its hard to take libs seriously on any fiscal issues whatsoever, but I am compelled by this claim when I stop to think about what 1B really amounts to.
Im sure I dont agree with AOC's "solutions", but I may well agree that a Solution is needed
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:41 PM Author: Cobalt public bath
i think they are mixing beyonce welath with david solomon annual comp
Solomon's total stake in Goldman including unvested stock is worth more than $180 million. The board awarded him $27.5 million for his performance in 2019, his first full year as CEO, and the same amount again for 2020.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:00 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Libs obviously don’t mean it, but the statement is absolutely correct, there is no reason to allow for that much wealth to be concentrated, it’s akin to winning the lottery in terms of the rewards they reap vs the actual contributions they make to society. Oh wow this guy won the online shipping war! What a world changing genius
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:17 PM Author: Painfully honest school telephone
I'm all for encouraging success and innovation and free markets, but I don't think people quite understand how much 1 billion dollars is, let alone the people worth 150 billion.
Yes, we ought to have limits. Any sane society would.
Who has $150bn? All I know of is some people who own stock in companies they founded that a bunch of NY bankers are using to pump and dump up forties for themselves.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:19 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
i don't think it's right to think you can dispose of a man's property just cuz their wealth crosses some arbitrary line. and there's no principle there. if you can do it for a billion why not a million? once you've established the principle that the state can just seize wealth past a certain point, everything's up for grabs
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:23 PM Author: Painfully honest school telephone
A million is not a billion. There is a line, sane societies do draw lines. That's the point. Most people agree the line is high, but a billionaire's tax of 80%, for example. Like, Jeff Bezos can't get by on 20 billion? He needs 150 billon?
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:26 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
with these super rich bros most of their wealth is locked up in their company -- in the capital that is employing like millions of fucking people. you really want to force them to liquidate that? 80%? jfc. this is college socialist level idiocy. learn some economics and get back to me.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:27 PM Author: Painfully honest school telephone
No, it's not. They sell stock all the time. And don't tell me "oh they employ so many people". Look what the average Amazon worker makes and the conditions in which they work.
Extreme wealth inequality is the poison that has destroyed every society.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:29 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
what percentage of their stock do "they" sell "all the time", over what time period? is it anything like what you want to force them to do all at once on the govt's schedule to pay taxes?
you're just in a fantasy world and not even remotely connected to the world of facts
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:30 PM Author: Painfully honest school telephone
People in this country simply don't understand the amounts of money we're talking about and how normal countries impose limits for reasons. There is such a thing as the greater good.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:31 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
amazon (and i'm not a big bezos fan) serves the greater good with its capital vastly more more than more govt funding for woke propaganda and wars against russia or whatever the fuck they would spend it on would
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:37 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
surely the *next* couple of trillion dollars in taxes per year will be the thing that puts us over the top in terms of fixing our social problems and making lib dreams come true
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:49 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
"A million is not a billion. There is a line, sane societies do draw lines."
Really? Give me an example. Show me the max amount of wealth in any society. Show me the society that has banned Jeff Bezos.
"Like, Jeff Bezos can't get by on 20 billion? He needs 150 billon?"
This logic can apply to lots of normal people. "Like, you UMC yuppies need 2 cars? Why not 0 cars and you take public transport? You need a house? Why not live in an apartment?"
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:01 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
So if the 20 richest doods bought up literally all the arable land in America, your take would be that it’s their property who are we to say they can’t have it all?
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:18 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Not all and my position is clearly that it’s bad, which it obviously is you retard. Billionaires exist too and the world didn’t end, that has never been even suggested, but at some point the negatives are just too much to justify
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:04 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
"Everyone has always agreed there is a limit"
In what way? What's the limit? Where is it codified in law?
If they bought up all the land, can they sell it to a corp? If so, can they just start another corp and buy it from themselves? If not, who is allowed to own their land? Is it just the government?
There's no way to implement your point without the whole country immediately turning to shit.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:32 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
uhhhhh, we do have that principle. Taxes are real and monopolies can be broken up. The line drawing fallacy is a shit argument. Yes it is a tricky question but the principle is entirely sound. You wouldn’t let a billionaire stockpile enough arms to wage war on the federal gov’t, that’s property too
Date: January 26th, 2022 1:06 AM Author: ponyboy curtis
lmao i think this is more something that needs to be solved over time through policy rather than straight up wealth confiscation. for example, companies that sell to the US consumers should be incentivized to manufacture their goods here and employ Americans or pay hefty fees for the privilege. China has been manipulating monetary and trade policy for years to grow their manufacturing sector and other export based businesses. Our politicians have done fuck all in response because it's profitable for US businesses to offshore production.
We could also reduce the flow of new workers into the economy to stimulate wage growth. Capitalists have used immigration policy for years to create new consumers while providing a relief valve for upward wage pressure.
We could raise taxes on the highest earners and people whose income comes primarily from capital gains and stock based compensation. There's no reason that centibillionaires should pay an effective rate of 17.7% while somebody making $150k should pay an effective rate of double that. While we're at it, we should tax the absolute shit out of inheritance past a couple million.
There are a million things to be done beyond straight up cash grabs brother
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:22 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
a billionaire a bit rogue (like Trump) and actually having the resources to make an impact by virtue of their being a billionaire is the only hope we have in this clown show. it'd be great for the elites to shut that possibility down...
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:27 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
yes which is why if they're crafting the billionaire tax rules (which they will be) they'll make sure to cut out some exceptions for themselves haha. it'll just fuck over new billionaires who aren't wise to the game haha sorry bro too bad now all your wealth is going to fund kids' transgender surgeries and shit
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:51 PM Author: Hot antidepressant drug
Yup. These people are the ones in charge and the government works for their benefit. The only way that they're getting heavily taxed is if they choose to do it to themselves for fun.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:24 PM Author: red bat-shit-crazy abode athletic conference
If their stand were principled (e.g. "We will do serious bodily harm to anyone hoarding enough resources to sustain x people") they would have an argument. Bitching on the internet that people are successful and doing nothing about it IRL invalidates any points they may have had
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:26 PM Author: internet-worthy masturbator
I think how you define the household or family gets tricky eg Bezos’s wife should or should not be a separate billionaire stake, and how do you address the Waltons. I would also think a pro-charity incentive would make a lot of sense v what we have now which is a pro stock hoarding incentive. But in broad strokes it’s the right concept or just that above a certain wealth threshold we should collect a lot of taxes. Something like a wealth tax that’s higher than what Warren suggested but doesn’t kick in until 250M or whatever and has a much more intuitive and clear definition of net worth and has charity exemptions. It’s still very hard to implement unless you do it as some kind of international agreement. The obvious reason they went for $50M with the Warren plan is that a lot of people worth $300M or more will just bounce to another country.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:38 PM Author: Hot antidepressant drug
I would not have a problem with libs on this issue if it were not for that every-single-time they get fired up about sticking it to the rich, they hit the middle class and especially upper middle class. Every time. Considering that it seems like the ultra-rich get that way through favorable government treatment, especially democrats, it seems crazy to think that the government (and especially democrats) would be the people to turn to in trying to fix this problem.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:02 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
I love the idea of a strong estate tax. Whatever you may think of Gates or Bezos or any of these people, the idea that their kids should get tens or hundreds of billions is nuts.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:25 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Because while Gates or Bezos created something of value, their kids created absolutely nothing. They're already going to be massively rich through no effort of their own, but I don't feel bad at all taking heavily as part of the transfer.
