Zohran Mamdani says 'I don't think we should have billionaires'
Zohran Mamdani says 'I don't think we should have billionaires'
Zohran Mamdani says 'I don't think we should have billionaires'
Nobody asked me, but I agree with him.
Do you think we should have billionaires?
Now he can add “Endorsed by PoopSpiderman” on his campaign website.
Not a common endorsement.
Bill Ackman, a billionaire hedge fund manager who has backed President Donald Trump in the past, on Thursday pledged to use his money to bankroll a challenger to Mamdani in the general election.
Case in point.
And how did he get those billions? How many peoples necks did he have to step on to climb his way up. It's not so much what you do with your billions, it's how you got them that makes you evil. The only exception to this is probably Bezos ex wife, maybe.
"Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them." -Rule of acquisition #211
She was working for a hedge fund when she met him and they were married for 26 years. She may have given away $19 billion of her fortune, but her net worth is still $36 billion, the same as the original divorce settlement.
lol. I don't think she is as innocent as you make it seem 😂
This might induce me to donate to Mamdani’s campaign. I live in fucking Illinois btw.
I absolutely am
I live nowhere near NYC and I donated.
Tbf, that's one of the better states on workers rights issues.
Honestly, even if you think billionaires should exist, it’s still the most logical action for Mamdani to oppose them as billionaires will do everything to stop him.
They should have one of these next to each city-owned grocery store.
"Here at Zohran Grocers, we're chopping prices down to size! Don't lose your heads over these great deals!"
BBQ?
Wholly agreed. There are no ethical billionaires. Fight me.
Nope! What you said is perfectly acceptable in polite society and in fact I agree. We should hang out sometime maybe.
guillotine and chill?
Jesus said it best
It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
No.
ethics should mean infants are innocent until they perform actions, yet if the infants parents were billionaires and died the infant would be a billionaire without performing any action.
Imagine life was a game. You lived for 2025 years. You worked 260 days / year. You made the median US salary.
You would need to relive that process 3,145 times to match an Oligarch.
That amount of wealth is unethical while humanity suffers. No one can really fathom “1b dollars.”
Centrists already hated him, and now he said their gods shouldn't exist.
"Centrist" is just a masquerade for Republicrats to pretend to still be on the left.
Just because the US has only 2 real options to vote for doesn't mean people can have different opinions. It isn't for nothing that in a country like The Netherlands we have like 40 parties, including centre parties.
I'm pro LGBTQ, anti-israel, against consumerism/capitalism, pro socialism. Pro government control on key infrastructure (water, gas, electricity) and better housing and support services. Pro climate policies, pro taxing the rich.
But I'm also against fossil fuel bans, against bans on firearms, pro military for defence, pro free-speech, pro strict immigration, against 'PC' culture, against trans-women in women's sports, pro merit success.
Am I left or right? ...Or centrist?
So what else is new? I had an imaginary friend when I was little, I got over that. So can others.
Oooooh! He said the thing!
Damnit Zohran... I can only get sooo hard...
Good thing he's pro-universal healthcare, I'll need to get this hardon medically drained.
He's, ahem, straining the limits of my turgidity.
At this rate im gonna have to see my doctor.
Mamdani added in his response: “I have already had to start to get used to, get used to the fact that the president will talk about how I look, how I sound, where I’m from, who I am, ultimately, because he wants to distract from what I’m fighting for, and I’m fighting for the very working people that he ran a campaign to empower, that he has since then betrayed.”
Goddamn, this reads like a response that came from a real socialist playbook. Don't take the bait on the culture war bullshit, say it's distraction from helping workers. Wow.
His messaging is laser fucking focused
This needs to become the mainstream opinion. Billionaires and ultra wealthy shouldn't exist. There is no trickling down or any of that stolen wealth coming back into the hands of average people.
Imagine if billionaires paid their fair share of taxes. Municipalities would fight to get them to live in their area
They will just live in other countries if being a billionaire is illegal.
It doesn't matter where they live. If the US exerts pressure on whatever country the money is in they can and would get that money back. They're somehow able to freeze the accounts of Russian oligarchs so they's no reason to believe they couldn't do it with Bezo as well.
That's the neat thing, they won't. It's pretty easy to apply a high tax on moving away. In fact the USA of all places do just that.
Also, what do rich people possess? Assets. Physical assets. A big part of that is real estate, owned privately or by companies they own. There's no taking that with you. They can sell their assets and try to take the money with them, but that means the society they leave gets it's assets back.
That's fine, billionaires do not add to an economy, they drain it. So if they leave it will remove a useless burden on the economy and whatever country is dumb enough to take them in can deal with them instead. Meanwhile, if they are pulling money from our country we can find ways to tax it and prevent them from draining our resources (and yes, money is a resource like any other).
