Laissez Faire, Laissez Mourir

There is an arrangement in which whoever cannot pay to survive is told, “Die, then.” We live in it. It has been on my mind as the world prepares to mint its first trillionaire. What follows is numbers. They are worse than you think. Elon Musk is worth $834 billion—a fifth of what the bottom half of America, 66 million households, owns combined1 1 Federal Reserve, Distributional Financial Accounts: the bottom 50% of US households held $4.1 trillion—2.5% of household net worth—at end-2024.  —and his approved pay package runs to one trillion. This is what a trillion looks like.

▼ each speck: one million dollars — one comfortable retirement(the median family’s everything, $192,900: a fifth of a speck)$10 billion$20 billion$30 billion$40 billion$50 billion$60 billion$70 billion$80 billion$90 billionone hundred billion$110 billion$120 billion$130 billion$140 billion$150 billion$160 billion$170 billion$180 billion$190 billiontwo hundred billion$210 billion$220 billion$230 billion$240 billion$250 billion$260 billion$270 billion$280 billion$290 billionthree hundred billion$310 billion$320 billion$330 billion$340 billion$350 billion$360 billion$370 billion$380 billion$390 billionfour hundred billion$410 billion$420 billion$430 billion$440 billion$450 billion$460 billion$470 billion$480 billion$490 billionfive hundred billion$510 billion$520 billion$530 billion$540 billion$550 billion$560 billion$570 billion$580 billion$590 billionsix hundred billion$610 billion$620 billion$630 billion$640 billion$650 billion$660 billion$670 billion$680 billion$690 billionseven hundred billion$710 billion$720 billion$730 billion$740 billion$750 billion$760 billion$770 billion$780 billion$790 billioneight hundred billion$810 billion$820 billion$830 billion$840 billion$850 billion$860 billion$870 billion$880 billion$890 billionnine hundred billion$910 billion$920 billion$930 billion$940 billion$950 billion$960 billion$970 billion$980 billion$990 billion☞ scrollone trillion dollars

One trillion dollars. One million specks, one million dollars each—64 specks tall, 15,625 specks wide. A speck is a comfortable retirement; the median family owns a fifth of one. The plate runs ninety-four thousand pixels to the right—some twenty-five metres of paper—and it does end. Counted at one dollar per second: a million dollars takes 11½ days; a billion, 32 years; the full plate, 31,700 years.

Capital compounds; labour does not. At a conservative 5%, $834 billion yields a median household income ($83,730)2 2 U.S. Census Bureau, Income in the United States: 2024, report P60-286, September 2025.  every 63 seconds—a forty-year working life every 42 minutes. Once returns exceed any possible spending, a fortune is no longer earned; it accrues.

The taxes bind mostly those who work. The 25 richest Americans added $401 billion to their net worth over 2014–2018 and paid $13.6 billion in income tax—a true rate of 3.4%: Musk 3.27% (zero in 2018), Bezos 0.98%, Buffett 0.10%.3 3 ProPublica, The Secret IRS Files, June 8, 2021. The “true tax rate” compares federal income tax paid with growth in net worth over the same period.  A wage earner pays 15.3% from the first dollar—7.65% withheld, 7.65% more via the employer, borne by the worker—four and a half times the billionaires’ rate, before income tax even begins.

Jeff Yass, owner of Susquehanna ($65 billion),4 4 Forbes profile, December 2025.  paid the 20% long-term rate on trading income ordinarily taxed near 40%—roughly $1 billion saved, disputed in court.5 5 ProPublica, How Susquehanna’s Jeff Yass Avoided $1 Billion in Taxes, 2022. The Tax Court dispute was filed in 2020 and remains pending.  Susquehanna also owns some 15% of ByteDance, TikTok’s parent;6 6 “A ban on TikTok would be a blow to local billionaire investor and GOP megadonor Jeff Yass,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 13, 2024; ABC News, March 2024.  Yass put $100 million into the 2024 election cycle—$16 million linked to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups7 7 OpenSecrets, donor detail, 2024 cycle; E. Clifton, “Billionaire Jeff Yass linked to $16m in donations to anti-Muslim and pro-Israel groups,” The Guardian, April 24, 2024.  —and days after they met in March 2024, Trump reversed his support for the TikTok ban; the divest-or-ban law, passed anyway, went unenforced. $100 million shielding a $21 billion stake: 210 to 1.

None of this breaks the law, because the law taxes realization, not accrual: never sell; borrow against the shares—loan proceeds are not income; die, and the cost basis resets, erasing the gain for the heirs. Buy, borrow, die. Not a loophole but the design: taxing those gains at death would raise $536 billion over a decade in the US alone.8 8 Congressional Budget Office, Budget Option: Change the Tax Treatment of Capital Gains from Sales of Inherited Assets, December 2024.  Tens of millions then pass untaxed to heirs whose classmates’ median family owns $192,900—total.9 9 Federal Reserve Board, Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2019 to 2022, Survey of Consumer Finances, October 2023.  That is not equality of opportunity.

Neither is it democracy. Globally, 1.6% of adults own 48.1% of all wealth ($226 trillion); the poorest 1.55 billion share under 1%; the 2,891 billionaires alone hold $15.6 trillion—and wealth buys the legislature’s attention.10 10 UBS, Global Wealth Report 2025, June 2025; figures as of end-2024.  Laissez faire for them; laissez mourir for the rest.

Tax the rich. Tax net worth. Tax inheritance. Suckers!

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