Taking money from the hands of people who have demonstrated the ability to produce and grow, then giving it to the most incompetent organization in the world is a good idea to you?
Who would you rather have this wealth? People who allocate it effectively or a bunch of 70 IQ heroin addicts?
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:33 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
"Taking money from the hands of people who have demonstrated the ability to produce and grow, then giving it to the most incompetent organization in the world is a good idea to you?"
That's true of literally all taxation. I find the estate tax to be the least objectionable tax because a) it isn't a tax on the people that actually produced anything and b) it only comes from the wealthy.
To the extent we can use that tax revenue to reduce taxes on people who actually earn their money, that's a good thing.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:38 PM Author: Bistre Judgmental Theater
that doesn't even work anyways. say he's worth $100B but 80% of it is amazon or msft stock. you just fire sale a huge chunk of the company in order to give the US govt like $50B that they would promptly piss away on something stupid and no one would be better off.
Date: January 25th, 2022 7:04 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
I'd rather do that than either print $50B, borrow $50B or income tax working people (including people like Bezos that actually earn the money) for $50B.
Date: January 25th, 2022 9:05 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Well, we're in massive debt and it is politically impossible to cut entitlement programs or military spending. So here we are. Given that, I'm fine taxing Bezos after he dies. It is the least offensive tax out there.
Date: January 26th, 2022 12:11 PM Author: Bistre Judgmental Theater
so is just do bankrupt one of the few companies left that actually employs american workers so some really rich guy can pair his fair share to the US govt who will promptly piss it away on some military boondoggle.
Date: January 27th, 2022 1:32 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
It wouldn't go bankrupt even if Bezos's kids had to sell a portion of their shares after they died to pay their taxes. That's a seriously low IQ take.
And I don't disagree that the government sucks at spending. But that doesn't address the fact that we have a budget and we have taxes. Leeching kids that produce nothing are far better targets than doctors, lawyers or even people like Bezos and Musk themselves. You can't find a more sympathetic group to tax heavily. I see no serious counter-argument to this.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:53 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Impossible. If you limit Pelosi she'll just shift it to her husband. Spouses not allowed? They'll divorce an do the same thing. Or maybe they'll start a charitable foundation like the Clintons. There's a million ways to do this.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:05 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Protip: they're really appointed more than elected. We only have 2 parties in this country. Both are controlled by elites. So when you get two choices you're mostly seeing two people considered acceptable to various elites. There are a few exceptions, mostly but not exclusively within the R party and you know who they are because the media refers to them as "traitors" and "undemocratic" even though they were legitimately elected.
Date: January 25th, 2022 2:48 PM Author: irate maize indirect expression area
Just spitballing here maybe the ultra rich should have the constant threat of death hanging over their head so they have to hire huge mercenary forces just to stay alive & the wages they pay trickle down
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:01 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
At this point I don't trust ANY lib proposals no matter how innocuous they seem to be. My take is that everything about this will ultimately be shifted to target the middle and UMC. Loopholes will be made to carve out Soros/Bezos/Gates/et al. Why? Because those guys can bail on the US at any moment. They can be citizens of Switzerland or the UK or Lichtenstein or Austria or a million other places that would LOVE to have them and their wealth. Many already have several passports. The other thing is that these people already own the government.
Meanwhile, the lawyer or doctor is tied down by a job and a house. It isn't like they own a company that they can run from halfway around the world or that they can even shift halfway around the world. If the US went to war with Elon Musk he could move to a huge number of places, shift Tesla there and STILL be the most successful EV producer in the world.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:04 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
No he couldn’t, we don’t have to let anybody expatriate wealth, we currently do but we could absolutely tell him to fuck off he can have a house anywhere he wants but the money and stock stay
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:10 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Anybody we want, absolutely all of the corporate mechanisms and legal rights that allow him to do anything at all are created by the gov’t, Tesla stock is not real, he can’t put it in a sack and walk off, jfc
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:21 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
You're basically describing nationalizing Tesla. The company would be bankrupt within a decade if that happened. Tons of governments have tried what you've described. It ALWAYS ends awfully. You can take a look at Venezuela for the latest attempt at this.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:30 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Not really. You can TRY to tax them but the second you imprison them and confiscate their shit to make sure they can't avoid it you've crossed into nationalization. That's the thing - we're getting to what it means to even own something. If the answer is "you own nothing because the government can take everything away from you on a whim" then you're in chaos Communism land. Which is why this is all an awful idea.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:22 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
And foreign corporations care to the extent they deal with the US. In your proposed world, they won't care about US fines and no one will enforce them. It'll be similar to Chinese fines of US companies that ran from China.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:09 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
If we did that the entire system would collapse overnight. Seriously. The entire value of said "stock" and trust in American banking is the notion that the government can't show up and steal it from you. If the US effectively becomes China then a huge number of investors (and especially the whales) are going to start to look for alternatives. People are going to start shifting assets in the same way as they do in China and other countries where there's fundamentally a low level of trust in the government. Other rich people are instantly going to start looking for how to shift assets outside the US in exactly the same way rich Chinese people do.
Long story short, the US would lose MUCH more than it gained from fucking over Musk.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:13 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
As a practical matter it is certainly tricky, but the US isn’t China, we are the market the whole world needs and we can go all around the world and grab people if we want. I’m not saying the most extreme version of this is a good idea but retards saying it’s impossible are indeed retards. Putting no limits whatsoever on something because finding the right balance is hard isn’t an argument
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:20 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
You don't get it. The thing that makes the US the US is the fact that it doesn't do shit like this. If it did this then all that wealth would look for a new "US". Do you think investors care about fairness or Democratic norms or any of that total horseshit that politicians bleat about? The US lives a blessed existence and is allowed to get away with literal murder basically because investors around the world can safely keep their money and assets here and they feel assured that they control the government to a degree that nothing like what you describe would happen.
