Author: A.T.

In response to last Thursday’s post, How To Make $60 Billion, Bob F. reminded me that you’d have to win more than $200 million a week for more than 1,000 weeks in a row, not $100 million, because “the cash option is valued at less than half of the total of the annuity option.”

And the other problem, Bob notes, is that “the jackpot resets to $50M after a win, so you can’t win $100 million (let alone $200 million) drawing after drawing.  But luckily there are two drawings per week, Tuesday and Friday, so it will still only take 2000 weeks if you win every time.”

Pull that off, in order to match the poorest of today’s 25 richest Americans, and you’d face yet another problem:

In the 38 years of extraordinary good fortune it took to net $60 billion this way, the fortunes of those 25 richest Americans may have grown considerably.

By just how much would depend, in part, on whether we reform the tax code.

Which leads me to today’s topic.

Tom L.: “A friend suggested that once you hit a net worth of $1 billion, you should be given a parade and a little award that says, “you won capitalism.” After that, all income is taxed at 100%.  If you complain that you can’t live on $1 billion, we take the award away (at least you had the parade).”

→ I love it!  Sort of.

What I’d really like to see is an end to the “stepped-up basis at death” and other tax loopholes that make the estate tax a joke.  And income from wealth and speculation taxed at the same rate as income from work (though I would keep the Qualified Small Business Stock exemption that incentivizes innovation).  With that rate rising to 45% (say) on income above $25 million (say).  And an IRS adequately funded to collect the taxes due — out of fairness to the majority who already pay every penny due.  And a voluntary corporate tax surcharge — like this — that would only begin to kick in if the corporation’s highest paid employee (typically, the CEO) makes more than 50 times as much as her median employee . . . and that would steepen gradually to 5% when top total compensation exceeded a thousand times the median.  Voluntary, because the board of directors could choose to raise median worker pay and/or limit top pay in order to avoid the tax if they felt that was in the best interest of the shareholders.  If inequality has become a problem in America (and does anyone think it has not?), this would be a nice little way to lean against it.

See, also, the Patriotic Millionaires Equal Tax Act.

(To make tougher capital gains treatment more palatable, we should perhaps consider netting out inflation in calculating taxable gains.  So if you had bought something for $1,000,000 40 years ago and sold it now for $2,500,000, you’d have no tax to pay, because after inflation you’d actually have lost money.  As it stands now, you’d have to pay nearly $500,000 in federal and state tax on that capital “gain.”  Now that virtually all preparation is computerized, the logistics of the calculations might not be difficult at all.)

BONUS

Who Will Replace MTG In Trump’s Clown Car— Andy Borowitz at his substantive best.

[I’m traveling for a couple of days — without my computer! — so here’s something I never got around to posting years ago that might still be of interest.]

Kara Swisher’s interview with Mariana Mazzucato. Stop Whining About Big Government.  The narrative that the private sector drives innovation is only half the story.

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Ms. Mazzucato — who counts the pope, the billionaire Bill Gates and the U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez among her readers — says governments should act more like venture capitalists, rather than let the private sector hog all the glory and the rewards.

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BONUS?

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My name is Joey Garrand, and I believe a book of mine may interest you.

The title of the book is Fixing Capitalism: A New Redistribution System. It’s free.

I seek nothing more than to share this book and the ideas within.

I appreciate your time, and let me know if you read!  Thanks.

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I took the briefest look . . . is he Andrew Yang, only a half decade too young to run for President? . . . so I can’t say for sure it’s worth your time.

(Andrew’s The War On Normal People, long since recommended, definitely was and is.)

But I plan to take a closer look when things slow down.

Let me know what you think.

In response to Thursday’s post, How To Make $60 Billion, Bob F. reminded me that you’d have to win more than $200 million a week for more than 1,000 weeks in a row, not $100 million, because “the cash option is valued at less than half of the total of the annuity option.”

And the other problem, Bob notes, is that “the jackpot resets to $50M after a win, so you can’t win $100 million (let alone $200 million) drawing after drawing.  But luckily there are two drawings per week, Tuesday and Friday, so it will still only take 2000 weeks if you win every time.”

Pull that off, in order to match the poorest of today’s 25 richest Americans, and you’d face yet another problem:

In the 38 years of extraordinary good fortune it took to net $60 billion this way, the fortunes of those 25 richest Americans may have grown considerably.

By just how much would depend, in part, on whether we reform the tax code.

Which leads me to today’s topic.

Tom L.: “A friend suggested that once you hit a net worth of $1 billion, you should be given a parade and a little award that says, “you won capitalism.” After that, all income is taxed at 100%.  If you complain that you can’t live on $1 billion, we take the award away (at least you had the parade).”

