Sam

Obsessed with Digital Things + Finance + Business, Sometimes Sports. EVP @thewagency. Speaker: @HeroConf @SMX @ShopTalk Faculty @JohnsHopkins. Views = Mine

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@ShaneHaffNFL I'm not sure there's much in the Sirianni playbook other than 4 verts

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@S4QU0N Lemon could be a JSN lite with the right play designer. Unfortunately we’ve just been force-feeding him bubble screens

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

JD was bad. Carter - outside of a few plays - was also bad. Ojomo was bad.

The edge play is brutal. No juice whatsoever. They can’t get home with 4, which is pretty much game over unless you have Flores.

S room is a joke. I think Makuba could be good with another good S. He actually had decent coverage on CD for the TD, but the throw was just better.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

The fundamental problem is the expense increase side, not the revenue side.

Unless you address the underlying drivers of ballooning entitlements, more revenue is not helpful.

And it doesn’t help that every time there is a surplus, politicians want to spend it. That applies to democrats & republicans alike.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@dave_stickland @OpExCoach @Seanfrank If you’re genuinely curios how id address the current situation, this is probably as close as I’ve articulated.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

It *can* happen. There is a more-than-viable path to get to a sustainable budget, and starting to walk it (ironically) makes it more likely to happen.

-Structural Reform to Medicare (~$200B/yr)
-SS Revenue + Indexing Reform (~$150B/yr)
-Step Up Basis Repeal (~$25B/yr)
-ESI Exclusion Cap (~$75B/yr)
-Estate Tax Restoration, Cap Gains Reform, Corporate/International Tax Tightening (~$100B/yr)
-VAT Tax (modest) ($350B/yr)
-IRS Enforcement Funding (~$25B/yr)
-Waste Reduction (~$25B/yr)

There ya go. That ramps over ~8 years to ~$925B deficit closed, call it ~3% of GDP of fiscal tightening. Keep in mind, we'd still likely be running deficits of ~$900B, but that's all interest. But that still puts us ~$325B over the stabilization threshold. That means debt-to-GDP falls. Then you kick in the flywheel: every $1T of avoided borrowing saves ~$40B/yr in interest.

All of that brings the bond markets back to earth, which means that the treasury can roll maturing debt at prevailing rates for ~75% of total outstanding debt within 4 years. If we're REALLY smart, we can extend the duration for some (not all, else you'll end up shoveling underwater debt into the banking system + onto the balance sheets of market-to-market holders, which creates another expensive problem in the future) of that rolled debt. This ends up functioning as insurance against this very plan failing, purchased at wildly favorable rates.

Package it all together with a PAYGO architecture (just like we had in the 90's, until it was allowed to lapse in 2002) + enforceable discretionary caps, and you have a built-in durability mechanism that mitigates politicians desire to spend money the second they see a surplus (see Bush, George W).

Yes, EVERYONE here gets hit to some degree (universality, not equality). Young, old, retired, working, progressive, conservative, centrist - everyone sacrifices *something* so that the country can be on more sustainable long-term footing for our children and grandchildren.

Tack on 0.5%-1.0% higher growth and the debt-to-GDP is in the first sustained, policy-driven decline since the 1990s. That's not impossible when you consider the growth levers we DO have available - permitting reform, housing supply expansion, energy, immigration, AI.

The way you offset the ~3% of GDP contraction described above is twofold: (1) phase over ~8 years holds the annual drag to 35-40bps and (2) supply-side channels operate on potential output, not demand.

This entire thing is a virtuous cycle: the first step is the hardest. But once you start making real, common-sense change (and you stop spending every dollar - and then some - that is collected), every subsequent gets easier. Credibility + fiscal responsibility compound in the same way that interest does.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@OpExCoach @dave_stickland @Seanfrank It really depends on the tax.

Personal Income Taxes? Relatively little.

Capital Gains taxes? Relatively more.

There are some taxes that actually make a lot of sense (those that correct rent-seeking behavior & those that properly apportion costs for negative externalities)

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

The issue is that every dollar paid in taxes is a dollar that is not available to reinvest in productive enterprises (writ large).

A dollar I pay in taxes is a dollar I do not have available to hire more people, invest in product development, use to bring a new service to market, or deploy into R&D. Those are all worthy & valuable uses of money

Similarly, every dollar I do pay in taxes presumably generates some value - it pays salaries, funds programs, helps fellow Americans. Those are all worthy & valuable uses of money, too.

But when you ask people to pay more in taxes, there should be a calculation done on whether the incremental benefits from the public spending will offset the productivity & innovation losses that necessarily accompany them. There are some taxes that make sense - those that suppress negative externalities (ie taxes on pollution) and those that tax economic rent (ie land value taxes).

But regardless, it is near impossible for anyone to say with a straight face that the US government deploys the $5.6T+ it collects each year even remotely well. Until that changes, asking people to pay more is insane.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

I don’t want more government oversight - I want the government to do less & execute what it does at a much higher level.

The fact that we waste - by the government’s own published estimates - up to $5.2T over 10 years is categorically insane.

By one “boondoggle” plane, I’m assuming you’re referring to the F35 program, which has a total lifetime cost of ~$1.7T-$2.2T over the entire 96 year term of the program (from first conception in the mid-80s to the final retirement in the 2080s, for all planes). Comparing that total to the one-year fraudulent payments number is not a valid or honest comparison.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

I’ve written extensively on the need to reform procurement. But the government is the one insisting on structures like cost-plus that result in massive overspending.

WFA is $250B - $520B a YEAR according to the US Government Accountability Office. If you think that’s “tiny” - I believe we’ve identified the problem.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@v1shuuu Sentry - Hulk - Spider man - Iron Man

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

I am. I will gladly pay more ONCE spending is under control, entitlements are massively reformed & the government demonstrates that it can live within its means (ie provide competitive services on current tax receipts, without a deficit)

Once the US government does that, we can talk.

I’m so tired of people saying the government needs to do more. Every recent expansion of US government services/purview has been remarkably inefficient.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

Because it is pointless.

The tax has a NEGATIVE future value. Its mere proposal was so threatening, it drove a sufficient number of wealthy people out of CA such that the present value of lost revenue exceeds the present value of all anticipated wealth tax revenue.

Good job. Capital is mobile. People have no obligation to stay in CA (or TX, or NY).

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@Seanfrank @euromaximal France isn’t too large to be bailed out. Total French debt is something like $3.6T (~120% of GDP).

Right now it isn’t in anyone’s interest to do so.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@tomstakes If Nick is here, ceiling is limited

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@MrRBourne @ojblanchard1 99%**

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@JSandlak19 @CanadaHighFive I have 60+ employees. If you can’t review a PTO request provided a month in advance, you deserve to get cooked.

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@Daykerpriest Define “win”

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

@AkvileDeFazio @AKvertise Sign more clients

[Sam @DigitalSamIAm]

One of the more interesting use cases for prediction markets: hedging otherwise uninsurable but foreseeable risk at a sub-enterprise level.