I know this is boring, but:

The most interesting Economist articles are often buried deep and relatively short. One that caught my attention this week is a California ballot initiative to apply a one-time 5% tax on the wealth (not income) of anyone who has more than $1B.

Superficially, I like this idea: I have no problem, in principle, with taxing the shit out of billionaires and, broadly speaking, I don't buy that it would destroy incentive to create new businesses etc.

Specifically, though:

- a one-time tax sounds like a terrible idea, period.

- fixating on a specific number is populist nonsense

- doing it in CA only doesn't make a lot of sense. Doing it across the US makes a lot more sense. I expect many more people would move from CA to TX than would move from US to Europe

- it does not solve the major problem of valuing assets

- it seems unfair to tax paper gains that might disappear, without a mechanism to recover the tax paid (although - I am also onboard, to some extent, with "boo-fuckin'-hoo")

- it seems like it would invite people to split up their money in ever more creative ways, as they already do with income

Obviously I am not an expert, but if it were me, I would be thinking more about:

- the top x%, not a specific $$ number

- taxing unrealized capital gains (figuring out a system to value private assets, allowing unrealized losses to be offset)

- eliminating the ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT that, as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, capital gains (in the US) are not taxed at death, in general (meaning: Elon Musk REALLY CAN get away with paying zero tax on his possible future trillion-dollar capital gains) (they are in Canada)

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