I've seen a number of folks on my timeline blow up accounts recently. They say only about 1% of independent traders may make it in the long run. That sounds discouraging, but it should really be understood in context. How many kids who play basketball make the NBA? How many people who pick up a violin ever make a living from it? Almost none. The bar to entry is low, the bar to professionalism is very high. The answer is not to pretend it is easy, but to recognize that real success requires exceptional aptitude, discipline, effort, and not a little bit of luck.

A tax on unrealized gains is a direct tax on inflation. It's printing money with one hand and putting it into the pocket with the other. The price of investable assets naturally increases as the money supply expands. With this tax, the government gets to recover cash directly when inflationary policies raise asset prices. It's a perverse incentive for continued government overspending and currency devaluation.