Larry Page leaves California to protect $12.5B from proposed wealth tax

Re:Larry Page leaves California to protect $12.5B from propo... by xhkkffbf on Friday January 09, 2026 @08:35PM (#46561799)

Actually, you're the one being obtuse. The point isn't that they use Instacart to avoid the lines. The point is that everyone can use Instacart or the USPS mobile app and everyone pretty much pays the same price. The point is that there's no special level of power that's available only to people with a billion dollars.

There's this mythology built around great wealth and it's largely false. They can't just snap their fingers and make things happen as if by magic. There's no special magic power that only they get. They have to pay for what they want and just like normal humans, they can only spend the money once.

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Re:Larry Page leaves California to protect $12.5B from propo... by saulpw on Friday January 09, 2026 @08:58PM (#46561976)

I don't know how you can't see it, but people who have gobs of wealth absolutely have more options (and more powerful options) than people who don't. For just one small example, they can purchase equity in non-public companies. If a regular person wanted to invest in OpenAI, they couldn't. But if a billionaire wants to throw down $10b, they can.

Just like how someone who has $200k can get a mortgage to buy a house, whereas someone with only $20k cannot. That's economic power that comes from having wealth to leverage.

[ Parent | on HN ]