6 ms·

Nobody with assets over 100m has a "pile of gold", as you put it. Those assets are always productively invested in some form or another. But you would prefer th

Nobody with assets over 100m has a "pile of gold", as you put it. Those assets are always productively invested in some form or another. But you would prefer that those investments be pulled, because the government are clearly much better at employing those assets productively?

kjkjadksj 2y ago
Its not a question of who is better at managing money but more who needs benefit in our society. The government supports welfare programs. Someone throwing 100m in the market does not unless they are taxed to do so.
- sbsudbdjd 2y ago
  The US government burns money unproductively like California wild fire through a citrus field. And there are better ways to deal with our oligarchs than braids dead proposals. Start breaking up their monopolies for one.
  - timeon 2y ago
    > there are better ways to deal with our oligarchs Such as?
    - sbsudbdjd 2y ago
      For starters break up their companies. We did it for standard oil, we did it for AT&T.
      - amrocha 2y ago
        Even if you took away all of Elons company he’s still the richest person in the world.
  - yadaeno 2y ago
    The government will spend the money regardless. Does the money come from 1. inflation - a regressive tax that disproportionately takes from the poor 2. taxation as a % of wealth - takes from everyone equally The fact is the rich pay a WAY lower tax rate, we can spend the next 1000 years playing legal cat and mouse over how to tax these people but it doesn’t get us closer to option 2 unless the government gets aggressive about collecting tax.
- muaytimbo 2y ago
  Totally agree, it doesn't matter who earned the money, only that the government needs it for welfare
  - treyd 2y ago
    Or to, you know, build roads and trains and stuff.
    - throw10920 2y ago
      The US government, both at the federal and state level, is extremely inefficient at building infrastructure, in terms of value per dollar spent. Proposing that we should continue to throw more money at infrastructure, before diagnosing and fixing the problems that are causing that inefficiency (at which point, sure, double the infra budget - as long as we're getting good value, the absolute amount can go up as far as I'm concerned), is straight-up malicious. The only people who make the argument to keep increasing the infrastructure budget before fixing the problems are those generically interested in throwing more money and power at the government, not those actually concerned about infrastructure (who will seek to fix the problem first).
      - amrocha 2y ago
        What private company in the US is building infrastructure more efficiently than the government?
      - somewhat_drunk 2y ago
        [flagged]
        dang 2y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly posting personal attacks and flamewar-style comments. You can't do that here, no matter how wrong another person is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- streblo 2y ago
  The government also supports bombing the living fuck out of people on the other side of the world. Similarly, someone throwing 100m in the market does not unless they are taxed to do so.
  - bulletsvshumans 2y ago
    Unless they own any defense stocks.
- Nathanba 2y ago
  But they are being taxed for anything they will do with their 100m in the market... including property tax if they do nothing
alxmng 2y ago
What's productive? Measured in purely financial terms selling cigarettes, junk food, and fentanyl is productive. Figuring out how to get teenagers to scroll TikTok all day is productive. ... What people are suggesting is to take money from some productive enterprises and put it towards other productive enterprises such as education, medicine, public infrastructure, etc. Enterprises which have more benefits beyond simply increasing the bank account of entrepreneurs and fund managers.
- exoverito 2y ago
  Increased spending is the simplistic solution. Government spending as percentage of GDP is 35%, compared to about 25% in the 50s/60s. Since then inflation-adjusted spending per student has increased by roughly 3X with no measurable increase in test scores. Baltimore spends 21k/yr per student, with abysmal results. College tuition prices have increased far more than inflation, in large part due to federal student loans. The USA spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than any other country, with insane markups on routine procedures. The California High Speed Rail project has taken 15 years to do environmental reviews and lay a few miles of track in the middle of nowhere, all while costs have grown to more than 128B from its initial estimates of 10B. Giving money to ineffective organizations is throwing good money after bad. I'd love to see competent government that can effectively use funds, but I'm not seeing a lot of evidence for it these days. There needs to be deep reform and anti-corruption efforts. Good luck doing that without the status quo powers pulling out all their dirty tricks.
  - amrocha 2y ago
    The government is not funded by taxes. It controls the supply of money, it can spend as much money as it wants whenever it wants. Taking money away from billionaires just reduces their power, it doesn’t make any difference to the government itself. And btw, the status quo you mentioned is funded by the billionaires that would be affected by this tax.
dom96 2y ago
100m is more than enough for any one person
anigbrowl 2y ago
Those assets are always productively invested in some form or another. This is a rather large assumption. One's assets might be invested inefficiently, as those who financed Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter have learned to their cost.
- amrocha 2y ago
  Even if Elon was running the company fantastically, it’s still never gonna be as important as healthcare and education etc
gorgoiler 2y ago
To put it another way: if a popular artist sells a painting for $1m and the IRS assesses they have enough paint to make 1000 paintings over the next 10 years, do they tax the artist on $1bn of unrealised gains? Do we make them give 20% of their unrealized paint to members of the public so they can make their own paintings, hoping they too will fetch $1m each? If the IRS took control of 20% of the paint, borrowed against it to fund the state, but then the artist decided to quit does the government somehow force them to paint? If the artist said this ahead of time and this was priced into the future value of their paintings (now worth $0 because there will be 0 paintings) does the IRS revalue their unrealized gains down to $0bn?
- amrocha 2y ago
  Listen mate, if you want to have discussions about economics you need to be able to reason about scenarios without resorting to metaphors and simplified models. If you can’t do that then you need to read up some more. You learned in school that electrons orbit atoms, but that’s not how it really works is it? Trying to reason with a simplified model in mind can only lead to misunderstanding. Electrons don’t have orbits. Capital gains aren’t paint.
  - gorgoiler 2y ago
    I understand where you are coming from and I think keeping the debate grounded in the real world has value. For me, it’s as simple as: you can only tax actual dollars, not unrealized, hypothetical capital gains. What’s the best way to get that point across?
    - amrocha 2y ago
      I think communicating it that way is perfectly fine, the point you’re arguing is clear. Personally I disagree, because while the gain hasn’t been realized, you can act on the assumption that it can be realized at any point. There are really degenerate strategies once you get to this level of wealth, such as taking out loans with these “unrealized gains” as collateral and realizing the gains without paying taxes.
amrocha 2y ago
Yes, the government would be better than some random billionaire at using that money

