TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
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User ID: 373
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I don't know of any literature that says the lock-in effect is so extreme that someone who had been planning to invest for, say, 6 months, would now choose to do so for 20 years. Rather, we'd be looking at something closer to a 10-30% increase in the time a median security would be held depending on the rate increase. Furthermore, interest rates are anomalously high right now compared to the last decade or two and will likely ebb a bit over the coming years assuming further waves of inflation don't happen (inflation has been on a downward trajectory for several quarters now).
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I think it's wrong to attribute the popularization of "incel" primarily to women. Women definitely prefer to be with men who are successful with women, but the vast majority are not consciously aware of their hypergamy. Women don't look for men who brag about their bodycount. They have other insults for low-status men, like the ever-useful "creepy" term that will never go out of style. While some women might have used the term "incel" on Tumblr or in random blogposts, it was more used as a replacement for the "entitlement" phenomenon, i.e. that men are not "entitled" to have sex with women because they're friends or neighbors or "boys will be boys" or whatever.
In contrast, some men absolutely consider bodycount to be crucial to any man's overall value. Thus, terms like "incel" really started gaining popularity on male-dominated forums like 4chan long before they broke into the mainstream.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I find Nate's arguments pretty compelling here, assuming you actually want woke democrats on the Supreme Court, which I don't. But setting aside my personal feelings on the matter, he's basically correct.
Your arguments can basically be boiled down to the following:
- Seniority is important for judges to gain respect through judicial rigor.
- Democrats shouldn't bother thinking tactically since they should just win more elections by appealing to more people.
- Sotomayor would be more left-leaning than any candidate the dems could nominate now.
The first argument is the strongest, but it only has a marginal impact. The respect of judicial rigor that comes tenure is non-negligible. Further, other people in the thread added to the point that more senior justices get selected first to write opinions. But neither of these are that important. Even if they nominate Dumbo McGee, they're still locking down a lifetime appointment in one of the most consequential positions in America and the world. As a counterexample, Anthony Kennedy had pretty terrible reasoning in many of his opinions, but he was ultra-powerful by virtue of being a swing justice. So while you're making a good point, it'd be a lot stronger if you had some evidence of how much it actually matters in practice.
The second argument is just goofy. The senate has a heavy bias towards rural states, and it's been a minor miracle that Dems have remained competitive thus far, but as blue senators in red states retire or are defeated the bias will become undeniable. Nate has argued many times that Dems should stop pandering to the woke crazies, but he doesn't control the entire Democratic party. Abandoning positions will always come with a ton of pushback and there's no guarantee others will be on board, and the Dems would need to cut extremely deep to appeal to rural conservatives. The "tanking" argument doesn't hold a lot of water since there's a big difference between a 9-0 conservative majority vs a 5-4 conservative majority, just like how there'd be a huge difference between a 51-49 senate split vs a 100-0 split. Doing an end-run around the SCOTUS would be far, far harder than just fighting tactically for a justice now. Dems might end up uncompetitive in the senate in the long run, but they can still delay that for a bit.
The third argument is disproven by Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was recently confirmed in the same environment that a replacement for Sotomayor would face. Jackson is a female equivalent of Ibram Kendi, so no, I don't think the Dem pick would be guaranteed to be some moderate.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Your argument to me seems like the following:
Motte: Higher capgains means people could elect to stay in the market longer, thereby delaying when they pay their taxes
Bailey: Higher capgains means people could elect to stay in the market longer, thereby avoiding taxes forever
I'm arguing against the bailey. You keep restating the motte, but then it sort of seems like you want to edge towards that bailey. The main way to avoid paying taxes is through death via the step-up loophole, which should absolutely be closed. Beyond that, there's a small cost to the government getting the money later from the concept of the time-value of money, which certainly does exist but which is still a fairly small piece.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
That's just more can-kicking then, not an actual way to avoid taxes.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
The less frequently you sell your assets, the lower the effective tax rate due to capital gains tax.
No, that's not how it works. Capgains are taxed based on a percentage of the appreciation. It's not like a financial transactions tax that is a flat fee every time a trade is made. A 20% gain will be subject to the same tax as 2 equivalent 10% gains would be.
Also, if it's something that generates a return other than through appreciation (e.g. a dividend paying stock or real estate), by holding to it longer, you realize more of the value in a form that doesn't count as a capital gain and so you pay less tax.
Dividends are taxed at either the personal income tax rate, or the capgains rate if they're qualified dividends.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I don't deny the lock in effect is real and present to some degree, but it's not a way to avoid taxes, only to delay them a bit. Owning stocks is not an end unto itself for most people, they're a vehicle to get returns, either through dividends or appreciation. So yes, they can own the Apple stock for longer, but eventually they'll sell which triggers the full effect of the tax.
