"Pretending to propose his own national solution is clearly a cynical smoke screen to let California billionaires off the hook," argues the Billionaire Tax Now campaign as it seeks to counter "5 tricks" being deployed by Gov. Gavin Newsom and his allies.
So that’s a talking point, right? Based off a decent chain of thoughts somewhere, i’m just not sure they were yours.
I studied microeconomics. Now i’m not going to say i’m great at it, but it is the use of charts and graphs and equations to determine and explain why people do things. Why people are That Way. Y’know? The math part was easy, the conceptualization, well. That’s where people argue in economics anyways.
So here’s why a one-time wealth tax on billionaires wouldn’t make them move. They gain a lot by being in California and expect to gain further by remaining in California. A single, one-time tax of $5million on someone who has $1billion in wealth1 is not that much. It’s doubtful they have that many liquid assets, but it is very not hard to get. And their expectations of future gain should theoretically not change because all that’s changing is this one time tax. According to the econ bullshit i learned, those one time shocks don’t cause behavior change but the long-term revenue and cost streams do. This of course assumes the one lie we all know to be false, that people are what the economics field defines as rational.
1i haven’t looked into how the FTB is determining wealth. precisely like how the IRS defines income, they use funny words to make “unexpected” outcomes happen. Like, don’t get me started on malls and depreciation (i’m sure someone can explain that whole bullshit better than me but it’s NEAT)
So that’s a talking point, right? Based off a decent chain of thoughts somewhere, i’m just not sure they were yours.
I studied microeconomics. Now i’m not going to say i’m great at it, but it is the use of charts and graphs and equations to determine and explain why people do things. Why people are That Way. Y’know? The math part was easy, the conceptualization, well. That’s where people argue in economics anyways.
So here’s why a one-time wealth tax on billionaires wouldn’t make them move. They gain a lot by being in California and expect to gain further by remaining in California. A single, one-time tax of $5million on someone who has $1billion in wealth1 is not that much. It’s doubtful they have that many liquid assets, but it is very not hard to get. And their expectations of future gain should theoretically not change because all that’s changing is this one time tax. According to the econ bullshit i learned, those one time shocks don’t cause behavior change but the long-term revenue and cost streams do. This of course assumes the one lie we all know to be false, that people are what the economics field defines as rational.
1i haven’t looked into how the FTB is determining wealth. precisely like how the IRS defines income, they use funny words to make “unexpected” outcomes happen. Like, don’t get me started on malls and depreciation (i’m sure someone can explain that whole bullshit better than me but it’s NEAT)