Bernie Sanders Aims New Tax Hike at Executive Retirement Plans | Hacker News Reader

Bernie Sanders Aims New Tax Hike at Executive Retirement Plans

wsj.com

35 pointsNoRagrets32 comments

I'm pretty privileged and more than happy to pay a reasonable tax on my fortune if people richer than me who can afford to assemble legal tax shelters can be wrangled in to pay their share too. Also, tax churches.

If we could incentivize startup structures that are less focused on pump and dump #growthhax and more on creation of organizations that produce value for the communities they are in and the people who trade their lives and labor for a crumbling fig leaf of security and happiness. That shit would be hot.

VC money is crack money. The squandered wealth propped up by rich opportunists on the backs of creative efforts of hard working people hedged so said rich people can fail upwards while worker lives are ruined for a taste of a Zuckerberg dream is gross. Without dinging the frequent big winners in this space via taxes there isn't really a mechanism to encourage self regulation.

That churches thing - I find they have other benefits too.

Is there a few clicks create a church have all the legal and what-have-you filed and such like stripe does with del corps?

Might be time to setup one of these things.

It does appear that a lot of people believe religiously that they shouldn't pay taxes. We should all start churches. Maybe get a lawyer or three involved and make enough churches flagrantly abusing the law that the supreme court has to hear a case. The Church of Satan kind of does stuff like that.

They do have other benefits but they very state to state. Like that guy that legalized his ayahuasca church in Kentucky[0] because they have a law that says you can do whatever drugs you want if it's a religious ceremony. It's stupid that you need a church for that, but also pretty rad that he can do it there. It appears to be helping a lot of people.

It appears that there are services for filing the needed documents. StartChurch.com pops up with a quick google. It looks nice.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-88xpl-5ro0

That startchurch looks like they do do it! thanks for that.

I have been kicking the idea around of starting a few 'churches' just have an open 'third place' - I don't mind whatever religions stuff people choose to follow - I'd perhaps want to open a 'coag - church of any gods' and let people choose their own flavors.

To me a 'church space' should/could be all inclusive - even athiest / satanic whatever - life's a journey, things change, no judge all that.. a dojo is just a building where people train.

I like the tax break options, and let sub-groups be pro-active in whatever their chosen things are.

I read a story this week saying some atheist groups are actively trying to stop some religious texts in all government building in a certain state? I found another atheist group doing stuff for homeless that does not push religions.. I would encourage those kinds of things I think.

you mention the ayahuasca - I knew some native Indian folks some time ago that got peyote twice a year legally for their ceremonies, and have read Oregon has taken something like that to their state supreme court?

There are sometimes counseling services offered by these places where the people are not licensed/dr degreed right? So affordable someone to talk to could be offered.

It is interesting the exemptions that are made in the name of the invisible man in the sky as george carlin put it.

I found that our city (maybe state?) has exemptions for codes with churches - so you can't build a tiny home community with r10 zoning here, but if you have a church there are not restrictions on buildings.

As to where I don't particularly care for some of the extra tall buildings in the area, perhaps it's time to take advantage of their exemptions rather than just be miffed that they are getting them.

/randomthoughts

I was part of such a church. It’s not active anymore.

http://www.churchofvirus.org/

It was good. Then it was bad. It got worse. Then it died a sad death.

I am pretty sure some of it’s members are probably right here on HN. Different time and another lifetime for me.

I'd love to hear a synopsis of that situation! I appreciate this bit as well. Makes me think something like this could quickly outgrow itself, and rather than trying to keep so many voices under one growing roof, perhaps it may be best to split in half and split again to keep things manageable and cordial and not have things get worse than bad. But still do the things it was set out to do - provide an open third place for people who may not have such and take advantage of some discounts along the way.

It is difficult to create a synopsis for this because it’s a lot of things..little little things that mushroomed and eventually caused the group to implode. There are other things that happened and I can’t talk about it.

But I will say this...the biggest cleft occurred after 9/11. It was a very bad time for the group to be cohesive. Looking back, it’s rather remarkable. I actually want to write about it some day because it was a pressurized emotional highly volatile environment where seemingly like minded people couldn’t stand each other’s POV anymore.

The group was around for a decade plus after that..but weaker. The ‘virus’ came from how thoughts are like virii and can infect people. And every member of the congregation can be a vector for rational thought. We’d spend hours discussing (remember BBS and Dalnet/IRC?) how religion was a virus and only rational atheistic thought could vaccinate people against the virus of god. Darwin was our prophet. Evolution explained life. We celebrated his birthday. Man..those were some good times.

Of course, even then no one got along..but we were all still arguing with ‘one of us’. But 911 changed everything.

That’s when it dawned upon many of us..the most dangerous virus is not religion..but politics. What bound us was not as strong as what divides us.

It was just sad after that. Slow agonizing ugly death of something that could have been beautiful.

I was very young then..in the two plus decades since, I have changed too. I stopped calling myself atheist and became agnostic for a while. Then I called myself ignostic and until recently didn’t care. As I get older, I feel I am ready to explore and am willing to test if faith is more nuanced than ‘organised religion’.

I don’t know. I guess we are always looking for answers. And when we are not, we invent questions to look for answers.

To your point, I disagree..congregations need to be large. We were trying to replicate how a virus works by spreading rational thoughts memes and the more people we infected with our thought memes, the more successful we were going to be in promoting the virian ideal and virtue of pure rational thought.

