4 ms·

In this case, "bad things happening" is an exodus of the ultra wealthy, which is not so simple to reverse.

by primitivesuave 1y ago

chmod775 1y ago
If your economy is based on producing things of real value rather than management of wealth, this is a good thing.
- vorpalhex 1y ago
  How do you think the money to produce things (buy machinery, front costs, etc) comes about?
  - chmod775 1y ago
    Complete nonsense. You don't need ultra-wealthy for that. Also many vehicles for the less-wealthy to pool wealth exist.
    - vorpalhex 1y ago
      Like what? What other funding methods exist? Do they work? What are their downsides?
      - chmod775 1y ago
        Do you believe the vast majority of investment happens because someone like Elon Musk personally goes around to give every little venture money? Here's a non-exhaustive list of ways the wealth of multiple people can be pooled: creating a joint account, investment clubs, general/limited partnerships, LLCs, crowdfunding platforms, and syndicates (you're on the website of one right now). There's also government-backed pooling/funding vehicles and banks engaging in various forms of investment, funding, loans. Any existing corporation is also capable of investing themselves.
        vorpalhex 1y ago
        And YCombinator... is funded by a bunch of venture capitalists. Wealth funds.. are made up of wealthy investors. LLCs and Partnerships are just company structures and typically exist.. to invest the wealth of the proprietors when formed as an investment vehicle. Government backed funds.. generally don't invest in businesses. There are exceptions - strategic investments for wartime materials and such. Banks are also.. backed and run by wealthy individuals. This is less "big fish" focused because the bank itself is the owner of the assets and pays a salary to it's executives, but traditionally the person who ran and backed the bank WAS the local wealthy person. When we look at governments where there aren't really private investors (ie the wealthy) those governments just can't fund things quickly or effectively. Capitalism is an engine. Liquidity is momentum. Having liquidity leads to more liquidity and wealth, liquidity allows you to get other operations running. There is no magical government bucket of money. No magical government investors.
        chmod775 1y ago
        Nice comment. Too bad it's immediately proven wrong by reality and hard numbers. Also as a side note: We were talking about ultra wealthy, not people with some wealth. For the US as a whole only about 10-15% of startup capital ultimately comes from private investors (of which only some are ultra wealthy). The majority comes from institutions (so ultimately mostly from pension funds)[1] Ycombinator obviously also sources capital from institutional investors, though we do not know to what degree. Can't wait to find out where we're gonna move goalposts now - please don't keep me in suspense. [1] https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Pragmatycznie-o.-tym-skad-sie-biora-pieniadze-w-startupach-1.jpeg.webp https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/P...
ngetchell 1y ago
Is that a bad thing?
- sebastianconcpt 1y ago
  How you say that would that impact the IQ of the population? Will go up or down? And note that being an IQ denier would transform your question in an insult to intelligence.
  - recursive 1y ago
    I doubt it would have a measurable impact on the IQ of the population.
  - rockercoaster 1y ago
    Would a very-small number of people leaving affect a well-distributed and population-wide metric like IQ in a measurable way at all? I'd expect not. What are you trying to get at? Could you be more direct? I'm having trouble making sense of this post.
    - hlynurd 1y ago
      I suspect that being born into money is a much stronger predictor of becoming ultra-wealthy than IQ.
    - sebastianconcpt 1y ago
      From where the higher IQ groups would get their even higher IQ inspiration from and push up / raise their networks of influence? (improve social mobility). How their daily lives will cross vs common experiences with substantial opportunities creators be permanently aborted? How that wouldn't produce irreversible consequences in a population? You could say, oh wait, just loosing one Elon has zero impact in a population and yet whole humanity might not become multiplanetary without that one guy in the country that had created the conditions for that raising a ton of talented guys up.
  - saubeidl 1y ago
surgical_fire 1y ago
This is only "bad" if one believes in bullshit in the line of "trickle down economics".
yardie 1y ago
The ultrawealthy have been exiting SF, LA, NYC, and Chicago for decades now. Not sure how many are left in those cities since every election cycle brings doom and gloom that the wealthy will abandon those states for sure, this time.
- LargeWu 1y ago
  What does it even mean that an ultrawealthy person would "leave" a city? One not unreasonable interpretation is that they would no longer have standing to promote their own interests there at the expense of the rest of the population. As a non-billionaire myself this sounds like a pretty good idea to me; what's good for billionaires is often not so good for everybody else.
  - minton 1y ago
    I suppose they could take their enterprises with them. Removing jobs and taxes from the local economy.
    - sam_lowry_ 1y ago
