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• fhdkweig 4mo ago
  You can tax something without owning it. It is the owning part that bothers me. It implies that the government is going to shovel ridiculous amounts of money into these things and when the bubble finally pops We The People get nothing out of it.
  • dylan604 4mo ago
    That sounds like a brilliant idea if you're a board member of one of these companies.
  • fny 4mo ago
    Taxing X% ownership means you get X%. You don't pay for it. So if the bubble pops, you still get X% ownership. To your point, it may be smarter to tax the IPO valuation and buy more later.
    • fhdkweig 4mo ago
      I'm mostly commenting on the story a few days ago regarding having index funds change their rules to automatically purchase shares in the impending IPOs so that passive investors would end up buying shares without their direct knowledge. It struck me as a way for executives to cash out of what they know is a bubble. A lot of people in that thread didn't seem to have any issue with that.
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  • exe34 4mo ago
    Wait, is the idea to buy that 50%?
    • fhdkweig 4mo ago
      I don't know what their plan is, but that is one way to "own half". I'm really hoping that isn't their plan, but this administration seems to love shoveling tax money to people who don't deserve it.
      • wasabi991011 4mo ago
        > I don't know what their plan The plan Bernie Sanders is proposing is clearly stated in TFA, which is to take 50% of shares as a one-time tax, not as a purchase.
    • wasabi991011 4mo ago
      No, it isn't, it's to take 50% as a tax, as stated in TFA.
      • exe34 4mo ago
        Yeah that's more sensible.
  • vrganj 4mo ago
    Who said anything about the government shoveling in money?
    • fhdkweig 4mo ago
      Usually to "own" something requires to spend money to get it.
      • triceratops 4mo ago
        The government gets half my paycheck without buying it from me.
      • grim_io 4mo ago
        Really? Poor Elon must be going bankrupt any time now, seeing how much of Tesla and SpaceX he owns.
      • vrganj 4mo ago
        ... or force.
  • triceratops 4mo ago
    I think you've misunderstood the proposal. The government levies a tax in the form of shares, not cash. It doesn't pay for the shares. FTA: "It would create a sovereign wealth fund through a one-time 50 percent tax — not on the profits of OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI and other companies, but paid with something far more valuable than that: the stock."
    • AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
      That seems like it would be pushing pretty hard against the Takings clause. Federal wealth taxes in general are rather precarious in the US because the 16th amendment allows taxing income, not assets.
      • triceratops 4mo ago
        How are property taxes legal?
        • AnthonyMouse 4mo ago
          There is no federal property tax, and even state property taxes are collected in dollars rather than shares of ownership and as a small recurring percentage rather than a one-time taking of what amounts to a controlling interest.
          • triceratops 4mo ago
            Thanks for the clarification.
      • jcranmer 4mo ago
        Strictly speaking, that's not accurate. Article 1, Section 8 has the general taxation clause: > The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; but Section 9 has the apportionment clause: > No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken. The term "direct tax" isn't fully explained, but it's generally been held that taxes on property (including wealth) would classify as a direct tax. Congress imposed an income tax, but SCOTUS said in Pollock v Farmer's Loan & Trust Co that a tax on rental income is effectively a property tax, and so must be apportioned. The 16th Amendment was enacted specifically to overrule the Pollock decision, and allowed for income taxes to not have to be apportioned. In many respects, it's probably unnecessary because even without it, it's probably fairly likely that Pollock would have been overruled as just being bonkers reasoning anyways.
• nradov 4mo ago
  Labor displacement is always coming. Every new technology eliminates some old occupations and creates new ones. LLMs aren't unique in that regard. We should have a safety net to support and retrain displaced workers regardless of the technology. And let's please not have any lazy, low-effort replies claiming that AI will somehow magically eliminate all jobs for humans.
  • ryan_n 4mo ago
    > And let's please not have any lazy, low-effort replies claiming that AI will somehow magically eliminate all jobs for humans. This is essentially what a handful of c-suite execs have been telling the world for the past 2-3 years is it not?
  • pesus 4mo ago
    What are the jobs AI is creating, specifically? > And let's please not have any lazy, low-effort replies claiming that AI will somehow magically eliminate all jobs for humans. I don't think AI actually capable of doing so, but AI companies need to stop bragging about wanting to do this and making it their goal if you don't want people to keep bringing it up.
    • nradov 4mo ago
      There are lots of new jobs in building data centers, plus all the components that go into those. For example, worldwide employee count at Amphenol is way up over the past couple years. They make a lot of electrical connectors and similar items.
      • pesus 4mo ago
        Temporary construction and manufacturing jobs are not actual replacements for the jobs lost. They'll be done after the data centers are built, and then we're just back to AI having destroyed tons of jobs with no replacements.
        • nradov 4mo ago
• brianwawok 4mo ago
  > In turn, everyone knows labor displacement is coming What % of Americans would agree to that. 10%? I agree for those of us in the field, we are a lot more confident. But I dont think my retired parents have any idea what AI is or have ever touched anything more complicated than Alexia.