That means the US can keep being the reserve currency. We can wage a bunch of stupid wars and drone people in much of the third world. We can keep being a "superpower" run on printed money and borrowed funds. The second the elites decide we're a "rogue nation" that is "Communist" you'll see that they find a new shining beacon of light that they'll take over and fund generously. It might be the EU or a part of the EU. Remember that it wasn't always the US. It was largely the UK before they got too socialistic. They prefer not to do that because it is really expensive, but don't kid yourself into thinking they wouldn't do it in a heartbeat.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:25 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Exactly. I think he is saying that they would be confiscated by THE PEOPLE'S GOVERNMENT, which would then own it. No one would even buy them, Pelosi, Schumer and Biden would get to decide what is done with them and the company. Can't wait to see the tranny bisexual POC that they put in Musk's place.
Musk would have no issue starting up somewhere else. A lot of his core people would flee immediately. A number of companies would offer them a new home. Japanese companies, Korean companies, German companies, Italian companies, you name it. He would be a billionaire again within a year. Meanwhile, the confiscated company would go bankrupt.
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:45 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Whoever wants to, you can’t really believe there is no intermediate zone between the world as it stands today and total chaos communism. You guys are all going hard after strawmen
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:28 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
Yeah, that's what we have now (which, if anything is past that point - in California and NY top earners pay over 50% of their salary in taxes). We have strongly progressive taxation and the top 1% pay some absurd percentage of taxes. We could ramp up estate tax but we've seen a million loopholes with these efforts in the past. Europe with even stronger progressive taxation still has billionaires.
The problem is that we live in a world where creating new companies and entreprenuership is very valuable and just doing regular work isn't. I know you're unhappy with the natural consequences of that, but that's kind of on you.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:40 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
The idea that such a world is inevitable is absurd, it was not always thus not will it be perpetually. We live in an odd intermediate timeline where we haven’t come to grips with the consequences of our technology of wealth
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:11 PM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
"The idea that such a world is inevitable is absurd, it was not always thus not will it be perpetually"
What? Tell me about a time when we haven't had the superrich or where these attempts to get rid of the superrich didn't inevitably lead to chaos Communism?
Date: January 26th, 2022 1:14 AM Author: ponyboy curtis
you're confusing the people with the highest salaries with the actual rich. the latter don't earn a salary, they earn capital gains, and they sure as hell don't pay 50% in taxes.
Date: January 26th, 2022 9:20 AM Author: Lavender dashing crackhouse chad
And I'd be happy to discuss how to modify cap gains and other shit to make sure these people people a fair amount on their income. I agree that you shouldn't be able to make millions or billions paying long-term cap gains at 15%.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:38 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
the idea that they'll use some legal trickery to evade any tax and that it's just not worth it is retarded flame. their wealth exists here. tesla doesn't have value because of pieces of paper. it has value because it makes cars, many of which are sold here. it's a us company. if musk ran away to lichtenstein we could just nationalize tesla.
plenty of other countries have taxed their wealthy into non-existence. we could also just kill them. they idea that they'll use some legal trickery to evade anything is stupid. money isn't real and laws aren't real. we could kill them and take what they own, which has happened countless time throughout history when wealth became too concentrated to the detriment of the people.
its not necessary to think there's a fixed amount of wealth to oppose the idea that 614 people should have, relationally, so much more than everyone else.
imagine the pie grew and these 614 were now trillionaires, but everyone else's nw stayed exactly the same (or increased only slightly). Keep going. At one point things become socially untenable, correct?
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:31 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
600 trillionaires would represent a gigantic increase in capital. even a SINGLE trillionaire would be a big deal, forget about 600. you're talking about a significant multiple of the current GDP of earth. assuming they're not going to be swimming in giant-sized scrooge mcduck vaults of gold, those trillionaires will be employing their capital in some capacity, raising everyone's standard of living enormously in short order. the fact that you put this forth as a hypothesis for your side shows you need an education in economics.
it was a farcical number bc you hypothesized about an ever-growing world gdp / pie.
and i understand that the current 614 american billionaires are also employing their capital in some capacity, just as the imaginary trillionaires would, and that we all, in some way, benefit from that.
the claim is not that there is NO good that comes from the existence of billionaires, it is that a greater good and lesser cost may come from prohibiting such massive concentration of wealth.
my exaggeration was to feel out whether you think that claim is ever tenable. if you think that no, its not -- no matter the wealth disparity -- that's a position I wanted to clarify
Date: January 25th, 2022 3:42 PM Author: Excitant Office
The worth of most of these billionaires is mostly just the valuation of stock that they own in companies that they started. Companies that have created a lot of wealth for a lot of other people, and provided wildly popular products for people. People didn't give Musk 200 billion in valuation because they like him. Musk doesn't become a trillionaire without a million other people becoming enriched along the way, and without a breakthrough product that people love.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:14 PM Author: hairraiser center candlestick maker
hard disagree. 1) idea is based on fixed pie argument which is wrong and 2) there are people whose value scales to that level. yes, jeff bezos, an inveterate faggot, is worth a bn. we all use his services.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:42 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Yes it would, but it would have a different name. Bezos innovated nothing, he simply won a game to see who could do the obvious thing just a little better in 1999
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:52 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
This is retarded. There are tons of other similar companies in the world, and there were dozens of similar ones that were founded around the same time as Amazon. Without Amazon, there would be another Amazon by a different name with a different founder. Amazon just happened to have the right mix of circumstances at the right time to be the winner.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:07 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
Some, but even a cursory glance around should confirm they’re generally correct. The American upper class is neither smart enough or productive enough to justify its wealth
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:08 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
Agreed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure Bezos and other like Gates and Jobs worked extremely hard, but tons of people work extremely hard, oftentimes at exactly the same thing.
Bezos worked hard to get himself into the position where it was between him and maybe 20 other companies to win that battle, but it was a roll of the dice that made him the ultimate winner and not one of the others. (There was also plenty of other luck involved before that too)
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:17 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
few companies have managed to start out with something like a bookstore, build out an infinite marketplace with their own warehouses and delivery logistics infrastructure, expand into everything from groceries to home services to web infrastructure, across multiple decades, while being very disciplined about reinvesting in the biz and without becoming so big or bloated as to become unmanageable. just from an organizational and logistics stand point amazon is pretty impressive and isn't the sort of thing your dime a dozen dot-com bubble "bookz.com" fraud startup could have realistically replicated
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:26 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
Only one company has done that: Amazon.
