half that, and not only "adults." Thus we are both also failing to account for continuing additions to the principle by all new borns, which is 3.8M born per year, which is an additional $760M added to the principle annually beyond the compounding interest. But this mistake only works against your argument and only benefits mine. You are intentionally misreading, misleading, oversimplifying and exaggerating. Your ability to reason, let alone calculate compounding interest, is deeply flawed, and your argument is riddled with fallacy. And this is no great surprise because you are obviously trolling me, thus explaining your absence of logic. You are clearly not interested in persuading but only in attempting to humiliate. This is a tell-tale symptom of toxic narcissism, which as often as not, can be cured in less than 2 years trolling your psychologist instead of me. As you're probably not suffering, it is unlikely you will seek corrective treatment, however, it is very likely you are causing suffering in those you actually do care about, so if you could keep them in mind, maybe there is hope for you. Good luck.
- strix_varius 4y ago
  I wish you luck in your investments, & encourage you to hire an accountant!

Maursault 4y ago

> I, too, would love to live in this magical world of bad math. You do, apparently, because your math is terrible. >Let's check your numbers one at a time. Here's your premise: >> If every US citizen was required to pay a one-time tax of $200 towards the fund, that'd be close to $70B, which is a good start. At a conservative 5% annual return, the fund would begin growing by $3.5B/yr. After 3 generations, or 60 years, the fund would probably be over half a trillion dollars and increasing faster than ever. In another 3 generations, just part of the return could pay everyones' taxes and still have plenty left to keep growing the fund. >260 million US adults * $200 = $52,000,000,000 invested in 2022 (already off by 25% in step 1... let's see where this goes) Hello, there are over 331M US citizens. Again with the terrible comprehension and a straw man, here you have inexplicably turned "US citizens" into "US adults". > $52 billion at 5% annually = $2,600,000,000 / year Being that you changed the premise, this calculation is wrong to begin with, and you've failed to understand the concept of compounding interest. Only the first year will $72B generate $3.6B. The second year, the principle has increased to $75.6B, so the interest gained increases to $3.78B, and so on and so forth. > Per your instructions ("3 generations, or 60 years"), we wait for 60 years, at which point the $52 billion will have grown to $971 billion. Wait another 60 years ("another 3 generations"), at which point the fund has grown to $18 trillion. Wrong, but again, you counted the number of US adults, not the number of US citizens. > So, it's now the year 2142. Your fund has $18 trillion to work with. The US population is only projected to grow to about 450 million, with about 350 million adults. I'm not sure why you are obsessed with US adults when population count includes everyone. >At 5%, this would generate $900,000,000,000 / 350,000,000 = $2,571 each year per citizen. (at this point, you somehow came to the conclusion that the fund could generate $5 million annually per citizen, which is off by over 19,000%! Any time you have inputs like $200/person and outputs like $5 million/person, that's a sign that you might want to step back and reflect on your logic.) Your straw men are coming apart, as now you've acknowledged I had referred to all citizens, not merely adults. Even with your misinterpretation of the premise, $2,571 will pay most of their income tax, as I had stipulated after that amount of time. But I was very specific about those returns after 14 generations, or 280 years, not half that, and not only "adults." Thus we are both also failing to account for continuing additions to the principle by all new borns, which is 3.8M born per year, which is an additional $760M added to the principle annually beyond the compounding interest. But this mistake only works against your argument and only benefits mine. You are intentionally misreading, misleading, oversimplifying and exaggerating. Your ability to reason, let alone calculate compounding interest, is deeply flawed, and your argument is riddled with fallacy. And this is no great surprise because you are obviously trolling me, thus explaining your absence of logic. You are clearly not interested in persuading but only in attempting to humiliate. This is a tell-tale symptom of toxic narcissism, which as often as not, can be cured in less than 2 years trolling your psychologist instead of me. As you're probably not suffering, it is unlikely you will seek corrective treatment, however, it is very likely you are causing suffering in those you actually do care about, so if you could keep them in mind, maybe there is hope for you. Good luck.

strix_varius 4y ago
I wish you luck in your investments, & encourage you to hire an accountant!