Lol, no. This is a strawman argument. Billionaires will absolutely not give up their precious connections and real estate to live on a private island or move away. Even if 50% would do that (lmao never) the tax would still be a huge benefit. Even without the money, not having these greedsacks meddling with local politics and laws would be a dream.
That’s the idea I think.
Hopefully the corrupt ones go to China or Vietnam because they're not afraid to give corrupt billionaires the death penalty.
As long as they stop siphoning money from us, I'm fine with that
They can live where ever they want. The assets are here and we can tax them here.
Here in the UK 78% of people support a 2% wealth tax on net assets worth more than £10 million yet our spineless neoliberal government is more focused on cutting disability benefits and bombing starving children.
Can't they just get around a tax like that by borrowing cash (for their lifestyle) and using their assets as collateral?
Wealth includes assets. If you can borrow against it, it can be taxed.
In fact, taxing the assets makes borrowing against them even more expensive.
I'm actually against a wealth tax, but think one of the only ways that taking their unrealized assets can work is if we do as you suggest.
If you own stock in something, taxing unrealized gains isn't good. it's not like were going to pay them for unrealized losses.
But we MUST stop them from being able to actualize those unrealized gains without taxing them like when they use their unrealized assets as collateral. It's like a loophole for the ultra wealthy where they can just borrow against their assets for their entire life without paying taxes on it.
And really... who cares if this way might be more expensive to do, they're rich as fuck, and can pay for it as part of that tax. Also assets can be very nebulous and hard to know what they actually have. But when you see that new house, new yacht, donation to a SPAC or whatever, the IRS can come knocking and be like how'd you pay for that.
It will lead to more dark money. It's very hard to accurately measure a persons net worth when their financials aren't just a house and an IRA like the average person. Especially if they don't want you to see it. You'll never be able to implement that tax in a consistent way.
Yes, that's the current situation, thanks for pointing that out. I don't think people understand how much tax evasion they do, for instance as of 2016 there was £36 TRILLION in offshore tax havens, UK GDP is £25 trillion for comparison. Murder in the first degree can get you prison for life, but letting countless people die from poverty related issues at home while getting rich off of starving and killing kids overseas makes you a billionaire. Why do we accept that?
Thing is, that ability to evade that is intentionally built in. It has to be. We have KYC laws here and anything over 10K is tracked.
The fact that the ultrawealthy are able to manipulate money in ways so that it's not tracked and/or not taxed has to be by design.
Huh, curious, I could swear we Germans (and most other countries I'm sure) used to do just that until a glorious neoliberal government came along and abolished the tax.
That's why accountants and auditors exist.
If you're suggesting that it shouldn't be done because its too hard -- it's not. That's just a dumb excuse.
Before the oligarchs say this is "violence".
This can be done peacefully. Just enact a law that taxes everything above like 999 million (or a fewer amount, to be debated on), and if you don't comply, that's tax evasion and you go to jail. Complelete peaceful (other than the tax-person we'd have to send to arrest the rich for non-complance), comply and everyone is happy.
Voila, no more billionaires, and that wealth redistributed will let everyone become a millionaire. Everyone is happy, maybe the 1% cries that they now have a few less yachts and mansions, but like, they can still enjoy that one house, same as everyone else would also have.
You know what? I don't want it peaceful. They've stomped on people there entire lives, forced others to rely on social programs, dig through trash, and work to the bone.
I want a comeuppance, I want blood, and I want it to be that of every fucking billionaires' head rolling off the guillotine
And you'll have it. They have enough money to pay an army and you bet they will use that to stop you from taking their wealth. Understand that they have rationalized their immense wealth to the point where they trully believe they deserve it. You can see it sometimes in how they consider themselves hard working geniuses, or decide God somewhat chose them to be ridiculously rich.
Yes, they will resort to violence (but not themselves, of course). But they won't need to get their hands too dirty.
They'll fund campaigns, they'll own law enforcements and will wield it against the people, meanwhile they'll buy propaganda to convince as many people as they can it's all for the best. That's easy to predict because they already do exactly that.
Violent repression of demonstrations, violence and intimidation against activists and journalists. Owning of all the mainstream medias and a large share of the less mainstream ones. All of that is slowly normalized.
Agree. They had a choice. They shunned taxes and played at fake philanthropy. They have now dropped that and started playing like they are god. They are fragile mortals that need a reminder of revolution, I would like to see it done the French way but any way should do.
You have to ask yourself: Is fulfilling that desire for retribution worth the lives of the millions of vulnerable people who would be killed due to lack of medical treatment, potable water, food, etc?
But could this really be done? As far as I've understood, billionaires typically don't have a billion liquidized and ready for spending. Rather, their value is distributed in ownership of several companies. How would the 100% taxes on ownership in companies be applied?
