I struggle to understand the pronoun discussion and misgendering. When I speak to someone, I obviously do not use a third person pronoun at all to adress… them, no? When someone declares their pronouns are xe, xen, and xenia, how does that matter?
The outrage tik tok memes are all about waiters saying sir or madam, almost never in anything resembling bad faith.
I don't find the singular "they are" grates, I think because in practice it takes the same form as the singular "you." My guess is the reason "you" takes the plural regardless of whether it's singular is that it used to be mostly/entirely plural, but I've no idea what form you'd use with "thou" (although I do for "to be" where it takes "art" instead of "are," so maybe that generalises).
Yes, that's one of the main problem with the unrealized capital gains tax. It would destroy the startup economy. Remember the only semi-liquid asset a startup founder posses is his company's stock. Thus a startup founder would quickly loose controlling interest of his own company.
Not that quickly. If his initial cost is 1000 and the stock goes to 10,000 he loses about 15% of the stock at that point — if his income is high enough to make it 20% he can pay the tax without selling the stock. He loses that much again only if the stock goes to 100,000 and the third time at a million, and at that point he still holds the majority of the stock. So the stock has to go up more than a thousand-fold for him to lose control, even if he pays all of the tax by selling stock.
I agree that if the rule is put in for people with assets of more than a hundred million the level will probably go down over time, but I don't think any of my argument depends on where the level is.
I think wealth taxes may be an attempt by old money families to inhibit the creation of new fortunes.
New fortunes are usually paper, based on the valuation of the new business. The entrepreneur may not be able to pay wealth taxes without selling some of it. This may reduce the value of the company. The entrepreneur may even lose control.
New fortunes are often built by disrupting existing businesses. This threatens old money fortunes, which are often invested in such businesses. Old money families have income from their investments, and are better able to pay wealth taxes.
Something like that, but it's not the old money families, it's the Professional Managerial Class both in the government and sometimes in the companies themselves.
The class war driving things like communism (and fascism) wasn't actually bourgeoisie vs. proletariat but bourgeoisie vs. PMC.
I think "they is" is funny enough given the juxtaposition of its use case and the stereotypical demographic that would otherwise say it to use it myself. A trans mutual friend also finds it funnier than grating. Something of a horseshoe in the continuum from the most regressive hillbilly to the most nerdy progressive linguist.
The IRS already taxes unrealized capital gains in the case of wealthy individuals who expatriate from the US. The law is called FATCA. Some consider it unconstitutional, since the 16th Amendment does not authorize an (unapportioned) federal property tax, but the courts have been deferring to IRS' definition of income.. Perhaps that will change now that <i>Chevron</i> has been overturned.
One reason it may not happen is that IRS fines you for "filing a frivolous return" if you go against an IRS position that has been unsuccessfully challenged in the past.
The surprise of seeing someone actually thinking about these issues has not worn off even though it's what you'd usually do. Thanks for writing.
Taxing unrealized capital gains could make investors more risk-adverse unless it is paired with the ability to write off losses both indefinitely far in the future and as amendments to past years. You'd need to be able to get a refund if your unrealized gains in 2025 got reversed in 2028. The costs would be higher for portfolios with larger year to year variations, making the proposal very close to a direct tax on volatility.
I don't see the implicit statements in pronouns. The most vocal advocates of voluntary gender attach a lot of other views to it, but that doesn't mean a libertarian should accept the coupling. If people are allowed to change their names, why can't they change their honorific? If we're supposed to use our language to describe people's physical appearance when we're talking about them, why aren't we refusing to call Asian-Americans "Tim," or "Andrew?" It doesn't make any sense outside of the halo of this one specific cultural norm where guys aren't supposed to go around wearing dresses; if this principle was applied in any other context its result would be awfully offensive.
I've never seen a good reason to represent gender in grammar, although I find it useful to reflect _number_ in grammar -- which is why "they" for a singular person still sticks in my throat. I'd prefer to use a gender-neutral, yet singular, third-person pronoun for any individual whose gender I don't know or care about -- and for most purposes, a person's gender isn't really relevant to the discussion, so that would be most of the time. If only English had a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun... what would it look like? It would have to be short, two or three letters, and familiar so people don't have to learn a new artificial pronoun. It's a puzzlement....
