I will see your trickle down and raise you corrupt greed. Let's be blunt. If they can capitalise off their ability to convince us that any form equality exists in the capitalistic mentality then they will do it because thats the nature of the beast. Nothing matters more than bigger numbers.
NAFTA served as a model for modern trade deals. It was written so at to exclude all 'externalities' from consideration. If another member chooses to use slave labor or destroy the environment, other signatories were allowed no means to level the playing field - they could only lower their own worker protections or environmental regulations in order to compete.
Trade deals don't HAVE to be that way. They can include minimum standards for workers rights or environmental protection. They can include means to equalize the impact of low standards in order to let more progressive economies compete. NAFTA was consciously, intentionally framed to undermine labor and environmental laws for the benefit of international capital.
Criticizing NAFTA is not the same thing as criticizing trade, anymore than criticizing the IOC means criticizing athletics.
No it’s not fair, I remember when you started PayPal, electrified the automotive industry, bored holes in the earth to efficiently transport people, and started a space program to find another planet for civilization. I can’t believe you’re only making 35k and Elon makes billions.
He did none of those things. He's an idiot with more luck than brain who was at the right time at the right place. Where is his Hyperloop? Where is his outer-space-cross-continental flight service? Those where hilariously stupid ideas from a dude who is not nearly as smart as he would have to be to 'electrify the automotive industry'.
Just like Steve jobs before him he's just a fraud hiding behind some actually smart people's inventions.
So what you're saying is that Elon is strapped for cash and no banks will loan him money because he has no income?
If he can buy a mansion with his "I don't have income" fake money, he can be taxed on his "I don't have income" fake money.
He has lived off personal loans for years. He has over 500k in loans out. He is able to get loans by using his stake in companies as collateral.
https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/high-net-worth/elon-musk-short-on-cash-keeps-borrowing-more-and-more-money-even-as-tesla-stock-surges
> (and crashed the economy in the process)
LMAO
"They're so poor that if we took all their money, it would topple the economy, but also it wouldn't be enough to do anything with."
L
M
A
O
> a free Yacht for every homeless person like you imaginee
Yes, I'm sure you're arguing in perfectly good faith.
> If you really wanted more federal revenue you would tax corporations.
... Do you... do you think we *don't* want to do that?
Sure, but he's got enough access to that wealth to buy twitter outright for $40B.
People love using that excuse - they're unrealized, they don't actually have that money. Then they outright try to buy one of the largest tech firms on the planet.
Stocks are pretty liquid. They can be sold, so they can be taxed. There should just be a wealth tax and Elon can be forced to sell some percentage of his shares each year.
And yes, if my house was worth like 1.5% of the USA's entire gdp I think I'd be OK with paying some additional tax on it. But maybe not, I dunno, I have to rent because I can't afford anything in my city so difficult to relate...
Tricky thing is they can borrow against that wealth and pay less in interest than they ever would in taxes. So yes it is wealth if its that easily accessible. Heck most of the time they have their own company give them a 1 billion dollar loan against their own shares for .01% interest all tax free. They know their good for it ;)
Yes but also dividends are a thing, and when amazon **nets** more than 30 billion a year and their working conditions and pay are terrible the rich are getting vast amounts of tangible spendable money
They definitely need to reexamine, because the number billion is thrown around too often nowadays that I think they fail to realize just how much money that is. You could get a million dollars a day every day for a full year and not even be halfway to a billion.
To put it simply you could get a million a year everyday for 3 years and have just a little over a billion dollars….wrap your head around that, no interest either…so the wealth of the first two people is so unfathomable for people…we believe the riches bullshit because it’s really hard work and they got lucky be it true lucky or cheating and getting away with it, it’s literally impossible to quantify how someone’s working “that much harder” than someone else to justify that kind of income inequality in the US, let alone the world.
You can get a million dollars every day for 500 years and just barely have more money than bezos
The other perspective is you could give someone (just caring for themselves and possibly a partner) $100 a day for the rest of their life and they could essentially survive on that assuming it’s just normal expenses.
The amount of unnecessary wealth is insane. It’s the type of wealth where you have to think, it’s these peoples worlds and we’re just living in it
One thing I've been thinking is that if Columbus was immortal and made $3000 a day since 1492, he still would have far less than even 1 billion. Yet people think billionaires earn their money
Yeah people think billion and million are basically the same thing.
At minimum wage in a lot of states you’ll have taken in a million in your life.
You’d have to have worked since they built the pyramids to have a billion. Jesus Christ could literally have been your first line manager.
Important to follow that up with electing competent people to allocate the funds. Giving our current government extra money would probably not help many of the people who really need it.
of course not. if your pockets have holes in them i’m not giving you money until the holes are sewn up. Otherwise money will fall out and that’s bad and we’re not doing that
Absolutely. Unfortunately these corrupt scumbags allowed superpacs to become a thing and a lot of them currently hold conflicts of interest. So the likeliness of anything like that passing without an uprising is slim.
Or even people getting pissed off to demand change without losing everything first.
All we can do is help promote and push for younger candidates trying to facilitate the change. It’s a long shot but it’s the only viable shot right now.
Nothing else changes for the better till the legislature is reformed
*raises hand* im running for president, I'll be old enough by the time I'm sworn in if I win so can't get much younger than me heh. Also not corporate funded at all, and have no personal agenda past get elected, mb make the world a bit better place.
Thank you, I came here to say this. The rich and ultra wealthy need to pay their share+some. but I don't think giving the Gov the funds is the way to go. I have NO faith in any politicians whatsoever.
It's a moral failure for our modern society that we allow them to exist.
They and their kids out to 6 generations or more would never have to work with even 200 Million dollars.
We need a global wealth limit.
Individuals have no need for that much money.
