[ExI] I see pitchforks.

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of Dylan Distasio
Sent: Monday, July 8, 2019 7:05 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] I see pitchforks.

 

Spike-

 

>…Putting aside the fact that I'm not in favor of a wealth tax… Dylan

 

 

 

If there is ever a wealth tax of any kind (absolutely regardless of where it starts (even a Dr. Evil-esqe hundred billion dollars)) it causes immediate flight into assets whose value is not arbitrary.  All currency-denominated wealth is arbitrarily defined but any asset which is not arbitrarily defined gains inherent value.  The Zimbabwe hundred billion dollar note is insufficient to pay for an hour of labor, but BitCoin is going strong.  

 

Fun aside for collectors: the Zimbabwe one hundred trillion dollar note does still hold some value to collectors, not because it can be used as actual currency, but because they didn’t print very many of them before recognizing the pointlessness of continuing to add a new zero every week.  Now Zimbabwe just runs on foreign (mostly US) currency, problem solved.

 

Governments know ways to handle the notion of currency with arbitrary value of course.  They can issue a “new” currency, making the old currency worthless (as Venezuela did.)  They can arbitrarily estimate one’s net worth at over a billion in old currency, and now demand 1% of that in new currency.

 

This is why we don’t have a wealth tax.  We learned from those countries which have that.

 

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