  • somenameforme 4mo ago
    That's, in large part, because tech is the field most likely to face labor disruption. Most jobs in the US are service, labor, and other such fields where LLMs will have relatively little impact. Tech will also probably come under attack from two directions. It's not only from labor replacement, but also from a decrease in the value of tech. Right now competition in tech is limited by the relatively large barrier to entry to writing even simple programs. As that barrier disappears, the baseline value of tech will likely decline sharply.
    • mikewarot 4mo ago
      If employment as a whole is impacted 10%, those people end up seeking work elsewhere, and driving down wages there. It's impossible for this not to effect everyone.
• giancarlostoro 4mo ago
  I would rather we have an alternative where you can buy Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceX, etc stock but it has a few strict requirements: * Investors are committing to keeping their money over a 10 year period, and you pay them dividends * At the end of the 10 years you can withdraw it all, or keep your stock but withdraw the dividends, or keep your stock and reinvest the dividends for the next 10 years. * Companies cannot be on any other type of "stock market" * Companies need to be identified as producing something of significant value, like SpaceX's rockets would qualify. * It can be part of anyone's 401k since these companies would be scrutinized. Ideally a social media only company would NEVER qualify. I think the stock market is too happy to buy and sell, when some of these companies are a long term investment that has slowly paid off in ways most people cannot fathom or comprehend including healthcare discoveries.
  • yread 4mo ago
    To buy stocks you need savings. 24% of Americans don't have any. Your scheme wouldn't benefit them. Or am I misreading it?
    • giancarlostoro 4mo ago
      I wouldn't block any 401k plans from purchasing these stocks which would open those up to those safer dividend returns. The maintenance cost would be drastically lowered too since you're not buying and selling these so frequently.
  • jmyeet 4mo ago
    How is this not just a "rich gets richer" scenario? What of the majority of the population that don't have excess funds to invest? The funny thing about AI is that the LLMs were trained by stomping on private property rights, being the intellectual rights holders of songs, books, movies, etc plus the troves of user-generated content, something for which they see no benefit. Why are private property rights so important for AI companies but the private property rights of the training data aren't important at all? I can tell you why: people on HN aren't authors or musicians. They are however software engineers who see themselves as profiting from the AI bubble. Put another way: it's not that they care about private property rights. They simply think they can get rich enough so the problems won't apply to them.
• jmyeet 4mo ago
  The impacts of AI amplify the system we live in. We live in a society that is quite happy to let people starve on the street and die to protect home values. We're bouldering towards minting trillionaires at the same time as people are struggling to afford rent and having enough food to eat where they're one bad event from being homeless. I agree that labor displacement (and wage suppression) is in fact the only AI product. IN a just society, automation (more generally than AI) would allow people to work less. But we all know that it just means further wealth concentration and inequality. And as material conditions worsen, society will increasingly rip itself apart. Populism will lead people to blame various out-groups for their woes because there'll be no opposition to it. It's why in the year of our Lord 2026, we have concentration camps again. Some call that term hyperbolic given the association with the HOlocaust. These people don't know history. Concentration camps were originally deportation camps [1]. I keep bringing up municipal broadband as an example of how people who hate "communism" both like their output and it's always better than national ISPs. And you know who else believes in public ownership? The US Department of Defense [2]. [1]: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deportations https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deportatio... [2]: https://investorplace.com/dailylive/2026/06/the-pentagon-is-betting-200-billion-on-these-companies/ https://investorplace.com/dailylive/2026/06/the-pentagon-is-...
• pessimizer 4mo ago
  > Should not there be a tax to offset the "frictional" unemployment? Absolutely not. That's like taxing shovels because people were digging with their hands. The result is just more people having to dig with their hands, the fact that 7/8ths of people who now dig with their hands will starve because shovels have been introduced is a choice that we are making. We are choosing not to feed them. Creating an unnecessary pretense so that they can suffer before they are fed is psychotic. Pay them to go to school or to show up to healthcare appointments, not to do work that can be automated away.
  • ethbr1 4mo ago
    > the fact that 7/8ths of people who now dig with their hands will starve because shovels have been introduced is a choice that we are making. We are choosing not to feed them The unfortunate truth of western economic history is that capital does not willingly share its profits unless forced to (by government or labor). The core point here is about power. Assuming AI takes off and automates large sections of the economy, who gets to have control over those entities? It seems a bit premature to identify the current major AI labs as inevitably being the ones to benefit. But I am sympathetic to the idea that having the public as a (mostly) silent partner, both in profits and control, is prudent. Where it gets dangerous is how "the public's" equity share is represented and by whom. F.ex. I'd be vociferously opposed to the current kleptomaniacal US administration being able to wield 50% control
• nerdyadventurer 4mo ago
  > I know many here would scoff at nationalizing a private company Really? Do US public think like that, no wonder organization like IMF want to privatize national companies.