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it work, but I feel like it's a lot more complicated than stated. And if a good way of applying those taxes would be introduced, I'm sure the billionaires would either find new ways to make the money untouchable or personally move to a country with looser tax laws.
As far as I’ve understood, billionaires typically don’t have a billion liquidized and ready for spending. Rather, their value is distributed in ownership of several companies. How would the 100% taxes on ownership in companies be applied?
If you can leverage assets to apply for a loan to buy twitter, then you can levarage assets to pay your taxes.
That's what conservatives always claim. Most of them won't move and even if they do, good riddance. Simply tax their wealth beforehand.
Than they have to sell their stock or property to either not be above the threshold or to liquidate it. It's not untouchable.
If everyone becomes a millionaire, then being a millionaire is useless. Inflation will be very high, imagine $1000 eggs. I think the wealth should be distributed to provide free food and services instead.
Voila, no more billionaires
... in the country with the tax. They'll just live somewhere else.
People have to stop believing that wealthy people will leave instantly once they begin getting taxed. This is just a lie.
They are wealthy because of their assets and connections. They have houses, appartements, offices and factories. They have a network of influencer in the country they live in, in the city they live in ! They have a big family, kids. It's actually harder for these people to move out than you and I.
The money is already escaping. They use any loopholes (fiscal optimization they call it) to pay much lower tax than anyone else proportionally.
They won't leave ! Let the tax begin ! The loopholes have to be eliminated so that they cannot convert their wealth to escape tax artificially.
Let them, they don't generate anything.
Fine by me, they weren't paying taxes anyway.
Ok great.
Even the billionaires would be better off without billinaires. It their relative ranking was the same they would still have more money than they could spend but it would now come with clean air, water, land, better infrastructure, a healthier world, happier people to interact with.
That's what capitalism is supposed to do. fReE lAbOuR
What do the billionaires buy that pollutes nature that much?
The pollution comes from millions of cars, chemicals for products like clothing and intense agriculture so that everybody can eat some form of meat.
Billionaires allow us to feel helpless while we could agree with our neighbors to reduce the ecological footprint of society to a minimum.
The pollution comes from millions of cars, an industry forced on the people through decades of lobbying and bribery to eliminate the possibility of free public transportation, so that they could become richer. The pollution comes from products for clothing that are made cheaply as possible - at the cost of the environment - and extreme amounts of ad campaigns that purposefully change contemporary fashion ideals in order to keep fast turnaround on product and maximize profit so that they can become richer. Agriculture is corrupted by the rich so that it gets government subsidies in addition to maximizing profits by basing crop choice on profitability instead of sustainability, disregarding native species and planting unfathomably large fields of monocultures, squeezing the farmers themselves and funneling all the money to agri-business execs, i.e. they can become richer. Then they run ad campaigns saying 'everyone needs to do their part to save the environment!' which is clearly bullshit when the system itself is made to maximize profit, and not to maximize caring for the earth. Polluting the earth is profitable, and the profits flow ever upward.
Private jets, for one.
Also yachts.
Im not saying that. Its the wealth inequality that stunts society. People don't have the resources to make decisions based on whats best and have to deal with what they can afford. Lack of infrastructure and regulators results in more pollution.
Yes! Let’s stop this modern day slavery.
I'm not against people having money, but to have a thousand times more than most people can make in their entire lifetime is just taking it too far. There should be a cap after which you pay 90% tax or something
Check the progressive taxation we had in the US after WW2 when, barring the racism/sexism/otherisms, the US actually thrived and single income families could manage being middle class, and owning a nice home. Reagan fucked us, but if it hadn't been him it would have been another terrible regressive.
All these conservative lapdogs continue to fuck us all with their single issue voting and sticking it to the libs.
I'm pretty judgy right now so imo anybody voting for GOP candidates in the US is either gullible, brainwashed, semi/fully mentally deficient, or is so racist or scared of other people's peepees that they will vote against their own best interests.
Problem is billionaires don't make "income" and it's quite difficult to even know what they own, let alone how to tax something like unrealized gains on stock holdings that they are using as leverage to get loans
At some point, somebody convinced people that unrealized gains were not actually income because you don't know for sure that you'd make that money, and I think that was a bad idea. Maybe unrealized gains aren't 1:1 the same thing as income, but the calculations of an income equivalent aren't going to be complicated.
If only there was an entire federal agency whose sole job would be to track them down and tax them.
you don't tax the income. you tax luxury expenditure.
if they commission a yacht, they pay 200% tax on that. if they charter a jet, they pay 500% tax on that spend. if they retain a jet, they pay 800% tax on all its expenses from hangar parking to servicing to everything else.
the tax on any car above a guideline value should increase 1% for every 1% increase in value of the car. say, you pay 1% tax for a 1000 dollar car, 50% for a 1500 dollar car, 100% for a 2000 dollar car, 300% for a 4000 dollar car and so on. and not just on the sticker price, but on every service attached to that vehicle (insurance, maintenance, etc.) for its life.
similarly for luxury hotels, clothing, jewellery, watches, golf and ski resorts, and marriages in venice.
