Owner of InterG Media, EDM Life, Los Angeles Valuation Group, Real Estate Broker at Ashby & Graff, FSU alum!
Los Angeles, CA
Joined April 2009
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Greg Wasik retweeted
Ken Griffin on France and socialism…
"Paris should be a real wake up call to every single American. Government spending is 60% of their GDP. It’s the socialist dream the left talks about. That dream comes down to how much you can take from others. It doesn’t belong in America."
Just saw a 2021 5-unit apt building in the Mid-Cities area of LA sell for a 25% discount from its original sale price 5 years ago. Real estate always goes up they said.
Greg Wasik retweeted
Just one more tax bro please bro we just want healthcare we have literally no money for healthcare bro please the billionaires bro we had $45b in 2011 and $194b now but that's still not enough bro please just one more tax bro its the last one I promise
Greg Wasik retweeted
An activist at UCLA is urging students not to vote for Steve Hilton
Her arguments are all based on his policies
This is brilliant reverse psychology
@SteveHiltonx
@StreetSmart_x
Greg Wasik retweeted
this California wealth tax thing is just incredible.
so in October 2025, a California healthcare union proposed a "one time" 5% tax on any billionaire's wealth. the ballot measure will be voted on next month. In early December 2025, California announced that it would be a retroactive tax if passed, applying to anyone with CA residency as of Jan 1, 2026. The objective is to pay for Medi-Cal, California's incredibly dysfunctional healthcare system. (which also functions as a glorified welfare apparatus, but that's a discussion for another time).
polls reveal that the CA electorate is split around 50/50 on the tax, but prediction markets only give Prop 40 a ~23% chance of passing (there are competing measures on the ballet that would nullify it).
there are 200 billionaires in CA, worth collectively somewhere between $2.3 and $2.6 trillion. 5% of that is around $100b, accounting for a small amount of attrition. proponents of the tax forecasted a significant windfall, assuming only a 10% departure rate.
supporters thought they were being clever with the retroactive concept. no billionares would leave CA in the few short months between the tax being proposed and the residency cutoff date, without the tax even having passed yet, right?
well as it turns out, they did.
a new paper [1] from two academics at Stanford called "The Net Present Value of the California Billionaire Tax Act", argues that not only did more billionaires leave due to the proposed tax than its proponents expected, but that the value of the tax, if it does pass, is actually negative.
proponents of the tax only assumed 10% avoidance, that is, only 10% of the taxable base of targeted billionaires would leave CA within the very short Oct-Dec 2025 window. Jaros and Rauh, the Stanford academics, find that a lower bound of 28.6% of the taxable base managed to leave.
just based on known departures, those departures total $577b in net worth, or $28.8b in potential tax lost. this of course does not capture everyone (many left without announcing their departure), so the authors normalize to departure rates estimated from other wealth tax events, and apply other discounts for litigation, arriving arrive at a figure of only $28-$36b in forecasted tax revenues.
but this isn't all! all of the income taxes paid by the departed billionaires are also forsaken. the authors estimate that CA billionaires pay $3.3- 5.8b in annual income taxes. they assume a midpoint of $2b lost in annual collections from departed billionaires. the net present value of that lost income stream is -$68.9 billion.
so when you add it all up you get:
+ $30b one-time tax windfall (estimated)
- $69b in present value of lost future income taxes
= - 38.9b overall net present value of the tax
of course, this analysis is highly estimate driven. the authors simulate the parameters 100k times and find a negative NPV of the implemented tax 85 percent of the time.
and if the tax doesn't pass, which it's not looking like it will, California still ended up losing at least $577b in departed net worth, and they have permanently poisoned the well with entrepreneurs who will now worry about future wealth taxes.
[1]: nber.org/system/files/workin…
I wonder how much of the $80 billion Anthropic is going to lose this year is related to energy cost.. I haven't read the filing yet but the s1 makes me wonder how they're eventually going to turn a profit
Greg Wasik retweeted
The internet told them Europe was a social paradise. Turns out the trains are awful, the health care isn’t free, and people can be really mean. buff.ly/5cLtnha
Greg Wasik retweeted
California's Billionaire Tax Act would collect roughly $30 billion. Accounting for lost income taxes from departures, the mean Net Present Value is negative $39 billion, from Benjamin Jaros and Joshua Rauh nber.org/papers/w35899
Greg Wasik retweeted
If the unrest in France is a reflection that aging populations and tightening fiscal constraints make it increasingly difficult for Western governments to meet their promises to and expectations of their citizens, then France is just the beginning.
Greg Wasik retweeted
Premise:
Incentives drive all human behavior.
The corollary:
How to destroy a country:
A vast social security and support system that serves as a magnet for those who would rather not work.
An open immigration policy that does not screen immigrants to determine their ability and willingness to provide for themselves and their families.
An open immigration policy that does not screen for political and/or religious ideologies that are a threat to the country.
Economic incentives large enough to incentivize immigrants on the state dole to have large numbers of children, but insufficient for educated and economically productive mothers to be able to quit to raise a family.
The declining fertility of the most educated and productive women due to their delay to begin a family as a result of their desire and/or need to advance their careers, among other reasons, to live a life they deem consistent with their educational achievements and/or to repay their student debts.
Amnesty programs that give citizenship and voting power to illegal immigrants without consideration of their economic productivity or their threat to the country due to their religious or political ideologies.
The changing demographics and increased population due to the above factors.
The state responding to protests by increasing social support.
The continued failure to punish and hold accountable violent and looting rioters.
Government managed by a massive and growing unelected bureaucracy.
Government fraud, waste, and abuse contributed to ballooning budgets.
Anti-business legislation that makes it difficult for businesses to compete in a global marketplace being disrupted by AI, including restrictions on firing even poorly performing employees.
Overly burdensome, globally uncompetitive, corporate taxation.
Continuous increases in personal taxes to raise funds to provide for the rapidly growing welfare state.
The substantial majority of the tax burden levied on a small percentage of the population.
A growing percentage of the electorate paying no taxes and receiving welfare.
The introduction or threat of a wealth tax including the taxation of unrealized gains, i.e., taxes on paper wealth.
The flight of the most productive business builders and highest taxpayers to lower tax countries with lesser security concerns.
A growing percentage of the electorate voting for candidates that support increased welfare and laws favorable to, and/or that match the cultural and ideological needs and desires of a growing unproductive immigrant population.
The rapid rise in anti-semitism and inadequate efforts to address this hatred.
Increased borrowing by the state to fund the growing social burden.
Higher sovereign interest rates due to all of the above.
The resulting need to reduce expenditures to make the math work.
Increasingly violent protests that make life less livable for the productive and law abiding citizens leading to their accelerated departure.
And so on…
I guess I take some solace in the fact that the entire college football world says FSU got jobbed on BOTH TDs that weren't in the 2nd OT.
Greg Wasik retweeted
A must-watch minute from @elonmusk predicting and explaining the causes for the destruction of France.
Ugh. I think maybe that was dual possession on the last play for FSU and the holding looked pretty minor before 😤🤬
It's not over yet and this arguably might be the best day of college football I've ever seen in my life.
Not sure how they called the FSU lineman for holding on the touchdown in the second overtime and the DB doesn't get called for pass interference for BYU against Notre Dame on the final play.