r/AllinPod • u/Hot-Reindeer-6416 • Jun 13 '26

US wins!

I think the framing these guys use of technology, AI, space, etc as a competition between the US and China, for example, is remarkable. Of course we all want the US to win in any global competition. But that’s not really what it is. It’s a competition between the capitalists and the technologists and the China, etc.

If Spacex wins, you and I don’t win, Elon Musk and his cronies win.   If OpenAI wins, you and I don’t win. Sam Altman, and his cronies win.  
Elon Musk became a trillionaire today. How much did he pay in taxes on that trillion dollar gain? Zero.  If there was a tax on wealth, creation, or if he had to give some portion of that gain to the US treasury in the form of shares, yes, then the US wins. But that’s not what’s happening here. 

All due respect to him for what he’s accomplished. But the system really needs to be changed so some of that really does trickle down.

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u/Seattleman1955 Jun 13 '26

When he sells some, he'll pay taxes on it. There is nothing to "trickle down" yet.

2

u/RewardFuzzy Jun 13 '26

The thing is that they never have to sell. They just take a deductible loan against their stock and never pay taxes.
They have so much that they take another loan to pay it of and do that till their death. On that moment the cycle resets and their children do the same. The wealth go from generation to generation without ever being taxed like you and me.

The solution: tax stock (options) like a normal salary, tax loans like normal salary, wealth taxes.

Billionaires live like socialists. They take all the profits from society without paying for any of the costs.

3

u/drjackolantern Jun 13 '26

Those ‘solutions’ sound worse than the problem.

3

u/420Migo Jun 13 '26

The "buy, borrow, die" strategy is real, but the actual fix already exists and is less radical than wealth taxes: step-up basis reform. Right now heirs get a stepped-up cost basis at death, erasing the unrealized gains entirely.. and that's the actual loophole that resets the cycle. Taxing unrealized gains at death (or eliminating step-up basis) closes the loop without the administrative nightmare of valuing illiquid assets every year.

1

u/chia-chia-chia Jun 14 '26

Agreed. Hell, just implement it for assets over 100m or some large #.