True, in a conversation or scene with one male and one female participant. Most non-romantic scenes and conversations in the history of human literature are all-male, less often all-female, so it doesn’t help there.
Pronouns or forms of address that indicate social status or rank, as in Japanese, would probably be equally helpful. But if you really want to be unambiguous, you need to use names (or shortened forms thereof, e.g. after the first appearance of a name, you use initials).
And of course if ambiguity isn’t a priority, you can just use “it” for everyone.
Rank works if it is well defined, and in some cultures is used: "as His Majesty says." Rank is pretty fuzzy in our society.
My father's story on the problem of Japanese rank/language was an official who couldn't figure out how to start a letter because it was to someone who was his superior by one definition of rank (I think graduation year from the military academy), inferior by another (position in the bureaucracy) — and his father-in-law. By memory so details probably wrong.
Note that some Australian languages have a four-gender system: masculine, feminine, edible, and neuter. I suppose it's handy having the language cue you whether something nonliving is good to eat or not.
I favor treating all income as income -- wages, tips, interest, dividends, gifts, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains, etc. -- and taxing it all at the same rate, to reduce the incentive for people to artificially move their income from one category to another. I see reasonable arguments against taxing capital gains until they're realized -- some assets really do swing wildly in value from year to year for reasons beyond the owner's control -- but it does feel to me like cheating when people can use their appreciated assets as collateral to borrow vast amounts of money at low interest rates, without ever touching (or being taxed on) the assets themselves. And resetting the assets' value upon inheritance is _really_ cheating.
The other problem with capital gains taxation as it currently exists is that it is based on nominal value, not real value. If you buy a stock for $10,000 and sell it twenty years later for $20,000 but prices over the period have doubled you don't really have a capital gain but are taxed as if you did.
Good point, and only partly alleviated by the fact that you pay the capital gains tax with inflated dollars; in your example, you arguably shouldn’t pay any capital gains tax at all.
The obvious fix is “adjust the baseline value of the asset by general inflation since.” Is there a better, more natural or more self-correcting fix?
I've had friends who've worked as wait staff. Restaurants are required to report tip income, and so do. In every case I'm aware of, they come up with a figure based on what the IRS believes is a "typical" value given the average meal cost at the restaurant, which they helpfully publish to the industry. They were in no case inclined to audit their staff.
In all cases of which I'm aware, the actual figure was considerably larger than what the IRS believed was "typical." That included a few chain restaurants and a high-end NYC eatery. I have no way of knowing the degree of reporting compliance of wait staff to report tips over what their employers reported. But I do know how I'd wager.
The originally plural English second person pronoun, "you," has been used as the singular English second person pronoun for centuries, displacing the originally singular English second person pronoun, "thou." No one has problems with saying "you are" for one person, instead of "you art." So I don't see an issue with a similar change for "they."
Once we've decided to use a certain pronoun, for whatever reason, we use the form of the verb that goes with that pronoun. I don't see that as confusing.
On the other hand, a cgt will also introduce an incentive to hold on to already taxed assets that are expected to depreciate as part of ones global tax strategy. So capital is immobilised again, though I'm not sure as to the sum total of both effects.
I struggle to understand the pronoun discussion and misgendering. When I speak to someone, I obviously do not use a third person pronoun at all to adress… them, no? When someone declares their pronouns are xe, xen, and xenia, how does that matter?
The outrage tik tok memes are all about waiters saying sir or madam, almost never in anything resembling bad faith.
Methinks thou might want to fix the typo in the Subject….
..or perhaps you’re just doing a deep dive for a highly specialized audience. 😏
"Divers" was not a typo, just a somewhat archaic word I am fond of.
Is the meaning different from "Diverse"
A little. It means "multiple" but does not imply that the topics are very different from each other.
I don't find the singular "they are" grates, I think because in practice it takes the same form as the singular "you." My guess is the reason "you" takes the plural regardless of whether it's singular is that it used to be mostly/entirely plural, but I've no idea what form you'd use with "thou" (although I do for "to be" where it takes "art" instead of "are," so maybe that generalises).
Thou wouldst be mistaken in generalising from "art". I agree that "they (singular) are" shouldn't be a problem if "you (singular) are" isn't.