We live in a time where small community organizations are on the decline. These organizations exist in the form of clubs, athletic leagues, religious organizations such as churches, and others.

Churches provide an emotional support network to many people, perform acts of charity, and generally do much more good than harm. If you intend to use the Westboro Baptist Church as an example of the harm done by churches please be aware that you risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If you castigate churches for being close-minded, please consider reading up on the Unitarians for a decent depiction of how varied the moral philosophies of churches can be.

If you want to make accelerate the trend of declining community involvement, tax churches. I don't think it is wise.

What’s fascinating about Bernie is how familiar he is.

A 1960s radical who went to a top level university (UofC), has never belonged to a union, has worked in government or non profit sector all his life, etc.

Never worked for consulting or finance or academia.

There sorts of folks used to be much more common in politics. Now they’re mostly retired.

It’s not bad per se. But not really new. In fact, very very old.

I guess Bernie is the last roar of the 1960s generation.

Very telling that his generation is rejecting him in the polls. 1960s radicals were always divisive an unpopular in mainstream America.

The left hasn’t done a very good job figuring out what it’s next step should be, so taking a step back might be a good idea.

Really confused by your comment to be honest. Maybe it’s an age gap thing? because Bernie is a deeply unfamiliar political animal to people who are less than 40.

Also the left knows exactly what it’s need step should be. There’s obvious changes to be made in the areas of healthcare, wealth inequality, and environment.

In what sense has “the left” not got a clear next step?

Maybe the commenter failed to distinguish between “left” and “liberal”, resulting in a confusion. Right now it’s the liberals who doesn’t have a clear next step, failing to acknowledge that they are part of the problem for the US’s staggering wealth inequality (which by the way, is the fundamental reason why Trump won), and now just trying to present a more “milder” version of Bernie’s policies to pander to voters.

I was referring to the Democratic Party, which is the more left leaning of the two main American political parties. And additional any left of center activists affiliated with it.

Yes, one can refer to liberalism in an economic and philosophical sense which is very different.

Yet, few Republicans, including very libertarian leaning ones, would ever identify as liberal.

Nobody would call Barry Goldwater a liberal, even though he very much fit the definition.

> Nobody would call Barry Goldwater a liberal, even though he very much fit the definition.

Only in the latter years of his career. [1]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater

He never identified as a liberal, even in later years. He consistently called himself conservative. He accused the Republican Party of becoming liberal.

Looks like this would tax options at vest rather than exercise, essentially ending employee equity comp in startups.

Interesting how he wants the workers to own the means of production but also is trying his damndest to disincentivize it.

As they say, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

That’s always been my impression of socialism and communism: unchecked good intentions justifying repeatedly failed and destructive policies.

I think that’s why they also hate Amazon — at some level, they know that hundreds of millions of people voluntarily use Amazon products, while the only way they can get people to adopt their radical ideas is through coercion and force.

It's great that a small group of people are getting rich with stocks at tech companies, but maybe another socioeconomic group needs some help for a change.

It does not therefore follow that this rule is the key to making that happen.

Which rule? Owning the means of production (via employee stock ownership programs)? That's not a part of Bernie's campaign at all.

The rule this whole thread is about...

If he is correct in claiming that one group is being left behind, passing legislation designed to tie the hands behind the back of another group is not going to help the poorer group. His entire worldview revolves around the flawed misconception that the economy is zero-sum. That of course is a bunch of nonsense. Peter the software developer getting 0.25% equity stake in a startup does not hurt or hinder Joseph the line cook, and preventing Peter from getting that stake will not make Joseph better off.

Yes it is. He has a plan where companies over 100 million must over time give 20% of the company to employees and 40 percent of the board.

The people who had their equity diluted might have a different opinion

Is there any indication this would apply to all ISO/NSOs? Can't read the WSJ article (no subscription), but articles referencing it seem to be saying that it's targeted at highly-paid executives. Obviously this would be disastrous if it applied to all stock options. Just trying to get the facts straight before getting too riled up.

as a middle class tech worker i like bernie but he's going to fuck us over the most.

As a middle class tech worker I don't see how.

Maybe depends to which middle class you're comparing yourself to, the Bay Area, or the rest of the US.

How many major pieces of legislation does a president get through? One or two seems like the median these days. I doubt this is in his top 20 bills.

> How many major pieces of legislation does a president get through?

Without flipping the Senate or replacing McConnell, a Democrat POTUS will get bugger all through unless they can do it through executive orders (AFAIK.)

> unless they can do it through executive orders

Which will be promptly reversed by the next conservative POTUS, thanks to the skill Trump has shown us.

Changes will have to be codified in law to make them stick from now on.

How exactly? More taxes? Us middle class tech workers will remain totally comfortable under Sanders, and great improvements can be made to environmental and healthcare policy.

I cringe to think about what might happen to the greatly improved VA healthcare benefits I now enjoy.

What's fascinating about Bernie's campaign is the almost identical stance he has with the Bolsheviks, that Google defines [1] as "...Russian Social Democratic Party".

So Bernie's P.R. consultants did the brilliant job of retaining most of the Bolshevik diktat, and switching "Social Democratic" to "Democratic Socialist", in an apparent attempt at sanitizing brand socialism.

[1]: https://www.google.com/search?q=Bolshevik

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