Most people, by count, of course would not leave because of the wealth tax currently being proposed in California as it targets just a tiny segment of the population - current estimates are that less than 250 Californians, or less than 0.001%, would pay the currently proposed statewide wealth tax. The other 99.999+% would not (yet) have to pay a wealth tax. However, the <0.001% that (esp. the wealthiest among them) who would pay the wealth tax would be motivated to move.
Unfortunately for California about 40% of the total state income tax collected (which accounts for about 65% of the state general fund) is paid by the top 1% of income earners -- which includes those 0.001% who will be motivated to move by a wealth tax (or even merely the threat of one).
The <0.001% number appears to be based on population _before_ several billionaires moved out before Jan 1, 2026 - likely at least partially motivated by the small, but real, risk of the "billionaire's tax" qualifying for the ballot and passing (and that proposed tax is only "temporary" and is only a total of 5% over three years so isn't nearly as alarming to the wealthy as a "permanent" tax would be). If it looks like this measure will end up on the ballot and have a chance of passing, expect many more to leave. This will, even if it does not ultimately pass, erode the income tax base.
California has rebelled against wealth taxes in the past - most notably by the passage of Prop 13 almost 50 years ago (a property tax is a wealth tax). They are not popular except when the hit "the other guy" -- but "the other guy" is the one most able to avoid the tax.
Wealthy people are typically very flexible as to where they live. They often already own multiple homes and often spend a lot of time out of the state they "live" in. When they move, they are not packing and labeling their own boxes or are likely even present on "moving day". They also are more likely to set up HQ and shop near where they spend a lot of their time. Even if they have family in California, they can still get together with them for Thanksgiving dinner -- either by flying the family to them on their private and chartered jets or by themselves flying to California for the weekend on one of their jets. They can conduct most business very efficiently remotely and often do so now to a significant extent.
It only takes a few to leave to tank the California budget - likely causing the progressive income and wealth taxes to reach deeper and deeper into the upper middle classes as California desperately tries to balance their budget without cutting yet more programs.
Other states are loving this though and will cut tax deals to attract these very billionaires that California are encouraging to leave.
IMHO "this seems to be building up" in the US is a bit of an overstatement.
Mandami, AOC, and Sanders are the laughing stock of much of the electorate in the US. They are fairly popular in progressive population centers but not elsewhere. There have been activists promoting much the same ideas for my entire life (and I'm not young!) and they rarely if ever get national traction.
The "silent majority" in the US is just that - they don't make the news because they, in most cases, don't go out and protest and engage in battles with law enforcement. They have jobs, go to work, go home to their families, and vote - but they rarely are seen in the news any more than the fact the sun came up in the East and set in the West yesterday is "newsworthy" enough to be promoted in the media. "If it bleeds, it leads" is the criteria for being newsworthy.
The silent majority, also know as the banality of the evil, is waking up.
Until masks and Musks we're taken off this year it was possible to pretend that the normal would play into their hands, as long as they stayed silent and played along.
Now pretending that the middle class can survive under the zillionaires Reich is only possible for very delusional minority.
My hunch is that Mamdani and Polanski have struck this nerve. Already before the events in Minneapolis, but now the support for this is dwindling.
I've done some experiments here in the normal and even the well off people are seeing the root cause. And it being the narcissist individuals holding godlike power, instead of the good ole "rule based" or "value based realism" or "systemic change" or even the latest "superorganism".
But remains to be seen, I might be wrong or even worse the power can be so centralized to zillionaire cliques.
This is something I've been in favor of for some time.
Obviously the tax basis in the assets would also be stepped up by this action.
The US should also get rid of the step up in basis at death. The recipient of an illiquid asset such as a family business should have a period of time (perhaps five or ten years from the triggering death depending on the type of asset) to "pay up" the tax basis "to market" at the time of death. Gains in liquid assets (such as publicly traded stock) should be taxed at the market value at the time of death by the estate or trust and passed on to beneficiaries with that adjusted tax basis.
