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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>>…</span></b><span style='font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif'>> <b>On Behalf Of </b>John Clark via extropy-chat<br><b>Subject:</b> Re: [ExI] Why is “cost of living” such a big problem?<o:p></o:p></span></p></div><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>On Tue, Nov 3, 2026 at 10:48 AM Brent Allsop via extropy-chat <<a href="mailto:extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org" target="_blank">extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org</a>> wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><i><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif'>>>… </span></i></span><i><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif'>I agree with spike. There must be a free market for medical R&D and people should be able to get obsenely rich by being successfull in this. </span></i><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>>…I agree with that too.<span class=gmaildefault> … that is not in contradiction to being in favor of a tax on trillionaires….<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>There already is a tax on trillionaires: income tax.<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>>…A century ago people said an income tax would destroy capitalism. It didn't. And neither will a tax on trillionaires….<o:p></o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>The income tax on trillionaires didn’t destroy the trillionaire, you are right. It didn’t destroy the billionaires, millionaires or thousandaires. Investment capital adjusted to take it into account.</span></b></span><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal> <o:p></o:p></p><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-right:0in'><p class=MsoNormal><span class=gmaildefault><i><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif'>>></span></i></span><i><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif'>We simply need to find a way to ration all this great stuff, and be Ok with only a few getting it at first, untill we can afford it for everyone. But until then....</span></i><o:p></o:p></p></blockquote><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>... let them eat cake? </span></b><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>>…John K Clark<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>Ration or not, cake devouring or otherwise, the investors in medical R&D must be paid somehow. Everyone would like to hold stock in Pfizer. Otherwise they will not invest in medical R&D. Their investment will go into other fields. There is nothing the least bit complicated about that.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Tahoma",sans-serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></body></html>