Transatlanticist | Deeptech investor | Would much rather be listening to jazz.
Paris...or hopefully on a boat
Joined September 2009
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Michael Jackson retweeted
Gabriel Zucman @gabriel_zucman has now for the third time criticized our research on California’s proposed billionaire tax, claiming we have provided “no answer” to his criticisms.
xitter.cf/gabriel_zucman/status/…
We have actually already responded twice on this platform, but let’s address his arguments once more in detail, with the hope that third time’s the charm. 1/14
This Hoover Institution study, which has fueled the deluge of ads (more than $200 million spent by billionaires so far) to defeat the California billionaire tax, is spectacularly misleading.
Let me explain its crucial flaw. 🧵
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Zucman argues that the tax will raise his projected revenue because billionaires who leave CA after 1/1/26 will be taxed anyway.
At least $542B of net worth (Page, Brin, Thiel) departed the state by 12/31/25.
The entire thread is a misleading denial of this fact.
ft.com/content/d66976…
nytimes.com/2026/04/27/us/…
forbes.com/sites/forbeswe…
"If you're above the age of 35, it's unholy and evil, and will surely overturn all existing structures and destroy society." Given our rapidly aging demographics, it's no wonder that there's more animosity than ever towards tech.
Marc Andreessen on the generational divide in how people receive new technology, and why it's "prime time" for 18-year-olds to grab AI and run with it:
"Douglas Adams, the guy who wrote Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, had the defining description of how technology is received on a generational level... Any new technology is received three different ways by three different age cohorts."
"If you're below the age of 15, it's just the natural way the world works. I've told in other settings the story of introducing my kid to ChatGPT at age seven, 'This is such a big deal because the computer answers questions.' And he's like, 'Duh.'... It's just normal."
"If you're between the ages of 15 to 35, it's new, exciting, a hot field, and you might be able to make a career out of it, in which case you want to learn all the new things."
"If you're above the age of 35, it's unholy and evil, and will surely overturn all existing structures and destroy society."
"I think 18-year-olds right now, I mean, it's prime time to grab these new capabilities and run with them. It's gonna be creation of entirely new fields of entrepreneurship and creativity and art and everything."
"The schools are banning AI or having all these controversies with it. But of course, if you're a kid, that just makes it cooler... AI is your like secret superpower that you have to like deviously figure out how to take advantage of."
@pmarca @bhorowitz
Michael Jackson retweeted
John Cowperthwaite did more for human prosperity than any development economist drawing a government salary ever managed, and he did it by refusing to do almost anything at all.
As Hong Kong's Financial Secretary from 1961 to 1971, Cowperthwaite ran one of the most radically free economies the modern world has ever seen. He kept taxes flat and low (the top income tax rate sat at 15%), ran consistent budget surpluses, abolished import tariffs, and blocked nearly every subsidy request that crossed his desk. When British civil servants demanded economic statistics to justify intervention, he refused to collect them. Not out of laziness. He genuinely believed that giving planners numbers gave them excuses.
The results? In 1960, Hong Kong's per capita income stood at roughly 28% of Britain's. By 1997, Hong Kong had surpassed Britain. That trajectory happened without natural resources, without foreign aid, and without a single five-year plan drafted by well-intentioned economists from Oxford. Hong Kong had a harbor, people willing to work, and a bureaucrat with enough intellectual discipline to keep the state out of their way.
Capital flows toward secure property rights and reliable rules, and flees the moment politicians start allocating it. Every industry Beijing picked as a "priority sector" during those same decades burned through subsidies and produced junk. Hong Kong's industries emerged organically, serving real demand, building real wealth.
You benefit from this history whether you know it or not, because Hong Kong's success gave the world a controlled experiment that still embarrasses every advocate of managed development. The control group thrived. The planned economies didn't.
Cowperthwaite retired to St Andrews, received a knighthood, and gave almost no interviews. That restraint was entirely in character.
So what are the shopkeepers paying taxes for? Western politicians and bureaucrats have repeatedly broken the social contract with their citizens, but then want more and more taxes.
🔴 EN DIRECT
La préfecture de police de Paris invite les commerçants à recourir à des agents privés avant les prochaines manifestations
l.bfmtv.com/Y3FV
Michael Jackson retweeted
Imagine your net worth is $200,000. One day an armed gang comes up to your house and demands $10,000.
“Don’t worry!” the leader says. “I’m only going to do this one time. Plus, it’s only 5% of your net worth. What’s the big deal ?”
After he leaves, you call the cops, but they aren’t interested in investigating the matter. “What’s the big deal?” they tell you. “After all, it’s only 5% of your net worth!”
As you’re preparing to flee the city for a place where you cannot be robbed, Gabriel Zucman appears on your doorstep.
“Why are you leaving?” he asks.
“Somebody just robbed me and the police aren’t going to do anything. I want to live somewhere I can’t be robbed!”
“But sir,” says Mr Zucman, “Have you considered the fact that the man told you it was a one-time tax ? Have you considered that you gain nothing by leaving since the tax is already paid ? There’s no economic reason for you to leave anymore.”