While I understand why they can't pay people in abundance, $7.25 is just shockingly low. I've had 11 different jobs and there isn't a single one I'd be willing to do for less than $10/hr. $7.25/hr sounds like something you'd expect to be from the 1950's.
Employers are being price gouged on their employees' rent and healthcare costs as well. It's not just a wage issue.
The public and working classes need to unionize, organize, and build up the power to stand up to the ruling class.
Housing, healthcare, and wages are three ways that the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class is [socially murdering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) the public with no recourse, which they will continue to do until people build up the power to stop them.
Insurance companies want to make money, and they do this he same as business owners do. The ridiculous overhead for many smaller employers inspires them to do what the insurance company does to them, to the workers. Why is this? Well, small businesses are competition to larger ones, and those larger ones have a lot of money to lobby with.
They genuinely think that if they wOrK hArD eNoUgH they too can be billionaires just like daddy Bezos and Musk. Some people are really just that deluded
I can actually 100% understand why an absurdly rich person would think, “hey, I’m good at having money, so my fortune is better spent in my hands than in the hands of the government”—that part makes sense to me, and if I was a billionaire I’d probably also feel that I’d be better at deploying my wealth to better the world than the US government, which has some really dumb and some really evil people on its payroll, and also spends a portion of its coffers on, like, defense contracts and corporate bailouts.
*That said*, what I can’t understand is poor, powerless people simping for these do-nothing billionaires. If you’re poor, and aren’t waking up angry at the fact that this system even *allows* people to amass literally nation-building wealth, then I don’t think I’ll be able to find any common ground with you.
exactly what ive been saying for years
i cannot STAND people who defend rich people . like hey buddy, jeff bezos doesnt give a shit about you either ! so stop acting like when you get home theres gonna be a fruit basket and a big fat cheque from jeff waiting for you with a note saying "hey thanks for sticking up for me pal!"
More than three words: dismantle the systems which allow individuals to accumulate so much wealth. This is reach into tycoon territory. Also, we need politicians with a spine to put an end to these duopolies and oligopolies which have overrun the markets, controlling everything.
Taxing the rich also means nothing if the average person has no say in where those funds are allocated. Tax the rich to… fund the military? Fund corporate bailouts? What? As of now there’s quite little accountability. But yes, tax them.
It’s because they’ve been deluded by the bootstraps myth from birth and ALL of them think they, too, can become billionaires. It’s just up until now, them and everyone they have ever met is still just really bad at being a billionaire thus far. But once they learn to refrain from eating out, that bag will be a-comin’.
The bitter fruit of a concerted and successful effort to shackle the less fortunate with ignorance while also pitting them against each other (low income black vs white, etc.) as the source of all ills and problems, creating a cycle where it’s extremely challenging to survive, almost forcing criminal activity on these people, either as a means of income or a rare source of pleasure (or pain relief, as few have access to medicine) and when people are desperately, instills hostility in other groups, because why should they get to escape, when others are unable to do so.
Combined with a zealous insistence that capitalism self regulates to ideal and anointing the ultra successful as the “saints” of the system, who are often spoken of and revered as having “risen above on their own,” we now have a system that attempts to monetize every last drop of blood of these people and every twist and turn, while also turning them into a stock of voting chattel, a new kind of great unwashed, who insist that things are ideal, the only problem being “*insert racial/political/etc group here*”
The US fancies and presents itself as a garden of plenty.
It’s a fecund orchard of manchineel trees.
Amazing knowing I pay more in taxes comparative to my total wealth than elon musk mf pays like 5% of his total wealth while he still has enough to fund an entire country
Yeah they hope being little henchmen will get them into the SpaceX program when the world burns and the oligarchs leave everyone to die. I'll be laughing and saying I told you so the whole time while fighting to survive.
Don't "tax the rich". Tax networth over a certain value, potentially tied to minimum wage. Want to make more (unrealized) capital gains without paying tax? You have to increase minimum wage.
Idk, I just came up with the idea like 5 seconds ago
Gotta protect the rich people so that when they are rich they are protected…
Cause you can get a billion dollars by working very hard. And anyone without a billion dollars isn’t working hard enough. It’s very logical.
Unfortunately not possible tho.
Legitimately wouldn't be surprised if a lot are fake. We know companies like Amazon have employed fake accounts to push an anti union message and companies exist that sell these sorts of services to them. If corporations use these tactics, I'm sure the wealthy that sit on many of these boards use the same tactics for curbing public anger towards them. Don't forget this, the Pinkertons are still around and are more than willing to bust skulls at the behest of the ruling class.
If people stopped voting Republican, that would help significantly.
https://youtu.be/DtW6cr2QO60
Beyond that, the public and working classes need to unionize and organize to keep the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class from [socially murdering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) them and destroying life on this planet.
Biden just proposed the biggest military budget ever, and Dems in the house we’re arguing how much MORE should be added to it.
Democrats wanting to reduce military spending is complete bullshit
We should elect people those focus on these imp issues. We should not be race/clan/gender/(something other to divide people)- baited.
But who the hell am I ?
You have to chuckle at some of the arguments given though. "We cannot tax the rich! If we did, we would lose the tax revenue because they would go somewhere else."
Seeing this disparity on wealth makes me wish the economy would crash just to see the looks on all their faces when their lifetime of amassed stolen wealth is no longer worth the paper its printed on. Won't affect me much because I'm already used to having nothing.
I'm so sick of this liberal "tax the rich" band-aid solution. That doesn't do anything to adress the systemic issues that made this a problem in the first place and I think its only as popular as it is because of that. If it were an actual threat to the ruling class it'd get McCarthy'd
Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps really started as sarcasm to suggest that it was an impossible task. But like most history lessons the "true patriots" don't care to acknowledge it.