→ I love it!  Sort of.

What I’d really like to see is an end to the “stepped-up basis at death” and other tax loopholes that make the estate tax a joke.  And income from wealth and speculation taxed at the same rate as income from work (though I would keep the Qualified Small Business Stock exemption that incentivizes innovation).  With that rate rising to 45% (say) on income above $25 million (say).  And an IRS adequately funded to collect the taxes due — out of fairness to the majority who already pay every penny due.  And a voluntary corporate tax surcharge — like this — that would only begin to kick in if the corporation’s highest paid employee (typically, the CEO) makes more than 50 times as much as her median employee . . . and that would steepen gradually to 5% when top total compensation exceeded a thousand times the median.  Voluntary, because the board of directors could choose to raise median worker pay and/or limit top pay in order to avoid the tax if they felt that was in the best interest of the shareholders.  If inequality has become a problem in America (and does anyone think it has not?), this would be a nice little way to lean against it.

See, also, the Patriotic Millionaires Equal Tax Act.

(To make tougher capital gains treatment more palatable, we should perhaps consider netting out inflation in calculating taxable gains.  So if you had bought something for $1,000,000 40 years ago and sold it now for $2,500,000, you’d have no tax to pay, because after inflation you’d actually have lost money.  As it stands now, you’d have to pay nearly $500,000 in federal and state tax on that capital “gain.”  Now that virtually all preparation is computerized, the logistics of the calculations might not be difficult at all.)

BONUS

Who Will Replace MTG In Trump’s Clown Car— Andy Borowitz at his substantive best.

PRAISE

Trump unveils deal to expand coverage and lower costs on obesity drugs.

This is great.  Dr. Oz Proclaims Americans Could Lose ‘135 Billion Pounds’ by Midterm Elections With New Weight Loss Drug Pricing — by which he meant 135 million not billion, but still.  The true goal should be somewhere in between, because surely we 340-or-so million Americans are on average more than 6 ounces — but less than 400 pounds — over our healthiest weight.

SUGGESTION

You could lose a pound or two yourself.  But that’s not my actual suggestion.  My suggestion is that — because surely the President of the United States cannot be a pedophile — you release the Epstein files.  If your suspicions about the Democrats whom you’ve ordered the Justice Department to investigate are true, you’ll kill two birds with one stone: exposing them while exonerating yourself.  (Another suggestion:  Rename the “Department of Justice” the “Department of War on People You Don’t Like”).

Also: Release the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Your supporters know they are of true national significance.  So why shield the Bidens?  And release what the investigators you sent to Hawaii found about Barack Obama’s birthplace.  You said, “They can’t believe what they’re finding!”  So let us see!

(And release your 2013, 2014, and 2015 tax returns?  Are they still under audit?)

HOAXES

The whole Epstein thing is a hoax.  The climate crisis is a hoax.  Your rape of E. Jean Carroll was clearly a hoax — because why would you have attacked her?  In your words, “she’s Not My Type.”  (Though she seems happy in this photo with Epstein, whom you allegedly regaled about the incident shortly after it happened.)  Your 2020 election defeat was rigged — a hoax.

The Russia thing, obviously, is a hoax . . . but Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi was real.

In point of fact, though — on that last point, Russia versus Benghazi — there is a difference.  Here it is:  No fewer than six Republican-led investigations cleared Hillary of any wrong-doing; whereas the Mueller report, which none of your supporters have read, found nearly 400 pages of evidence pointing to collusion that could not be proven in its strict legal definition because of your obstruction of justice, for which more than 1,000 former Republican and Democratic federal prosecutors said any other American would have been indicted.  So Benghazi — though tragic — was not a justifiable stain on Secretary Clinton’s service; while the only tragic thing about the Russia investigation is that you and Bill Barr managed to get no one to read it.

BONUS

A blast from Trump’s past — Trump’s generosity knew no bounds.  It is well worth affirming you are “not a robot” to read this account.  (Actually, he was promoting a start-up that, like his steaks and airline and university and foundation, seems now nowhere to be found.  But, boy, does he know how to put on a show.)

Our DNC LGBT dinner last night was great.  The carrot cake was amazing.  Governors Whitmer, Hochul, and Healey. DNC Chair Ken Martin.  Congresswoman Sarah McBride, HRC President Kelley Robinson — and Emily “Hawking” Shiller, a trans Navy fighter pilot who flew 50 combat missions before retiring after 20 years and who leads SPARTA, with more than 3,000 members (of the estimated 18,000 trans members of the military).

Thanks to all of you who contributed to help fund the opposition party!  And to all of you who still will!