      As if it was easy. The same Bernard Arnault was complaining recently about the difficulties of moving the production of luxury bags to the US. Their US factory was never profitable.
- potatolicious 1y ago
  Most recently during COVID, when many a VC exited SF and NYC to Florida with loud caterwauling about how the cities were completely over and Miami is where it's all going to be at going forward. Nearly every single one has quietly crawled their way back into those respective cities. Agglomeration effects baby! Listen, I am sure there is some level of taxation at which the rich will in fact decamp and go somewhere else, but empirically we are nowhere near it, nor does it appear that any of the mainstream proposals (either for increased high-bracket tax rates or wealth taxes) get anywhere near it. For example, MA instituted a 4% surtax on all incomes over $1M and... and the population of payers actually increased 25% since instituting it[1]. [1] https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/28/massachusetts-millionaires-tax-institute-policy-studies-newsletter https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/28/massachusetts-millionai...
rco8786 1y ago
No it's not. It's not binary. Just like GP said. Wealthy people moving their assets to new locales is at least difficult if not impossible in some cases (like real estate).
- lupusreal 1y ago
  Even if wealthy people didn't move or otherwise evade or avoid the wealth tax and fully complied with the spirit of the thing, I don't see how it could work over time. If the tax "worked" and reduced their wealth, then the revenue from the tax would drop. There would be a natural tendency for the system to then start moving the threshold down to keep the revenue up. Where does that end, with everybody being equally poor?
  - dgfitz 1y ago
    > If the tax "worked" and reduced their wealth There is a disconnect between those two ideas. The tax doesn't need to reduce their wealth. Wealthy people generally continue to make money, usually without even having to try or work.
  - rco8786 1y ago
    My friend, nobody is talking about taxing wealth at a rate higher than that wealth grows. As a random example, Elon Musk was worth roughly $50B 10 years ago, vs about $500B today. That's a $450B gain in wealth, the vast, vast majority of which was untaxed in any way. We're not talking about taxing $450B from Elon. We're talking about taxing a small percentage of that.
    - lupusreal 1y ago
      > My friend, nobody is talking about taxing wealth at a rate higher than that wealth grows. Then I don't understand why most of the rhetoric behind this idea focuses on reducing inequality. If Elon Musk was now worth $100B instead of $500B, how does that make any practical difference?
      - 1y ago
mattnewton 1y ago
Depends on what kind of ultra wealthy. If they are selling wealth tied to the locale, like property, that they were charging rent for before, that seems fine, maybe even beneficial for current renters. If they are moving businesses away then that could cause the job loss and other bad effects. So maybe tax the first kind of wealth more?
bayarearefugee 1y ago
> In this case, "bad things happening" is an exodus of the ultra wealthy, which is not so simple to reverse. Speaking as an American who lives in California (so not directly relevant to the article in question, but 'wealth exodus' is often brought up to scare people about wealth taxes here as well): Fucking Good. Bye Felicia. Hope they all move to Florida and/or Texas. We'll still be absolute fine here without them. But also institute land value taxes so they can't be here while pretending to not be here
- primitivesuave 1y ago
  I also live in California, and agree with you in sentiment because the housing prices are too damn high. However, the reason that most municipalities around here will bend over backwards to attract wealthy residents/businesses is because of their chronically underfunded liabilities (pensions, retirement healthcare benefits, etc).
marssaxman 1y ago
Why would one want to reverse it? Let them all go cause problems in Dubai instead.
BiteCode_dev 1y ago
What if they leave? Their company already don't produce much in France, it's all imported. They are paying minimal taxes already on what they produce and sell outside of France. And they don't pay taxes personally. So what would we lose if they leave? For the things that are actually made in France, it's because they have to. They would have moved it already otherwise. So it's physical assets and people that can't be moved or sourced elsewhere. So what they have to produce there, they will still do. Their real estate, their logistic chain vehicles, and their local workshops will stay here. Even if they would sell part of it in fact, the actual physical stuff would stay here. And what they sell here, they will still do: they are not going to exit the French market just because they can't be physically here so it's not going to affect the economy that much. What, less jet and luxury hotels revenue? It's ok. And of course, we can increase taxes on their companies so that they get less revenue to compensate for their exile. We tax trading or exporting French-based company stocks so that they can't move that around without paying first. Besides, once a stock is bought from the IPO, moving it from hand to hand is not investing more money into the company in any way. It's not going back into the economy. They can move with their bank accounts and bonds, why do we care? It's not something that goes into our economy. They made sure of it.