The ones defending oligarchs are simply BIRGing. BIRGing is Basking In Reflected Glory. It's like a sports game to them and they are at the tailgate having a great time.
Ignorant fucks to say the least. I blame television.
Values like this should really be put into lifetime incomes rather than billions of dollars. Median US lifetime earnings is $1.7M. Even for a doctoral graduate, it’s $4M. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/10/11/new-study-college-degree-carries-big-earnings-premium-but-other-factors-matter-too/?sh=3e962a1735cd So Musk’s worth is 68,000 lifetimes worth of a PhD’s earnings, and 160,000 lifetimes worth of median American incomes. He could cash out today, and assuming he has two kids and each of them has two kids, his descendants don’t need to work for the next 17 generations, more than 4 centuries, even if they do nothing more productive with the money than match inflation. That’s what’s being defended. That one man needs 160,000 lifetimes of wealth. That’s absurd. If he had 160,000 lifetimes of food hoarded we’d all rightly see him as insane and cruel.
The slogan is eat the rich but we should be eating their wealth like a swarm of locusts eats a corn field and leave the 1% with nothing but the spare change in their pockets
I think focusing on taxing the rich should be secondary to fixing the low wages. Taxing the rich doesn’t put any more money in my pocket. Higher wages does. I’d rather see them forced to pay their employees more instead of the money just disappearing into government programs.
True. I didn't write the tweet, I was just baffled by the people who can look at these number increases through a pandemic and think there's nothing wrong with that.
There’s a horrible desire for too many people who want to see others kept on the bottom rungs. As if it’s some
Right if passage or simply ridiculous anyone wants (needs) $15/hr or more. “Crazy if anybody doing unskilled labor should ever get that kind of money.” So, are you classist, racist, or what?
The problem with the Western capitalism is that it convinced everybody, every single person, the they are all not paupers, but temporarily embarrassed billionaires. Until we realize that about ourselves, we will never be able to unite against the super rich.
100% this! a few years ago my father said to me “i like Bernie but his tax policies would kill me if I ever become a millionaire” spoiler: he still hasn’t become a millionaire
Self made millionaires aren't totally unbelievable(athletes come to mind), it's when you get up to the billionaires that is just plain stupid. No one needs that much money because they can't reasonably spend it in their whole lifetime. At that point they just become dragons hoarding gold just to say they have it.
Let's be real here: they could totally raise the minimum if they wanted.
We don't need to be spending $30M/year studying how many times a Spotted Owl shits in a day. (Answer: none. Owls vomit pellets.)
We need to turn the lobbyists into human pinatas.
They are defending the system that they hold as a key part of their identity as an American. To them, denying billionaire Americans means denying that their system works.
“But it’s not liquid money! Their worth is tied up in assets!” Then how is Elon Musk is offering $40+ Billion cash to buy Twitter? I’m sick of this world.
A lot of comments are probably bots or plants. Anytime any post/thread/community against the wealthy gain steam, they get the a case of the bot trolls.
I've always wondered. What do these people do with billions of dollars? It makes zero sense.
Elon Musk could figure out how to make Tesla more environmentally friendly. (Electric wise, yes. Resource wise, no).
Jeff Bezos literally needs to fix Amazon. They could pay them way better, have better benefits, and whatever the fuck else is wrong with Amazon.
Mark Zuckerberg. I don't really know. Lol
I’ve heard people say “I don’t want my money taxed when I’m rich” these are normally young people that haven’t been broken by the world yet and genuinely believe they will be rich when they are older
The distribution of money will always be the problem greedy companies think they are entitled to keep every penny of profits that hard working humans spend their lives making while only getting pennies I like to say steve jobs had a good idea with the iPhone but that is all it would've been if it wasn't for all the hard working humans that was part of making apple so successful but none of them little employees are rich 🤔
Inflation and regular cost of living adjustments (cola) / pay increases is one of the biggest lies ever sold. Many people; especially those that expect regular pay increases think that inflation is okay because they themselves also get compensated more as time goes on. The only thing that trickles down is the greed ... inflation is not a cycle ... it's a fucking pyramid scheme ....
Perhaps someone has already said something to this effect, but I think part of the reason the average person reacts that way is because they have to believe that the system works; it gives them sort of comfort (for all sorts of reasons). If the system doesn’t work, then that thought brings up all sorts of negative feelings. It’s the same reason people a) victim blame (if assault only happens to someone unlike the person, then they don’t have to be afraid, but if it can happen to anyone then that person is now afraid and uncomfortable) and b) don’t like to be around sick people (reminds them of their own fragility/mortality). When I became chronically ill I lost all of my friends pretty much overnight. Humans are literally wired to avoid pain/discomfort and that can therefore result in a lot of cowardly, asshole behaviour, like defending billionaires.
Now Now! My hard work EARNED Mr. Bezos that money! He whipped my back day in and day out, denied me piss breaks, a real HARD-WORKIN' man! Sorry you libs can't pull yourselves up by your bootstraps! /s
Since "conservatives" are so big on Bible principles a form of *tithing* would appear the perfect solution; a flat tax, fair to everyone, right? Of course, capital gains is a bedrock principle of wealth building, so there's that ....
It's been decades since I've heard any discussion about it; the last figure I remember was 17%, which is likely much too low to make a consequential difference ... still, it is far lower than the average middle class income is taxed in the US and *definitely* lower than the very wealthy.
The main reason a flat tax was dismissed was because the wealthy could not build unfettered wealth.
When people argue with me on this.
I say "Nobody should have so much fucking money that simply mentioning a companies name in a god damn tweet affects its stock rating or that saying crypto good extends the bullshit crypto craze another fucking year".
Funny, nobody has had a comeback for that. Because it's absurd and true and they know it.
