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>The greater issue is we allow the richest to basically print money via their stock based compensation, which allows them to turn unrealized gains into loans backed by these stocks.

How's this different than if CEOs or whatever were paid in cash, and then they immediately bought stocks with the cash?

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Because you had an income to tax. The stock compensation is to avoid paying taxes on their income.

You owe the same amount in income taxes regardless of whether you're paid in stock or cash.

I think you're confusing this with the case where founders or early employees own large amounts of stock that they received early on in the company. They paid little to no taxes when they received it because it was worth basically nothing at the time. Later, the company has grown and it's worth a lot, so they have a large unrealized gain that they can use as collateral for loans. But that certainly wasn't guaranteed to happen. Most startups fail.

Don't you pay taxes on those when they vest?

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