In this case, "bad things happening" is an exodus of the ultra wealthy, which is not so simple to reverse.

chmod775 1y ago

If your economy is based on producing things of real value rather than management of wealth, this is a good thing.

vorpalhex 1y ago
How do you think the money to produce things (buy machinery, front costs, etc) comes about?
- chmod775 1y ago
  Complete nonsense. You don't need ultra-wealthy for that. Also many vehicles for the less-wealthy to pool wealth exist.
  - vorpalhex 1y ago
    Like what? What other funding methods exist? Do they work? What are their downsides?
    - chmod775 1y ago
      Do you believe the vast majority of investment happens because someone like Elon Musk personally goes around to give every little venture money? Here's a non-exhaustive list of ways the wealth of multiple people can be pooled: creating a joint account, investment clubs, general/limited partnerships, LLCs, crowdfunding platforms, and syndicates (you're on the website of one right now). There's also government-backed pooling/funding vehicles and banks engaging in various forms of investment, funding, loans. Any existing corporation is also capable of investing themselves.
      - vorpalhex 1y ago
        And YCombinator... is funded by a bunch of venture capitalists. Wealth funds.. are made up of wealthy investors. LLCs and Partnerships are just company structures and typically exist.. to invest the wealth of the proprietors when formed as an investment vehicle. Government backed funds.. generally don't invest in businesses. There are exceptions - strategic investments for wartime materials and such. Banks are also.. backed and run by wealthy individuals. This is less "big fish" focused because the bank itself is the owner of the assets and pays a salary to it's executives, but traditionally the person who ran and backed the bank WAS the local wealthy person. When we look at governments where there aren't really private investors (ie the wealthy) those governments just can't fund things quickly or effectively. Capitalism is an engine. Liquidity is momentum. Having liquidity leads to more liquidity and wealth, liquidity allows you to get other operations running. There is no magical government bucket of money. No magical government investors.
        chmod775 1y ago
        Nice comment. Too bad it's immediately proven wrong by reality and hard numbers. Also as a side note: We were talking about ultra wealthy, not people with some wealth. For the US as a whole only about 10-15% of startup capital ultimately comes from private investors (of which only some are ultra wealthy). The majority comes from institutions (so ultimately mostly from pension funds)[1] Ycombinator obviously also sources capital from institutional investors, though we do not know to what degree. Can't wait to find out where we're gonna move goalposts now - please don't keep me in suspense. [1] https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Pragmatycznie-o.-tym-skad-sie-biora-pieniadze-w-startupach-1.jpeg.webp https://www.pragmaticcoders.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/P...

ngetchell 1y ago

Is that a bad thing?

sebastianconcpt 1y ago
How you say that would that impact the IQ of the population? Will go up or down? And note that being an IQ denier would transform your question in an insult to intelligence.
- recursive 1y ago
  I doubt it would have a measurable impact on the IQ of the population.
- rockercoaster 1y ago
  Would a very-small number of people leaving affect a well-distributed and population-wide metric like IQ in a measurable way at all? I'd expect not. What are you trying to get at? Could you be more direct? I'm having trouble making sense of this post.
  - hlynurd 1y ago
    I suspect that being born into money is a much stronger predictor of becoming ultra-wealthy than IQ.
  - sebastianconcpt 1y ago
    From where the higher IQ groups would get their even higher IQ inspiration from and push up / raise their networks of influence? (improve social mobility). How their daily lives will cross vs common experiences with substantial opportunities creators be permanently aborted? How that wouldn't produce irreversible consequences in a population? You could say, oh wait, just loosing one Elon has zero impact in a population and yet whole humanity might not become multiplanetary without that one guy in the country that had created the conditions for that raising a ton of talented guys up.
- saubeidl 1y ago

surgical_fire 1y ago

This is only "bad" if one believes in bullshit in the line of "trickle down economics".

yardie 1y ago

The ultrawealthy have been exiting SF, LA, NYC, and Chicago for decades now. Not sure how many are left in those cities since every election cycle brings doom and gloom that the wealthy will abandon those states for sure, this time.