Have a great weekend.

If you have $60 billion, you’re around the bottom of the 25 wealthiest Americans.

To make $60 billion, Gary Gulman has noted, you need only win the Mega Millions $100 million jackpot every week for 600 weeks.  Except that lottery winnings are taxed as ordinary income, so he’s wrong.  Even in a no-tax state you’d need more like a 1,000 straight wins.

So how do a few people grow so rich?  Often it’s by making great advances for society for which they should be celebrated rather than demonized.

But . . .

. . . it sure helps not to pay taxes.

If your billions came mainly from investments, that’s easy.  Instead of selling some of your $60 billion in stock and paying an already low capital gains tax, just borrow a few million against it each year instead.  Problem solved.

If it came from inheritance?  “Only morons pay the estate tax,” says White House’s Gary Cohn.  (See, also: The Haves and the Have-Yachts.)

In her new book, The Second Estate: How the Tax Code Made an American Aristocracy, Ray Madoff warns:

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The United States has allowed many of its wealthiest individuals to quietly secede from the country that benefits them financially. As the richest 1 percent of Americans have come to control more than 30 percent of the country’s wealth, the tax code has given them the tools to abdicate their responsibilities and, in a sense, to relocate to a tax-free version of American life—a wealth island of sorts. While millions of working Americans . . . pay substantial portions of their resources to support the expenses of the country—its social safety net, national defense, interest on the national debt, and the myriad other expenses that are needed to support the most economically developed country in the world—the individuals on wealth island are insulated from such workaday burdens by a tax system that imposes little or no tax on their most common sources of wealth: investments and inheritances. Their ability to avoid taxes in those areas allows their wealth and power to grow unabated and exponentially.

The existence of these two different systems—one for people who earn money, one for people who own wealth—bears remarkable resemblance to the tax system of prerevolutionary France, in which the aristocracy was written out of the tax system, leaving the burdens of the country’s expenses to everyone else. As the French economist Pierre-Samuel du Pont de Nemours (who later fled to America with his two sons, one of whom founded DuPont chemical company) said to the French National Assembly, “In order to become noble, it is sufficient to become rich; and to cease to pay taxes, it is sufficient to become noble. So there is only one way of escaping taxation, and that is to make a fortune.”

In France, these untaxed rich were known as the Second Estate—nobility who enjoyed sweeping financial and social privileges on the basis of their wealth. As was the case then, the existence today of a class of untaxed elites signals something broken and alarming about the US economy. It also invites the question of how a country founded on principles of equality—and with a special aversion to aristocracy—could end up where it has.

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High tax rates suck when you’re struggling to build a comfortable life and security for retirement.  I’m against them.

But once you have $20 million? Or $50 million?  Or $200 million?? Or a billion???

Which is nothing compared to what some Americans have.

It’s this kind of inequality that leads to demagoguery and dictatorship.

Cuba, Russia, and China spring to mind; likewise, Napoleon, Mussolini, and Hitler.

Join the Patriotic Millionaires!

Support the party that votes for affordable health care, against tax cuts for the ultra-rich!

Have a great weekend.

If you don’t like the unemployment numbers, just fire the guys who calculate them.

Right?

If you don’t like the outcome of the most secure election in American history, just pressure Georgia’s secretary of state to find you 11,780 votes — is that really asking too much? — or submit a slate of fake electors . . . or pressure your Vice President to throw the election into the House of Representatives . . . or rally the Proud Boys to storm the Capitol and maybe hang the Vice President, watching on TV for hours as the violence continues, ignoring pleas to call it off.

And . . .

If you don’t like an ethics investigation, just axe the investigators.

To wit:

US ethics officials removed for inquiring into improper access of mortgage files.

It’s quite a story, and totally in keeping with a corrupt authoritarian regime.

Andrew R.: “This reminds me of a line from Last Man Standing, following the narrator’s murdering three men: ‘The sheriff didn’t disappoint me: he investigated the whole thing and arrested the hooker.’”

> Support “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner even if you’re not L, G, B, or T and even though you can’t come tomorrow.  An adequately funded opposition party is absolutely necessary to restore checks and balances.  Next year: give to candidates.  This year: to infrastructure.  Thanks!

HYMC

Up another buck yesterday, I’m selling a chunk in my tax-sheltered IRA for a triple.

But first . . .

POLITICIZING THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE

Fox News Weekend host with a drinking problem reshapes the U.S. Military (2 minutes) — Elissa Slotkin.

BASTARDIZING THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT

Watch the first three or four minutes of this one, on just whom Trump is pardoning.  You know it; but seeing it this way!

