Obscene!

[SasaS]

50 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Steve/Jeff isn't "earning" it in any meaningful sense: those fluctuations in stock market values happen largely irrespective of how many hours he puts in.

 

The Government doesn't get to own the shares, so would never get to own the company.  The way wealth taxes tend to work is that a person's wealth is valued once a year and they are billed for a percentage above a certain threshold.  (To use the numbers in my speculative punt, Steve/Jeff would get a letter saying "Your assets are valued at $143 biilion - you owe us 99% of $142 billion."  The numbers are extreme, but the point is he would still be an extremely wealthy man after paying his taxes, even at an outrageously high tax rate.)

If my wealth consists of shares in my company, let's say I own 25% and the company is valued on average at 100 billion for that year, I am worth 25 billion. You would then tax me how exactly? 

[Bjornebye]

3 minutes ago, SasaS said:

If my wealth consists of shares in my company, let's say I own 25% and the company is valued on average at 100 billion for that year, I am worth 25 billion. You would then tax me how exactly? 

 

 

[PestiRed]

This thread doesn’t live up to its title

[SasaS]

It's simple question. Would you tax my dividend, or the difference in market value of my shares, what? Would you accept my shares as tax or would I have to sell to pay your tax?

[AngryOfTuebrook]

18 minutes ago, SasaS said:

If my wealth consists of shares in my company, let's say I own 25% and the company is valued on average at 100 billion for that year, I am worth 25 billion. You would then tax me how exactly? 

The way Government's tax anyone - send you a bill and say "Pay up, Plums, or go straight to jail."

[SasaS]

Just now, AngryofTuebrook said:

The way Government's tax anyone - send you a bill and say "Pay up, Plums, or go straight to jail."

So you have no idea how would that work and what you would actually be taxing in the real world, my income, assets, profit, revenues.   

[Rick Sanchez C-137]

3 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

The way Government's tax anyone - send you a bill and say "Pay up, Plums, or go straight to jail."

So you would have to sell 99% of your shares to pay your tax bill?

[Guest]

[AngryOfTuebrook]

8 minutes ago, SasaS said:

So you have no idea how would that work and what you would actually be taxing in the real world, my income, assets, profit, revenues.   

Y'know, in the real world, where wealth taxes exist, government economists and tax accountants work out the details before implementing them, rather than shrugging "some bloke on a football forum doesn't have all the answers at his fingertips, therefore there's nothing we can do to tap the centi-billionaires for a bit of assistance for rough sleepers".

[AngryOfTuebrook]

12 minutes ago, Aw Geez said:

So you would have to sell 99% of your shares to pay your tax bill?

In the example I gave, you'd have to raise 99% of the value of your assets above the first billion: if all of SasaS's $25 billion assets are in shares, then he'd have to flog 99% of  $24 - leaving him with comfortably more than a billion in assets.

[Bjornebye]

 

 

 

[SasaS]

7 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

In the example I gave, you'd have to raise 99% of the value of your assets above the first billion: if all of SasaS's $25 billion assets are in shares, then he'd have to flog 99% of  $24 - leaving him with comfortably more than a billion in assets.

So I would be incentivized to make my company very good until it reaches the market value of 4 billion, and then I would just say fuck it, they are going to take every next dime I make anyway so who cares, just make sure we don't fail completely.

[TheHowieLama]

For all super rich, the snowball will always get bigger unless they do something catastrophic - even then for the super rich it still would not stem the tide of incoming dosh.

Bezos could close Amazon tomorrow and would still "earn" more than anyone in the world. Probably forever.

[SasaS]

Just now, TheHowieLama said:

For all super rich, the snowball will always get bigger unless they do something catastrophic - even then for the super rich it still would not stem the tide of incoming dosh.

Bezos could close Amazon tomorrow and would still "earn" more than anyone in the world. Probably forever.

How? Isn't his wealth based on the market-estimated value of Amazon's shares?

[TheHowieLama]

1 minute ago, SasaS said:

How? Isn't his wealth based on the market-estimated value of Amazon's shares?

His overall wealth yes - do you think his portfolio consists solely of un-redeemed Amazon shares?