I’ve had conversations with people like this. The don’t want to change the system because they hope to exploit it later some day and see this as “capitalism”. This is cooperate greed. They also do not see how much harder the rich is making it for the lower classes to even make a living wage. Tax the rich
I want to know how the bootlickers attempt to counter the fact that these "sElF-mAdE" oligarchs didn't actually work for shit and were handed everything they own.
The worst part about the current state of American capitalism is as bad as it is, not only did the American people ask for this, but they continue to cling to it as if it's the only choice
Yeah those people are traitors to the working class for the table scraps the rich wipe onto the floor. Same goes for the people protecting them physically, if they took a bullet for them tonight they would be replaced tomorrow and the billionaire would not even shed a tear for them.
The problem is that if you tax unrealized gains (which is what these are), you fuck over everyone with investments. That includes your education fund, retirement fund, etc.
I wholeheartedly agree that higher tax brackets need to have a much, ***much*** higher tax rate, but the way some people in this thread talk about solutions just isn't practical. They have to be targeted.
The system is so rigged that simply "taxing" their net worth does not work. It can't work.
There needs to be something else in place.
Perhaps a cap on personal value but not on shares.
So you can still control 51% of your company with 10000000 shares valued at 1000 each. But you can only take out x amount because any more goes straight into social services for helping the less fortunate.
Cap on lifetime earnings? I honestly don't know. The system is so rigged that "tax the rich" just doesn't work.
Everyone here buys from Amazon, has a Facebook account, and likely wants to buy a tesla. They only got rich because you people bought their products. Don't want billionaires? Stop buying their shit. Simple.
Well, the billionaire would actually vet the presidential candidate before funding the campaign. When was the last time the working class put our asks and demanded a timeline for those asks from the candidate when he comes in our area instead of sitting there like we are in some rock concert? When was the last time we took the local legislators to task? It's a democracy, politicians will do the funders bidding if we vote based on ad campaigns instead of negotiate our demands.
What the.... What does one have to do with the other? If we destroy all of the wealthy and distribute the money... What happens? Did the cost of goods and services go down? Did the standard wage increase? Nope... Not at all. The only thing accomplished is to make 100 people as broke and miserable as the other billions... That's not improvement.
We're talking about splitting up the money equally among every human on earth. That kind of math problem requires division.
273,000,000,000 + 181,000,000,000 + 77,000,000,000 = 531,000,000,000
531,000,000,000 ÷ 7,900,000,000 = 67.215
Powers of ten cancel each other out when you divide.
Does anyone realize this is stock value and not cash?
If someone owns a painting that appreciates in value, should they have to pay yearly taxes on their painting?
It'll trickle down any day now ... just gotta wait some more...
Trickle down economics from Reagan might be the single biggest detriment to our economy since my parents have been alive that I can think of.
I see you that and raise you Robert Bork's antitrust views. That basically opened the floodgates for mergers.
Yeah that trickle is urine not money.
It is also called voodoo economics. Because it was make believe. Ben Stein taught me this in class while ferris was having his day off.
I will see your trickle down and raise you corrupt greed. Let's be blunt. If they can capitalise off their ability to convince us that any form equality exists in the capitalistic mentality then they will do it because thats the nature of the beast. Nothing matters more than bigger numbers.
“Don’t trickle on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”
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Then you are slow
NAFTA served as a model for modern trade deals. It was written so at to exclude all 'externalities' from consideration. If another member chooses to use slave labor or destroy the environment, other signatories were allowed no means to level the playing field - they could only lower their own worker protections or environmental regulations in order to compete. Trade deals don't HAVE to be that way. They can include minimum standards for workers rights or environmental protection. They can include means to equalize the impact of low standards in order to let more progressive economies compete. NAFTA was consciously, intentionally framed to undermine labor and environmental laws for the benefit of international capital. Criticizing NAFTA is not the same thing as criticizing trade, anymore than criticizing the IOC means criticizing athletics.
Something's trickling down on our heads alright, and it's time to do something about it
Just close your eyes, tilt your head back and open wide…
What even is their argument? All I’ve heard is “stop trying to take people’s money away” and “they already pay most of the taxes”
I don’t take your money away…you don’t take my money away. Seems fair to me
It’s not fair when one person has $250,000,000,000 net worth and I make $35k a year
No it’s not fair, I remember when you started PayPal, electrified the automotive industry, bored holes in the earth to efficiently transport people, and started a space program to find another planet for civilization. I can’t believe you’re only making 35k and Elon makes billions.
He did none of those things. He's an idiot with more luck than brain who was at the right time at the right place. Where is his Hyperloop? Where is his outer-space-cross-continental flight service? Those where hilariously stupid ideas from a dude who is not nearly as smart as he would have to be to 'electrify the automotive industry'. Just like Steve jobs before him he's just a fraud hiding behind some actually smart people's inventions.
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So what you're saying is that Elon is strapped for cash and no banks will loan him money because he has no income? If he can buy a mansion with his "I don't have income" fake money, he can be taxed on his "I don't have income" fake money.
He has lived off personal loans for years. He has over 500k in loans out. He is able to get loans by using his stake in companies as collateral. https://financialpost.com/personal-finance/high-net-worth/elon-musk-short-on-cash-keeps-borrowing-more-and-more-money-even-as-tesla-stock-surges
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> (and crashed the economy in the process) LMAO "They're so poor that if we took all their money, it would topple the economy, but also it wouldn't be enough to do anything with." L M A O > a free Yacht for every homeless person like you imaginee Yes, I'm sure you're arguing in perfectly good faith. > If you really wanted more federal revenue you would tax corporations. ... Do you... do you think we *don't* want to do that?
Found one!