CAVING ON THE GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN

Andrew Yang’s take:  Voting to open the government was not the colossal mistake many (terrific) Democrats believe it was.  It was, in fact, the right thing to do.

Susan Del Percio agrees:

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Republicans warned they’ve trapped themselves ‘in a box’

GOP political strategist Susan Del Percio [says] the Republican Party is now trapped by its promise to hold a vote on the ACA, also known as Obamacare, which has the potential to be a loser for them no matter how the vote turns out.

“That’s what the Republicans have been afraid of all along, is this vote. Will they support those subsidies to the Affordable Healthcare Act? That’s going to put them in a box.”

“So if they if they vote yes, then the Democrats can say ‘We won, we pushed it, we got it.’ And if they vote no, the Democrats have a great election issue come 2026. So I think that the Republicans are more or less scratching their heads, saying, ‘Why aren’t the Democrats, why are they not taking this as a big win?’ And it’s just more reflective of the intra-party fighting in the Democratic Party,” she concluded.

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(And as I suggested yesterday, if the Republicans DO vote to kill affordable health care, Democrats can withhold funding again in January . . . when, perhaps, the GOP will give in — or look horrible again.)

David M. Perry on BlueSky:

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Maybe senate Dems should say: “The Republicans were going to kill people by starving them to death, and because we aren’t monsters, we decided to let this fight go. We’ll keep fighting. Stop electing monsters.”

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The comments he elicited suggest that, having slept on it, some Democrats think he may have a point.

And now . . .

“Keep in mind that the cleaning lady is as much a human being as the Chairman.” — from Warren Buffett’s wonderful Thanksgiving Letter.

> Join Indivisible!

> Support “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner Friday night even if you’re not L, G, B, or T and even though you can’t come.  An adequately funded opposition party is absolutely necessary for democracy to prevail — and now is the time to lay the groundwork for success next year.

But first . . .

Since the deal to reopen the government lasts only until the end of January, don’t we get to do this again in a few weeks if the Republicans continue to refuse to meet their constituents’ healthcare needs?

In the meantime, we’ve reopened the government, staving off tremendous hardship and economic loss . . .

. . . and shown that we’re the ones who want to feed poor kids and seniors and veterans on food stamps . . . we’re the ones who want people to have affordable health care . . . they’re the ones who fight these things, preferring tax cuts for billionaires and $40 billion for Argentina.

(Not that I have anything against Argentina.)

If they don’t come to their sense and relent, we just resume the fight in January, when they’ll again need our votes to keep the government open, having shown that we really did give them every opportunity to do the right thing.

No?

Apologies in advance if I’m being dense.  I was in computer hell much of the day.

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR SOME

If you commit crimes for Trump or can bribe him adequately, you get a pardon.  If you oppose him, you get indicted.

Judge Mark L. Wolf lays it out so beautifully:

Why I Am Leaving the Federal Bench

It is to cry.

Felon Freed by Trump Is Sentenced Again, This Time to 27 Months

And (as you’ll see if you have time to read it) he’s hardly the only one.

The loss of a professional, apolitical Justice Department strikes me as 10,000 times more important than (say) who uses what bathroom (does the federal government really need to get involved?) or Hunter Biden’s laptop (if there were something of real significance on it, wouldn’t the Trump regime have released it by now?).

HURRICANE SEASON

From your amazing fellow reader Bryan Norcross: no more this year; A.I. is now the best predictor.

And now . . .

HUGE NEWS FOR YOUR BRAIN

From your amazing fellow reader Jeff Zimman, Co-founder of BrainHQ parent Posit Science:

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In case you missed it, I wanted to share big news from an NIH-funded study that has gotten an outpouring of press across the globe because of its huge implications for aging and dementia.

A neuroimaging team at McGill found 10 weeks of daily BrainHQ training drove significant and substantial rejuvenation in the brain’s cholinergic system.

It’s the system that produces acetylcholine (the “pay attention” chemical) at the precise moment it’s needed.

We’ve known for decades that this system becomes increasingly sluggish (downregulates) with normal aging and plummets with pre-dementia and Alzheimer’s.

In fact, the most prescribed class of drugs for Alzheimer’s – cholinesterase inhibitors such as Aricept® – artificially flood the brain with acetylcholine to provide some transient relief, but do not fix the underlying sluggishness in its production.

BrainHQ just became the first intervention of any kind shown to upregulate acetylcholine production.

The upregulation from 10 weeks of BrainHQ training at 30 minutes per day was about equal to the amount an average older adult downregulates over a decade. And the gain persisted 3 months after the training ended.

