Hi everybody, this is Gatsad. Yesterday I posted several posts on social media where I was responding or reacting to the Dutch parliament passing a

unrealized capital gains tax of 36%.

And this, by the way, is an idea that's been floated in many places in the West.

But I first wanted to begin by reading those posts for you.

And then I will conduct a more sober analysis, both a financial one and a psychological

one and one rooted in human nature. For those of you who don't know what unrealized capital gains

means, if I were to invest $1,000 in a mutual fund, and then a year later, it's gone up by 10%, so it's now at

$1,100.

So I've made $100.

But I keep that fund for a long time because I wanted to have the compounded effect so that in 30 years I could take

it out and the power is that the compounded mechanism causes that original amount to grow much

more and then hopefully I will have money for a rainy day. I only get taxed on it at the point

where I actually sell that investment.

When I sell that investment, whatever I made, I would get taxed whatever percentage.

The Dutch government has now said, no, if at the end of that first year, you've made $100

in the sense that your portfolio value of that asset has gone up by $100,

we will tax you 36% on that amount, even though you didn't sell it. It's unrealized.

So even though there is no mechanism by which your wallet has actually increased in a true exchange manner, just the fact

that the value has gone up, we'll tax you on that.

So this is in an Orwellian sense akin to having a neuronal mechanism by which, and I think

there was a movie made of that with Tom Cruise many years ago,

where we gauge whether you're likely to commit a crime in the future,

...