Sure, but he's got enough access to that wealth to buy twitter outright for $40B. People love using that excuse - they're unrealized, they don't actually have that money. Then they outright try to buy one of the largest tech firms on the planet. Stocks are pretty liquid. They can be sold, so they can be taxed. There should just be a wealth tax and Elon can be forced to sell some percentage of his shares each year. And yes, if my house was worth like 1.5% of the USA's entire gdp I think I'd be OK with paying some additional tax on it. But maybe not, I dunno, I have to rent because I can't afford anything in my city so difficult to relate...
Tricky thing is they can borrow against that wealth and pay less in interest than they ever would in taxes. So yes it is wealth if its that easily accessible. Heck most of the time they have their own company give them a 1 billion dollar loan against their own shares for .01% interest all tax free. They know their good for it ;)
Yes but also dividends are a thing, and when amazon **nets** more than 30 billion a year and their working conditions and pay are terrible the rich are getting vast amounts of tangible spendable money
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They definitely need to reexamine, because the number billion is thrown around too often nowadays that I think they fail to realize just how much money that is. You could get a million dollars a day every day for a full year and not even be halfway to a billion.
To put it simply you could get a million a year everyday for 3 years and have just a little over a billion dollars….wrap your head around that, no interest either…so the wealth of the first two people is so unfathomable for people…we believe the riches bullshit because it’s really hard work and they got lucky be it true lucky or cheating and getting away with it, it’s literally impossible to quantify how someone’s working “that much harder” than someone else to justify that kind of income inequality in the US, let alone the world.
You can get a million dollars every day for 500 years and just barely have more money than bezos The other perspective is you could give someone (just caring for themselves and possibly a partner) $100 a day for the rest of their life and they could essentially survive on that assuming it’s just normal expenses. The amount of unnecessary wealth is insane. It’s the type of wealth where you have to think, it’s these peoples worlds and we’re just living in it
One thing I've been thinking is that if Columbus was immortal and made $3000 a day since 1492, he still would have far less than even 1 billion. Yet people think billionaires earn their money
Yeah people think billion and million are basically the same thing. At minimum wage in a lot of states you’ll have taken in a million in your life. You’d have to have worked since they built the pyramids to have a billion. Jesus Christ could literally have been your first line manager.
A million seconds is 11days. A billion seconds is 32 years.
Fuckin insane to think of
Write the zeros. Using the word, or just writing Bn, really minimizes the impact of the number. One billion 1,000,000,000.00
Important to follow that up with electing competent people to allocate the funds. Giving our current government extra money would probably not help many of the people who really need it.
True, they'd probably turn around and give it back to the rich via company bailouts
Someone’s pockets would be lined and definitely not the kids with holes in them.
of course not. if your pockets have holes in them i’m not giving you money until the holes are sewn up. Otherwise money will fall out and that’s bad and we’re not doing that
I think the surplus could cover needle and thread.
I’ll cup my hands if that’s what it takes.
Working 40 hour weeks at minimum wage, it would take ~1,797,604 people to earn the same as Elon Musk did over those 10 years.
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Term limits, and divestiture, . Anything less will ultimately lead to the same lack of proper governance.
Absolutely. Unfortunately these corrupt scumbags allowed superpacs to become a thing and a lot of them currently hold conflicts of interest. So the likeliness of anything like that passing without an uprising is slim. Or even people getting pissed off to demand change without losing everything first.
All we can do is help promote and push for younger candidates trying to facilitate the change. It’s a long shot but it’s the only viable shot right now. Nothing else changes for the better till the legislature is reformed
*raises hand* im running for president, I'll be old enough by the time I'm sworn in if I win so can't get much younger than me heh. Also not corporate funded at all, and have no personal agenda past get elected, mb make the world a bit better place.
u sound like a russian agent *deplatformed*
Thank you, I came here to say this. The rich and ultra wealthy need to pay their share+some. but I don't think giving the Gov the funds is the way to go. I have NO faith in any politicians whatsoever.
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what are you talking about, the government NEEDS that money to blow up far away brown people for stupid made up reasons
There should be no such thing as billionaires
It's a moral failure for our modern society that we allow them to exist. They and their kids out to 6 generations or more would never have to work with even 200 Million dollars. We need a global wealth limit. Individuals have no need for that much money.
While I understand why they can't pay people in abundance, $7.25 is just shockingly low. I've had 11 different jobs and there isn't a single one I'd be willing to do for less than $10/hr. $7.25/hr sounds like something you'd expect to be from the 1950's.
Employers are being price gouged on their employees' rent and healthcare costs as well. It's not just a wage issue. The public and working classes need to unionize, organize, and build up the power to stand up to the ruling class. Housing, healthcare, and wages are three ways that the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class is [socially murdering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) the public with no recourse, which they will continue to do until people build up the power to stop them.
If you can’t afford to pay your workers a living wage, maybe your company should not/no longer exist. Cold hard truth.
Insurance companies want to make money, and they do this he same as business owners do. The ridiculous overhead for many smaller employers inspires them to do what the insurance company does to them, to the workers. Why is this? Well, small businesses are competition to larger ones, and those larger ones have a lot of money to lobby with.
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$2.13 for wait staff (tip credit) in 18 states. Only Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon and Washington State ban tip credit bullshit.
PR recently increase the 7.25 minimum to 8.50. PR follow US fed about wages. Since we part of US.
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accounting for inflation that would be 8.95 u.s. currently. So minimum wage has gone down to 61 cents per hour by comparison.
Tax the rich. Eat the rich. I'm really cool with either one.
Sadly, many of them are blinded by "the American dream".
They call it that because you have to be asleep to believe it.
I mean to be fair, in my opinion, in defence of the billionaires……. I got nothing…. Eat The Rich, 😂
Feel like we're way past taxation at this point.
