I don't really see that many ads to be honest. I'm not on social media (except HN), I use Adblock, plus I just don't consume a lot of the media that the general population does.
I totally understand what the article is about though... I went on to my wife's instagram and her ad load is unbelievable. She probably has to look at 1 ad for ever 3 reels or images or whatever the hell they call them. I couldn't imagine having to see that many ads.
Last quick note - part of the reason why I avoid that kind of media, and use the tech to block it. I had a professor in college who pointed out that the purpose of ads is not to sell something, its actually to make you unhappy.
> I don't really see that many ads to be honest. I'm not on social media (except HN), I use Adblock, plus I just don't consume a lot of the media that the general population does.
If you are in any urban area, your eyes will be blasted with "PURCHASE ME! PURCHASE ME!" visuals all the time, you cannot escape it. Just take a trip via Munich Main Station to transit from the regional trains to the subway [1]. It's not enough that the entire passenger transit area is lined with shopfronts with all sorts of lights, screens and other attempts to get your attention, it's not enough that there are huge flatscreens with video everywhere, no... even the concrete pillars are covered with ads nowadays.
My Dad used to cover a territory in the Northeast where he was on the road for up to 2 weeks at a time. Sometimes we'd see him just long enough for him to grab a haircut and remember everyone's names in the right order. Everyday he showed up to work he needed to be in a full suit and tie. Everyone did. If those suits weren't in good shape, and you weren't on time they were probably picking a different guy for promotion.
The expectation for him was to work 50-60 hours a week, not including commute, getting ready for work, and corporate social events. Time off was strictly 2 weeks until you hit a certain level and then you'd get 3 weeks. He didn't get sick often but if he was he still went to work.
Dad had it good. I used to jump on landscaping crews during the summer in SoCal and watch 60 year old guys break their backs for 12 hours to get ~$250 a day. I'd do it on the weekends for spending money.
I enjoyed the article but reading through all of the comments in this thread I'm genuinely surprised by the lack of appreciation for how good we have it. There's a "demographic" on HN and I'm pretty confident it aint the guys doing concrete work or running vampire hours at the local 7-11.
Moving around some 1s and 0s in between some coffee and meetings even at the bad companies isn't that rough in the grand scheme of things. I get what the article is trying to say - with all the productivity improvements when do the grunts get a little bit of those gains back?Unfortunately thats not how it works. It's "Red Queen Theory"... when something new changes the game you adapt or die - "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."
There's always a comment saying "Don't ask for better, because someone else had worse". Fuck that. I want better and I want everyone else to have it too.
> intentionally obscuring the fact that the vast majority of people would pay ~no wealth tax or unintentionally forgetting that the vast majority of people would pay ~no wealth tax.
I consider this fine, because proponents of a wealth tax consistently omit that it will ultimately be the middle class who pays the tax... the ultra-wealthy and wealthy can afford sophisticated strategies to render a wealth tax ineffective against them, and if that doesn't work they can just move somewhere else. Income tax was the same.
If you paid attention to proponents of a wealth tax in the US, you would be aware that they only ever suggest it for vast wealths of like $10 million+.
The Bay Area is one of the most expensive parts of the United States and $10M still means you own half a dozen houses. I’d say that’s reasonably “wealthy” from the perspective of the majority of the population who struggle to afford even one.
Anyone who owns two $500k houses is wealthy in 2026. I used to own two worth less than that and didn’t consider myself wealthy, but I was by the statistics.
Even that is subject to shenanigans... above a certain level of wealth the overhead of establishing companies, tax residencies, and complex debt arrangements become a rounding error.
Some of the mechanisms are loopholes, that might be closed l. But many start to interact with international business regulations that exist for considered reasons, and are harder to change even if it is serving as a loophole.
You end up with only the small wealth (one lifetime as a skilled professional) group getting caught
Sanction them and their companies. Sanction countries that accept these anti-society misanthropes. Bar them from the US and any territories, encourage our allies to bar them as well. Investigate those companies for crimes to the full extent of the law.
Nobody needs these billionaires; we can create new billionaires and new products. They think they bring some sort of ultra speciality but in reality they are doing something millions want to do and their monopolistic success is preventing others from succeeding; knocking these giants down makes rooms for new businesses and products. This is the entire thrust of a capitalistic economy.
As has happened in nearly every European state with wealth taxes. But the elephant in the room is that these policies give the same ineffective, corrupt and entirely worthless politicians even more money to "manage". The very definition of delusional wishful thinking.
this is the key fact. If a wealth tax were enacted and a responsible group were endowed with the money we might reap some value from a wealth tax. Giving American Politicians more tax money is like giving a heroine addict more heroine.
If the ultra wealthy move out a few people will lose their jobs (their family office, some accountants, some property managers will work the same job for someone else). But overall people will not be worse off.