And there is a reason only one company has done that: because it relies heavily on economies of scale leaving little room for competitors, allowing Amazon to slam the door on its competition.
Amazon’s business plan isn’t new or brilliant; it’s basically identical to Sears 100 years ago. They just use the internet, rather than catalogs and railroads. If Amazon didn’t do it, another company would have. And there were (and are) plenty of other companies vying for it. Amazon just happened to be the winner in this universe.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:26 PM Author: Milky Jap
Wealth inequality sucks but libs have a horrific track record trying to fix it. Simply put, they dramatically underestimate the costs of gov’t intervention in fixing things like this and usually do far more harm than good. I’m not saying we should do nothing but we should tread extremely carefully. I don’t trust libs to tread carefully and giving them power to really overhaul the system to reduce wealth inequality has a real risk of permafucking the economy.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:45 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
wealth should be taxed. estate tax should be HUGE over something like 100m.
the fact that the government is essentially funded by w2 wageslaves is absurd. if billionaires paid their fair share i wouldn't care too much about billionaires existing. it's the fact that their gains and unrealized gains are taxed far below what a UMC wageslave's income that really burns my ass.
i don't see how a system can be justified where a wage can be taxed at up to 37% but capital gains for passive investments caps out at 20% (with numerous loopholes to avoid even paying that)
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:47 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
It’s meaningless jingoism that allows air-headed libs to ignore the true causes of their outrage.
With few exceptions, billionaires make their money by scalping the difference between the value their workers create and the amount that they pay them. This leads to hordes of workers being exploited at an industrial scale.
If libs were truly serious about “solving” this problem, they would make labor a scarce commodity, thereby forcing capital-owning billionaires to bid up the price of labor and eat lower margins. Instead, Libs propose retarded tax plans while flooding the country with immigrants and opening up free trade around the globe, thereby allowing the billionaires to simply pay the replacement wage for each worker and force the workers to be price takers.
Whenever someone proposes a billionaire tax or wealth tax without ever addressing the systemic causes to the societal unrest, you know they’re retarded.
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:50 PM Author: Bearded business firm laser beams
The only valid argument advanced itt is that libs are indeed shit and would ruin the world attempting to do this, which they would, but we could conceivably not let libs be in charge
Date: January 25th, 2022 4:54 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
this is also true.
however, horrible wealth concentration occurred before mass immigration and globalism. wealth will always tend to concentrate naturally. it just makes sense that it would. once a business gets big enough you can never "outcompete" them, especially if they are so big they can engage in monopolistic and unfair practices.
if there were better labor laws, closed borders, and jobs brought back home, that would do a lot to mitigate the problems. however, we'd still probably need shit like antitrust or some other measures to break up concentrated wealth and power.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:04 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
Yeah, there are other issues which need to be addressed, like anti-trust. However, I think most of these “eat the rich; billionaires shouldn’t exist” jingoists apply a sense of permanence to today’s (and yesterday’s) billionaires that simply isn’t there. As Thomas Piketty pointed out, the rate of economic growth right now is fast enough that even the fantastically wealthy become relatively impoverished within a generation or two. Wealth isn’t dynastic the way it once was. Look at the Carnegies, the Rockefeller’s, the Fords, etc who were the equivalent of today’s billionaires 100 years ago. Their wealth has been split up, wound down, and slowly ground away as their market outperformance reverted to the mean. You still recognize their names, but the families are nothing like they were 100 years ago. Go back another 100 years to the beginning of the industrial revolution and the names of those robber barons are basically forgotten.
The billionaires’ fortunes will disappear; libs just want it to happen faster than it is, and they don’t want to see anyone take their places.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:13 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
Yeah, that’s the point. The wealth diffuses and evaporates. Today’s libs think that Bezos or Zuckerberg are now permanent overlords for the rest of human history unless they aggressively tax their wealth away. In reality, this wealth will likely be so split up after a few generations that it is no longer powerful the way it is now. It just takes three generations to do it, which is beyond the scope of most short-term thinking liberals who want to see it happen within their lifetime.
Not only does the wealth get divided up, the rate of economic growth requires that these billionaires continue to grow their wealth at a high growth rate to maintain their position. Even if a billionaire’s family had just one child per generation and inherited all of the wealth, they would have to perform at average economic levels forever. If they slow down even once, they get overtaken.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:31 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i'm not sure how true that is. a lot of times these people are far more wealth than you know. i've worked on trusts for some old money families (you'd recognize the names) and they still have PLENTY of cash. the money will probably grow in perpetuity because of passive investments. old money is just a lot better at being quiet about it. they live away from everyone else in gated compounds. they don't feel the need to impress anyone and don't flaunt their wealth in very visible ways.
i do agree that libs calling for the end of all billionaires often misunderstand where a billionaire's wealth is. elon musk's fortune is completely tied to tesla, a company he founded and produces something. same thing with microsoft and bill gates. i don't think forcing elon to tell tesla stock to the point he no longer has a controlling stake in the company is fair. he should "exist", his company shouldn't be taken from him. it's not even good for the economy-- we want people like him to create and innovate.
although, that's not to say that they shouldn't be taxed AT LEAST to the same level as the wagecucks they employ. that might mean having to tax wealth and unrealized gains to some degree. in 2011 bezos reported so little income that he received the $4000 child tax credit. that is absurd and should piss anyone off. especially the people here, who are mostly UMC wagecucks that are the paypigs for funding the government.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:44 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
This isn’t my thesis; it’s Part 1 of Thomas Piketty’s “Capital in the 21st Century.”
“The purpose of Part One of this book is to introduce certain basic notions. In the remainder of this chapter, I will begin by presenting the concepts of domestic product and national income, capital and labor, and the capital / income ratio. Then I will look at how the global distribution of income has changed since the Industrial Revolution. In Chapter 2, I will analyze the general evolution of growth rates over time. This will play a central role in the subsequent analysis.”
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:07 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i'm adding it to my reading list.
of course it's a natural consequence of people having multiple children that generational wealth will diminish over time. still, it's absurd that a family like the vanderbilts has hundreds of heirs that are born with fuck you money 150 years after his death.
how is it fair that James Vanderbilt was born with, say, $50m. money that was likely never taxed in a meaningful way. money that when realized will be taxed far below what you and i pay on money we had to earn through selling our labor. all because he's like the 7th generation relative of some rich dude that died 150 years ago?