LargeWu 1y ago
What does it even mean that an ultrawealthy person would "leave" a city? One not unreasonable interpretation is that they would no longer have standing to promote their own interests there at the expense of the rest of the population. As a non-billionaire myself this sounds like a pretty good idea to me; what's good for billionaires is often not so good for everybody else.
- minton 1y ago
  I suppose they could take their enterprises with them. Removing jobs and taxes from the local economy.
  - sam_lowry_ 1y ago
    As if it was easy. The same Bernard Arnault was complaining recently about the difficulties of moving the production of luxury bags to the US. Their US factory was never profitable.
potatolicious 1y ago
Most recently during COVID, when many a VC exited SF and NYC to Florida with loud caterwauling about how the cities were completely over and Miami is where it's all going to be at going forward. Nearly every single one has quietly crawled their way back into those respective cities. Agglomeration effects baby! Listen, I am sure there is some level of taxation at which the rich will in fact decamp and go somewhere else, but empirically we are nowhere near it, nor does it appear that any of the mainstream proposals (either for increased high-bracket tax rates or wealth taxes) get anywhere near it. For example, MA instituted a 4% surtax on all incomes over $1M and... and the population of payers actually increased 25% since instituting it[1]. [1] https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/28/massachusetts-millionaires-tax-institute-policy-studies-newsletter https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/04/28/massachusetts-millionai...

rco8786 1y ago

No it's not. It's not binary. Just like GP said. Wealthy people moving their assets to new locales is at least difficult if not impossible in some cases (like real estate).

lupusreal 1y ago
Even if wealthy people didn't move or otherwise evade or avoid the wealth tax and fully complied with the spirit of the thing, I don't see how it could work over time. If the tax "worked" and reduced their wealth, then the revenue from the tax would drop. There would be a natural tendency for the system to then start moving the threshold down to keep the revenue up. Where does that end, with everybody being equally poor?
- dgfitz 1y ago
  > If the tax "worked" and reduced their wealth There is a disconnect between those two ideas. The tax doesn't need to reduce their wealth. Wealthy people generally continue to make money, usually without even having to try or work.
- rco8786 1y ago
  My friend, nobody is talking about taxing wealth at a rate higher than that wealth grows. As a random example, Elon Musk was worth roughly $50B 10 years ago, vs about $500B today. That's a $450B gain in wealth, the vast, vast majority of which was untaxed in any way. We're not talking about taxing $450B from Elon. We're talking about taxing a small percentage of that.
  - lupusreal 1y ago
    > My friend, nobody is talking about taxing wealth at a rate higher than that wealth grows. Then I don't understand why most of the rhetoric behind this idea focuses on reducing inequality. If Elon Musk was now worth $100B instead of $500B, how does that make any practical difference?
    - 1y ago

mattnewton 1y ago

Depends on what kind of ultra wealthy. If they are selling wealth tied to the locale, like property, that they were charging rent for before, that seems fine, maybe even beneficial for current renters. If they are moving businesses away then that could cause the job loss and other bad effects. So maybe tax the first kind of wealth more?

bayarearefugee 1y ago

> In this case, "bad things happening" is an exodus of the ultra wealthy, which is not so simple to reverse. Speaking as an American who lives in California (so not directly relevant to the article in question, but 'wealth exodus' is often brought up to scare people about wealth taxes here as well): Fucking Good. Bye Felicia. Hope they all move to Florida and/or Texas. We'll still be absolute fine here without them. But also institute land value taxes so they can't be here while pretending to not be here

primitivesuave 1y ago
I also live in California, and agree with you in sentiment because the housing prices are too damn high. However, the reason that most municipalities around here will bend over backwards to attract wealthy residents/businesses is because of their chronically underfunded liabilities (pensions, retirement healthcare benefits, etc).

marssaxman 1y ago

Why would one want to reverse it? Let them all go cause problems in Dubai instead.

BiteCode_dev 1y ago

What if they leave? Their company already don't produce much in France, it's all imported. They are paying minimal taxes already on what they produce and sell outside of France. And they don't pay taxes personally. So what would we lose if they leave? For the things that are actually made in France, it's because they have to. They would have moved it already otherwise. So it's physical assets and people that can't be moved or sourced elsewhere. So what they have to produce there, they will still do. Their real estate, their logistic chain vehicles, and their local workshops will stay here. Even if they would sell part of it in fact, the actual physical stuff would stay here. And what they sell here, they will still do: they are not going to exit the French market just because they can't be physically here so it's not going to affect the economy that much. What, less jet and luxury hotels revenue? It's ok. And of course, we can increase taxes on their companies so that they get less revenue to compensate for their exile. We tax trading or exporting French-based company stocks so that they can't move that around without paying first. Besides, once a stock is bought from the IPO, moving it from hand to hand is not investing more money into the company in any way. It's not going back into the economy. They can move with their bank accounts and bonds, why do we care? It's not something that goes into our economy. They made sure of it.