What amazes me is the attitude of so many of the centibillionaires.
A 5% tax will not make any difference to the way they live. Their spending may be extravagant, but it is still much less than their (correctly measured) income.
They know that, as gifted as some of them indeed are, they have benefited from extreme luck (and the help of the state, and, to speak like an economist, monopoly rents).
They know that their effective tax rate is low, relative to what many others pay.
They know that extreme inequality is extremely unpopular, and can lead to political unrest, backlash, or worse.
They must admit that, morally, it is hard to argue for a society in which some become obscenely wealthy, while so many are poor and see their income stagnate.
They typically have not indicated that they are building their wealth to eventually make the world a better place.
But they are still willing to fight the tax, spending hundreds of millions in California to avoid paying the tax. Why?
They simply think what is theirs is theirs, end of story.
They believe in the slippery slope, and if they do not take a stand on this levy, the government will come back for more.
They hate the state and the notion that their money will be misused?
Or?
“They simply think what is theirs is theirs, end of story.” Olivier apparently isn’t familiar with the concept of private property. Would he be ok letting someone take a property of his, or 5% of his net worth, or valuables from his home in the name of inequality?
What amazes me is the attitude of so many of the centibillionaires.
A 5% tax will not make any difference to the way they live. Their spending may be extravagant, but it is still much less than their (correctly measured) income.
They know that, as gifted as some of them indeed are, they have benefited from extreme luck (and the help of the state, and, to speak like an economist, monopoly rents).
They know that their effective tax rate is low, relative to what many others pay.
They know that extreme inequality is extremely unpopular, and can lead to political unrest, backlash, or worse.
They must admit that, morally, it is hard to argue for a society in which some become obscenely wealthy, while so many are poor and see their income stagnate.
They typically have not indicated that they are building their wealth to eventually make the world a better place.
But they are still willing to fight the tax, spending hundreds of millions in California to avoid paying the tax. Why?
They simply think what is theirs is theirs, end of story.
They believe in the slippery slope, and if they do not take a stand on this levy, the government will come back for more.
They hate the state and the notion that their money will be misused?
Or?
Michael Jackson retweeted
Zucman is considered the most credentialed and elite academic supporting the notion of wealth taxes - the fact that he is outmatched intellectually by the average anon RW poster on here is telling; the socialists vainly try to establish an academic veneer for their schemes but at the end of the day it’s just about resentment and hatred of the successful and well turned out. There’s no genuine policy case for wealth taxes and Zucmans latest beclownment should show how thin the veil is
The key problem is this:
Why would billionaires permanently leave California in response to a one-time tax owed if they lived there on January 1, 2026?
It would only make sense for them to leave if the tax becomes annual.
But if the tax becomes annual, it would also generate revenue annually — by virtue of, well, being annual.
"Pressure to back promising new AI startups is upending that process...a company can notch multiple valuations simultaneously or in rapid succession, and sometimes only the higher number is made public." Won't end well.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Michael Jackson retweeted
Right now, France has the riots that would accompany fiscal consolidation, but none of the benefits, because it is not actually doing any fiscal consolidation. So give the rioters the thing they think they are rioting against. What are they going to do about it? Riot?
Michael Jackson retweeted
French yields are blowing up European macro hedge fund carry trades
efinancialcareers.co.uk/news…
This. Europe pushed post-national policies just as it took in record levels of immigrants, thus leading to these attacks against all that is perceived to be European. And the woman on the left saying the riots had nothing to do with immigrants wants us to disbelieve our own eyes.
My attempt at discussing what has driven violent riots & wanton destruction in France (not without interruption). I was also reacting to unhelpfully labelling Kemi Badenoch's mention of challenges of migration y'day, as a Trump-like dog whistle #PoliticsLive
Michael Jackson retweeted
🧵In 2019, California billionaire tax crusader Gabriel Zucman made an astonishing claim to the NY Times: billionaires pay a lower avg tax rate than poor people in the US.
I noticed something fishy though: Zucman's NYT chart did not match his own published data from a 2018 paper
‘It’ll just be this one time, we swear. Ok? Believe us!’ The inability for Zucman to consider second order effects massively hinders his work. He just doesn’t understand how the real world works.
The key problem is this:
Why would billionaires permanently leave California in response to a one-time tax owed if they lived there on January 1, 2026?
It would only make sense for them to leave if the tax becomes annual.
But if the tax becomes annual, it would also generate revenue annually — by virtue of, well, being annual.
Michael Jackson retweeted
Google did this in 2014. Class C shares with no votes. Mark can keep paying stock comp, sell equity to pay for GPUs, acquire cos w shares, and not dilute his voting control.
New: Meta is creating a new stock class to help fund its AI spending spree
wsj.com/articles/metaplatfor…
Michael Jackson retweeted
American chattering classes love to hate our country’s financial services sector, but mark my words: the depth and versatility of U.S. capital markets will be our mightiest weapon in the singularity. Anti-finance sentiment, still fashionable on both left and right, is low IQ.