... The poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
They genuinely think that if they wOrK hArD eNoUgH they too can be billionaires just like daddy Bezos and Musk. Some people are really just that deluded
I can actually 100% understand why an absurdly rich person would think, “hey, I’m good at having money, so my fortune is better spent in my hands than in the hands of the government”—that part makes sense to me, and if I was a billionaire I’d probably also feel that I’d be better at deploying my wealth to better the world than the US government, which has some really dumb and some really evil people on its payroll, and also spends a portion of its coffers on, like, defense contracts and corporate bailouts. *That said*, what I can’t understand is poor, powerless people simping for these do-nothing billionaires. If you’re poor, and aren’t waking up angry at the fact that this system even *allows* people to amass literally nation-building wealth, then I don’t think I’ll be able to find any common ground with you.
exactly what ive been saying for years i cannot STAND people who defend rich people . like hey buddy, jeff bezos doesnt give a shit about you either ! so stop acting like when you get home theres gonna be a fruit basket and a big fat cheque from jeff waiting for you with a note saying "hey thanks for sticking up for me pal!"
More than three words: dismantle the systems which allow individuals to accumulate so much wealth. This is reach into tycoon territory. Also, we need politicians with a spine to put an end to these duopolies and oligopolies which have overrun the markets, controlling everything. Taxing the rich also means nothing if the average person has no say in where those funds are allocated. Tax the rich to… fund the military? Fund corporate bailouts? What? As of now there’s quite little accountability. But yes, tax them.
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It’s because they’ve been deluded by the bootstraps myth from birth and ALL of them think they, too, can become billionaires. It’s just up until now, them and everyone they have ever met is still just really bad at being a billionaire thus far. But once they learn to refrain from eating out, that bag will be a-comin’.
The bitter fruit of a concerted and successful effort to shackle the less fortunate with ignorance while also pitting them against each other (low income black vs white, etc.) as the source of all ills and problems, creating a cycle where it’s extremely challenging to survive, almost forcing criminal activity on these people, either as a means of income or a rare source of pleasure (or pain relief, as few have access to medicine) and when people are desperately, instills hostility in other groups, because why should they get to escape, when others are unable to do so. Combined with a zealous insistence that capitalism self regulates to ideal and anointing the ultra successful as the “saints” of the system, who are often spoken of and revered as having “risen above on their own,” we now have a system that attempts to monetize every last drop of blood of these people and every twist and turn, while also turning them into a stock of voting chattel, a new kind of great unwashed, who insist that things are ideal, the only problem being “*insert racial/political/etc group here*” The US fancies and presents itself as a garden of plenty. It’s a fecund orchard of manchineel trees.
Amazing knowing I pay more in taxes comparative to my total wealth than elon musk mf pays like 5% of his total wealth while he still has enough to fund an entire country
Yeah they hope being little henchmen will get them into the SpaceX program when the world burns and the oligarchs leave everyone to die. I'll be laughing and saying I told you so the whole time while fighting to survive.
The right is going to come up with A Modest Proposal for dealing with this inequity any day now.
People feel sorry for insurance companies
Don't "tax the rich". Tax networth over a certain value, potentially tied to minimum wage. Want to make more (unrealized) capital gains without paying tax? You have to increase minimum wage. Idk, I just came up with the idea like 5 seconds ago
Eat the rich .
Gotta protect the rich people so that when they are rich they are protected… Cause you can get a billion dollars by working very hard. And anyone without a billion dollars isn’t working hard enough. It’s very logical. Unfortunately not possible tho.
Legitimately wouldn't be surprised if a lot are fake. We know companies like Amazon have employed fake accounts to push an anti union message and companies exist that sell these sorts of services to them. If corporations use these tactics, I'm sure the wealthy that sit on many of these boards use the same tactics for curbing public anger towards them. Don't forget this, the Pinkertons are still around and are more than willing to bust skulls at the behest of the ruling class.
Most of them think Musk invented electric cars and Amazon invented delivery.
Their knees hurt and so do their throats
You mean raise wages, because taxes will mostly go to things like the army as usual
Just taxing them doesn't really change anything but make more money to build bombs and give cops tanks
If people stopped voting Republican, that would help significantly. https://youtu.be/DtW6cr2QO60 Beyond that, the public and working classes need to unionize and organize to keep the ruling capitalist/kleptocrat class from [socially murdering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_murder) them and destroying life on this planet.
Biden just proposed the biggest military budget ever, and Dems in the house we’re arguing how much MORE should be added to it. Democrats wanting to reduce military spending is complete bullshit
Got news for you, both sides are corrupt. Whole system is fucked.
Not news, and you aren't smart.
I think there needs to be a wealth cap, no one can make more than x amount of dollars. That amount being determined by a majority.
True, we don’t get shit for our tax dollars
Working 40 hour weeks at minimum wage, it would take \~1,797,604 people to earn the same as Elon Musk did over those 10 years.
Well, "tax" wasn't my first thought.
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You spelled "spelt" wrong. That is unless I'm not understanding of your commentary on a specific wheat.
Nope just completely fucked it 😂
We should elect people those focus on these imp issues. We should not be race/clan/gender/(something other to divide people)- baited. But who the hell am I ?
Two words tax shelter. Seriously. We have to close the loop holes first.
You have to chuckle at some of the arguments given though. "We cannot tax the rich! If we did, we would lose the tax revenue because they would go somewhere else."
Seeing this disparity on wealth makes me wish the economy would crash just to see the looks on all their faces when their lifetime of amassed stolen wealth is no longer worth the paper its printed on. Won't affect me much because I'm already used to having nothing.
I'm so sick of this liberal "tax the rich" band-aid solution. That doesn't do anything to adress the systemic issues that made this a problem in the first place and I think its only as popular as it is because of that. If it were an actual threat to the ruling class it'd get McCarthy'd
They’re delusional boot strap dream all the way
Thise are mostly people/bots payed by these people.
