"Football is a game of mistakes. Whoever makes the fewest mistakes wins."
— Johan Cruyff
Not to brag or anything, but my Bluesky bunch have supported lucky 🍀 teams … so far
Let’s hope these predictions come true …
David Epstein, author of the recent Inside the Box (a book about the value of constraints), did a fascinating video on “anticipatory skill” and “chunking” and how players like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo (who can accurately head the ball even in the dark) use them to slow down a fast, complex game.
And this is the skill that Messi, Ronaldo, and Pujols all share. They’re chunking positions of people and angles of legs and spins of balls in order to understand immediately what’s going on and what might happen next. The more patterns you absorb in any domain, the less effort it takes to read what’s happening and to predict what’s coming next.
So when Messi walks, he’s not resting. He’s chunking the entire field. Every position, every shift, every gap in the backline is feeding a pattern library that he’s been building since he was 5 years old. By the time he decides to move, the map is already drawn. And when Ronaldo heads a ball into the net in total darkness, it’s because he’s seen that angle of another player’s leg and that ball’s trajectory a hundred times over and knows the pattern it follows.
I love this kind of thing and even though I am not a world-class boxer or football player, I can see it in action as I’ve gotten better over the years downhill mountain biking (where I’m able to go faster on the bike while still being able to react to terrain in what feels like the same amount of time), playing Fortnite (which I’m still not great at, but the game seems to move at a much slower pace, allowing me to keep up), or doing the crossword puzzle (you get an instinctive feel for answers just by how questions are posed). I’m sure this shows up in my work too — I read so damn much online that sometimes it takes me only 2-3 seconds to figure out if something is worth my while — but it’s easier to observe in sports or gaming.
BTW, Epstein just started his YouTube channel a few months ago, but it’s already filled with great stuff like Why The Fastest Way To Improve Is To Subtract, Why The Smartest People I Know Set Constraints, Not Goals, and Why The Best Kids Are Rarely The Best Adults. I’ve got some catching up to do.
Clouse et al.: California’s Billionaire Tax Act Threatens Growth and Fails to Address Structural Deficits
In Tax Notes, Jim Clouse, Fabio Natalucci, Charles W. Calomiris, Kenneth Rosen, David Bank, and Maxwell Hall, have written a new piece, “California’s Billionaire Tax Act Threatens Growth and Fails to Address Structural Deficits.” From the introduction:
The dire fiscal outlook for the state of California has prompted numerous proposals for ways to increase state revenues or cut expenditures. The so-called Billionaire Tax Act, which would implement a one-time wealth tax on the wealthiest California residents, is one such proposal that has received nationwide attention. Proponents of this proposal presumably seek to address the fiscal issues in the state, specifically the shortfall in healthcare and education funding as a result of federal cuts, in a way that also helps to mitigate wealth inequality. However laudable those goals may be, the potential costs of implementing a wealth tax of the type proposed are large and should not be downplayed.
This article examines how the implementation of the Billionaire Tax Act could meet a number of responses, including tax avoidance, legal challenges, business relocation, and capital flight, and how the act could damage California’s high-tech sector and economic growth prospects. Just as important, as a solution to California’s fiscal problems, this tax is a nonstarter: Even under optimistic revenue projections, the act would be only a temporary revenue influx that would not address the fundamental factors underlying California’s persistent fiscal difficulties. In fact, the proposal could add to fiscal uncertainty and undermine the credibility of the state’s commitment to address longer-term fiscal issues.
More from TaxProf Blog:
- California Billionaire Tax Qualifies for November Ballot (June 23, 2026)
- WSJ: Rich Californians Are Finding Creative Ways to Get Ahead of the Billionaire Tax (June 22, 2026)
- NY Times: Union Behind California Billionaire Tax Offers to Reduce the Rate (June 19, 2026)
- Boll, Saez, and Zucman on California Billionaires (May 26, 2026)
- Some Actual Facts on California’s Billionaire Tax (May 4, 2026)
- The Push to Get California Billionaire Tax on the Ballot(March 3, 2026)
- California’s Wealth Tax and Billionaire Psychology (February 3, 2026)
- Solana: The Great California Wealth Exodus (January 27, 2026)
- Galle et al.: Expert Report on Valuation of Controlling Shares of Publicly Traded Companies Under the California Billionaire Tax Act (January 21, 2026)
- NYT: Newsom Vows to Stop Proposed Billionaire Tax in California (January 14, 2026)
- Galle, Gamage & Shanske: Correcting the Record: Responding to Some Legal Arguments About the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act (January 9, 2026)
- Washington Post: California Will Miss Billionaires When They’re Gone (January 2, 2026)
- WSJ: Threat of California Billionaire Tax Draws Criticism from Ultrawealthy (January 2, 2026)
- Tax Notes and Shanske on California’s Proposed Billionaire’s Tax (November 18, 2025)
- WSJ: The California Campaign to Introduce a First-of-Its-Kind Billionaire’s Tax (November 14, 2025)