Thou dost, thou hast, thou canst, thou mayst, thou shalt, thou wilt, thou goest, thou knowest, thou sufferest . . .
I’m not American but I believe the IRS assumes taxes as a percentage of the revenue of the business.
According to another commenter the formula underestimates the income.
Sarbanes-Oxley increased the cost of going public to $1M. This may have lowered incentives for entrepreneurship. Might wealth taxes do the same?
Yes, that's one of the main problem with the unrealized capital gains tax. It would destroy the startup economy. Remember the only semi-liquid asset a startup founder posses is his company's stock. Thus a startup founder would quickly loose controlling interest of his own company.
Not that quickly. If his initial cost is 1000 and the stock goes to 10,000 he loses about 15% of the stock at that point — if his income is high enough to make it 20% he can pay the tax without selling the stock. He loses that much again only if the stock goes to 100,000 and the third time at a million, and at that point he still holds the majority of the stock. So the stock has to go up more than a thousand-fold for him to lose control, even if he pays all of the tax by selling stock.
At the level the threshold is currently set. Between inflation and the tendency of these thresholds to come down, this will change.
Also the founder doesn't own 100% of his company. The VCs take their share, although they tend to know enough to let the founders keep control.
I agree that if the rule is put in for people with assets of more than a hundred million the level will probably go down over time, but I don't think any of my argument depends on where the level is.
I think wealth taxes may be an attempt by old money families to inhibit the creation of new fortunes.
New fortunes are usually paper, based on the valuation of the new business. The entrepreneur may not be able to pay wealth taxes without selling some of it. This may reduce the value of the company. The entrepreneur may even lose control.
New fortunes are often built by disrupting existing businesses. This threatens old money fortunes, which are often invested in such businesses. Old money families have income from their investments, and are better able to pay wealth taxes.
Something like that, but it's not the old money families, it's the Professional Managerial Class both in the government and sometimes in the companies themselves.
The class war driving things like communism (and fascism) wasn't actually bourgeoisie vs. proletariat but bourgeoisie vs. PMC.
I think "they is" is funny enough given the juxtaposition of its use case and the stereotypical demographic that would otherwise say it to use it myself. A trans mutual friend also finds it funnier than grating. Something of a horseshoe in the continuum from the most regressive hillbilly to the most nerdy progressive linguist.
The IRS already taxes unrealized capital gains in the case of wealthy individuals who expatriate from the US. The law is called FATCA. Some consider it unconstitutional, since the 16th Amendment does not authorize an (unapportioned) federal property tax, but the courts have been deferring to IRS' definition of income.. Perhaps that will change now that <i>Chevron</i> has been overturned.
One reason it may not happen is that IRS fines you for "filing a frivolous return" if you go against an IRS position that has been unsuccessfully challenged in the past.
The surprise of seeing someone actually thinking about these issues has not worn off even though it's what you'd usually do. Thanks for writing.
Taxing unrealized capital gains could make investors more risk-adverse unless it is paired with the ability to write off losses both indefinitely far in the future and as amendments to past years. You'd need to be able to get a refund if your unrealized gains in 2025 got reversed in 2028. The costs would be higher for portfolios with larger year to year variations, making the proposal very close to a direct tax on volatility.
I don't see the implicit statements in pronouns. The most vocal advocates of voluntary gender attach a lot of other views to it, but that doesn't mean a libertarian should accept the coupling. If people are allowed to change their names, why can't they change their honorific? If we're supposed to use our language to describe people's physical appearance when we're talking about them, why aren't we refusing to call Asian-Americans "Tim," or "Andrew?" It doesn't make any sense outside of the halo of this one specific cultural norm where guys aren't supposed to go around wearing dresses; if this principle was applied in any other context its result would be awfully offensive.
I've never seen a good reason to represent gender in grammar, although I find it useful to reflect _number_ in grammar -- which is why "they" for a singular person still sticks in my throat. I'd prefer to use a gender-neutral, yet singular, third-person pronoun for any individual whose gender I don't know or care about -- and for most purposes, a person's gender isn't really relevant to the discussion, so that would be most of the time. If only English had a gender-neutral third-person singular pronoun... what would it look like? It would have to be short, two or three letters, and familiar so people don't have to learn a new artificial pronoun. It's a puzzlement....