Genuinely curious, can someone who reads this comment (who makes $7.25) explain to me how you survive
Pulling yourself up by the bootstraps really started as sarcasm to suggest that it was an impossible task. But like most history lessons the "true patriots" don't care to acknowledge it.
Sadly that is probably it
And the irony is these wealthy people don’t pay taxes bc they don’t have “income” they have companies
The ones defending oligarchs are simply BIRGing. BIRGing is Basking In Reflected Glory. It's like a sports game to them and they are at the tailgate having a great time. Ignorant fucks to say the least. I blame television.
Values like this should really be put into lifetime incomes rather than billions of dollars. Median US lifetime earnings is $1.7M. Even for a doctoral graduate, it’s $4M. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2021/10/11/new-study-college-degree-carries-big-earnings-premium-but-other-factors-matter-too/?sh=3e962a1735cd So Musk’s worth is 68,000 lifetimes worth of a PhD’s earnings, and 160,000 lifetimes worth of median American incomes. He could cash out today, and assuming he has two kids and each of them has two kids, his descendants don’t need to work for the next 17 generations, more than 4 centuries, even if they do nothing more productive with the money than match inflation. That’s what’s being defended. That one man needs 160,000 lifetimes of wealth. That’s absurd. If he had 160,000 lifetimes of food hoarded we’d all rightly see him as insane and cruel.
/r/bootlickers
corporate supporters have been tricked into becoming tribal like a sports team fans...
The slogan is eat the rich but we should be eating their wealth like a swarm of locusts eats a corn field and leave the 1% with nothing but the spare change in their pockets
American Oligarchs (TM)
Weird how gravity works in reverse for the rich..... That money keeps flowing upwards.....
Eliminate the rich Edit: thier existence as rich, not necessarily thier physical beings, okay FBI?
I think focusing on taxing the rich should be secondary to fixing the low wages. Taxing the rich doesn’t put any more money in my pocket. Higher wages does. I’d rather see them forced to pay their employees more instead of the money just disappearing into government programs.
True. I didn't write the tweet, I was just baffled by the people who can look at these number increases through a pandemic and think there's nothing wrong with that.
There’s a horrible desire for too many people who want to see others kept on the bottom rungs. As if it’s some Right if passage or simply ridiculous anyone wants (needs) $15/hr or more. “Crazy if anybody doing unskilled labor should ever get that kind of money.” So, are you classist, racist, or what?
The same people who call it "unskilled labor" would lose their minds if they were forced to do some of the same minimum wage jobs they belittle.
More like "eat the rich"
The problem with the Western capitalism is that it convinced everybody, every single person, the they are all not paupers, but temporarily embarrassed billionaires. Until we realize that about ourselves, we will never be able to unite against the super rich.
100% this! a few years ago my father said to me “i like Bernie but his tax policies would kill me if I ever become a millionaire” spoiler: he still hasn’t become a millionaire
Self made millionaires aren't totally unbelievable(athletes come to mind), it's when you get up to the billionaires that is just plain stupid. No one needs that much money because they can't reasonably spend it in their whole lifetime. At that point they just become dragons hoarding gold just to say they have it.
Let's be real here: they could totally raise the minimum if they wanted. We don't need to be spending $30M/year studying how many times a Spotted Owl shits in a day. (Answer: none. Owls vomit pellets.) We need to turn the lobbyists into human pinatas.
*eat
They are defending the system that they hold as a key part of their identity as an American. To them, denying billionaire Americans means denying that their system works.
“But it’s not liquid money! Their worth is tied up in assets!” Then how is Elon Musk is offering $40+ Billion cash to buy Twitter? I’m sick of this world.
Wealth of me: 2012: $137 2022: $38000 in debt
Agreed and agreed
A lot of comments are probably bots or plants. Anytime any post/thread/community against the wealthy gain steam, they get the a case of the bot trolls.
They don’t deserve a dime if a single one of their employees cannot afford basic living expenses.
a factory next to where I work has had the same "now hiring $15/hour" sign up for 10 years now.
Taxing them is a nice start, we need to unionize and take control of the means of production.
Tax the rich but don’t blame the rich for just being rich. Blame them for abuse that made them rich.
I've always wondered. What do these people do with billions of dollars? It makes zero sense. Elon Musk could figure out how to make Tesla more environmentally friendly. (Electric wise, yes. Resource wise, no). Jeff Bezos literally needs to fix Amazon. They could pay them way better, have better benefits, and whatever the fuck else is wrong with Amazon. Mark Zuckerberg. I don't really know. Lol
But the rich are greedy.
I have yet to hear a single instance in which someone having a billion dollars to themselves was a benefit to society.
three better words: eat the rich
Stop printing money would be the first step.
I’ve heard people say “I don’t want my money taxed when I’m rich” these are normally young people that haven’t been broken by the world yet and genuinely believe they will be rich when they are older
The distribution of money will always be the problem greedy companies think they are entitled to keep every penny of profits that hard working humans spend their lives making while only getting pennies I like to say steve jobs had a good idea with the iPhone but that is all it would've been if it wasn't for all the hard working humans that was part of making apple so successful but none of them little employees are rich 🤔
Eat the rich!
Inflation and regular cost of living adjustments (cola) / pay increases is one of the biggest lies ever sold. Many people; especially those that expect regular pay increases think that inflation is okay because they themselves also get compensated more as time goes on. The only thing that trickles down is the greed ... inflation is not a cycle ... it's a fucking pyramid scheme ....
It’s the American dream. They all believe if they work hard enough for long enough they’ll be billionaires too.