We have been doing this exact experiment in Seattle sine 2024 when Bozos moved out. And last month Howard Schultz moved out as well. The sky did not fall.
Another example- did the average Londoner get better off when Russian oligarch parked their money in London in early 2000s? And likewise - was the average Londoner worse off when that money was frozen in Jan 2022 when Ukrainian war started? Not really…
You also lose the jobs the wealthy were paying for, and the taxes those employees would have paid, and the sales tax the wealthy are no longer paying, and so on.
There was no tax revenue to begin with-nobody paid income taxes in WA before the millionaire tax. The jobs the rich will take with are few and very specialized: tax accountants, security people, some administrative assistants. When billionaires leave whoever mowed their lawn or cleaned their pool will do the same job - for the next owner.
What the politicians will do with these taxes does not matter to me. The only thing I dispute is this sense of doom because, of my god, Bill Gates and Andy Jassy and Howard Schultz and Ballmer will pick up their toys and leave.
London is a highly housing-constrained city, so the most important way of answering this question is, what affect did freezing Russian oligarch money in Jan 2022 have on the London housing market? If it made housing cheaper or otherwise more available, it was good for the average Londoner; and if it did the opposite it was bad. I have no idea which effect dominated or if it even made an appreciable difference compared to everything else that affects the London housing market.
The level of delusional wishful thinking here defies belief. Seattle and all other US "left" strongholds are decomposing and falling apart, with parts of these cities worse off than the third world. Instead of realizing that it's ineffective, incompetent and detached from reality politicians that have brought ruin and misery, you want to hand them even more money.
Parts of these cities worse off than the third world? Have you been to a third world country? Or Seattle, for that matter?
The commonly scapegoated cities in the United States are not experiencing third world conditions. Appalachia is experiencing third world conditions. Hollowed out rust belt cities in the Midwest are experiencing third world conditions. These areas are not run by lefty politicians. The United States has a systemic problem, not a local one.
And yes, the systemic problem is that there are a tiny number of ultra wealthy people with wildly outsized influence on the government of the United States, doing everything they can to reduce the amount they need to pay in taxes while simultaneously ensuring they extract the maximum amount of profit from the US government's wildly excessive expenditures.
> Seattle and all other US "left" strongholds are decomposing and falling apart, with parts of these cities worse off than the third world
You can tell this is true because property values have plummeted and nobody wants to live there any more, right? Or, since that’s not true at all, possibly the people who craft the media you consume are not being fully honest.
I don’t really care about whatever taxes the politicians will heap on the rich. My point is that if the rich leave it will not the economic calamity so many pundits forecast. Life will go on without rich people.
Just look at Oregon for example. It’s a lot like WA state but without the billionaires. And it is a really nice place to live. If WA state ends up like Oregon I won’t mind.
No, why? If we're going to do a wealth tax, then do a wealth tax. Why single out only one kind of wealth, and the kind that is not even the most important these days?
(What's more important? IP. The value of Google, say, isn't in the land it owns. It's in the code, the database of web pages, and the google.com domain name.)
> kind that is not even the most important these days
uhhh source on that? I'm pretty sure land is literally the largest asset class in the economy. Real estate is by many estimates over 2X as large as the entire combined global market cap of all publicly traded companies. https://europhoenix.com/blog/part-ii-on-asset-classes-size-o...
No, I'm not going to watch a video to see what your point is. Either tell me, or don't.
Re your last paragraph: I admit I'm surprised by that. Still... Georgism calls for a tax only on the value of the land, not on the improvements. Of all that money in real estate, how much is in the improvements, and how much is in the raw land?
> This figure includes only high quality retail property, offices, industrial, hotels, residential, other commercial uses, and agricultural land
From this I gather that a large chunk of it is the improvements.
And, if real estate is the biggest category, why focus just on the land part of that, and ignore all the improvements on it?
This article is about a wealth tax. The arguments for Georgism are about something else - about social policy. It may even work as social policy, though I have at least some doubts. But as a wealth tax, it's not very effective. (If I were a rich person, I could buy a $100 million apartment in New York, and have the rest of my assets in stocks and gold and art, and my tax liability would be for my pro-rated fraction of the land that the high rise that held my apartment occupied. As a wealth tax, that's got far too many loopholes to be useful.)
The wealth tax argument actually is because our current 2 party political system is set up to where politicians effectively "pay" their corporate constituency with their discretionary spending, which has increased the national debt substantially.
The only way this system can continue is if we increase the receipts (aka tax revenue).
The political class has very wisely targeted "the wealthy," who are capable of tactically avoiding taxes, but as always it will eventually include the middle class who will ultimately be paying the tax. From their standpoint they will popularize this tactic because it will work
This is being sold as class warfare, but its really the evolution of our political system into an unsustainable system of patronage with public funds.