kjkjadksj 2y ago

Its not a question of who is better at managing money but more who needs benefit in our society. The government supports welfare programs. Someone throwing 100m in the market does not unless they are taxed to do so.

sbsudbdjd 2y ago
The US government burns money unproductively like California wild fire through a citrus field. And there are better ways to deal with our oligarchs than braids dead proposals. Start breaking up their monopolies for one.
- timeon 2y ago
  > there are better ways to deal with our oligarchs Such as?
  - sbsudbdjd 2y ago
    For starters break up their companies. We did it for standard oil, we did it for AT&T.
    - amrocha 2y ago
      Even if you took away all of Elons company he’s still the richest person in the world.
- yadaeno 2y ago
  The government will spend the money regardless. Does the money come from 1. inflation - a regressive tax that disproportionately takes from the poor 2. taxation as a % of wealth - takes from everyone equally The fact is the rich pay a WAY lower tax rate, we can spend the next 1000 years playing legal cat and mouse over how to tax these people but it doesn’t get us closer to option 2 unless the government gets aggressive about collecting tax.
muaytimbo 2y ago
Totally agree, it doesn't matter who earned the money, only that the government needs it for welfare
- treyd 2y ago
  Or to, you know, build roads and trains and stuff.
  - throw10920 2y ago
    The US government, both at the federal and state level, is extremely inefficient at building infrastructure, in terms of value per dollar spent. Proposing that we should continue to throw more money at infrastructure, before diagnosing and fixing the problems that are causing that inefficiency (at which point, sure, double the infra budget - as long as we're getting good value, the absolute amount can go up as far as I'm concerned), is straight-up malicious. The only people who make the argument to keep increasing the infrastructure budget before fixing the problems are those generically interested in throwing more money and power at the government, not those actually concerned about infrastructure (who will seek to fix the problem first).
    - amrocha 2y ago
      What private company in the US is building infrastructure more efficiently than the government?
    - somewhat_drunk 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - dang 2y ago
        We've banned this account for repeatedly posting personal attacks and flamewar-style comments. You can't do that here, no matter how wrong another person is or you feel they are. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
streblo 2y ago
The government also supports bombing the living fuck out of people on the other side of the world. Similarly, someone throwing 100m in the market does not unless they are taxed to do so.
- bulletsvshumans 2y ago
  Unless they own any defense stocks.
Nathanba 2y ago
But they are being taxed for anything they will do with their 100m in the market... including property tax if they do nothing

