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Comment by dvh1990 | Hacker News Reader

dvh1990

I understand your anger, but that piece of advice was meant for the kind of people that CAN afford a vacation after a startup failure. Is something wrong with that? If you can afford a vacation, you take it. If you can't, you don't.

I myself have a failed startup that I ran in 2018-2019. Could I afford a vacation afterwards? Nope. Can I afford another entrepreneurial run now? Nope. Am I bitter about it? Nope.

Also, you mention "incredible disconnectedness from the plight of even regular people by the world's tech bubbles", but then you talk about starting a STARTUP. Regular people don't start companies.

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>Regular people don't start companies

They do, they're called small businesses instead of startups most often times though. I worked at businesses throughout my adolescence which were created and run by "regular people" - people of color, without generational wealth, who were raising children, and were primary caretakers for elderly family at the time of the company's creation.

In the same vein, I've met a lot of "regular people" in the same situation who've kicked off startups. Do you really think only those with the privilege of being sufficiently disconnected from impoverished communities end up having the opportunity to create a startup, or is there some reinterpretation/disconnect of the previous paragraphs going on?

Unfortunately in many countries progressive taxation means people likely to start business are unable to save and invest in it for long before they have no choice but take a bank loan or look for VC money. It is rarely possible to start a business only with your own money that you saved. I think that's bad, and is often overlooked by people supporting high progressive tax. We are cutting the wings of people who are more likely to succeed and provide jobs and force them to share their business with the rich who likely never worked hard in their lives.

>It is rarely possible to start a business only with your own money that you saved.

People outside of the upper middle class strata usually don't have the opportunity to save significantly anyways after CoL is included in the US, and usually require a loan to start a business (or at least in every case of non-upper middle class business founder I've worked for).

Regular people would personally carry a relatively lower tax burden than a flat tax would require for them actually, and a progressive corporate tax in the US would likely result in them being more likely to be successful once they start their business.

Given that many pro-business states in the US have progressive income taxes to actually encourage reinvestments into small businesses (Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, etc..) and appear to be succeeding quite well in that regard, is there any specific reason you think a progressive income tax system that reduces the burden on regular people relative to a flat tax is a significant blocker for regular people to create businesses?

Looking at your description of the problem, it almost seems like you should be advocating for a *more* progressive tax system where burden is placed further up the chain with regular people maintaining even less of a burden.

I consider myself as a regular person and I am hit by the highest bracket and my take home is like 55% of what I make. This severly inhibits the projects I develop. It is supposed to make the rich pay more but they have ways around it and most pay themselves in dividends which are taxed differently (surprise surprise) or just use offshore cards.

Well, if you're actually not upper middle class and at the top of the bracket then I'm wondering how you came to the conclusion a more regressive tax graduation would help more regular people, rather than a more progressive scheme and closing tax avoidance loop holes like you seem to describe as the problem.

That being said, it sounds like you're the upper "middle class" everyone here is describing since it's really the very rich that have the option to pay themselves in things like dividends in most countries (though this may be a miscommunication).

55% isn't bad most places outside of the US actually, where do you live precisely?

It just demonstrates the disconnect. These people are not fathoming a scenario where people can't afford a vacation and that seems indicative of these issues. Its how you try to fix racism and just end up renaming the master branch.

> but that piece of advice was meant for the kind of people that CAN afford a vacation after a startup failure. Is something wrong with that? If you can afford a vacation, you take it. If you can't, you don't.

If they really intended that advice for the audience of 5, they could've sent them an email (or a Clubhouse invite /s) and not put it in an interview on YT. The rest of the audience is just facepalming while listening to this.

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