Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I asked ChatGPT:
- How many billionaires in California? 214 by their count, Forbes said 239 at the end of 2025, and 250 at the present date.
- How many have already left California? Nine.
- How many are likely to leave? 25-60, with 40 being ChatGPT’s best guess.
- Any oddities? Key issue is whether the 15 ultra-wealthy ($50 billion or more) decide to leave.
Also asked about Newsom’s national billionaire tax. This is a little bit different, because if you want to leave the USA to avoid the billionaire’s tax, you need to renounce your American citizenship.
There’s an important twist here: once this is federal, “leave” mostly means renounce U.S. citizenship, not move to Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico, Monaco, or Dubai. That makes the departure number much smaller, but the avoidance/planning number much larger.Yes — at the federal level, the math changes dramatically.My estimate: if Newsom’s federal $100M+ minimum-tax proposal passed, probably 500–2,000 ultra-wealthy U.S. households would try to leave the U.S. tax system over 10 years, with a base case around 1,000–1,500. Of those, I’d guess 25–75 billionaires would actually expatriate or seriously restructure citizenship/residency. That sounds big politically, but it is small relative to the affected population.The reason: moving abroad is not enough. U.S. citizens are generally taxed on worldwide income even while living abroad, so the tax-avoidance move is not “buy a house in Dubai”; it is renounce U.S. citizenship or abandon long-term resident status. The IRS also already has an expatriation-tax regime for people with $2M+ net worth, which would cover every $100M+ taxpayer.</p>The headcount affected
There are likely tens of thousands of Americans above $100M. One estimate based on Federal Reserve data put the number at about 74,000 U.S. households worth $100M+ as of 2022, and that number is probably higher now after the AI/market run-up. The billionaire tier is much smaller: Forbes’ 2026 list says the U.S. has 989 billionaires, while IPS/Forbes real-time data showed 935 U.S. billionaires with $8.1T combined wealth at the end of 2025.
How many leave?
Here’s my practical range:
Scenario Likely expatriating / leaving U.S. tax net Billionaires included Strong exit tax, immediate effective date 300–800 10–30 Normal political compromise 1,000–1,500 25–75 Weak exit tax / delayed effective date 2,000–5,000 75–150 The base-case number is not higher because federal taxation is sticky. The ultra-rich can change state residence in a weekend, but renouncing U.S. citizenship is permanent, reputationally loud, logistically hard, and taxable on exit. Empirical wealth-tax migration studies find real but modest migration effects: one recent Scandinavian study estimated that a 1 percentage-point wealth-tax increase reduces the stock of wealthy taxpayers by about 2% in the long run; a U.K. study of super-rich non-doms also found emigration responses were “modest.”
How much more revenue?
For a Newsom/Biden-style minimum tax on $100M+ households, I’d pencil in: $500B–$900B over 10 years gross, and probably $400B–$700B net after avoidance, litigation, valuation disputes, installment rules, and some expatriation.
That is much less than a Warren-style annual wealth tax, but still real money — roughly $40B–$70B per year net, on average. The closest prior federal model is Biden’s “billionaire minimum income tax.” The earlier 20% version was estimated by Treasury at $360B over 10 years from about 20,000 richest households; Biden’s later FY2025 version was a 25% minimum tax on income including unrealized gains for households above $100M. With 2026 asset values much higher, especially in AI/tech, a $500B+ decade estimate is plausible.
But if Congress passed a true annual wealth tax instead — say Warren-style 2% above $50M and 3% above $1B — the revenue number gets much larger. Penn Wharton estimated the 2021 Warren bill at $2.1T–$2.4T over 10 years, while the 2026 Jayapal/Warren release claims $6.2T over 10 years from 260,000 households.
So the clean answer: A federal $100M+ minimum tax probably raises $400B–$700B net over 10 years and causes about 1,000–1,500 ultra-wealthy households to leave or attempt to leave the U.S. tax system. A true annual wealth tax could raise several trillion, but would also trigger far more avoidance, litigation, valuation warfare, and expatriation planning.
This remains a very interesting topic given tax minimization opportunities and the raging budget deficit. I guess part of me thinks persons over a certain wealth can and should contribute more, but they can flee the US just like they can flee NY or CA . . .
Some definitely can and will flee the U. S. But I wonder how many would leave the U. S. over an incremental increase in the wealth tax and a large increase in inheritance taxes? In which country would you rather live?
Second question: at what point will the U. S. just default on our collective debt? The Baby Boomers are starting to retire in numbers (I’m still four years away), and then GenX will want to retire. Will the remaining workers — who can’t afford a house and feel quite strongly that the Baby Boomers and GenX types got all the great opportunities — want to continue increased taxes while they are still physically able and their forebears are in their dotage?
Personally, I think they’ll continue the long trend of American selfishness that dates back to the 1970s. Remember when the 1970s were called the “Me” generation? Since then, each successive generation have had it worse than the prior generation — and their parents haven’t been collectively interested in their childrens’ travails.
In January 2025, the FireAid Benefit concert raised $100 million. Not one dime went to people who lost their houses in the fires. It all went to left-leaning non-profits, including (originally) a non-profit run by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. When this travesty was publicized, Siebel-Newsom’s nonprofit returned the funds. To date, no homeowner benefited from the $100 million raised.
