@liftblog 3 years ago my daughter fell loading OBX (at PCMR). I stepped off to help but the liftie was in the hut w headphones in on his iPhone. The crowd yelled, but it was 12 chairs until I threw a pole at the hut to alert him! Fortunately my daughter stayed flat and didn’t get hit!
@SSWorks What a silly idea. Social security is a terrible shepherd of funds. Even for the average lowest income folks, it generates a lifetime real rate of return of approximately 2-3% annually, while for high income earners it is -1% to 1%.
@SenWhitehouse Musk’s wealth isn’t a pile of cash. It’s ownership in companies he founded and still leads. Large forced sales don’t just reduce his net worth—they change ownership, control, incentives, and likely the value of the businesses themselves.
@SenSanders This misses the point of Social Security. It’s insurance against old-age poverty, not a mechanism to equalize wealth. If Congress wants to redistribute income, it already has the income tax code for that. Don’t pretend Social Security was designed for something it wasn’t.
@RoKhanna It is deeply unsettling to me that you talk so casually about confiscating wealth. It is especially so when you don’t seem to understand the nature of the wealth. I know you are smarter than this.
@GadSaad Tax legitimacy rises as gov gets closer to the citizen. I’d rather live under a city taxing 40% than a distant federal gov taxing 20%. Target ~20-25% of GDP, everyone pays something, ~45% marginal cap, no wealth taxes, and lower taxes on entrepreneurial risk-taking.
@elonmusk Kinda a silly thing to say because the value of money would be totally inconceivable compared with today. Perhaps a better way to put it is what proportion of mankind’s aggregate output will be dedicated to interstellar travel? 1%, 10%, 50%? 95%? What will the tradeoffs be?
@BernieSanders Maybe those billionaires think the most bipartisan senator is a better option than someone who a) is dumb enough to get a Nazi tattoo without realizing it’s significance, b) has repeatedly cheated on his wife, and c) seemingly has a pattern of manipulating and threatening women.
@BernieSanders Odd that a founder owning stock in companies he built is an existential threat to democracy, but politicians accumulating ever more power over taxes, regulation, spending, education, healthcare, and energy isn’t. If concentration of power is the concern, start with a mirror!
@bourscheid Yeah, that’s probably one of the very many reasons you aren’t worth $1Tn. I’m sure musk would say he is already solving as many of the worlds problems as possible.
@SenSanders Even FDR had more sense than this. Social Security was sold as social insurance: workers contribute and earn a claim on future benefits. If Elon pays hundreds of times more but receives the same benefit, you’ve transformed Social Security from insurance into pure redistribution.
@RoKhanna Ro, this is math sounds great on social media but falls apart on inspection.
5% of $1.2T is about $60B. Government already spends many multiples of that on education. And you’re comparing a one-time wealth tax to a recurring entitlement.
The slogan is easier than the math.
@RepSaraJacobs “Effective tax rate” is a funny metric when the denominator is mostly unrealized gains. If SpaceX falls 50% next year, does the IRS send Musk a refund for taxes paid on wealth that disappeared?
@JasonKander It is very easy to be generous with someone else’s unrealized gains! A founder’s wealth isn’t cash in a vault. Selling hundreds of billions means taxes, dilution, and less control over the companies that created the value in the first place.
@SenWarren “Musk’s worth more than most can earn in 11m years” = emotional argument, not an economic one.
Implied assumptions:
* Creating huge value = bad
* Paper wealth = cash
* Taxing it won’t reduce its value
* Government will invest it better
Those assumptions do all the heavy lifting.
@TeeplesCY The data seem to demonstrate the value of strong families, close-knit communities, shared purpose, and religious commitment. That’s a narrower conclusion than theological superiority. Many traditions produce flourishing outcomes; that’s different from proving their truth claims.
@BasedMikeLee For goodness sakes! Go have a private conversation with Pete Hegseth or something! I’m confident that this was not intended as a sleight. If it is a matter of creedal differences, then perhaps suggest that none of them are marked “Christian”. Stop seeding controversy!