[SasaS]

4 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

His overall wealth yes - do you think his portfolio consists solely of un-redeemed Amazon shares?

I don't know, but all these stories how much he has and how many other people would take how much time to earn that much is usually based on the rise of value of Amazon.

 

Everybody is obsessed with these super rich people, but how would Angry's tax actually help society longterm, it would heavily tax people who happened to create super successful companies (we can argue about a system which makes such behemoths possible though) but not someone like Trump, no, Trump would be OK.

 

Imagine I'm a scion of an old Southern family, a lawyer in a mid-sized town, fingers in every pie, but I have not created anything wider society can benefit from, I am just privileged and know all the right people and I am worth 50 mil. to 100 mil. and apparently nobody has a problem with that. But my son, who has created a very successful tech company, took it to IPO and now owns 25% of something worth in theory over 10 billion, that is now a problem, we all hate him.

[TheHowieLama]

He sold 4 billion USD worth of stock just this year. Cash.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

33 minutes ago, SasaS said:

So I would be incentivized to make my company very good until it reaches the market value of 4 billion, and then I would just say fuck it, they are going to take every next dime I make anyway so who cares, just make sure we don't fail completely.

I'm not sure how to break this to you...

 

The efforts, talents and incentivisation of a founder or CEO of a company has absolutely zero impact on the difference between a $4 billion company and a $100 billion company.  For example, look at the story that started this thread: a company that's hugely valuable is becoming much more so by the "good luck" of a once in a century global pandemic. 

[SasaS]

1 minute ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

I'm not sure how to break this to you...

 

The efforts, talents and incentivisation of a founder or CEO of a company has absolutely zero impact on the difference between a $4 billion company and a $100 billion company.  For example, look at the story that started this thread: a company that's hugely valuable is becoming much more so by the "good luck" of a once in a century global pandemic. 

 

Amazon became the worlds most valuable company (for a while) before the global pandemic, in fact, there was a period of a couple of years when it's value skyrocketed (I don't remember the exact history anymore) which was due to their overall business strategy, or investors' belief that they knew what they were doing. So if you want to believe that it was just luck, it's your prerogative, you will certainly be a happier man.

 

I don't even know how its share price was doing since the pandemic (hopefully OK because I indirectly own some of it, so it might soften the blow). I know that when the market recovers, I read stories about how much Bezos "made", when it all goes down again, like over the past two weeks, you don't hear about Jeff all that much.

And it's all about incentives, on all levels, t's the main difference between successful and unsuccesful economies, people believing they could keep what they earned or if most of it would eventually be extracted from them, so what's the point.

[VladimirIlyich]

7 minutes ago, SasaS said:

 

Amazon became the worlds most valuable company (for a while) before the global pandemic, in fact, there was a period of a couple of years when it's value skyrocketed (I don't remember the exact history anymore) which was due to their overall business strategy, or investors' belief that they knew what they were doing. So if you want to believe that it was just luck, it's your prerogative, you will certainly be a happier man.

 

I don't even know how its share price was doing since the pandemic (hopefully OK because I indirectly own some of it, so it might soften the blow). I know that when the market recovers, I read stories about how much Bezos "made", when it all goes down again, like over the past two weeks, you don't hear about Jeff all that much.

And it's all about incentives, on all levels, t's the main difference between successful and unsuccesful economies, people believing they could keep what they earned or if most of it would eventually be extracted from them, so what's the point.

Is it possible they became bigger than competitors through paying less or no tax and/or paying workers much less than anything like a liveable wage and less than their rivals? Employing immigrants on smaller wages than a normal citizen because they cant get welfare? The company is hugely overvalued? The banks lent them the kind of money nobody else would? Could be a few reasons I am guessing. Surely this kind of 'worth' is simply calculated through gambles and predictions rather than on actual cash? 

[SasaS]

1 minute ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Is it possible they became bigger than competitors through paying less or no tax and/or paying workers much less than anything like a liveable wage and less than their rivals? Employing immigrants on smaller wages than a normal citizen because they cant get welfare? The company is hugely overvalued? The banks lent them the kind of money nobody else would? Could be a few reasons I am guessing. Surely this kind of 'worth' is simply calculated through gambles and predictions rather than on actual cash? 

