Capitalism works a lot better than communism. At least countries that are vaguely capitalist still exist and can realistically be described as capitalist today. Countries that claim to be communist are authoritarian, or authoritarian plus capitalist.

The reason the rich borrow money is to take advantage of tax loopholes

Ok, what tax loopholes?

No, it’s my own eyes. You don’t need the capitalists to interpret it for you when you can just look for yourself and see that communism never works.

That’s what success looks like. But, you don’t know if you’re going to be successful when you take out the loan. If there’s a market downturn you’re on the hook for the loan and your portfolio has crashed. If you sold a few stocks instead of taking out a loan, you’re insulated from that possibility.

Why is “permanent utopia” the criterion? I don’t know of any political system that claims there will be a “permanent utopia”, except maybe dreams of what communism might one day be like.

In what ways is Vietnam a communist country?

That’s so far because either a elite group gets in power and turns it into feudalism again

If it always collapses into feudalism / authoritarianism, it’s not a workable system.

We didn’t throw away democracy just because the french revolution failed at first.

The French and the Americans had historical working versions of democracy to consider, like the Athenian system. Communism just fails over and over again every time it’s tried.

If you got 500$ - 100$ in tax for the card and it drops back to 50$, you can just buy it back with 400$ you still have left…

They’re talking about a wealth tax where you have to pay $100 even though you never sold the card. (But it’s double bullshit because something as small as $500 is never going to face a wealth tax, and $100 (20%) is a way higher tax rate than anybody would pay.

Ok, but how about something instead of communism, because that never works.

“Boo Hoo, my assets keep going up in value so much that I keep having to cash out!”

Do you consider Switzerland to be a European country. It has had forms of wealth tax for centuries, and the current tax generates roughly 4% of Switzerland’s total revenue. It seems to work just fine there.

The ways this is idiotic:

1. “The government says: “Cool, but that card is worth $500 now. You owe us $100 in taxes.” You: “…I didn’t sell it.””

There is currently no tax on unrealized gains. If there ever were, it wouldn’t be 20%. It would be something tiny like 1-2%. It’s a wealth tax. Wealth taxes are tiny compared to income taxes precisely because they’re taxing something you’re holding and will still have next year if nothing changes.

2. “Next month? That card drops back to $50.”

Why does it “drop back to $50”? OP said that the $500 value was because someone offered that much for it. Did that person no longer want to buy it? It’s true that sometimes the value of things is fluid, which can make wealth taxes hard. But a 90% drop in value over the course of a month? Let’s be realistic.

3. “Your mom calls you crying. She has to sell the house she raised you in. Not because she can’t afford it. She’s lived there 30 years. It’s paid off.”

Yes, housing taxes are wealth taxes. Sometimes when the place you lived in appreciates enough, the property taxes go up a lot. So yes, sometimes people do have to move when their properties go up so much they can no longer afford the property taxes. But, when that happens they get to sell the place, and if the property taxes are so much that the person can no longer afford them, that means that the property is worth a fortune. The property tax is often 2% or below. So, if mom owes $15,000 in property taxes, that means her property is worth at least $750,000, probably actually more than $1M. Cha ching! She can buy a nice, smaller place now that she doesn’t need to raise kids, and use the rest to go on some nice vacations.

Yeah, it sucks if you have an emotional attachment to a place you can no longer afford. But, there are plenty of people who can’t afford to buy a house at all, who weren’t even allowed to mark their kids’ heights every birthday because they were renting. Wealth taxes are a way to even things out. Property taxes are a pretty shitty form of wealth taxes because they hit the middle class harder than the ultra rich, but people who don’t own property don’t pay property taxes, which is good.

4. “Next year the market crashes. His business is worth $200,000.”

Man, this guy can’t catch a break, all his relatives have everything crash 90% in value immediately after having to pay a tax bill they can’t afford, despite wealth taxes being tiny amounts.

In addition, most of the time wealth taxes have a threshold exactly for this kind of reason. If someone owns a $2m business in a place with wealth taxes, they may pay nothing because the first $5m is exempt.

Yes, sometimes wealth taxes are more painful to upper middle class or the moderately rich because they don’t have the armies of lawyers and accountants who can find the best strategy to minimize their taxes. But, the answer isn’t to scrap wealth taxes entirely. It’s to accept that even the moderately wealthy should pay more than people who own almost nothing, and to properly fund the tax authorities and financial crimes divisions of the cops so they can go after the ultra rich when they illegally avoid taxes.

Your kids inherit the stock at its current value and immediately sell $10M worth to pay off original loan

And the bank says “um, what about the rest?” In the 1970s and early 80s the inflation rate was, at times, above 10%, so your loan’s interest rate would have been above that. But say on average the loan’s interest rate was 5% per year over 30 years… the bank isn’t going to be content for just the original $10M.

On average from 2004 to 2022, the top 1% of wealth-holders only borrowed 1-2% of their annual economic income

What’s confusing to me is that there must be a reason they’re borrowing. When you borrow, you have to pay interest. If you’re someone who has a lot of money, why would you pay someone to lend you money? I guess the only thing that makes sense is that they think that whatever makes them rich, say Amazon shares or something, will go up at a rate that beats the interest rate they have to pay for the loan. OTOH, I guess they’re not so sure of that that they borrow in order to buy even more Amazon shares.

The primary tax avoidance strategy for the top 1% is not to borrow, but simply not to sell appreciated assets

I assume this means “not to sell all of their appreciated assets”, because they do spend a lot of money and it has to come from somewhere.

made us work

So, you didn’t draw the line there either?

According to the NY Times, it’s a mixed story:

Archive.is link: https://archive.is/mUZpK

“Lets get three motion detected hidden cameras, that record,” Mr. Epstein wrote to Larry Visoski, his longtime pilot, who has said he at times set up audio and video equipment for Mr. Epstein in his residences.

OTOH:

“My understanding from the case agent is that there were no cameras found inside any bedrooms or living areas of either residence,” read the email, which was recently released by the Justice Department. The email added that the only cameras the F.B.I. found were near the residences’ entryways.

Then again:

A police official later wrote in an incident report that he “located two covert (hidden) cameras.” Both were stashed inside clocks, one in Mr. Epstein’s garage and the other beside his desk.

And some cameras were for surveiling the outside:

At the time of his 2019 arrest, a room in Mr. Epstein’s New York house — down a hallway from the grand foyer — had monitors that were apparently hooked up to video cameras trained on the outside and entryway of Mr. Epstein’s house, according to photos reviewed by The Times. A red sign on the door read “24 Hour Video Surveillance.”

I think Canada has next to zero in marijuana exports, because it’s illegal to import it in most places. It does contribute billions to Canada’s GDP, but that’s production and consumption that never leaves the country.

IMO, it’s more “aboat” not “aboot”.

But, Americans say “abawt” instead of “about” so we’re even.

25 years ago this was a bit silly, but these days it’s like saying: “Look, I’m not on the Epstein List!”

Yeah, some of the key Canadian words are missing, eh?