alxmng 2y ago

What's productive? Measured in purely financial terms selling cigarettes, junk food, and fentanyl is productive. Figuring out how to get teenagers to scroll TikTok all day is productive. ... What people are suggesting is to take money from some productive enterprises and put it towards other productive enterprises such as education, medicine, public infrastructure, etc. Enterprises which have more benefits beyond simply increasing the bank account of entrepreneurs and fund managers.

exoverito 2y ago
Increased spending is the simplistic solution. Government spending as percentage of GDP is 35%, compared to about 25% in the 50s/60s. Since then inflation-adjusted spending per student has increased by roughly 3X with no measurable increase in test scores. Baltimore spends 21k/yr per student, with abysmal results. College tuition prices have increased far more than inflation, in large part due to federal student loans. The USA spends more on healthcare as a percentage of GDP than any other country, with insane markups on routine procedures. The California High Speed Rail project has taken 15 years to do environmental reviews and lay a few miles of track in the middle of nowhere, all while costs have grown to more than 128B from its initial estimates of 10B. Giving money to ineffective organizations is throwing good money after bad. I'd love to see competent government that can effectively use funds, but I'm not seeing a lot of evidence for it these days. There needs to be deep reform and anti-corruption efforts. Good luck doing that without the status quo powers pulling out all their dirty tricks.
- amrocha 2y ago
  The government is not funded by taxes. It controls the supply of money, it can spend as much money as it wants whenever it wants. Taking money away from billionaires just reduces their power, it doesn’t make any difference to the government itself. And btw, the status quo you mentioned is funded by the billionaires that would be affected by this tax.

dom96 2y ago

100m is more than enough for any one person

anigbrowl 2y ago

Those assets are always productively invested in some form or another. This is a rather large assumption. One's assets might be invested inefficiently, as those who financed Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter have learned to their cost.

amrocha 2y ago
Even if Elon was running the company fantastically, it’s still never gonna be as important as healthcare and education etc

gorgoiler 2y ago

To put it another way: if a popular artist sells a painting for $1m and the IRS assesses they have enough paint to make 1000 paintings over the next 10 years, do they tax the artist on $1bn of unrealised gains? Do we make them give 20% of their unrealized paint to members of the public so they can make their own paintings, hoping they too will fetch $1m each? If the IRS took control of 20% of the paint, borrowed against it to fund the state, but then the artist decided to quit does the government somehow force them to paint? If the artist said this ahead of time and this was priced into the future value of their paintings (now worth $0 because there will be 0 paintings) does the IRS revalue their unrealized gains down to $0bn?

amrocha 2y ago
Listen mate, if you want to have discussions about economics you need to be able to reason about scenarios without resorting to metaphors and simplified models. If you can’t do that then you need to read up some more. You learned in school that electrons orbit atoms, but that’s not how it really works is it? Trying to reason with a simplified model in mind can only lead to misunderstanding. Electrons don’t have orbits. Capital gains aren’t paint.
- gorgoiler 2y ago
  I understand where you are coming from and I think keeping the debate grounded in the real world has value. For me, it’s as simple as: you can only tax actual dollars, not unrealized, hypothetical capital gains. What’s the best way to get that point across?
  - amrocha 2y ago
    I think communicating it that way is perfectly fine, the point you’re arguing is clear. Personally I disagree, because while the gain hasn’t been realized, you can act on the assumption that it can be realized at any point. There are really degenerate strategies once you get to this level of wealth, such as taking out loans with these “unrealized gains” as collateral and realizing the gains without paying taxes.

amrocha 2y ago

Yes, the government would be better than some random billionaire at using that money