I think they pay OK in comparison with the industry but don't allow unions and push the workers to the limit, so it is probably not a very happy place to work. Since they operated at a loss for years and never paid any dividends, the value of the company is, I guess, from investors expectations they would capitalize on the market dominance and overall business strategy. They relentlessly pursued Internet sales, treated the customers right even if they lost money in the short term, they were among the first to go big in cloud computing, creating their own content distribution channel with kindle then moving to content creation, most US households are now paying them subscritpion to be their customers ... they have a bit of a visionary  - driven evil genius in Bezos intent on world domination, all things investors like.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

1 hour ago, SasaS said:

 

Amazon became the worlds most valuable company (for a while) before the global pandemic, in fact, there was a period of a couple of years when it's value skyrocketed (I don't remember the exact history anymore) which was due to their overall business strategy, or investors' belief that they knew what they were doing. So if you want to believe that it was just luck, it's your prerogative, you will certainly be a happier man.

 

I don't even know how its share price was doing since the pandemic (hopefully OK because I indirectly own some of it, so it might soften the blow). I know that when the market recovers, I read stories about how much Bezos "made", when it all goes down again, like over the past two weeks, you don't hear about Jeff all that much.

And it's all about incentives, on all levels, t's the main difference between successful and unsuccesful economies, people believing they could keep what they earned or if most of it would eventually be extracted from them, so what's the point.

That's a horribly bleak view of humanity, thinking that our sole - or even prime - motivation is the accumulation of stuff.  Quality of life is much more than that.

 

Of course, your distinction between successful and unsuccessful economies is entirely subjective.  If you measure an economy's success by (say) its number of billionaires, then your contention probably holds; if you measure success by (say) the proportion of the population who are homeless, then it probably doesn't.

 

As for believing that luck (including the luck of operating in a time and place where the accumulation of vast fortunes is valued more than contributing to the economic health of the society in general) played a huge part in Bezos's ability to amass a vast pile of dosh, it's a prerogative I share with Jeff Bezos, who talks about his "financial lottery winnings from Amazon".

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-interview-axel-springer-ceo-amazon-trump-blue-origin-family-regulation-washington-post-2018-4?mod=article_inline&r=US&IR=T

 

As for your Amazon shares, you'll be pleased to know that they're trading at higher prices than at any time in (at least) the last 18 months.  The latest price rise has coincided with a period in which much of the rich world is becoming more dependent on home deliveries.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/history/

 

 

[SasaS]

55 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

That's a horribly bleak view of humanity, thinking that our sole - or even prime - motivation is the accumulation of stuff.  Quality of life is much more than that.

 

Of course, your distinction between successful and unsuccessful economies is entirely subjective.  If you measure an economy's success by (say) its number of billionaires, then your contention probably holds; if you measure success by (say) the proportion of the population who are homeless, then it probably doesn't.

 

As for believing that luck (including the luck of operating in a time and place where the accumulation of vast fortunes is valued more than contributing to the economic health of the society in general) played a huge part in Bezos's ability to amass a vast pile of dosh, it's a prerogative I share with Jeff Bezos, who talks about his "financial lottery winnings from Amazon".

https://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-bezos-interview-axel-springer-ceo-amazon-trump-blue-origin-family-regulation-washington-post-2018-4?mod=article_inline&r=US&IR=T

 

As for your Amazon shares, you'll be pleased to know that they're trading at higher prices than at any time in (at least) the last 18 months.  The latest price rise has coincided with a period in which much of the rich world is becoming more dependent on home deliveries.

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/AMZN/history/

 

 

That is good news, although I see we are going down for the past two days.

My measure of successful economies is pretty traditional, admittedly I may be subjective in thinking it's traditional and kind of self evident, but it is mostly people want to live there, high or reasonably quickly growing per capita income, decent employment etc - good, crisis, people trying to escape, low or falling per capita income, unemployment - bad. I don't know what the quality of life on a national level means, looking at how people vote with their feet, I would say they want to live in countries with good economies by my measure, don't know what the countries with bad economies but a good quality of life by your measure are, but I would expect that they don't have a lot of immigration problems.

