That wealth is just paper until somebody spends it to buy something... capital goods, or services, or political influence, or whatever. Let people sit on their paper fortunes, but tax it consistently whenever it's used to buy stuff, or collateralize a loan, or whatever that allows people to realize value.

I wouldn't necessarily oppose a wealth tax, I just don't think it solves the problem. The problem we need to solve is passive income being taxed far less than wage income, and then we need to tax both kinds of income at rates that make sense.

n some special financial scheme that effectively hides/reinvests any profits without triggering the tax obligation

If that happens, then the system is fundamentally broken. If cross-border complications allow for hiding of passive income, then they are effectively hiding the wealth itself.

the obligation to track and report individual wealth in a standard way

I just don't think that's possible. The US can't force reporting requirements on "art" in Switzerland or Botswana. And wealth is difficult to measure anyway -- if the wealth is invested in art in a safe in Switzerland, how do you even value it? How can you possibly know what the next person is willing to spend for that art?

Instead, wait for the owner to sell it, and THEN tax the sale. It's very hard to measure and capture "wealth"; it's relatively easy to capture transactions.

I think we need to mentally compartmentalize Elon Musk, the rich dingbat, from the output of his companies.

Tesla single-handedly brought the electric car to the American market in a sustainable way, where every US and Japanese car maker was in a pause state waiting for somebody else to take the first move (although, credit to Nissan for the Leaf, but I think that by itself the Leaf wasn't going to open the floodgates).

For all the goofiness around SpaceX, I think they've proven that they are the right model for developing orbital boost systems. Other major players are trying to be more like SpaceX.

Should the US have effectively subsidized these efforts? Yeah, we should have. Arguably Tesla and SpaceX were the only serious players in these markets with the chutzpah to be successful, after a lot of false starts by others (incl. bigger companies in the same markets).

It's a shame that they enabled and enriched a giant dingbat, but in the end, Tesla and SpaceX have done things that nobody else could.

So by all means, tax him. And point out how Tesla and SpaceX depended on gov't subsidies and tax rebates. But let's also keep focus on the fact that electric car success and a more competitive space program are good things that were, and are, worth taxpayer involvement.

Also, to go back to the subject of the article. We don't really need a wealth tax. We don't need a corporate tax (which is just the political cowards tax).

We need to stop giving capital gains a free ride. Tax income when it is realized, consistently. Investment income should the same tax -- or just very slightly less -- as wage income. 15% tax on investment returns is laughably low.

Ah, excellent point, thank you.

Check the label before you drink it, especially if you're watching your sugar intake for medical reasons.

Umm. How would checking the label help? If the drinks were labelled correctly, there would be no reason for a recall.

Ah, Wikipedia makes it really easy to list by per capita representation.

The top 10 in "lowest population per electoral vote":

 Wyoming
 Vermont
 District of Columbia
 Alaska
 North Dakota
 Montana
 Rhode Island
 South Dakota
 Delaware
 Maine

Well I did link to it in my response.

The NPVIC has a number of problems. The biggest one is impermanence: Many states, faced with assigning their electoral votes to the least popular candidate in their own state, will rush back to the their halls of legislature to gut the compact.

I mean, can you really see the progressive legislators in MA or CA assigning their electoral votes to a conservative winner who got whipped in their own state something like 60-40? The only states willing to enforce the NPVIC are the states whose internal popular vote mirrors the national popular vote.

Yeah, it's a hopeless quest. Truly eliminating the EC would require 3/4 of state legislatures, an almost impossible task when the majority of states would be effectively voting against their self-interest.

Effectively neutering the EC only requires that the states with 50% of the EC votes agree to follow the national popular vote. But, it would be a fragile detente, since any state legislature could back out and break it.

It’s also really good for making sure that whoever wins the most acres of land gets a huge electoral boost. Because that’s important.

Is it? The most disproportionate representation in the EC belongs to the people of Delaware, last time I ran the numbers of EC votes per capita.

State population is all that matters. Very small populations still get an EC vote for each Senator, which is the root of the problem.

Women can be victims of women too, though. Look at how many mothers have subjected their daughters to genital mutilation, for example.

I think it’s pretty reasonable to say, “please don’t use exclusionary language that implies some victims are more valid than others”.

Know Your Meme has reasonably complete coverage.

"OK class, tonight read the chapter on enshittification."

Is this even news? Surely the list of politicians who've opposed this or that spending measure, then gone on to demand disbursements from the same pool of money, is very long and bipartisan. I'd go so far as to say it's his job and responsibility to get as much for his constituents as he can, no matter what his official or personal position on the bill.

For Democrats, the usual culprit is military spending -- they'll speak against it on the floor, then demand contracts and base expansion in their own state.

And when politicians do refuse disbursements on principle, as some Republican-led state legislatures did around welfare expansion and COVID-related spending, we ridicule them.

I wish I was the kind of person that could feel surprised, disappointed, or offended by that. But I'm not.

Dunno why you're surprised. Dude is a consummate performer with a large songbook of his own.

Here he is singing "Never Gonna Give You Up" with the Foo Fighters.

Here he is doing voice and drums on Highway to Hell.

The man owns the stage.

Currently, PopOS although I'm not really that enthusiastic about it.

What? Why would you choose that over Baptist Church of Missouri SynodOS, you heretic?

It will be interesting to see if it passes Constitutional muster. The Constitution only requires that "the people" choose the legislator. Previous attempts to regulate voting like this required amendments (e.g. elimination of the poll tax).

The relevant:

"I better win or you're gonna have problems like we've never had. We may have no country left," Trump said at his weekend swing-state rally. "This may be our last election. You want to know the truth? People have said that. This could be our last election."

Eh. The article goes on to quote pundits who claim he's threatening voters -- that if he doesn't win, he's gonna do something to end democracy.

Seems kind of overblown to me. First, Trump would have to do something (laugh) and second, this is normal posturing. If you elect the other person, it's doom and gloom, if you elect me it's 4 more years of good times. These folks would have watched LBJ's Daisy and concluded that LBJ was planning to nuke the country if he didn't win.

People trying to make sense of Trump's incomprehensible blather are always gonna come out looking silly.

Your AI is glitching

Supporting data from The Economist:

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2024/09/05/what-to-do-about-americas-killer-cars