matlag

It's a delicate process. For Canada, the 2 economies are historically very very entangled. Divesting has started, but if you do it too fast or too openly, you will trigger strong reactions from the US. If you go to a head front economic battle with the US, you would create a lot of pain in Canada itself, that the conservatives will lever to gain power (and very probably be much more submissive to the US…).
So yes: do it quietly but surely, don't make waves, don't appear to be antagonist.

It's not my repetition that makes it nonsensical, it's the fact that assets are purchased with already-taxed money. Having to pay the government for the 'privilege' of continuing to own what you've purchased, in perpetuity, is nonsensical, full stop.

Tell me you don't have a damn clue how very large wealth works without telling me you don't have a damn clue how very large wealth works.

Capital flight since the ISF wealth tax’s creation in 1988 amounts to ca. €200 billion; The ISF causes an annual fiscal shortfall of €7 billion, or about twice what it yields

Unfortunately for you, he never could never prove the relation between taxes and wealthy people leaving, making this an interesting paper, but not a consensus, even today.
In addition, this has mitigations: bind the tax to the citizenship (what the US is already doing for income), and/or apply a 5 years term before you have "escaped" the tax. Again, both considered manageable by economists.

Your inability to own up to any of your falsehoods makes you pointless to continue engaging with. The statistics are crystal clear—your assertions are demonstrably bunk.

Not sure if you in denial or bad faith. Doesn't matter.

This reply serves only to directly contradict the most obvious additional falsehoods, for others who may read this exchange, before I move on.

Well, since it starts with you explaining you had no idea what you talked about the whole time, yes, it's preferable.

There already are private military. Black Water and alike are absolutely private armies. But that could be expensive, even for trillionaires. It's a much better strategy to privatize the existing military and get it paid by the government. Watch it, it's going to happen!

Again, none of your business, because you’re not the lender.

Let's take a practical example: please find a decent DDR5 offer. No way it could have gone up because virtual money bought it all, couldn't it?

Idiotic straw man which I will be ignoring.

If you don't understand the relation between taxes and their use, yeah: better ignore it, for your sake…

The principle of taxing people based on the value of what they already own is nonsensical, no matter how much or how little that value is. Objecting to both wealth taxes and property taxes just means I’m not a hypocrite.

Keep repeating it's "nonsensical" doesn't make it nonsensical.

Taxing based on ‘you could do without it’, especially when the definition of that excess is completely arbitrarily defined, is a horrendous precedent to set. Vibe taxation. Every wealth tax aimed at the ‘ultra-rich’ in other countries in the past has either been repealed outright, or was broadened so that it, surprise surprise, is no longer aimed only at the ultra-rich, and falls into the lap of of the middle class, once again.

Wrong. France had a wealth tax for decades. It was repealed by current President Macron, who was propped by… a billionaire. A proposal for a ultra-wealth tax (proposal was above 100M$ of wealth) was proposed by an economist in France, and he got support from a bench of Nobel Prize of Economy recipients (among a large support from economy experts).

Inflation is a thing, so those records will always be broken eventually. It only “makes headlines” to appeal to dullards who don’t understand things like that.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WFRBLTP1246

From 2020 to 2025 Q1 to Q1, from 12T$ to 22T$, that's the equivalent 12.9% per year. "inflation", sure…

Based on the failures already witnessed elsewhere in the world, yes. It objectively doesn’t make sense.

It didn't fail. Billionaires managed to get rid of it. They use their virtual non-real money to acquire as much news medias they could, so that they could prop their guy all the way up.

US Life expectancy is at it highest ever in 2025

Indeed, my bad! It's a world class winning https://www.healthdata.org/news-events/newsroom/news-releases/increases-us-life-expectancy-forecasted-stall-2050-poorer-health

Educational attainment is steadily trending upward

https://www.future-ed.org/what-the-new-pisa-results-really-say-about-u-s-schools/

Poverty is trending downward

https://www.cbo.gov/interactive/2025-reconciliation-act

I see a lot of people saying "just don't use it". If it was that easy…

In some places, FB has took the lion share of the 2nd hand online selling. Historical platforms are in agony and your chance of finding a buyer/seller dramatically reduce if you avoid FB maretplace.
In some places, FB is so common that schools, activities etc. are organized on FB. You don't have an account, no worry: you'll be the lone idiot to drop your kid at school the day it's closed because of a snow storm.
In some places, FB is the personal life blogging platform. So if you want to know about old friends you've left behind as you were relocating to different countries, you're going to miss on some quite important events (death in the family, etc.) as that's where they let people know.
In some places, if you want to build a network, that's where "everyone" is. You like trekking and want to find a group for that? They're all on FB. You want to play board games? Groups are all on FB.