Date: January 25th, 2022 7:50 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
What is unfair about it? You feel like it is unfair because James Vanderbilt hasn’t “earned” his right to not suck GC cock. But does a man not have the right to try to ensure that his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren have the freedom to pursue their own interests without first bending over for globohomo?
You’re approaching this from the perspective of Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto: that families are at best meaningless and at worst perpetuators of injustice. That individual ability and achievement is the sole deciding factor worth evaluating a man with. In reality, most people, to include myself, work to make their children’s lives better rather than to improve their own consumption.
Date: January 25th, 2022 10:03 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
the idea of inheritance taxes has existed since well before marx. many of the founders believed in them. thomas paine in particular. we threw away kings and nobility because we found the idea of powerful families ruling the people in perpetuity to not be a very good idea.
there's a big difference between "providing for you family" and the type of wealth somebody like vanderbilt had. there are plenty of old money families where their progeny are going to be borne with fuck you money in perpetuity forever. that's not "providing for you family", that's old world nobility.
i want to work to give my kids a good life and set them up so that they can give my grandchildren a good life. but i think there should be measures in place to prevent endless intergenerational wealth to exist.
also, none of this would be too bad if inheritances were taxed at the same rate as a wagecuck. i can't see any rational reason why the money from you great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather should by sheltered from tax while people trading their labor for money top out at 37% marginal tax rate. if james vanderbilt is going to be born with more money than your average doctor will make in a lifetime, i can see no persuasive reason why the doctor should be taxed *MORE*. significantly more!
Date: January 26th, 2022 3:50 PM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
“there are plenty of old money families where their progeny are going to be borne with fuck you money in perpetuity forever. that's not "providing for you family", that's old world nobility.” >> there aren’t, and your own example shows that. In order for this to be true, a family office must consistently outperform the market every single year to pay down the salaries and fees of the people managing the money, and to provide a stipend for the beneficiary. This is clearly not something that is going to happen, and doesn’t happen.
“ also, none of this would be too bad if inheritances were taxed at the same rate as a wagecuck. i can't see any rational reason why the money from you great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather should by sheltered from tax while people trading their labor for money top out at 37% marginal tax rate.” >> this statement also belies a fundamental misunderstanding of taxation and math. Walk me through a scenario where this is even true. You invest money that you earned and paid a 37% tax rate on. Then, the company you invested in pays a 21% income tax on the money it earns and your investment is valued as a multiple of the post-tax earnings, or the NPV of the post-tax cash flows. Then the company uses the post tax money to buy back the shares that are valued based on post-tax income, triggering an 18% capital gains tax for you.
Lastly, you don’t even offer a rationale for the taxes other than some kind of equalization between people, but as I said before, taxation on this basis is just justifying the underlying causes of inequality to begin with. “Sure, we undermine the value of labor by importing countless immigrants and offshoring entire industries. Then we use the growing population to bid up rents and education costs and make opportunities for advancement more competitive. But we tax away a sliver of the wealth from the biggest beneficiaries of this system so it’s all ok”
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:14 PM Author: queensbridge benzo
what does society gain by having wealth that concentrated? would a bunch of hypomanic type a people stop innovating because they could only become mere centimillionaires? it's embarrassing how we're the world's richest country on a per capita basis yet rank 26th in terms of wealth the average adult should expect to accumulate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_financial_assets_per_capita
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:29 PM Author: federal overrated degenerate
wealth inequality is a positive good and indication of a free, productive society with rapid economic growth and respect for property rights. every dude that becomes super rich is another potential employer, investor, or thrasher of the status quo due to their "fuck you money". a "free country" that tries to destroy its billionaires cuts its own throat. unfortunately the "United States" is well on the path towards such a throat-cutting result, ideologically.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:38 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
yeah, if there's anything the world's elite have shown us, that they "hate the status quo" and challenge it often. rather than crafting the status quo along with the other rich and powerful to ensure that they remain rich and powerful, to the detriment of everyone else.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:34 PM Author: Gay trailer park
Elon Musk shows how idiotic the entire statment is.
Musk was worth $25 billion last year. Now he's worth $250 billion. The Democrats act like he's somehow sucking up everyone else's resources by having $250 billion - but he actually sold all of his houses and lives in a tiny home.
He just owns the companies that he built. It is a bad thing that he created a massively successful EV company? It's a bad thing he's putting us back into space?
It's more egregious that movie stars are getting $5 mm to promote some perfume or other shit. You should tax high income, tax stock sales and dividends higher and eliminate loopholes, tax the hell out of luxury consumption.
But the idea that it is a moral failing of our society that Musk continues to own and control a company that he made massively successful is probably one of the dumber things that the Democrats have ever said.
You lost me when you acted like taxation is a solution. Elon Musk revolutionized EVs with $100m. Elon created a reusable rocket with 1% of NASA’s budget. The US government accomplishments nothing for $4tn a year. You are honestly better off burning Elon’s money than letting our government spend it.
The IRS issues $20bn in fraudulent refunds every year. The idea that taking money from anyone who has earned it and giving it to the most worthless shitheads on earth is laughable.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:44 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i agree with the trust of what you're saying, but elon "selling his houses and living in a tiny house" is pure propoganda.
there's been reports of him living in other lavish places. i don't think anyone knows the truth, he denies it. regardless, he's only doing that shit for progoganda purposes to convince people not to tax him.
whether elon lives in a tiny house or a mansion is pretty immaterial. no matter how much he is taxed he is entitled to live as lavishly as he wants. whether he descides to live like richard branson or warren buffett dfoesn't doesn't matter. the question is whether it's good and just for society to allow wealth and power to concentrate so much in the hands of one person.
It’s good for wealth to be in the hands of competent people. It’s bad for it to be in the hands of incompetent people. Admittedly having wealth isn’t the greatest signal for being competent, but it’s better than nothing. I’m all ears for what system best allocates this, but heavy taxation is about the worst one possible.
Date: January 25th, 2022 5:57 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
it's bad for people to have that much wealth/power. i hear what you're saying and tend to agree. however, not to the extent it is now. i'd like producers like elon to keep capital because they put it to the best use. however, the taxes he pays relative to his wealth compared to his highest compensated employees is absurd.
someone has to fund the government. it shouldn't be borne primarily by people who are forced to trade hours for dollars.
The government in its necessary duties could be funded with less than a trillion a year. The fact that the government steals from you, and the fact that you vote for them to steal from you, doesn’t make it morally right to also make them steal from Elon.
