Can you explain how it is a strawman? I've never seen any kind of wealth tax proposed that takes into account how the wealth was acquired, or what form the wealth was in.
A wealth tax scenario, like all taxes in real life, will have its share of exceptions, carve-outs, and loopholes. Meaning the wealth assessment process will inevitably be far more involved than "a weird little cult offered a billion dollars for it."
Now, from a parable perspective, does the post mirror the principle of how wealth taxes work? Maybe, if you're willing to equate the entire market (or whatever communal entity we're using for the basis of assessment) to a weird little cult.
Ok, it is not a weird little cult, but literally everyone in the world who wants my rock because it is so beautiful. I don't see how that tangibly affects any part of the parable - which is forcing me to sell something I own because someone else with more money than I have wants it.
Presumably physical collectible assets (maybe also virtual ones too for the NFT crowd) will be assessed differently from more liquid assets for the basis of evaluating a wealth tax, especially in the event of surging valuations from the collectibles market. If real life taxes, like say property tax in California, can be reined in by measures like Proposition 13, then there's no reason why a real-life wealth tax won't be subject to all sorts of internal controls and effects from lobbying. Thus protecting the "run of the mill average Joe" from having to suddenly sell his mythical rock.
What about surging valuations in the equities market? If I'm worth $1B for a few moments because of a surging valuation, and then the government takes $900M of that, and then the stock crashes back to 1/100th of its peak, do I get my shares back?
Just as current income taxes have a hard deadline in which financial assets are assessed, your extreme edge case is only applicable one day a year, rendering it ever the more trivial.
Not to mention, the calculation for wealth would probably be based on something less temporary than a fleeting moment in the markets.
Finally, the government would not directly take shares, so they would always be owned by you. Presumably with the stock price so much reduced you can simply purchase more at a pittance.
I'm not sure if I would particularly care that it was just an edge case that caused me to miss out on $99M.
They wouldn't take shares, but I would be forced to sell shares in order to pay the tax bill, because I don't actually have that money just laying around. So I had 10M shares @ $1/share, share prices go up to $100/share. I get hit with a $900M tax bill and sell 9M shares in order to pay it. Price goes back down to $1/share, leaving me with 1M shares. How exactly should I purchase more at a pittance? I spent all the money I didn't even have paying the tax bill, there's nothing left in my bank account to buy any shares.
So it is no longer "Billionaires shouldn't exist", but "Billionaires who build a successful business shouldn't exist, but if you uncover a hidden treasure trove you can be a billionaire"
If you find a treasure trove worth billions of dollars, it is probably also of such archeological, historical, and cultural significance you are doing an immense service to humanity that you deserve it
Maybe it is just someone's old pile of gold. Like the San José galleon. Sure, it will be cool when it is raised, but I'm not exactly sure that it is going to change the world by bringing it up rather than just leaving it there.
By this same standard, maybe Amazon is doing an immense service to humanity, and that is why so many people use the site daily, and actually enjoy doing so. So maybe Bezos should get to keep his billions as well.
Maybe I never weighed in on the question of whether there should be billionaires or not, but you have simply projected a strawman upon me, which is fitting because this whole thread was started because I said the aforementioned parable was a strawman.
Currently, gold retails at $1808 an ounce. So it would take over 15.6 metric tons of gold to be even worth a billion dollars. That is substantially more than an "old pile", and probably of historical worth, like contained in a ruined temple or wartime vault or something
Sorry, it's hard to keep track of who believes what when I get multiple replies to my response to a single person, where there is no continuity of viewpoint between the responders. I don't think one can really have any kind of cohesive conversation that way because literally everyone is arguing something completely different. I just assumed you agreed with OP.
The San Jose galleon as I mentioned is estimated to have about $17B of gold on it. I don't think very much is going to change about the world when it is raised.
Niels Bohr said, “There are trivial truths and there are great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.” And indeed, every conversation is a web of many truths, all worth examining. Ponder upon it, and one day it shall set you free.