The list goes on and on.

Actually, France had a very strong army at the time. Two points here:

• when Hitler moved troops in the demilitarized zone, French president hesitated, but he didn't move. Apparently, Hitler took a big gambit as he thought that the French army could have defeated him then and there (no certainty but very possible)
• Germany conquered France very fast but lost half of its tanks and one third of its planes in the process. It was quick, but it was mostly brutal on both sides.

So, unfortunately, a serie of terrible decisions allowed Hitler's Germany victory: an inadapted defense, and a reluctance to attack.

Main issue for Canada as for most of European countries willing to "defend Greenland": US made equipment and systems: either you have a strong stock of spare parts, or we won't stand long. And that's without counting the basic volume advantage of the US military, and that's without counting the prevalence of US cloud based services everywhere in industry and government agencies.

I asked that question before, so allow me again: if the Trump decide to take Greenland, Denmark is going to resist, using their US-made equipment, and will order spare parts and ammos to whom? (oh and prepare F35 flight missions on a US server, no issue there…).

Also, it’s entirely possible for some scandal to plummet the value of a stock overnight, such that the value that was used as collateral is now not worth nearly that much. But it is the lender’s prerogative to decide to take that risk, it’s no one’s business other than the lender and the borrower, both private entities.

1.Sure, I will take your risk assessment over these banks anytime (not). 2.If the value is so unstable it can plummet over night, then it was grossly overestimated initially, back to my previous point.

Yes, property taxes should not be a thing.

Neither should roads, schools, garbage collection, police, firefighters, etc, I guess.

Hypocrisy detection failed, lol.

You know, it was either hypocrisy or weird cult of the billonaires, as I fail to see why you so much want to protect them from paying any tax…

You may have an issue understanding the simple phrase “stuff you own”, since you’re here apparently arguing that beyond a certain valuation, assets are no longer assets.

It's not "stuff" in the sense no one will come after a house, a car, a yacht, etc. It's not money they need to survive. You could still tax by hundreds of billions the ultra-rich class at the country level (I assume US here) and neither their lifestyle nor their long term prospective lifestyle would be impacted the slightest. That's the scale we're talking about.

Or alternatively, we can keep saying it's complicated and/or doesn't make sense, and you can enjoy record breaking wealths of a few that will make headlines while the life expectation, education level, overall population health keeps going down and poverty keeps going up… until one day, it catches you!

And in a further protest gesture, Denmark will order an additional 3B$ worth of military equipment to US companies.

Time to thank all politicians in Europe who were reluctant to decarbonate the economy because it's bAd fOr bUsInEsS.
Today we count how much money they're sending Russia by buying gas vs Ukraine by providing military equipment. All good for the business I guess.
Today we assess how dependent on US gas the EU is in time of crisis. All good for the business too, I guess.
In this context, rolling back the ban on gas cars in 2035 is another great geopolitical move that will guarantee EU's future amidst international tension and resources depletion (oil extraction is to drop by half from 2030 to 2050, and that means producers will slow exportations and use is primarily for their internal needs).

Moderate conservatives are just finding out about the paradox of intolerance now?

They've promoted unrestricted free speech for years. Then the most intolerant speeches got loud, and now the supporters of intolerance feel entitled enough to take over and restrict their freedom of speech. That's text book!

It absolutely doesn't make sense to charge a tax of real/actual money on a value that's theoretical.

That "theoretical value" is used as collateral to borrow money for billionaires expenses. Companies can even buy one another through shares exchange. So tell me:

Why is it theoretical only for taxes purpose, but very real when you talk to a bank?.

It's irrational to assume "cheating the system to grossely [sic] exagerate [sic] the value of their companies" of every entity valued at more than an arbitrary $X.

I didn't write it was all of them. I'm talking about the AI bubble and IPO scams.

"The stuff you own is now too valuable, so we get to steal it from you."

Is that your opinion on properties taxes? Because that's something you own, and you pay a tax based on its value. That value is also theoretical, by the way: as long as you don't sell the house, who knows how much it's worth?
And... is that not the most expensive thing you own??

Or is it stealing only when we talk about billionaires wealth?

And at this scale, it's not "stuff you own". You may have an issue assessing what a billion is. Do you know the difference between a million and a billion? It's roughly a billion...
That 20M$ mansion gaining 10% is absolutely peanuts.