Gender makes it easier to tell what the pronoun refers to.
True, in a conversation or scene with one male and one female participant. Most non-romantic scenes and conversations in the history of human literature are all-male, less often all-female, so it doesn’t help there.
Pronouns or forms of address that indicate social status or rank, as in Japanese, would probably be equally helpful. But if you really want to be unambiguous, you need to use names (or shortened forms thereof, e.g. after the first appearance of a name, you use initials).
And of course if ambiguity isn’t a priority, you can just use “it” for everyone.
It's a three way disambiguation: he, she, it.
Rank works if it is well defined, and in some cultures is used: "as His Majesty says." Rank is pretty fuzzy in our society.
My father's story on the problem of Japanese rank/language was an official who couldn't figure out how to start a letter because it was to someone who was his superior by one definition of rank (I think graduation year from the military academy), inferior by another (position in the bureaucracy) — and his father-in-law. By memory so details probably wrong.
Note that some Australian languages have a four-gender system: masculine, feminine, edible, and neuter. I suppose it's handy having the language cue you whether something nonliving is good to eat or not.
Admittedly, this works better in languages like German where inanimate nouns are semi-arbitrarily assigned to the genders
I favor treating all income as income -- wages, tips, interest, dividends, gifts, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains, etc. -- and taxing it all at the same rate, to reduce the incentive for people to artificially move their income from one category to another. I see reasonable arguments against taxing capital gains until they're realized -- some assets really do swing wildly in value from year to year for reasons beyond the owner's control -- but it does feel to me like cheating when people can use their appreciated assets as collateral to borrow vast amounts of money at low interest rates, without ever touching (or being taxed on) the assets themselves. And resetting the assets' value upon inheritance is _really_ cheating.
The other problem with capital gains taxation as it currently exists is that it is based on nominal value, not real value. If you buy a stock for $10,000 and sell it twenty years later for $20,000 but prices over the period have doubled you don't really have a capital gain but are taxed as if you did.
Good point, and only partly alleviated by the fact that you pay the capital gains tax with inflated dollars; in your example, you arguably shouldn’t pay any capital gains tax at all.
The obvious fix is “adjust the baseline value of the asset by general inflation since.” Is there a better, more natural or more self-correcting fix?
I've had friends who've worked as wait staff. Restaurants are required to report tip income, and so do. In every case I'm aware of, they come up with a figure based on what the IRS believes is a "typical" value given the average meal cost at the restaurant, which they helpfully publish to the industry. They were in no case inclined to audit their staff.
In all cases of which I'm aware, the actual figure was considerably larger than what the IRS believed was "typical." That included a few chain restaurants and a high-end NYC eatery. I have no way of knowing the degree of reporting compliance of wait staff to report tips over what their employers reported. But I do know how I'd wager.
The originally plural English second person pronoun, "you," has been used as the singular English second person pronoun for centuries, displacing the originally singular English second person pronoun, "thou." No one has problems with saying "you are" for one person, instead of "you art." So I don't see an issue with a similar change for "they."
Once we've decided to use a certain pronoun, for whatever reason, we use the form of the verb that goes with that pronoun. I don't see that as confusing.
Years ago, I had a stack of business-card-size cards that said:
THANK YOU!
This is not a "tip." It is not remuneration for employment nor compensation for services. It is a voluntary gift.
As a gift, it is not taxable income according to Sec. 102(A) of the Internal Revenue Code.
There was more detail, followed by a source for more cards, and this question;
"Isn't it time you helped the Libertarian Party reduce governmental control of your life?"
You can still leave cash, even if you don't have the cards!
On the other hand, a cgt will also introduce an incentive to hold on to already taxed assets that are expected to depreciate as part of ones global tax strategy. So capital is immobilised again, though I'm not sure as to the sum total of both effects.
Actually, it would be exactly the same under both regimes. Sorry!
Wonderful insights! I love the idea of a party to celebrate the Korean language. And the insights on capital gains were especially good.
Actually it was to celebrate the Korean alphabet. I don't know what his opinion was of the language.
I meant to say alphabet. Oops! Thanks.
Hangul Day is October 9th, so it's time to start planning!