Oddbean

IDK, I think corporations should not be recognised by the state at all, but I still think taxing unrealised gains is a stupid "thought bubble" and/or intended solely for the campaign trail. If its unrealised, then its valuation is a wild guess, based on assumptions that will be gamed and require additional regulations, containing additional loopholes for the well-connected... No.

It's a tax write-off loophole that would close billionaires ability to skirt by year after year without contributing anything in taxes. You're missing the point entirely, but I get it, rich and powerful people are pumping the disinformation machine hard because they need to kill this liability. I say fuck those pigs, they've gotten fat off our backs and it's time they participated.

I doubt it will crash the economy, only parts, big Democratic donors will be allowed to use one set of assumptions, and mere millionaires in disfavoured industries another. Like the present system, but more so. With appropriately biased investigation and enforcement, you could induce forced sales of particular industries whenever BlackRock was feeling cashed-up.

Disagree. The global economy is a house of cards on the best of days as it stands. Introduce a new variable of the asset rich needing to unload illiquid holdings en masse the same time every year and you’ve got a recipe for total fukn carnage. Massive capital flight on announcement and massive unrest on enforcement. Throwing a randomiser on and giving preferential treatment to some at the expense of others would just be bonkers, like 100X volatility on already 100X volatility. Billionaires might as well just form private armies and go hunt the political class - it would be way cheaper. Then they’ll turn those forces on their business rivals.. It would be a government-induced version of an Ancapistan nightmare

I like your version, but I think the ability to pick up the phone and hire a Senator's nephew would defuse much of it. It would certainly be destabilising, funnel wealth into ever-smaller circles of financial giants, and wildly prone to partisan abuse. I doubt the Dems are remotely serious. This is a gambit they'll drop to get something else they want, surely...?

The Dems aren’t serious, but they’ve pushed their base so far left that their rhetoric has to reach into these psychotic places and that leads the usual apologists and talking heads to show their true colours. But if it did somehow come to pass, I’m confident my chaos theory would be much closer to reality than whatever the supporters envision would happen. The market distortions would be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. I make a point about the game theory of #Bitcoin going parabolic - the early HODLers sitting on thousands of coins are disproportionately black flag anarchist types, we’ve never seen those type of people amongst the upper echelons of the financial elite. If they truly believe Bitcoin could free us from Statism, what might they do with that wealth? Are the key holders protecting the Blackrock ETF safe in that world where there’s a multi-Trillion dollar bounty on their heads, 1 block away from permanently and irrevocably being under someone else’s control? A scenario of taxing Billionaires like this who already have those levels of wealth might be more manageable for the parasites, but by how much? Only takes 1 or 2 well funded rogues who calculate they’ve got more to gain flipping the table than playing by the new rules..

It's wild to me that you're on a Bitcoin-centric platform and you still can't conceive of how incompatible the global economy is with the notion of scarcity either real or perceived. There are no markets that could withstand scarcity, it's been so long since the dollar has been divorced from reality. That said, all that do is have to believe that the economy is thriving and it will thrive.

It's all fake. Derivatives, stocks, bonds, futures, all these financial tools based on absolutely nothing and backed by a lick and a promise. Bitcoin can't replace all that, it's not even compatible with it.

I agree with the goal, but I think a better approach would be to tax them on investments used to get loans. They DID realize the new value of that investment by convincing a bank it was sufficient to secure a loan. So make them pay the full taxes on it as if they'd sold it at the time the loan was approved, and only make them pay taxes on the difference from there if they actually sell it. Get a loan based on $500m investments, pay taxes on any profits accrued by those investments at the $500m value, and if they sell later at $600m, only pay on the new $100m, or if they sell at $400m, a tax deferment as appropriate for a $100m loss.