The control group did attentionally-demanding online games (like solitaire and candy crush) for an equal amount of time and showed no improvement.

As noted by the researchers, WHAT you do matters — just staying mentally active is not enough.

The study provides a bio-chemical explanation of how BrainHQ rewires the brain and why BrainHQ, uniquely, has gotten the results seen across hundreds of studies. The implications for aging, pre-dementia and Alzheimer’s are compelling, and a new NIH grant has been awarded to do a similar study in MCI (pre-dementia). Many other conditions are associated with deficiencies in brain chemicals which BrainHQ is also designed to upregulate, suggesting a novel pathway for treatment.

I believe historians will view this study as pivotal in the development of interventions to address numerous health conditions and also to help us all with improved peak performance [e.g., Tom Brady].

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Jeff’s favorite write-up: Brain Training That Actually Works: World-First As Key Chemical Levels Restored To Those Of “Someone 10 Years Younger”.

But first . . .

Tell Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to ground the private flights first.  “Instead of cutting all flights by 10%, ground 100% of private jets until capacity returns to normal.”  (Not least because private jet passengers have the clout to get their Republican senators and representatives on the phone to urge that they negotiate to reopen the government.)

And now . . .

From David Corn’s Our Land Newsletter:

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There’s never been a clear answer to the center-or-left question.

And this election showed that within the party, lefties, such as Zohran Mamdani in New York, and centrists, such as Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, can each kick ass. Many commentators have made the obvious point: Candidates need to match the local electorate. Mamdani likely could not win statewide office in Virginia, and Spanberger likely could not excite the young voters who turned out in NYC for the democratic socialist.

There’s no need for the Democrats to continue shooting at each other and feeding the notion they have an identity crisis. The message is simple for them: We have a large tent and, dear voters, we offer you a buffet.

Looking for a politician to identify with? We give you a choice: Mamdani, Spanberger, Sherrill, Gavin Newsom, AOC, Andy Beshear, and others. Take your pick. No single one of them must [yet] be anointed the leader of the party. Desire a fierce progressive who will (rhetorically) kick Trump in the teeth? There’s this young buck in New York. Want a savvy strategist with a mostly liberal record who strives not to be seen as too liberal? Check out the governor of California. Looking for less-splashy, nose-to-the-grindstone workhorse politicians (big on mom energy), see Virginia and New Jersey. The Democratic Party can be a choose-your-own-adventure party. It is not in disarray. It is diverse.

This is the opposite of the current GOP, which is no more than a homogeneous cult of personality tied to one man and his whims. It has jettisoned principles and policies to serve an erratic authoritarian. It’s nothing but Trump. Love him, love the party. Otherwise, you’re out of luck. The Democrats, in contrast, reflect a wider swath of the electorate. That’s not a weakness. It’s a strength they should embrace.

. . . Until [the presidential primaries], the Democrats should not obsess over the left-center branding issue.

. . . At this moment, the barbarians are not at the gate; they are inside the White House, attacking democracy and deconstructing the United States of America. Millions of citizens are at risk of going hungry and losing their health care. The Democratic Party does not have time for navel-gazing. It’s a to-the-barricades moment.

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> Join Indivisible.

> Support “my” 26th annual DNC LGBT Leadership Council dinner even if you’re not L, G, B, or T and even though you can’t come.  An adequately funded opposition party is absolutely necessary for democracy to prevail.  Next year: give to candidates.  This year: to infrastructure.

DAVID BROOKS ADDRESSING BRITS

I can’t say I understood it all, but he is really fun to listen to.

And this was eight months ago!  As horrified as he was then, what must he think now?

Cheerful executive summary: he believes we’re going to preserve democracy, as we always have.

Needless to say, I hope he’s right.

But — my words now, not his — preserving democracy is not our only challenge.  Over the next few years, we will either figure out how to deal with a world where little unpleasant or boring work is required (because of AI, robots, and nearly-free energy from the sun) . . . which — when phrased that way — could actually be what humans have dreamt of since coming down from the trees (can you get much more cheerful than leisure and prosperity?) . . . or face a nightmare of even more grotesque inequality, with spectacular wealth for a few (The Haves and Have-Yachts), quiet desperation for most.

Part 3 of Andrew Yang’s The War on Normal People suggests ways we might achieve the former.  (The first two Parts explain why there won’t be any jobs.) It’s been nearly seven years since I (sort of) interviewed him.  I hope he runs for president again (though not as a third-party spoiler) to direct the national conversation toward this fundamental challenge.

FAREED ZAKARIA’S TAKE

Ref, You Suck.  He’s not particularly cheerful (forgive my bait and switch).  But his analysis is too clear — and important — to miss.