Amazon's business success was not based on luck, or at least not only on luck, you obviously need things to go your way, but it is really not that outlandish to think that positioning a company the way they positioned themselves turned out to be a successful business strategy. Same as with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and so on, you don't have to be tech or business analyst to be aware of their competitive advantages based on right choices.

What else is there... don't know what you mean by contributing to the economic health of the society in general, I would think that creating a hugely successful company everyone wants to buy a piece of even during a total economic meltdown contributes somewhat to "the economic health of the society in general". Details, aspects and negative elements withing that success are certainly up for discussion.

 

On Bezos, I don't see what good would wrestling control of Amazon from his hands and giving it to, presumably it would be the idea, some government appointed leadership do, which is what usually is behind the talk of his wealth calculated as his shares times current market price. He sold some before the crisis, tax that, he bought a house from Geffen for over 100 mil., tax that, tax Geffen, tax his jet or yacht, or income from other portfolio holdings, but taxing the market value of his share in Amazon, that I don't understand. You are effectively punishing someone for the value other people are ascribing to his company and then using this as a pretext to squeeze him out of ownership. That is a sure way of removing incentive from people to create commercial value and thus, I guess, speeding up the process of bringing about that economy based on quality of life. 
 

[SasaS]

Paso doble.

[AngryOfTuebrook]

6 minutes ago, SasaS said:

 

That is good news, although I see we are going down for the past two days.

My measure of successful economies is pretty traditional, admittedly I may be subjective in thinking it's traditional and kind of self evident, but it is mostly people want to live there, high or reasonably quickly growing per capita income, decent employment etc - good, crisis, people trying to escape, low or falling per capita income, unemployment - bad. I don't know what the quality of life on a national level means, looking at how people vote with their feet, I would say they want to live in countries with good economies by my measure, don't know what the countries with bad economies but a good quality of life by your measure are, but I would expect that they don't have a lot of immigration problems.

Amazon's business success was not based on luck, or at least not only on luck, you obviously need things to go your way, but it is really not that outlandish to think that positioning a company the way they positioned themselves turned out to be a successful business strategy. Same as with Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and so on, you don't have to be tech or business analyst to be aware of their competitive advantages based on right choices.

What else is there... don't know what you mean by contributing to the economic health of the society in general, I would think that creating a hugely successful company everyone wants to buy a piece of even during a total economic meltdown contributes somewhat to "the economic health of the society in general". Details, aspects and negative elements withing that success are certainly up for discussion.

 

On Bezos, I don't see what good would wrestling control of Amazon from his hands and giving it to, presumably it would be the idea, some government appointed leadership do, which is what usually is behind the talk of his wealth calculated as his shares times current market price. He sold some before the crisis, tax that, he bought a house from Geffen for over 100 mil., tax that, tax Geffen, tax his jet or yacht, or income from other portfolio holdings, but taxing the market value of his share in Amazon, that I don't understand. You are effectively punishing someone for the value other people are ascribing to his company and then using this as a pretext to squeeze him out of ownership. That is a sure way of removing incentive from people to create commercial value and thus, I guess, speeding up the process of bringing about that economy based on quality of life. 
 

I don't believe there is such a thing as a country with a "bad" economy but a "good" society.  The criteria for deciding whether or not a country's economy is "good" must surely address whether it works for the people of the country.  You can have growth in GDP per capita, but if 0.1% of the people keep 90% of the national income, leaving everyone else in poverty, then that's not a good economy.

 

I don't deny the initial hardwork and talent that went into founding most massive corporations.  What I do doubt is that it takes continued hardwork and talent - incentivised by tax-free accumulation of wealth - to turn a $4 billion outfit into something much bigger.  Once a corporation has reached a certain size, its continued growth doesn't depend on whether the CEO works a 60 hour week: its continued growth depends largely on its ability (for want of a better phrase) to throw its weight around. iI can squeeze favourable terms from local and national governments, from its suppliers and from its workforce simply because it's so big.

 

As for giving control of Amazon to a Government body, I've specifically ruled that out.  If Bezos had to sell some shares to pay his tax bill, it would little sense for the Government to be giving him cash for the shares, so he could give the cash back to them.  Let him sell the shares on to someone else, or find some other way to pay his tax bill.