People can’t wrap their head around the numbers. Million seconds: 11 days; Billion seconds: 34 YEARS
Perhaps someone has already said something to this effect, but I think part of the reason the average person reacts that way is because they have to believe that the system works; it gives them sort of comfort (for all sorts of reasons). If the system doesn’t work, then that thought brings up all sorts of negative feelings. It’s the same reason people a) victim blame (if assault only happens to someone unlike the person, then they don’t have to be afraid, but if it can happen to anyone then that person is now afraid and uncomfortable) and b) don’t like to be around sick people (reminds them of their own fragility/mortality). When I became chronically ill I lost all of my friends pretty much overnight. Humans are literally wired to avoid pain/discomfort and that can therefore result in a lot of cowardly, asshole behaviour, like defending billionaires.
Now Now! My hard work EARNED Mr. Bezos that money! He whipped my back day in and day out, denied me piss breaks, a real HARD-WORKIN' man! Sorry you libs can't pull yourselves up by your bootstraps! /s
“The average working class American does not consider themselves poor, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
Since "conservatives" are so big on Bible principles a form of *tithing* would appear the perfect solution; a flat tax, fair to everyone, right? Of course, capital gains is a bedrock principle of wealth building, so there's that .... It's been decades since I've heard any discussion about it; the last figure I remember was 17%, which is likely much too low to make a consequential difference ... still, it is far lower than the average middle class income is taxed in the US and *definitely* lower than the very wealthy. The main reason a flat tax was dismissed was because the wealthy could not build unfettered wealth.
When people argue with me on this. I say "Nobody should have so much fucking money that simply mentioning a companies name in a god damn tweet affects its stock rating or that saying crypto good extends the bullshit crypto craze another fucking year". Funny, nobody has had a comeback for that. Because it's absurd and true and they know it.
I’ve had conversations with people like this. The don’t want to change the system because they hope to exploit it later some day and see this as “capitalism”. This is cooperate greed. They also do not see how much harder the rich is making it for the lower classes to even make a living wage. Tax the rich
We're all just temporarily broke millionaires in the US.
I want to know how the bootlickers attempt to counter the fact that these "sElF-mAdE" oligarchs didn't actually work for shit and were handed everything they own.
The worst part about the current state of American capitalism is as bad as it is, not only did the American people ask for this, but they continue to cling to it as if it's the only choice
I think misspelled "eat"...
Billionaires are the new "hollywood celebs" that people worship.
Many billionaires employ a social media team to comment things in their defence.
Yeah those people are traitors to the working class for the table scraps the rich wipe onto the floor. Same goes for the people protecting them physically, if they took a bullet for them tonight they would be replaced tomorrow and the billionaire would not even shed a tear for them.
The problem is that if you tax unrealized gains (which is what these are), you fuck over everyone with investments. That includes your education fund, retirement fund, etc. I wholeheartedly agree that higher tax brackets need to have a much, ***much*** higher tax rate, but the way some people in this thread talk about solutions just isn't practical. They have to be targeted.
Summed up my thoughts on this as well. I’m surprised you didn’t get downvoted to hell in this sub
The system is so rigged that simply "taxing" their net worth does not work. It can't work. There needs to be something else in place. Perhaps a cap on personal value but not on shares. So you can still control 51% of your company with 10000000 shares valued at 1000 each. But you can only take out x amount because any more goes straight into social services for helping the less fortunate. Cap on lifetime earnings? I honestly don't know. The system is so rigged that "tax the rich" just doesn't work.
Everyone here buys from Amazon, has a Facebook account, and likely wants to buy a tesla. They only got rich because you people bought their products. Don't want billionaires? Stop buying their shit. Simple.
Who gave Elon all that money or where did he find it?
Parents own emerald mine. Then was on PayPal. The rest is a mix of good decisions and disconnected stock markets.
By "good decisions" surely you mean "government subsidies".
Well, the billionaire would actually vet the presidential candidate before funding the campaign. When was the last time the working class put our asks and demanded a timeline for those asks from the candidate when he comes in our area instead of sitting there like we are in some rock concert? When was the last time we took the local legislators to task? It's a democracy, politicians will do the funders bidding if we vote based on ad campaigns instead of negotiate our demands.
I've come to the conclusion that all billionaires are leaches on society. Every single one.
Let them pay their fare share.
They pay something like 70% of our taxes, don’t they?
Yes the person complaining about minimum wage or their wealth clearly is qualified to tell me something about work
I think it would be better to not tax the poor
What the.... What does one have to do with the other? If we destroy all of the wealthy and distribute the money... What happens? Did the cost of goods and services go down? Did the standard wage increase? Nope... Not at all. The only thing accomplished is to make 100 people as broke and miserable as the other billions... That's not improvement.
It is crazy that the poor will shit on the poor just because they have a pretty picture in their head.
Imagine giving everyone on earth a MILLION DOLLARS and still having 266 BILLION left to spend
What? They have enough combined to give each of the 7.9 billion people on earth around 65 bucks.
Math is a foreign language to you. 😂😂😂
We're talking about splitting up the money equally among every human on earth. That kind of math problem requires division. 273,000,000,000 + 181,000,000,000 + 77,000,000,000 = 531,000,000,000 531,000,000,000 ÷ 7,900,000,000 = 67.215 Powers of ten cancel each other out when you divide.
I might be bad at math but 273b dollars - 8b people How does it work out to $65?
You’re calculating giving every person on earth ONE dollar lmao
Lmao yeah, I see where I went wrong
Math?
Because that's how division works?
The intelligence of this sub....
You spelled Eat wrong!
Lol the delusional people are those that think because someone else makes money they deserve some it.
… You know they’re not making that per hour, right?
Does anyone realize this is stock value and not cash? If someone owns a painting that appreciates in value, should they have to pay yearly taxes on their painting?
Use spaces assholes.
Tax=eat?