Recently, Gavin Newsom’s chief of staff, Dana Williamson, 53, pleaded guilty to federal charges of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud, subscribing to a false tax return, and making false statements to a federal agent.
California’s fraud has outdistanced Minnesota’s by a considerable amount. And that doesn’t include the lengthy list of Newsom’s failures in this state.
And you dutifully reported a 100% pro-Newsom opinion. Makes sense.
Jake Tapper’s response was…unique.
CNN’s Jake Tapper slammed for response after shots fired near Donald Trump
Why the Left finds moral justification in murder and mayhem…
Opinion: The moral monstrosity of the New York Times podcast
Article is by Jonathan Turley, professor at George Washington University Law School. Not a conservative, nowhere close.
The modern monstrosity of the New York Times, head of moral relativism.
Opinion: The moral monstrosity of the New York Times podcast
I wonder why the NYT keeps driving this narrative. Maybe Mark Halperin has the answer:
Donald Trump has done a lot of things antithetical to belief in the First Amendment. He’s done a lot of things to limit press access, and those things should be scrutinized and covered and debated and pushed back against institutionally. But until we, as a profession, acknowledge what the media did on Russiagate and on Joe Biden’s loss of the mental acuity, we don’t have standing.
To your point…
Peter Zeihan: Ukraine’s Attacks On Russian Oil
I agree, I think Russia has lost. They have a demographic time bomb that is exploding. Their infrastructure has crumbled. They’ve lost more than 1.3 million men since the war began four years ago:
Ukraine says Russia has lost 1,321,450 troops in war
The Atlantic discusses it in detail. Their thesis is that Russia is basically a junior-grade ally to China:
And New York wants to tax empty second homes.
New York wants to tax empty second homes. Here’s what happened in cities that tried it.
Genuinely didn’t think their stupid ideas could get any stupider. The Progressives have reached bottom and have started to dig.
Yes and no. The big donors, post-2024 election said absolutely not, no more bad money after her. Representatives from each of the Big Six Democrat Support Groups (Tech, Wall Street, Hollywood, Academia, Media, BigLaw) all said she was done, stick a fork in her, she’s cooked.
And yet…all you need is one billionaire to back her. Just one. She did get a lot of votes last time, she did learn a lot. She’s still…well…Kamala, and that can’t be fixed. And I think other Democrats have better chances, though Beeg Dawg is right, they don’t have much bench, and they’re all competing to see who can achieve the greatest distance from the American political mainstream.
This article says it’s down to Newsom and Harris.
It’s already a two-person race for the 2028 Democratic nomination
Is it really, though?
Kamala Harris is unelectable, in my view. She and AOC are tied for the most incoherent national-level politicians. Either would be a disaster. She disappeared quickly as she dropped out of the 2020 Democratic primaries even before loony Marianne Williamson.
Newsom might be even more unelectable. Last June, the LA News likened Gavin Newsom to Bill Clinton. Most recently, Chris Hayes of MS Now and the NYT’s Ross Douthat made a compelling case that Newsom is more like Hillary than Bill:
- Like HRC, he’s the ultimate lib, the libbiest lib who ever libbed…even though he’s not actually that liberal.
- The Democratic base doesn’t trust him, because he’s essentially a centrist
- Swing voters thing he’s a far-left liberal.
Basically, the worst of both political worlds.
Cost savings, tax increases. The usual. We’ll see if NYC breaks.
That’s a great rule of thumb. My practice has always been to hire great people or people of great potential, lightly manage them and get out of their way. Eleven CXOs in my business trained under me, my coaching tree so to speak.
I always had their back if they brought me a problem, issue, or concern. On the other hand, if I hear about it from an attorney, then my ability to help you is limited.
One Friday, I got a call from our COO (my boss) stating that I needed to have a call that afternoon with our CEO and our CHRO. That tightened up my O ring, let me tell you. Turns out, my head of marketing technology had inadvertently forwarded an extremely sensitive information package to a competitor. And she tried to hide it. And talented though she was, we had to let her go. I still think she’s the most talented person in that role in the industry. Couldn’t save her, wouldn’t try.
I do believe Newsom’s latest faux pas before the Black audience in Atlanta – vote for me because I’m as dumb as you are – doomed him.
Apparently, Newsom’s (and other Democrats) faux pas actually is an exposed pattern that Yale and Princeton researchers have uncovered, Cydney Dupree (Yale) and Susan Fiske (Princeton). They published a peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology with the conclusion: White liberals systematically present themselves as less competent when speaking to Black audiences than when speaking to white ones.
It even has a name: “Competence downshift.”
They analyzed 74 speeches given over 25 years of presidential campaign speeches and they found that Democratic candidates consistently used fewer words associated with intelligence, ability, and status when addressing Black crowds. Republican candidates showed no such pattern. The difference was not random. It was consistent, measurable, and unique to white liberals.
<p data-t=”{"n":"blueLinks","t":13,"a":"click","b":76}”>When Newsom collapses that distinction to claim kinship with a Black audience in Georgia, he is not being vulnerable. He is borrowing from their story without having to pay for it.</p>He also ticked off the LGBTQ community by stating that the Democratic Party needs to “be more culturally normal” and “less prone to spending a disproportionate amount of time on pronouns and identity.”
Newsom is touring Southern states. It’s exposing some hurdles in his path to 2028.
