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Comment by drewrv | Hacker News Reader

There are some terrible^squared assumptions baked into this. The first bad assumption is that billionaires don't have any liquid assets. Nobody clever enough to earn that kind of money keeps 98% of it in an illiquid private investment.

Second bad assumption is that valuations would plummet because "everyone" would be trying to liquidate. The current proposals only apply to a small percentage of the population, and to a small percentage of their wealth, so obviously not "everyone" would be liquidating.

The third bad assumption is that this would lead to government takeover. By your own (contrived, alarmist) situation, the government would only be entitled to 2% of a persons holdings.

BTW, the IRS already does require private companies to perform regular valuations to track how much their shares are worth.

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> Nobody clever enough to earn that kind of money keeps 98% of it in an illiquid private investment.

It’s interesting how often people say stuff like this. I don’t mean to presume anything about your knowledge of the habits of the ultra-wealthy— but how do you know this?

Mark Cuban, for instance, claims he would need to liquidate assets, including potentially his basketball team [1]. I agree it might not cause a crash, but certain billionaire-dominated industries, such as sports teams, might become increasingly foreign-owned.

[1] https://youtu.be/rCd2vWsWWrI start watching at 4:50

Why on earth would you believe billionaires at their word on a wealth tax. Keep in mind a good number of these billionaires have publicly stated they are close to as prosecuted as the Jews in Germany. I wouldn’t trust them an inch.

Cuban is straight up lying about how he might need to sell his basketball team. Or he's lying about how much stock he owns. Either way he lacks credibility.

https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/30/mark-cuban-i-have-close-to-a...

Fair. In my source, he seemed to imply he would have to sell it — but didn’t actually say so explicitly. He definitively stated he would have to liquidate assets, generally speaking, after a year.

He may have stated the need to sell his team elsewhere. I seem to remember reading that but it was possible I was jumping to conclusions.

That said, I think it’s entirely reasonable to believe him when he claims not to have enough cash to pay the tax.

Again, I find it weird how some people think about this subject. Everyone is so intent on accusing billionaires of being liars.

Rich people can get a line of credit secured on their assets. He’s probably bullshitting.

first one: The amount of liquid assets they have is probably based on the amount of liquidity they currently require. They would suddenly require more liquidity, which very likely would mean they would need to liquidate, from any initial condition. And this repeats every year.

2: if only a few people need to liquidate, it will increase supply and lower the values

3: don't pay 2% and what do you think they'll take? your freedom? that is arguably worth more than your holdings.

your criticism of my criticism doesn't even scratch it, much less negate it like your bias confirms.

And you missed the main counter you could have made.. which would be that middle class people could buy funds of the newly liquidated assets. It doesn't counter the point that it would hurt these businesses, but it would at least counter the protectionist alarmism. Sheesh, I have to do everything myself

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