> The US should also get rid of the step up in basis at death.
This would actually fix the issue without my suggestion, but it is a harder pill to swallow for the "soon to be rich" Americans that tend to vote against their current economic interests.
It is a real problem but its presented in a misleading way.
If you inherit a farm worth 1m and you have to pay estate taxes on that of 100k. You do not have to sell the farm, you can instead take out a mortgage to cover that 100k.
When we frame it that we its still very fair to the person inheriting the farm because who wouldnt want a $1m farm for 100k.
In American maybe thats the case. Im talking about situations where we are trying to implement an estate tax and the discussion is framed as basically forcing the receiver to sell the estate to pay the tax instead of presenting it accurately as taking a small loan to pay the tax.
You fix it by sidestepping it. Don't do it, even though it is the simplest/easiest to implement, and instead create 5 other laws that surround it and accomplish the same goal. Loop the hole back a them.
Although it would be amusing for them to do it at high velocity if the cars (and surrounding cars if any) were "dead heading" or had no humans in them for other reasons (perhaps because the humans had fled the vehicles upon seeing the fire truck headed their way!).
Waymo may discover that heavy equipment (large fire trucks can easily push Waymo out of the way if it can find somewhere to push it to) WILL move the cars (at least if there is no one in them at the time) in such cases. I recall the scenes during recent wildfires where abandoned cars were blocking roads and a skip loader was just picking up the cars and dumping/pushing them to the side of the road/over the edge - causing extensive damage to some of them.
Decades ago I recall talking to a fireman expressing a question of what happened if there was a car blocking their access in an emergency and he made it clear that the bumper on the front of the truck and the truck's healthy diesel engine would usually take care of the problem very quickly.
I wouldn't cry for waymo if a bunch of their cars got bulldozed out of the way but that's still unacceptable since it slows down emergency vehicles and first responders.
Interestingly in one of the videos online there are several (five I think) Waymos blocking the right two lanes entering the intersection (along with a few others around the other parts of the intersection). While its hazards are still blinking, one of these vehicles moves forward (admittedly just a few feet).
Is this a violation of the California Vehicle Code? Generally it seems to disallow non-emergency vehicles from traveling with blinking lights except for turn signals (and brake lights responding to a braking action).
But at that point it's back to engineering to figure out what to do (leave the pipe where it is and adjust around it _or_ move the pipe - possibly cutting concrete and perhaps untensioning/retensioning post-tensioned cables at substantial delay/cost) or move the piece of equipment that the penetration is serving.
One nice thing about automation like this is that the "as built" plans are more likely to be accurate because the only way to get "the computer" and "the robot" to stop squawking is to change the plans they are operating off of.
If this can't handle dirt surfaces, future generations/models probably will if there's demand. Perhaps such models would use spray paint/stencils or driving pins into the ground for marking purposes (or something more practical - I'm a software guy and this sounds like a hardware problem!).
My experience is with small residential builds but I would hope on large projects the location of each "unmovable" pipe/conduit etc that will end up penetrating a slab is already carefully verified before the next step is taken (such as placing concrete). Hopefully this is done with a total station rather than guys with chalk lines and tape measures. But a solution like this could reduce manual checking mistakes (of course, it's less likely to result in an experienced subcontractor noticing that the plan must be wrong because there's no reason for a conduit for 1KV electrical cables to come up 2cm away from a toilet trap in a multi-stall public bathroom - GIGO).
each "unmovable" pipe/conduit etc that will end up penetrating a slab is already carefully verified before the next step is taken (such as placing concrete)
My experience is as an architect.
The CAD file isn’t the building no matter how much everyone might wish it were.
Even if the plans were the building odds of everybody using the same plan revision all the time is just about zero.
And most of the time, nobody is gonna pay for a super accurate as-built BIM. Because the point of the exercise is a certificate of occupancy.
A lender never (intentionally) gives anyone anything for "free". This is why ARMs often have lower interest rates than fixed 30 year mortgages - the risk to the lender from rising interest rates is lower with ARMs so lenders generally accept a lower interest rate on ARMs.