Also there are strategies to monetize without triggering gain (eg leverage, death).
The death loophole is bad and should definitely be closed. I'm not sure how leverage could be used to avoid taxes, but it should probably be closed as well.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Compare it to the people who oppose immigration or the sense of "being replaced". One could sneer at them, say they should just buckle up and accept changing racial demographics without complaint, that their sense of being a "stranger in their own land" is stupid and dumb, and that giving into their demands is defacto giving in to racism. Indeed, many coastal leftist elites do some version of this, but we'd generally regard them as pompous and out-of-touch.
So it goes with inequality. We could say to a poor secretary "no, no, your rich billionaire boss needs to have a lower tax rate than you, because the way he makes his money is special and taxing it too highly would be unfair". Somehow I doubt they would be convinced.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Construction workers in general have always been unreliable people
I was talking to my lawyer friend about construction workers, and he has a few construction worker clients and he says they're all on meth, so yeah, this checks out. I always kinda envisaged them as only slightly classier than a depressed Walmart worker, so it's good to confirm that with people who come into contact with them, as I certainly don't do so often.
Yes, that means the customer eats the bill for lots of waste, dishonesty, and sometimes theft
This is just crazy to me. Such a moral hazard that nobody I've heard really talks about defending against.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
That just kicks the can down the road a bit. They eventually sell if they want to get access to the money to do other stuff with it.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Bezos isn't stealing crusts of bread out of peoples' mouths, but there are a few direct problems like the rich usually being pro-immigrant for starters, as it lowers the cost of wages to make them even more money.
Then there's a lot of indirect problems, like the existence of the ultrawealthy causing a general sense of unease and unfairness. It's a lot like having a ton of unassimilated immigrants. There are some direct problems, but the bigger issue is the backlash it causes.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
That link you shared is an exceedingly strange scenario, where a man with $84 million never spent it. I can't check the link to the article it was responding to because it was dead, but people with $84 million usually don't tend to live a life of subsistence. When people make money through labor or capital, they usually do so with the desire to use it on something, be it material possessions for themselves, bequeathments for their heirs, or chasing things that are a little less tangible like power and influence.
Elon Musks for example can’t be taxed.
I generally like Elon for what he did to Twitter, but the dude owns several houses, an entire fleet of private jets, and a lot of other luxury items. The bigger issue would be if he would pass down his wealth to his kids to create a Musk Dynasty with the wealth continuing to expand further and further. To some degree you could say Musk deserves his money since he made a large chunk of it through his own labor, but his kids wouldn't have the same claim.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Sure, I have a Russian chick in my work who came to the US long before the war. She had originally intended to perhaps return to Russia one day, but the increasing totalitarianism and lack of white collar opportunities are making that vanishingly unlikely in her eyes.
That said, the benefits that the US gains from this type of thing are really quite tiny. Russia didn't have much of a good future before the invasion, and it's only gotten worse afterwards, but Russia isn't really a threat in the long-term.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
This doesn't make much sense to me. Why would construction costs be rising so much? Did we run out of trees or something? Are safe modern materials (like not using asbestos and lead-based paint) just massively more expensive than the alternatives? I could see labor costs rising to some degree due to the baumol effect, but that doesn't come close to explaining the total rise.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
The traditional economics is that taxing capital doesn’t raise any net tax revenue.
This doesn't seem right to me at all. Obviously there are distortionary effects, but you're effectively saying the laffer curve reaches its apex at 0%, which doesn't jive with traditional economics.
Yes, a higher capgains rate will theoretically lead to somewhat higher interest rates, but I find it exceedingly unlikely that it would perfectly cancel out especially when marginal investors decide to spend their money instead, leading to an increase in revenues through consumption taxes.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Confession. I only read gattsuru posts while on ADHD meds and even then, I can't break them down on my own. I have to have a conversation with bots regarding them.
During such a conversation, you get to do things like ask what a leekspinner is, get an immediate response, and go verify it.
This is intriguing, are you saying you copy+paste his writing into chatGPT and then ask questions of it? Do you do this for other pieces of writing as well? I've been looking for actual use-cases for chatbots and this seems promising.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
I personally like having things like roads and the military for protection.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
All taxes are distortionary. A few like carbon taxes or cigarette taxes distort in good ways, while most distort in bad ways. Taxing labor income is almost exclusively bad, since it promotes sloth and working less, while taxing capital gains is a mix. There's the bad aspect of discouraging investment along with the positive aspect of reducing inequality. The author is saying the current privileged mix of taxing investments less than labor income isn't good enough, that we should institute massive taxes on labor to reduce all taxes from investments to 0.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
This is predicated on Russia being willing to negotiate in ways that aren't essentially just a surrender of Ukraine. They've shown very little willingness to do this so far.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
To keep it from strangling the bottom. Some investment is good and necessary for a functioning economy, but letting it go unchecked creates inequality and other problems. I think for a starter that labor income and investment income should be taxed at the same rates.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
Valuable comment and perspective, thanks for responding.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
You seem like a Perun-watcher. I watch him too. He's great.
