Good examples are great. But it doesn't solve the problem. The only way to fix this busted economy where inequality is increasing and few, wealthy individuals are gaining insane amounts of political power through spending is systemic change in the structure of our tax base.

HN just had a post about the craigslist founder donating over half billion dollars to charity. see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48588216

What do you mean "let's" like we're the billionaires? The ultra wealthy have had over a century (in only this country!) to read The Gospel of Wealth. They're not going to do it. And it's fine to admit that.

The wealth has barely been taxed at all. Wealth comes from holding assets not from labor, and asset ownership is barely taxed:

1. stocks and commercial real estate are allowed to appreciate without taxation (unlike personal residences outside Cali),

2. multinationals wrote for themselves obscure tax rules so they end up paying almost no tax,

3. interest expense for companies and ultra high net worth individuals is subtracted from taxable income (for personal mortgages the interest expense deduction is capped)

4. Rich people organize their assets so estate taxes do not tax their estates when they die and thus their wealth goes to their children.

As you can see wealth is barely taxed.

Well, no, it hasn't. Much of the wealth is in the form of unrealized capital gains. It won't be taxed until it becomes a realized capital gain, that is, until the underlying asset is sold.

Um no.

"The income tax base captures 60 % of economic income of the top 1 % of wealth-holders."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

You need to remember that the proponents of this kind of thing WANT rich assholes to leave. They consider that an environmental social improvement.

If you won't do anything about the wealth, the top 1%, or top 0.1% will own more and more, until they own everything. Literally. There is no other outcome possible

I actually think billionaire flight is a good thing. Billionaires do not contribute to their community. Sure some tax accountant and some security people will lose their jobs, but this not matter for regular folk.

If nothing else, billionaires flight is a positive thing.

I am hoping all the billionaires leave my Washington state as a result of the millionaire tax - it may become a normal state like Oregon.

You need to install capital controls first.

'Trickle down economics will start working any day now, do you really want to miss out on our billionaire trickle?'

Leaving California means stepping away from the highest concentration of billion-dollar outcome creation in the U.S. Over the past ~40 years, California has produced on the order of ~120–200 billionaire-producing startups, versus ~15–35 in Texas and ~10–25 in Florida, depending on how you define origin.

Using standard venture-style risk and reward thinking, the data favors staying. The distribution of extreme upside outcomes remains heavily concentrated in California. Now if your a done/finished investor/creator or you have to be cost conscious it makes sense to leave the dream state and move to the retirement home states that cater to the has been class versus the creator class. No shame in having to be cost conscious or being ready to give up and fade into the retirement home of states lifestyle.

If you think a few billionaires moving to other states would take the Silicon Valley with them and it would be easy then let's see it play out.

There you have it everyone; a rando in HN the other billions on the planet give zero fucks exists says everyone else is an idiot.

Taxation isn't about efficiency. It's about social power. Political power. Economic freedom.

You think dick rockets to nowhere burning more resources every launch than you will consume is efficient?

Love how geniuses obsess over made up finance efficiency put ignore it anywhere else because they know nothing of physics.

I mean, people already do pay property taxes on homes? So this isn’t a very good retort.

This is an idiotic take.

The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is basically a billion dollars. At this scale, it’s the same comparison between a billion dollars and a homeless person.

No billionaire owns a single physical house that is their entire worth and that is also their sole form of shelter.

Now if you are proposing a tax on all secondary homes worth $1M or more... I'm listening.

41 of the 56 men who signed the document containing that statement were slave owners.

I think I heard that the Carthaginians used to auction off political positions, and the proceeds were effectively the taxes which ran society. While on the surface it sounds like a ridiculous concept, maybe it'd be better if we just cut out all the middlemen. At least policy could be directly connected to the paymasters.

> Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money.

Fine, I’ll bite: Why?

> Owning money should allow you more representation than not owning money

The capitalist's manifesto