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Comment by jandrewrogers | Hacker News Reader

There is no evidence[0] that the wealthy use the "buy, borrow, die" strategy in any significant way. The underlying financial math doesn't make sense if the goal is to maximize wealth so it isn't surprising that wealthy people don't actually do it.

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00472...

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"Focusing on the top 1 %, while total borrowing is substantial, new borrowing each year is fairly small (1–2 % of economic income) compared to their new unrealized gains"

"1 % of wealth-holders (above $14 million in 2022)"

1-2% of $14,000,000 is $140,000 to $280,000 a year. The median personal income is $45,140. They are benefiting untaxed to the tune of 3-6 times the median American income.

1-2% of 100 million is 1-2 million dollars a year untaxed benefit (44x median income). That is substantial. That their wealth is growing so fast that that is fairly small to them and makes the median American income seem small doesn't sell me.

How is an untaxed benefit of 3-44X the median income insignificant? I would love to benefit annually by that 'insignificant' amount. By this argument why should we not then exclude all economic income below $140,000 to $2,000,000 from taxation? Since it's 'insignificant'. Oh, right, because it's only insignificant in the context of 'they are so obscenely rich it's insignificant to them'.

That paper is looking at the top 1%. Buy, borrow, die is the realm of the top 0.1 % or 0.01%.

Are you saying that billionaires are actually realizing capital gains to afford yachts, private jets, and mansions?

Of course they are. You can read reports to the SEC on executive stock sales all day.

Here’s billionaire Tim Cook last month:

https://m.investing.com/news/insider-trading-news/apple-ceo-...

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