andrewtbham

11 ms·

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Reactions to pg's essay on wealth tax(medium.com)
1 points by andrewtbham 6y ago|0 comments
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
I'm curious how space x and their re-usable rockets impacts this arms race (not to mention blue origin, rocket labs, etc.). Seems like a huge advantage.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
I am not talking about compounding interest. I am talking about exponential growth and loss. The startups that make many founders wealthy experience exponential growth. The wealth tax is exponential (look at the formula in the essay and not
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
https://www.vox.com/new-money/2017/2/13/14580874/google-self...
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
To be clear, I understand that the rate of gets lower every year in negative feedback cycle. I am not saying a wealth tax takes your money at an exponentially increasing rate. I am saying that it lessens your ability to grow your wealth at
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
> Compound interest isn't powerful because it happens every year Yes it is. If you just got a one time payment compounding interest would not have exponential growth. I agree that payment on the principal and additional interest is
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
People don't realize there was no income tax till 1913, only tariffs. Income taxes are historically raised to pay for war... The US has been on war time taxes ever since WWII. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
Many people dream of doing things.... not being rich. Bill Gates dreams of eradicating polio. Is $100M enough? No Elon Musk dreams of colonizing Mars. Is $100M enough? Absolutely not.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
The overarching trend/correlation is.... All governments are increasingly competing with other jurisdictions on lower taxes and better services. The reason is people have increasing options because of better communication (internet), t
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
Yeh, that true. It's just hard to create a sustainable program. STS was retired. ISS will be probably be retired in 2025. George HW Bush wanted to go Mars then scrapped it when he got the price tag. In 04, George W Bush wanted to go t
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
The whole point of the pg essay is that wealth tax losses compound. > The reason wealth taxes have such dramatic effects is that they're applied over and over to the same money. Income tax happens every year, but only to that year&#
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
> The other aspect here is that the people with wealth have seen it increase at a fairly linear rate. Do you think this guy understands compounding growth? It would actually help his argument if replaced the word linear with exponential,
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
1) Renouncing US citizenship is a small but growing trend. https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/renouncing-us-citize... 2) The fact that the US created an exit tax is proof that is a growing problem. The best case f
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
I like America. I don't plan to leave but yes... many wealthy people already have secondary citizenship. Jim Rogers says you should think of it like insurance. Hopefully you don't need it but for a variety of reasons it's a g
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
Yes. Many US tech founders weren't born in America. So they would be going back to their families. And taking their immediate families with them. Eduard Saverin (facebook) did renounce his citizenship. There are many immigrant founders
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
I never said wealth is the sole factor for a tech hub/ecosystem. California is creating a huge incentive for billionaires to leave. So they are more likely to move and take their experience and move the tech ecosystem. It's fine w
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
billionaires definitely can be good for society. they do things that are in the public interest but governments can't attempt because they are inherently risk adverse because politicians want to get re-elected. Bill Gates does high ris
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
read "the case for mars" to get the story on the dysfunction at nasa and the presidents changing every 8 years. It's from the 90s and talks about how bush wanted to go to mars but the space station won out for the funding.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
It's true, it's possible a nation-state could colonize mars. But there is a problem for the US. Presidents come to office, scrap the previous adminstration's space goals, create their own new goals and then their's are s
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
To state it more accurately, a wealth tax will lower the odds that elon musk will colonize mars. even with his wealth... i think it's safe to say the odds are agains musk colonizing mars. he doesn't pay income tax cuz he usually h
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
> An income tax should do more to dissuade ambitious people than a wealth tax That is wrong. I don't think you understand the power of compounding. That is the whole point of all of this... wealth compounds. Wealth taxes compound ne
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
Billionaires are good for society. elon musk and jeff bezos are leading the way into space and that is huge for humanity. If you tax them you will literally stop humanity from becoming multi-planetary. The comparison to aristocracy is absur
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
I don't think in absolutes. It won't "destroy any incentive" But yes, it is a powerful disincentive due to the compounding nature of wealth taxes. Rich people are already leaving such as Eduardo Saverin. It's a grow
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
The irony is poor people will never be wealthy till that start investing in assets and understand the compounding nature of wealth. It's that same lack of understand of compounding that contributes to the argument for a wealth tax. It&
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
that's what I meant by leaving, renouncing US citizenship.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
pg already made the non-empirical argument about the compounding nature of wealth taxes.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
The source is the incentives theory of motivation and the work of behavioral psychologist such as Pavlov and BF Skinner. Also the "magic" of compounding gains that wealthy people understand (at least intuitively).
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
If you impose a wealth tax at the national level, rich people will leave America (edit: renounce citizenship) and ambitious people will never come here to begin with. America will no longer be the land of opportunity. The US has already pas
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
Exactly, it is like moving from Los Angeles to Nashville, or from San Francisco to Austin. Which is what people are doing.
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by andrewtbham 6y ago
You're cherry picking. France imposed a wealth tax and they repealed it. "At least 10,000 wealthy people left the country to avoid paying the tax; most moved to neighboring Belgium" https://www.bloomberg.com/o

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