I like the spirit of the ideas, but yeah I gotta say it's a little extreme to me.
Forcing people to spend money in their life time is going to incentivize consumerism. So I was super rich, and you want me to be forced to spend rather than invest and pass down to the next generation, I'm either going to try to pass it down illegally, or spend on things like sports cars and yachts and watches and fine wines and michelin star restaurants. None of them is as valuable as keeping it invested. On top of that, I'd divest all my holdings (which, if I didn't diversify well, means asset value in general will drop whenever someone super rich dies, which also opens up the opportunity for speculation, but that's beside the point).
This also doesn't take in the account of sudden death. What if you suddenly died at 45, with a $1.5 million estate? So you never had the opportunity to enjoy it. This will incentivize people to be a lot more near-sighted and again reinforces consumerism.
You mentioned having it being taxed at 90%. I'd say that's probably good, but I'd go a step to the right and say 90% on anything that's over $2mil, since your argument is contingent on a very very strong social safety net, which I do not think the United States has, and I would say it's also debatable on how strong you want the social safety net to be.
I think the point of the Latte factor, isn't that you shouldn't buy expensive coffee drink. The bigger problem is mindless spending racks up the expense column without adding much value.
Once you get into the habit of getting a coffee from an artisan coffee shop everyday, the value of that great cup of coffee diminishes, and you start to spend money out of habit, not because it adds any more joy, pleasure, or value to you. This is the same as eating out everyday for lunch.
And if mindless consumption seeps into every other aspect of your life, then that's going to cost you dearly.
You can easily get a job without French. I know 2 shops that can’t fill positions even with competitive (for Montreal) salaries. One is all English (Wordpress, magneto shop) and the other is large international org. The international org couldn’t even fill the secretary role for 6 month. They ended up getting a student fresh of the school without experience.
I’m constantly getting bombarded with recruiters with good offers.
1/2 salary of Toronto? No way! Montréal salaries are lower, but by 15-20% max. Yet you can buy a condo with a parking spot, in a central location for $220. The cost of living is much lower than Toronto.
I’ve lived in Ottawa, Toronto and now Montreal. Montreal is by far more affordable than the other 2.
I think of it like mechanical art pieces. A blend of mechanical engineering, art, and craftmanship. Plus if it's made out of precious metal it's a hedge against inflation.
And like art, it has a robust secondary market, which means some of the rare ones can go up in value, sometimes by a lot. People don't buy art because they get something, they buy art because they simply appreciate it.
Everybody is different. I'd pick a thousand dollar watch over a MTG collection or a gaming tower any day (mostly because I don't think gaming is valuable at all)
Windows and OSX are products, and Linux is more like a free commodity. It's great to use it at scale because you save a shit ton of money on licensing fees, but not great for end users. Getting end users to use Linux is like asking drivers to buy barrels of crude and tell them to refine it to use gas.
For the typical desktop user, we have to ask what the intent of usage is. Running a business with proprietary software and licensing, typing up documents for personal financial planning, playing games.
Linux has never been consistent with so many flavors of the day out there, but generally it is a heck of a Swiss Army knife when it comes to solving problems for me at least.
Well end users have started using Linux and it is getting very popular ie chromebooks.Thing is for 90% of the people Linux is good enough. Its the other 10% though that make the most noise. And with Android apps coming to chromebooks. It won't be long before chromebooks becomes not just the most used Linux distribution but also the most use desktop OS. Android is unlikely to be bumped as the most used OS though.
I think a better analogy is that Linux is like high-octane premium served up at a gas pump without a card reader. The interface throws people off at first but they quickly get used to not opening their wallet.
I don't know what I'm more sad about in this article, the fact that so much economic activity is dedicated to boast oneself's social status by paying to gain proximity to celebrities, or that these parties are insidious to a celebrity's mental and physical health.
Forcing people to spend money in their life time is going to incentivize consumerism. So I was super rich, and you want me to be forced to spend rather than invest and pass down to the next generation, I'm either going to try to pass it down illegally, or spend on things like sports cars and yachts and watches and fine wines and michelin star restaurants. None of them is as valuable as keeping it invested. On top of that, I'd divest all my holdings (which, if I didn't diversify well, means asset value in general will drop whenever someone super rich dies, which also opens up the opportunity for speculation, but that's beside the point).
This also doesn't take in the account of sudden death. What if you suddenly died at 45, with a $1.5 million estate? So you never had the opportunity to enjoy it. This will incentivize people to be a lot more near-sighted and again reinforces consumerism.
You mentioned having it being taxed at 90%. I'd say that's probably good, but I'd go a step to the right and say 90% on anything that's over $2mil, since your argument is contingent on a very very strong social safety net, which I do not think the United States has, and I would say it's also debatable on how strong you want the social safety net to be.
Just my two cents.