Nope, I'm not missing that particular fact. I'm aware that sentences (and words) are split into tokens, which are vectors.
I don't understand how most LLMs can spell out words though, nor do I understand what is causing the failure to count characters in words. I was not convinced by the comment I was responding to.
if you are worried about being able to afford the taxes on your assets then you just plain arent rich enough for it to apply to you, dont worry you are safe
This is almost certainly untrue. The issues is that at any asset level, the tax itself can force a sale, which forces realization of gains. Whether that is on-balance more than the value realized is another question, but it definitely could force a sale at any asset level depending entirely on the ratio of your liquid to non-liquid assets.
So, in effect, the question is, should the government use tax as a club to force you to sell assets? Does this have any benefit for the economy/society?
Given historical precedence, it's almost a certainty that it will not stay at that level, but regardless the context of my response was someone basically saying that high net worth individuals wouldn't have a problem paying the tax, and that's almost certainly not actually true.
may be it shouldnt be the same as capital gains, but it should be related. like maybe it should be (capital gains tax rate - interest rate of loan) else it will simply be a way to continue to pay less taxes and still have your income as cash on hand
Because income tax started as only targeting people making $3,000 a year, which was the top ~40% of earners in 1913. Once the door to a new government power is unlocked, it never closes it only gets more open.
> Once the door to a new government power is unlocked, it never closes it only gets more open.
I don't think "slippery slope" is a reasonable defense here, especially with the situation you're using as an example. The top 40% of earners is a lot of people, and pretty close to the number of people that pay positive income taxes today (50% of earners pay 97% of taxes). The slope you're using as an example doesn't look very slippery, especially given that 100+ years of the US changing completely has happened in the meantime.
Slippery slope arguments are absolutely legitimate when (a) dealing with policy proposals in relation to difference from a perceived "normal" situation, (b) discussing issues in which factions that wish to push the status quo toward an extreme endpoint manifestly exist and exert influence, and/or (c) there's a demonstrable history of incremental expansion of similar policies' scope and effects in evidence.
The unsaid half of the example, which I assumed was understood for people on HN, was that income tax was initially presented as a small tax on the very well off which now impacts almost every earning American.
Judging by the timeline, it seemed like initial low rates had more to do with it being a new system, and less to do with some kind if "we will only do this to the rich" promise.
Also, they tried implementing income taxes previously, had it struck down by supreme court, then all the states got together to pass an amendment to allow income taxes. So, it was a pretty strongly supported change.
Honestly, I can get on board with "government tends to only grow in scope" point of view, I just don't think income taxes illustrate that point at all.
That’s playing all sorts of games with the numbers, from 1917 the $2K threshold (50k in 2024) was at 2% tax rate with the top rate being 15% at $2m pa of 1917 dollars so ~$50m pa today.
1) Effective taxes aren't much different today. A married couple with no kids will pay < 5% on 50k. FICA is what makes it higher, so not exactly apples to apples.
2) You're choosing 1917, pre changes, to paint an inaccurate picture. Top rate went from 15% to 67% that year, and 77% the year after. Almost double today's top rate.
What happened was, we introduced a revenue system, and have changed it over time, often dramatically, as the country's needs have changed, both raising and lowering rates. We haven't gone down some crazy spiral of ever increasing tax rates. If anything, the tax situation for the rich has gotten better over time, not worse.
I choose 1917 because it's both old - the point of this exercise - and right after a lowering of the band $3K to $2K and increased taxes in response to WWI. WWI was quite a dramatic event.
I'm not sure what you're arguing - that it changed dramatically or that it has not changed dramatically. If you're arguing it has changed dramatically then I guess we are in agreement.
You should also note that 1917 was prior to the introduction of sales taxes (1921) and social security taxes (1937). Looking at only federal income tax paints an rather incomplete picture when looking at total tax burdens.
"A married couple with no kids will pay < 5% on 50k" I assume they're dual filing for the 50K so 25K on average? The lower %16 percent of the population. A weird number to pick.
> I'm not sure what you're arguing - that it changed dramatically or that it has not changed dramatically.
Im arguing that the original comment, that income taxes weren't originally intended to be what they are today, or it was some kind of bate and switch, or slow bleeding, that led us to today. That was my read of thread parent anyway.
> You should also note that 1917 was prior to the introduction of sales taxes (1921) and social security taxes (1937). Looking at only federal income tax paints an rather incomplete picture when looking at total tax burdens.
We aren't arguing about total tax burden, we are arguing that a new kind of tax will/won't necessarily be abused and changed post introduction. Those three tax vectors prove that they won't be if anything, as they haven't changed much since introduction either.
>A married couple with no kids will pay < 5% on 50k" I assume they're dual filing for the 50K so 25K on average? The lower %16 percent of the population.
1) Most households were single income in 1917.
2) 50k was inflation adjusted equivalent to numbers that I was responding to. I didn't pick it at random, I chose it to show things hadn't changed much.
I don't think "everyone" is talking about small businesses. Only people with an axe to grind against the legislation, who trot out "Small Business" to play the sympathetic victim.
so much effort is put into making terminals, aesthetic, customizable, and impressive. yet, not enough work is done in fixing the usability limitations of terminals (especially for casual users or beginners) such as: -command/argument discoverability, error forgiveness (being able to roll back a destructive command or detect and warn the user before executing), and general ergonomics
messed around with the tool, why wouldnt a quilt of 4 squares evenly subdivide into 4 quilts of size 1? the tool shows it subdividing into 3 quilts of size 2 and 4 squares of size 1?
i could see 4 quilts of size 2 if "quilt size" is defined as length of side for the initial 4 is actually 4 on each side (16 squares)