I should have specified a bit more clearly: Russia will be able to reconstitute the majority of its combat capacity in 5-10 years. There will be some lingering areas that take longer of course, but people are acting like Russia is going to be incapable of launching another invasion for 20+ years. The US army was severely battered after Vietnam, yet it reconstituted itself very effectively in 18 years to curbstomp Saddam in '91. It probably could have done so a lot earlier too.
An officer corps of 20-years experience takes 20 years to build
This seems like it would be referencing NCOs, but Russia never had a robust and empowered NCO contingent. It's always been a very top-heavy organization relative to other militaries. This conflict practically erased the reforms trying to implement the Battalion Tactical Group as a coherent fighting unit, but in many ways this conflict has been a return to the basics for Russia. It's a big stupid artillery-centric army that tries to solve problems by blasting them with a truckload of artillery and frontal assaults using infiltration tactics in good scenarios and cannonfodder kamikazes in bad ones. In other words, there's not really a lot to relearn here.
The Russian production rates of aircraft
The naval losses
Both the Russian aerospace forces and its navy would be irrelevant in any larger conflict with the West. It might be relevant if Trump causes NATO to collapse and Russia manages it's diplomacy to 1v1 a country like Finland, but otherwise it was never much of threat.
The bigger issue for the Russian military-industrial complex is the Russian arms export industry.
Yes, this is definitely happening. As of now this market share is mostly going to countries like France and South Korea, but in the long run it will likely go to China which will probably be a lot worse simply since they're more of a long term threat.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
It is not really taxing wealth, because an equally rich person who spends his money right away avoids it.
Someone who spends their money by buying stuff gets hit by sales taxes, while someone who "spends" their money to make more money gets hit with capgains taxes. The two are symmetrical in that way.
There's nothing inherently "unfair" with taxing investments, as opposed to taxing something like labor income. I read all 3 of your links since they were short, and basically the only argument he presents for not taxing investments is that saving is intrinsically good, but he gives no real reasoning for this. Yes, some saving is good, but he wants to replace capgains taxes with massive taxes on labor income. So doctors and engineers would be hit massively harshly (or "unfairly"), while trust-fund kids would get a windfall. He's trying to smuggle a plan for the rich with vague notions of "fairness" and "saving good" without examining externalities related to high inequality or dynastic wealth. High inequality is just as acidic for the civil polity as massive unassimilated immigration is, so we should generally avoid it where possible.
If you invest in government bonds, your real tax after-tax return will be negative.
Well that's just flatly not correct, as "government bonds" encompasses a range of investment vehicles including higher rate munis. Assuming you were talking about T-bills... it's still not really correct. Returns would depend on the prevailing rate set by the open market, the level of inflation, and timeframe. E.g. today the 30 year T bill is 4.77%, which is quite a bit higher than inflation.
I'm not generally opposed to adjusting capgains for inflation, as long as the total rate of capgains across the board doesn't change (it'd need to rise in other places to compensate). But the prevailing rates offered would likely decrease to the point where it was mostly a wash, and you were the same as before except with more complicated taxes where you'd need to calculate inflation rates.
TheAntipopulist
Voltaire's Viceroy
2yr ago
bleeding Russia is on sale right at an amazing discount right now, so we're buying a bit.
I'm as pro-Ukraine as they get, but this point never seemed correct to me. Russia will be able to reconstitute itself 5-10 years max after the war is over. Rebuilding doesn't take that long. And we're mostly just burning through Russia's legacy Soviet stockpile, which would have become more and more obsolete anyways as time passed by. Even the long-term damage Russia will experience from sanctions and the like won't matter much, since Russia isn't really a long-term threat like China is.
Yes, the key part of your two examples being that the guy who stayed in the market the entire time payed slightly more tax at $52.50 vs $51.88 that the guy who rebought after a year, due to the slightly higher principle. In other words, they delayed the tax, but they did not dodge the tax.
So maybe my point up above about being "subject to the same tax" was a bit misleading, and I should have clarified that they pay at the same rate, adjusted for principle. The guy who stays in for two years pays 25% of his gains on his two years, vs the guy who rebalances after one year pays 25% for one year, then 25% for the second year. The important point here is they're not avoiding the tax forever, they're delaying it.
Not sure what you're referencing here other than qualified dividends.
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