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Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

If you let someone get to hundreds of billions in net worth and then realize they haven’t been appropriately paying back into the system, it’s already too late. Like the article says they can simply say “no” in a variety of ways, from fighting in court to simply leaving.

It's only too late if you're timid and wimpy.

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And care about the rule of law. You cannot pass retroactive laws, you cannot pass laws that target individual people. If you pass a general law (which could very well have reasonable objections), people have to have a chance to leave.

"I'm passing this law that is effective the exact millisecond I sign it, tough shit if you don't like it" is tyranny and despotism. But based on your comment I think you know that.

> And care about the rule of law. You cannot pass retroactive laws, you cannot pass laws that target individual people. If you pass a general law...

A wealth tax is not a retroactive law, nor something that targets an individual person. It's a "general law" in your parlance. Think about it.

> If you pass a general law (which could very well have reasonable objections), people have to have a chance to leave.

I don't think so. By what legal authority is that required?

> "I'm passing this law that is effective the exact millisecond I sign it, tough shit if you don't like it" is tyranny and despotism. But based on your comment I think you know that.

No, it's not, and don't be ridiculous. When they passed laws against date-rape, would you have judged it "tyranny and despotism" unless the law was delayed to give the date-rapers time to finish up the date-rapes they'd planned?

There's no justice in giving the wealthy the maximum opportunity to pick and choose the laws that apply to them.

The richest people in the world sure are lucky to have good people like you out here fighting to protect their rights

What hyperbolic nonsense, just because something doesn't affect me doesn't mean it can't be bad policy. Wealth taxes are a fool's errand and serve only to damage and slow the economy.

a lack of wealth tax is slowing the economy today.

ultrawealthy people just cant spend as much or give useful market signals the way the masses can

its hyperbolic to say laws that are active when passed are tyranny and despotism

ah yes, all the tech billionaires of this era, had they been given the heads up that there success would have led to a level of concentration of wealth and power previously unknown to humanity, and that the populace would likely call for some changes to tax law to address the largely unforeseeable structural economic effects of this level of change they brought, would certainly have opted out, leaving the US, and moving to another less tyrannical part of the world, where, by the unique magnitude of their genius, they would have brought all their great works to the glory of other nations and not to America with its overly entitled peasants and social media sharecroppers; clearly the rule of law in Europe and China would have allowed them to fully manifest their unparalleled vision of technological greatness without any concern of a rug-pull by authorities challenging their well-deserved hegemony

> people have to have a chance to leave.

They did give people that chance.. That's kind of what the entire article is about. They literally did leave.

Or if people can easily move. Or if you want the next generation of startups to operate in your state.

the FTB is anything but timid and wimpy

if the voters and legislature have the “bravery” to pass the wealth tax law, it will be aggressively enforced by the FTB

the second-order effects, whatever they may be, would be clearly visible within a couple years.

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