We have plenty of other problems like "buy, borrow, die" (discussed elsewhere in this thread), but ultimately the wealth tax stems from needing more public funds, which stems from politicians spending all of our money.
> Wealth accumulates with no input once established.
This is incorrect, historically you'll pay a ~2%-3% loss via inflation if you keep your money in cash. If you invest (making it capital) in bonds or securities then you will see accumulation, but thats actually a risk premium.
> Additionally, wealthy people can use securities as collateral for near zero interest lifetime loans which also bypass having to pay income tax.
This is true, its typically called "Buy, Borrow, Die" but the reality is that it is only available to a very small percent of wealthy individuals and exists because of the way inheritance is handled ("stepped-up basis"). Even reasonably (not fabulously) wealthy people will still pay retail rates on the loans making the tactic basically ineffective. Last I heard you needed something like 100M+ liquid for lenders to even consider it (presumably, because they will make more off of some other deal with you)
The S&P500 has increased 9.8% annually the last 100 years, roughly 6% annually adjusted for inflation. Yes, past performance is no guarantee for future, but historically a completely passive index placement of wealth into S&P500 would double the real (adjusted for inflation) wealth every 12 years. With absolutely no work.
Also, if you are wealthy enough you can just wait out any economic downturn. Hell, Im not even that wealthy and it would have to get really bad before I would be forced to sell in a down market.
Yeah but the 5% Paul used is also kind of conservative since the 1970s stock market returns is like 10% ignoringinflation. Its a big difference if your well grows 7% verse 5% a 1% wealth tax with that in mind is only 15% but i think factoring in inflation is unfair concerning labor pays tax after inflation. That brings the rate down to 10% and thats without taking any significant risk.
I think a real solution is a forced step up in bases every year so people cannot put taxes off forever. It can be modest too 5% of your investment value delta. You could make the carried lost yoy track the net so you cannot be forced to pay when things are down.
Also the idea that capital gains tax should be less than income tax rate is strange. Like the people that own large amount of capital are in the lowest risk situations why should they also.have the most generous tax positions it makes no sense. No real person things the business owner who gets large returns is actually worse off or in high risk because if they were they'd be culled by economic evolution
Step-up basis is important for anyone who inherits property from their parents. That can be substantial in places like California where real estate has gone up a lot.
And for inherited rental property, there is another huge loophole: you can can depreciate the full market value of an asset that you got for free. That’s a substantial tax benefit for many years.
The step up basis makes sense in a world where you still have to pay substantial inheritance taxes. But with minimal to no inheritance taxes, the step up is a giveaway.
It’s also a practical policy. It’s far easier to know the stepped-up basis on the date of X’s death than it is to know the basis that X had in something once X is dead.
Which argues in favor of the inheritance tax mentioned.
There could be other solutions too -- say, require a virtual wash trade at time of inheritance, so the capital gains from the parent's lifetime are taxed at time of death and the child gets the stepped up basis. Somewhat different than an inheritance tax, but at least not a giveaway.
The full value of the shares (original basis plus step-up [or step-down] in basis) is already part of the estate and so is already subject to the inheritance tax rules.
It's just that the exclusion amounts are fairly high, so in practice the tax owed is often $0.
Right, the point of the person you replied to was about the scenario where inheritance taxes are small or non-existent - they literally said step up in basis makes sense when inheritance is taxed meaningfully.
Can you substantiate why that would work in this case? From a fundamental perspective it looks like the AI companies (and Spacex) are looking to take advantage of the fact that no one is paying attention to increase the price of the stock during the IPO. Its likely that the public will pay higher prices without knowing because the price won't have stabilized.
never buy index funds. this is what wealthy will tell you but none of them own index funds. how many of sp500 companies are doing great these days, growing, profitable…? 5% maybe. my financial well-being has dramatically changed since I stopped buying index funds 9 years ago. bunch of “smart” people will tell you “oh this is risky, bla bla” and it sure might be but while you might end up “rich” with index funds you won’t get wealthy. I will never again spend a penny in index funds (I am self-employed and manage my own i401k)
I'm confused how the strategy works in the long run. If fewer people are incentivized to build websites on novel topics, there will be less content in general and less training data... plus AI overview results see less ad conversions and therefor less ad revenue. Whats the long game? I get that the paradigm is changing but this seems like its not going to help them maintain their dominance.
I totally understand what the article is about though... I went on to my wife's instagram and her ad load is unbelievable. She probably has to look at 1 ad for ever 3 reels or images or whatever the hell they call them. I couldn't imagine having to see that many ads.
Last quick note - part of the reason why I avoid that kind of media, and use the tech to block it. I had a professor in college who pointed out that the purpose of ads is not to sell something, its actually to make you unhappy.
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