Both sides are making a bet on future interest rates and alternative investment returns - with one (the borrower) paying extra for an "opt out early" option for which the lender assumes the risk.
It's a bit like the borrower is buying a long term put or call option from the lender which the borrower is free to exercise at any time or to let expire but the lender can't get out of (they, of course, can always sell the mortgage - but perhaps at a loss in some economic climates due to past and expected future interest rate declines and/or changes in default risk due, for example, to a recession or depression).
Yes - you have the right to observe public actions of federal agencies and agents and to report on them.
However a private entity, including Apple, is free to censor whatever they want on their platforms.
For example, I have the right to voraciously criticize or praise the current Administration or the prior Administration without government interference. However if you own a grocery store you are generally free to ban anyone wearing, or not wearing, a garment criticizing or praising either Administration (or any specific combination of praising or criticizing or referring to the current Administration or the prior Administration). Political views, unlike race or religion for example, are not a protected class under federal law even in a public accommodation such as a grocery store.
When I was a hiring manager (it's been a number of years) I always checked LI for applicants which looked interesting on "paper" but which had not come through a trusted source such as coworker from the past or present that I had respect for (both their technical skills and their willingness to be objective about others even if their observations were negative).
My primary reason for this was that unfortunately some resumes seem to include quite of bit of creative writing -- creativity which the applicant could bet only I, and my company, would see. If, however, the applicant had posted similar claims about past jobs on LI, it was public for all to see so somewhat likely to be less "creative" as most people find it embarrassing to get _caught_ claiming credit for work that someone else did or giving an overblown explanation of the import of their work. This is, of course, not 100% reliable as I've seen coworkers and past employees posting on LI claiming things they were "responsible for" or "implemented" when, in fact, they only had a tiny role (or, occasionally, even no discernible role) in.
Also, if I happened to notice a "connection" that I also knew, I could potentially ask them about the applicant (using due care to make sure that the applicant wouldn't be "outed" at their current job by my doing so).
> I always checked LI for applicants which looked interesting on "paper" but which had not come through a trusted source
This is a good observation.. rumination.. contribution? I can't find the right descriptive noun. Anyway, I get it. Perhaps the board is divided between regions inclined to use LI and not.
Unfortunately for California about 40% of the total state income tax collected (which accounts for about 65% of the state general fund) is paid by the top 1% of income earners -- which includes those 0.001% who will be motivated to move by a wealth tax (or even merely the threat of one).
The <0.001% number appears to be based on population _before_ several billionaires moved out before Jan 1, 2026 - likely at least partially motivated by the small, but real, risk of the "billionaire's tax" qualifying for the ballot and passing (and that proposed tax is only "temporary" and is only a total of 5% over three years so isn't nearly as alarming to the wealthy as a "permanent" tax would be). If it looks like this measure will end up on the ballot and have a chance of passing, expect many more to leave. This will, even if it does not ultimately pass, erode the income tax base.
California has rebelled against wealth taxes in the past - most notably by the passage of Prop 13 almost 50 years ago (a property tax is a wealth tax). They are not popular except when the hit "the other guy" -- but "the other guy" is the one most able to avoid the tax.
Wealthy people are typically very flexible as to where they live. They often already own multiple homes and often spend a lot of time out of the state they "live" in. When they move, they are not packing and labeling their own boxes or are likely even present on "moving day". They also are more likely to set up HQ and shop near where they spend a lot of their time. Even if they have family in California, they can still get together with them for Thanksgiving dinner -- either by flying the family to them on their private and chartered jets or by themselves flying to California for the weekend on one of their jets. They can conduct most business very efficiently remotely and often do so now to a significant extent.
It only takes a few to leave to tank the California budget - likely causing the progressive income and wealth taxes to reach deeper and deeper into the upper middle classes as California desperately tries to balance their budget without cutting yet more programs.
Other states are loving this though and will cut tax deals to attract these very billionaires that California are encouraging to leave.
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