I get that you’re mad about this system, but it’s dumb as fuck to think that Elon is the problem, and not primary the Democratic Party. And that you think the solution is to empower Democrats further is beyond comprehension
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:24 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i was blackpilled on this possibility in 2017 when trump and the GOPe cut taxes on the rich and did not meaningfully reduce the spending of the federal government.
yes, in an ideal world, we'd just reduce government spending and reduce taxes on everyone. but that's utopian thinking at this point. if we are forced to have a fraud government that steals from people, i insist that the people with the most get stolen from the most. the fact they are robbed at a lesser rate than me is absurd and disgusting.
“Lesser rate”? You drive on the same streets that they do, but they pay 10000x more than you. The notion that an equal percentage is fair is laughable flame that only applies to taxes. Fair is people paying for what they get.
Date: January 25th, 2022 8:07 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
man, i used to be a flat taxer ayn rand toting type. until i realized it's all rigged.
i'd rather live in a world where ordinary people can provide decent lives for themselves and their children. rather the the neoliberal feudalism nightmare kike casino techno oligarchy we're spiraling towards.
Nothing about taking Elon Musk’s money and giving it to retards furthers your goal of seeing ordinary people live decent lives. So, you must actually be some Sanders loving dipshit if you think that non sequetor has anything to do with this discussion.
I get that you don’t like billionaires existing. That’s totally understandable. But like some 14 year old child who just read Marx, you misunderstood complaining about imperfections of the current system as arguments for some other system. And it’s 100% dumb to think that taking Elon’s money and giving it to the US government helps anyone except China to overthrow us.
I’m not against government. If the Swiss government ran the US, then your argument could maybe hold some weight. But as it satands, the people specifically in charge of us, both Democrats and Republicans, are at best 70th percentile intelligent. And that’s saying something in a country as dumb as ours.
Date: January 25th, 2022 10:10 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
no reason to get salty man, i haven't been insulting you.
i understand your qualms about giving elons money to a feckless federal government to spend on israel and dem programs. however, the GOPe isn't going to reduce spending. we're about to hit 30t in debt and it seems very likely some financial collapse is on the horizon. so yes, taxing elon will absolutely help people lead decent lives. and as i said, i don't want to tax him out of existence or out of control of tesla. i just think he should be taxed at least to the same degree that wagecucks are. that doesn't seem too controversial.
also, we keep focusing on elon, but the reality is that most billionaires aren't elon. they're ruthless kikes that produce nothing, and make their money by exploitation, kike financial trickery, and other things that make society worse.
Date: January 26th, 2022 10:43 AM Author: Exhilarant corner faggot firefighter
At least I get salty by insulting you directly instead of hiding behind underhanded Ayn Rand insults.
You think giving another $1tn to the federal government matters? Look what California did this year. They had a one time injection of tax money from the IPO boom, and they upped spending by that amount forever. You want to talk about the realities of what is, that’s it. If you take Elon’s money, it goes straight into the pockets of special interests. And not by diluting the other theft. Just adding to it.
You keep dancing around the real issue here, which is you don’t really give a shit about other people. You probably don’t even give a shit about Democrats, even though they’re the beneficiary of your anger. You just hate billionaires for no reason beyond pure jealousy. They have a number associated with them that you believe is an objective measure of personal worth, and they’ve made their number bigger than yours. And knowing that there are people in this world who have tried to do the same things you have, and have succeeded far more than you is something that your little self-centered brain cannot handle. So you want to destroy them, or hurt them or something because you want them to know that you are actually the one to have power over them.
If you want to start a discussion about how much you hate them and what you should do about it, we can start there. That’s a worthwhile discussion. But you’re a completely disingenuous tool to keep on talking about who stealing from the productive and giving to the worthless is a good thing for society.
To your last point, sure let’s say Henry Kravis is a great example of this. He’s still 100s of times better for society than Bernie Sanders. Kravis’s ilk have cheapened goods, lowered wages and gutted some good companies. Bernie Sanders’s ilk have destroyed Venezuela (a once very prosperous nation), genocided millions in Cambodia, and marched millions into pointless wars. And you want to take from one and give to the other in the name of improving the world? Get the fuck out of there with that.
Date: January 26th, 2022 12:06 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i sincerely was not trying to insult you with the ayn rand thing. i was just trying to say that i 100% understand what you're saying because i used to believe and say that exact same things you do.
i'm not jealous of billionaires at all. i've made out very well being a cog in the nightmare kike casino.
wealth and power concentration has been a constant theme throughout all of human history. it's why we had antitrust. it's why we had the american revolution and got rid of the monarchy. it's why feudal peasant rebellions happened. and it's why there's so much populist anti-elite sentiment now.
attributing my beliefs to jealousy is bullshit. i personally do very well and am a direct beneficiary of the rigged system. people like gates and buffett say exactly the same thing i am. is it because they're jealous? of what? instead of attributing my opinions to some disingenuous motive and dismissing them, tackle them directly.
millennials and gen z can't have anywhere close to the life that their grandparents and parents had. someone poasted in this thread that when boomers were 35 they held 20% of the nations wealth, and millenials who are now around 40 hold like 5%. that's a big problem. and one of the sources of that problem is wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of a few people.
I deduced jealousy because that’s the only thing that makes sense. You’re too literate to truly believe that having power in the hands of a thousand reasonably talented billionaires is worse than a single entity staffed by the median voter. So, I have to find what cognitive dissonance is making you say these absurd things. And the claim that you’ve done quite well is nothing. Unless you are a billionaire, then that means you’re still looking in on a club, and that means there’s room for your jealousy. My guess is you have a couple million bucks, and you don’t realize how little that is, but so be it.
Another thing that makes me thing you are just a dem NPC is that you know these statistics that they throw around, but you never think about what they really mean. Why is it a good thing to have 50’s era wealth distribution? You probably take as axiomatic the idea that more equality is better. But that’s not at all proven, and in my mind, not at all evident. Darwinism itself is the most interesting and powerful force Earth has ever known. We didn’t evolve from dirt to intelligent life because of redistribution of shit DNA.
To me, it’s entirely obvious that rewarding winners and punishing losers is effective. And any effort throughout history has proven it is catastrophically shit to try otherwise. You can maybe find a few small nations that dragged on for half a century with this philosophy, but overall there has never been a force to destroy a nation quicker than to steal from the winners and give to the losers.
If you want to talk about antitrust or even the fair application of justice, we can talk. Should the Sacklers be charged with 1000’s of counts of murder? Absolutely. Should lying to or even misleading people about your product be fraud? Sure. Should monopolies be busted? In many cases. But this simple-minded notion of taxing them so the most incompetent losers in our country can piss the wealth away is just lazy, and I suspect you’re better than that. Unless… this is all about jealousy. Then your position starts to make sense.
