If someone sells a tractor to pay a wealth tax, who buys it?

Sir, Diego Laje and Anthony Faiola report that Gabriel de Raedemaeker, a land-rich farmer in Argentina, says he doesn’t have the cash flow to absorb an increased tax burden, and might need to sell a tractor to cover the cost. “Argentina sends its bill for pandemic to the rich” Washington Post, February 23, 2021.

A follow up to that could lead to a long never-ending sequel of articles. Who will de Raedemaeker sell the tractor to? What will the buyer do with it? Produce more or less than de Raedemaeker? And if the buyer had not bought the tractor, what else could he have done with his money? And so, on and on and on!

I’ve always thought that it would be great to read a book that followed the money trail left by Louis XX commissioning in 1500 Leonardo da Vinci to paint Salvator Mundi; and how it flowed through the years, perhaps to a Bill Gates, and in the process generating so much wealth that someone in 2017 decided to freeze $450.3 millions of purchase power on a wall with that painting.

But even if Raedemaeker had the cash, unless it was stashed away under his mattress, that does not either mean it was doing nothing. It might be deposited in a bank that used it to finance the purchase another tractor, that could be extracting even more wealth from the so fertile western Pampas of Argentina.

@PerKurowski