 I want to start off with this story, because I think it's got so many dimensions to it. It's kind of cool. So there's a group, there's a group out there called patriotic millionaires, patriotic millionaires, as compared to all those other, I guess, non-patriotic millionaires. Anyway, what makes patriotic millionaires patriotic in their mind is the fact that this is a group of millionaires who think that they pay too few taxes and think that the tax cuts that Donald Trump initiated or the Republicans passed last year were unfair because they reduced their own taxes by too much and that they should pay a fairer share and they feel like they pay less, like Warren Buffett who feels like he pays less than employees and so on. Many of them have already made a lot of money and are now retired and they just want to pay more money and I guess that is a very patriotic attitude according to these people because they believe that a government needs our money and the government should, as their duty, take it from them, from millionaires. Now this is messed up on a number of different levels. One of the interesting things at the very end of this article was the idea that I guess they were asked, well, why don't you just write a check to the government? You can pay more taxes if you want, there's no limit on that and the guy says I don't want to just give my money to the government. I want them, he doesn't say this, I'm adding this, I want them to forcibly take it from me and I want to be treated equally well, my other millionaire brethren and to be taxed equally I don't want to have to pay extra. I mean if they were really, I guess, patriotic based on their understanding of patriotism that is big government and the government should get a lot of our money and should get a lot of their money, they would just write a check to the government but they're not. They don't, I love the tone of this, I don't want to just give away my money to the government. That's right. That's why you should be advocating for lower taxes, much lower taxes. You should be giving a lot less of your money to the government. Now part of the issue here is, I think the number of issues and there's a number of paths we can take with this and directions we can take with this. One is it's sad, sad that these people feel so guilty about not paying taxes, feel so guilty about making money and being successful that they really want the government to take it away from them. I think they feel like they're not doing their fair share because they got so much. It's this Obama idea of you didn't build that, you remember that famous speech that Obama gave, you didn't build that. And these millionaires are taking that seriously, yeah, we didn't build that. The government had a lot to do with it. All the infrastructure was built and we benefited enormously and we have to give back and the giving back charity is too self-interested for them. It's too narrow for them and I think it's tempting not to give to charity and that's what bothers them. The people who talked about giving to charity here, it was interesting. The people in this group who talked about giving to charity, they're giving to progress of political causes that are letting the government to raise taxes on them. Why don't you just start a charity that helps the poor if you feel like the poor are being hurt by not enough government programs and not enough of your money being stolen from you and given to them? Why don't you start a charity that helps whatever group you think is being screwed? Why don't you get all your millionaire friends together and start that charity? No. They would really psychologically, they have to do is have the government take it from them and the government decide how it's going to be used because to them it would be too selfish, it would be too self-interested. It would be too much using their own minds and using their own value system to determine where the money to go to just give it to charity. They want to be cursed and then they want somebody else to make the decision of how the money is going to be spent. And of course they also want all millionaires to be taxed so that there's a much bigger pool in the hands of government so that government can do bigger things. So here's a group of people who doesn't appreciate what they've done, who doesn't appreciate how much they've changed the world, who doesn't appreciate how much they've contributed to the lives of American citizens in the country already and are therefore demanding that their taxes be raised so they can finally contribute to their fellow man. So a sense of guilt because, you know, they didn't build it. A sense of guilt because altruism demands a sacrifice. And who was it? I think Bush always talked about shared sacrifice. Shared sacrifice. So it demands shared sacrifice. Altruism demands that sacrifice and they want to be, they feel guilty because they're not going to do it themselves. They want to be forced into the shared sacrifice. And this is the sneaky way, you know, here's this guy, I mean the one guy they're interviewing here is on a trip around the world, on this big cruise ship, he's in the South Pacific right now and they're interviewing him, I guess by FaceTime. And he's having a blast seeing the sunset and enjoying all his money and complaining bitterly about how he's not paying enough taxes and how guilty he feels for not paying enough taxes. I mean in so many ways that is tragic and sad and horrific. I mean partially because the higher taxes are going to prevent the next guy from getting to where he is like AOC 70% marginal income tax rate is not going to affect him so much because he's living on retirement income, he's not making that much money anymore, he's already made it all, but it'll prevent the next guy, the next poor guy who raises himself by his bootstraps and succeeds and becomes a multimillionaire, that tax is going to hurt him. And it's tragic because he can't really enjoy that cruise because he didn't do enough of his sacrificing, he didn't do enough of his giving, he didn't do enough so-called for society to be worthy of enjoying it. He says we have to show that we have some concern for the country and that we are willing to pay some taxes. Now notice too, and I want to notice too that there's no discussion here about the role of government, there's no discussion here about what the country is, who the country is. There's no discussion here about what it means to be patriotic and the whole article, there's none of that is discussed and these people don't really think in those terms. Because what is the role of government? It's to take care of people, it's to fulfill your altruistic needs by forcing you to contribute by taxing you, it's to take care of everybody and therefore it needs a massive pool of money in order to do that. What does it mean? What does it mean to talk about a concern for the country? What country? What is the concern worth exactly? The country is doing pretty good, I'm doing fine, I'm part of the country, you're doing fine, you're part of the country. So which part of the country is not doing okay that he needs to be taxed in order to support and will raising his taxes actually help anyone? Not only is that economically a fallacy but morally is redistributing his wealth to other people actually help those other people? No thought about that. And then one of them says we're very concerned about that huge inequality thing. He doesn't even know what he's talking about. What inequality thing and why do you care? Why does it make a difference? What are you worried about? How does it affect your life? Why does it affect your life? One of the others one says it's a pretty good deal for us but it's not good for the country. What does that mean? What is the country? Who is the country? Where is the country? This is what it means to think tribal, to think in a tribal manner. Yeah we're good, I'm good, I'm good but the country, where's the country? Who is this? Who's suffering? How do I? So it is such a perversion and it's such a awful perspective and you know a lot of them say look a tax system is monstrosity and I agree the tax system is a monstrosity. It's a monstrosity because it taxes the rich so much. It's a monstrosity because it has all these loopholes and all these deductions and all these exclusions and it's a monstrosity because some people pay and some people don't and there's no logic to any of them other than the government trying to manipulate our behavior and trying to do stuff that's good for the country. It's a monstrosity because it's tribal and collectivistic. If it was an individualistic tax system, even though the only really individualistic tax system is a zero tax system, it would at least be flat and tax everybody the same and in terms of a percentage, even you know dollar wise it's not, tax everybody the same percentage wise and not try to manipulate people into particular types of behavior into you know saving or not saving, giving to charity or not giving to charity, buying a home or renting or the million other things that it incentivizes people to do on a post line income tax basis or on a federal income taxes, you know, move to Puerto Rico or not move to Puerto Rico. All right, so patriotic millionaires, wow, talk about guilt and collectivism, tribalism.