Date: January 26th, 2022 2:21 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
i've said time and time again i don't want to tax billionaires to the point they lose control of their companies. i said that they should be taxed at least to the level of wage cucks. i'm talking about taxing cap gains to same as ordinary income, closing loopholes to enable them to avoid declaring income, and much larger estate taxes for large fortunes to prevent an american aristocracy. i'm not talking about nationalizing msft and tsla. i'm glad people like elon are around that build things and innovate, and i want him to have the capacity and incentive to do so. i just think his effective tax rate shouldn't be less than mine.
how am i a dem npc? we're on xo and my opinion is the prevailing opinion in this thread. pretty much everyone here is saying what i'm saying and we're on a nazi fringe law school chatblog. this is not a dem npc position. it's the same shit the teddy roosevelt and thomas paine advocated for. even trump called for large one-time wealth tax to pay the country's debt.
Date: January 27th, 2022 11:32 AM Author: Exhilarant corner faggot firefighter
Poor people pay zero estate tax. In fact, they get the biggest loophole of all: a step up basis at death. Poor people get SALT deductions. Child tax credits aren’t scaled to income. The marginal tax system massively favors the bottom. WTF are you talking about? Tax breaks are far from a wealthy luxury. You’re just mad because UMC gets hit harder that uberwealthy. But the rich pay far more than 80-90% of people as a proportion of their earnings.
And there are practicalities to consider when raising cap gains taxes. Already, America is incentivizing foreign ownership of US companies. Saudis and Chinese pay zero cap gains taxes, and can thus outbid Americans for their own companies. If you take it to 40%, there will be no Americans owning stock except in 401ks. This is the same reason corporate taxes are so low. Capital goes to lower tax jurisdictions. Whereas labor is very sticky to location due to language barriers, family stability, et cetera. Whether you like it or not, the realities of business exist.
I get that you sense it’s unfair. But fairness is a fucking childish notion that your father should have informed you of. Dumb proles love the idea of fairness, and that’s why we get the loser politicians we have. But life does work that way.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:14 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
that's really the only option. unless we're ok with wealth/power being concentrated so much in one person.
it's pretty much the same thing as antitrust, but on a much smaller scale. how "fair" is it to take some dude's company and break it up into a bunch of different parts? idk. but we know it needs to happen sometimes.
wealth being concentrated and taken away by the people is something that has been happening since the beginning of time. if it doesn't happen through the law, it'll eventually happen through revolt.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:21 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
how isn't it? i'm sure elon would prefer we tax .5% of his wealth over a billion annually rather than taking his empire of companies, breaking them up into 20 smaller companies, and then leaving him in control of a single one and barring him from having interests in the others.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:29 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
oh, i see.
well, i guess i don't have a problem so much with tesla because there is still a lot of competition out there with cars. and there are laws regarding them concluding and engaging in unfair practices. standard oil and us steel were monopolies, tesla isn't. so just because elon is nearly as rich on paper as someone like rockefeller or carnegie doesn't matter as much to me when the companies he owns aren't hurting business and competition like their companies.
nevertheless, just as a matter of fairness, elon should be taxed at at least the rate of high earning wage cucks. i don't think he should be taxed out of existence or that paper billionaires shouldn't exist. but the amount he pays now is ridiculously low for his worth.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:43 PM Author: Concupiscible International Law Enforcement Agency Halford
Thats probably literally the only instance of a billionaire who hasn't fucked over society, so well done there, pumo.
But if you think some cunt controlling all the means of supply chains and products which could instead be spread around millions of independent store owners, then you are verifiable 100% nigger
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:25 PM Author: Excitant Office
Had no idea xo consisted of a bunch of people who of course would have founded Amazon and Tesla and carried them to their same levels of success if Bezos and Musk didn't so of course it's okay to take all their money.
Do you think the Democratic agenda is good for society? I’ll take the most efficient distribution system in history over idiots who piss away Amazon’s market cap every six months
Date: January 25th, 2022 11:01 PM Author: Excitant Office
I think society has voted pretty overhwelmingly on that already in favor of YES with their constant patronage of Amazon over alternative options which they were and are entirely free to choose.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:31 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
(temporarily embarrassed millionaire)
this is such a faggot strawman that only a pumo would type it.
a common theme in this thread is that capitalism is good and that it's good for people that innovate to have the incentive and capacity to do so. that doesn't mean that bezos should be taxed so low he gets childcare credits.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:46 PM Author: Excitant Office
youre response was so off topic its not really worth engaging. oh a common theme of the thread is that bezos taxes are 'so low'? What are you talking about you fucking retard? The topic of this thread is whether Bezos should be allowed to exist as a billionaire, which would mean confiscating 99% of his wealth, you retarded fucking low iq faggot who nonstop shits up the board with mindnumbingly boring and emotional screeds. 'durr the topic is should we raise Bezos taxes??!!11" no you stupid faggot thats not the topic and if you want to make it one then start another thread. either defend turning Bezos and Musk into non billionaires or shut the fuck up.
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:50 PM Author: Accurate at predicting vs Measures of probability (gunneratttt)
go find me a poast that says bezos should be taxed at 99% you retard.
you just read the thread title and saw a lot of poasts and made your retarded comment. i think literally everyone itt agrees that leaving capital in the hands of people that have proven to be able to innovate and produce with it is a GOOD THING. i haven't seen a single person say that bezos, musk, or gates should be taxed until they are no longer billionaires.
the conversation seems to be able HOW MUCH they should be taxed. and whether that wealth should be taxed now, or through inheritance, or both. not a single fucking person is advocating that they should be taxed to the point that they lose control of the companies they built. you fucking retard.
Date: January 25th, 2022 11:02 PM Author: adventurous affirmative action
thats 1 retard and u should respond to that 1 retard about that retarded idea, but other people who support additional taxes on billionaires dont agree with him so its weird when u attack his argument to people who dont agree with him
Date: January 25th, 2022 11:17 PM Author: Excitant Office
The topic of the thread is whether billionaires should even exist. We aren't talking about taxing their cap gains at 45%. We are talking about confiscatory measures to take nearly the entirely of their wealth (which is mostly just stock that they own in companies that they started).
Date: January 25th, 2022 6:50 PM Author: Aphrodisiac grizzly coffee pot
A tool of the invisible Super Saiyan Elites (top .0001%) to prevent the casual riffraff goyim billionaires from gaining too much power.
The money supply is controlled by private agents who are above the law. Good luck ever getting these unofficial world leaders to voluntarily ID themselves and surrender the majority of their wealth. These slogans are always directed at non-Zionist Elon Musk types because he’s a threat to establishment international jewry.
Date: January 25th, 2022 8:45 PM Author: Excitant Office
The whole argument over confiscating billionaires' wealth is a symptom of a society that doesn't have any idea how good it has it. If you live in a country of 350 million people from all over the world, you want it to be one where its possible to start a company and have it worth a billion dollars. There are plenty of countries around the world that have never and will never have a billionaire. Go live in one of those.
The vast majority of these people are billionaires simply by virtue of the stock that they hold in companies that they started. "Just tax 'em at 50% of their wealth and Musk wil still have $125 billion!" doesn't work.
No billionaire has ever once done anything to make your life worse and many have improved them. The rapacious higher ed system charging $100k/year for education isn't the fault of billionaires but a massive taxpayer subsidy given to schools.
Ending "wealth disparity"? That's a meaningless term that tells you nothing about how wealthy a society overall is. Billionaires are minted during times of booming wealth creation which is going to involve 'wealth disparity.'
Tax them and give it to the US Gov? Yes let's give it to an evil, degenerate, wasteful, all powerful spying government that will use the dollars for pure evil or piss them away. You don't feed the beast, you cut it off.
Yes, many have done bad things, but net on net, your life is as great as it is because people people (mostly in the 19th and early 20th century) were rewarded with lots of wealth for being winners.
Date: January 25th, 2022 9:17 PM Author: Fiercely-loyal Forum Karate
Don’t think the government will necessarily allocate that capital better than someone who has amassed >1b. Probably strong argument to reduce cross generational wealth of that magnitude, though.
Date: January 25th, 2022 10:11 PM Author: adventurous affirmative action
Correct. Just do an estate tax that doesnt have trust loopholes and then problem fixes itself over time yet people who create wealth are still rewarded.
Date: January 25th, 2022 9:54 PM Author: adventurous affirmative action
The real answer is a wealth tax without trust loopholes. Let the rich build wealth, businesses, etc. Once that wealth gets passed to people who didnt build it, tax it as part of a redistribution to society. This is simple.
Date: January 26th, 2022 11:47 AM Author: Exhilarant corner faggot firefighter
I figured it was a typo.
There’s still the issue of us RSF a better steward of wealth or AOC? I’ll take RSF any day. RSF at least will give the money to yacht builders, not out as welfare to 70IQ drug addicts
Date: January 25th, 2022 11:33 PM Author: ponyboy curtis
I absolutely think billionaires should exist. People like Musk, Bezos, Jobs, and others are tremendously valuable, and their net worth should be a function of that value.
That said, there are a lot of structural problems with the American economy that are reflected by the difference between the rate at which the net worth of the American billionaire class grows relative to that of the American middle class. The hollowing out of the manufacturing base, the use of immigration policy as a relief valve for upward pressure on wage growth, insufficiently progressive tax policy, and the list goes on.
Baby boomers were 35 or younger in 1980 when they owned 21% of the nation's wealth. Millennials are 40 or younger today and they own less than 5% of the nation's wealth. Something is very, very wrong with this picture, and the Dems are right to complain about it. But you know how the GOP gets elected by promising to reduce immigration and bring back manufacturing jobs, then as soon as they're securely in power they pass tax cuts for billionaires? The Dems like to promise things like universal healthcare, a stronger safety net, and vague promises about reducing the wage gap by taxing the rich, but the second they're in power we get diversity bureaucracies and white privilege seminars. So while they're absolutely right that there's a problem, they're dead fucking wrong on the root causes and potential solutions.
Date: January 26th, 2022 1:33 AM Author: Odious Greedy Mood
CR
Neither party has any incentive to actually fix the problems they see. As soon as Republicans fix immigration, they can no longer run on fixing immigration, so the problem festers.
Date: January 26th, 2022 10:54 AM Author: ponyboy curtis
Absolutely. And it's more than just that. The GOP has no more interest in fixing immigration than the Dems do. While congressional Dems do directly benefit from the browning of the electorate, the capitalist masters of both parties have a massive financial interest in keeping the immigration taps open. New consumers are introduced to the economy and the cheap, abundant labor keeps wages low.
Date: January 26th, 2022 1:24 AM Author: irradiated abusive toaster
I tend to agree in principle with those ITT saying they shouldn't and that the concentration is just absurd
But this conflicts with the practicality: that realizes there's no fucking way lib solutions / control would be better stewards of that money, not to mention what happens when redistribution on that scale becomes a political solution, eg what's stopping the next politician from lowering it to 500m?
It would probably be too much to ask of the political class that they prove they would be responsible stewards of that wealth - like controlling immigration, wasteful spending etc etc
Remember when Trump went on TV (or at leas fox, might have been banned at this point) - at the very end after vetoing some absurd spending bill and asking to increase stimulus checks for people? He looked at the camera and started reading to Americans the sort of things their govt was spending money on instead of them during a pandemic after having closed their businesses, furloughed workers etc - gender programs in Pakistan, aid to Sudan, etc etc etc
In principle I agree - but in practice you're talking about giving that money to the same people who de-industrialized the heartland, don't give af about drug epidemics, care more about Ukraine's border sovereignty than our own, tell you inflation is good for you, were in charge of Obamacare website, CA high speed rail failure, are replacing core Americans with immigrants , have no loyalty to the land or interest in the long-term solvency of the nation - and on and on....
In principle yes, but for now I'll take "job creation" over destructive, criminal mismanagement
Date: January 26th, 2022 12:41 PM Author: spectacular kitchen voyeur
This is one of those high ideals used to justify more power in the hands of government along the lines of "racism/sexism shouldn't exist." No one fundamentally disagrees that those things are bad or that concentration of wealth in the hands of a few powerful oligarchs is bad too. But most proposals sound really dangerous and likely to result in a scenario where the medicine is worse than the disease. Just because you hate racism/sexism doesn't mean that banning speech you don't like is the same. Same idea here - just because you don't like billionaires doesn't mean confiscating wealth from people you think have too much is a good idea.
I like increasing estate taxes and closing the carried interest loophole and similar measures. Maybe making cap gains more progressive.
Date: January 27th, 2022 5:16 AM Author: Aphrodisiac grizzly coffee pot
start with the Rothschilds of London and Berlin, Lazard Brothers of Paris, Israel Moses Seif of Italy, Kuhn Loeb and Warburg of Germany, Lehman Bros, Goldman, Sachs, and Rockefeller families.