My favorite tax policy hack for that last part is for the government to require a billionaire to formally declare the value of each of their assets (for purposes of calculating taxes).. with the stipulation that the government can choose to buy such an asset from the billionaire at the declared value at any time.
Gets to market rate real quick.
thousand times
Oh buddy that's peanuts
the average person could probably earn $100,000,000 if they invested their money well and used all opportunities to make more. lawyers median annual wage is $145,760 which gets fairly close within 80 years of 4% interest.
Why not just have a cap? 90% still means that they can further accumulate wealth, and taxes means they will try to dodge them.
They used to dodge 90% taxes by reinvesting in their workers and their company's reputation. That way the company would last a hundred years and continue to pay out your family for generations, and all you've gotta do is hire people to keep it running.
I’m not against people having money
It's been an archaic and backwards system for managing collective wealth for over a century.
We're living in an era of unprecedented surpluses. But we're still gatekeeping the most rudimentary essentials of daily life behind a paywall.
I am absolutely against people having money. All money causes is grief, anxiety, and depravation.
Fuck that, 99.99% and they'd still have more than we could earn in a lifetime, fuck that and fuck them.
Once you go beyond $100,000,000, there is no measurable difference in lifestyle. However, power accumulates. That amount of power shouldn't be in the hands of so few.
I would disagree, 100 millionaires don't own F1 teams or have boats so large and so much money they can take down bridges to get them out of port.
The problem is people like myself and many other can't fathom even desiring things so absurd... And many of these billionaires won't rest until they own the entire world.
You’re right, of course. I think it’s more like there isn’t much of an upgrade in lifestyle in general. Sure, it’s an order of magnitude more wealth, but you can do basically all of the most luxurious things in life.
For most luxury, you’re staying at the same presidential suite and driving the same car and that kind of thing. It’s not diminishing returns necessarily. I dunno.
Lmao that's because we shouldn't have billionaires
The wealth of the rich is still growing and it will continue to grow automatically until the middle class ceases to exist. If we do not take the assets back, it will become impossible for normal working people to ever buy a house, or have any economic power over their own lives at all - nevermind the political control or the media manipulation.
Extreme wealth concentration is THE biggest issue facing society. Mamdani is absolutely right.
I can’t take anymore
He is right.
Imagine a "billionaire" in the wild: An animal sitting on a vast horde of food that it could never eat while others starved around it ... yea, it would not last long.
Imagine a "billionaire" in a living body. A corporate money making entity would basically be a cancer that had to be removed to save the life of the patient.
Based as fuck. The fact that the establishment players disagree is extremely telling.
He's going to be assassinated, isn't he?
Nah, the mainstream media will just stop reporting on him, the social media algorithms will be tweaked to hide him, and when it comes to the election, people will go "Ugh, who is that Muslim sounding guy? I'm voting for Barron Trump."
Preach!
Bring the Left back in this country finally!
Can we also bring back the classic left strategy of beating the opposition with our picket signs ? I feel like we need some of that energy rn
My sign doubles as a battle axe. There are many conservative mansions in dire need of barbarians to be visited upon them.
Hoarding = mental illness = billionaires
well I have mental illness and some hoarding but I'm not a billionaire, so I don't think this equation works 😔✊
Hoarders are drawn to hoard certain things that make sense to them - cats, newspapers, old cars, guitars (my personal issue), etc.
If whatever you are hoarding starts impacting those around you, you are encouraged to get professional help, but if you are a business person, and hoard money, then you are considered successful, and they put you in charge.
If Cats could become legal tender, weird old ladies would take over the world.
One of my favorite hypotheticals is that once someone gets to a billion money they get a trophy that says "I won capitalism" and anything over the limit goes to folk who need it.
Knowing greed, people would certainly find ways around it, but a gal can dream
In a fantasy world I'd go even further to say if you amass $1 billion in wealth you have it all taken away. So either you consistently give away your wealth to keep it below that level or pray that you helped build a society where losing it all isn't a death sentence.
Ah, the Pythagorean cup of economics
Take it one step further. If you amass $1bn you’re then executed. Best get rid of that cash homie.
So they donate it to "charities" that spend that money privatizing education or whatever cause helps keep them and their kids in a privileged position.
One of my favorite hypotheticals is that once someone gets to a billion money they get a trophy that says “I won capitalism” and anything over the limit goes to folk who need it.
And they name a dog park after you. That part is crucial.
you could make money depreciate over time so it couldn't be hoarded.
I figure this is why Musk had so many kids; he can divide up his wealth “in trust” between all of them, with himself as the eternal executor.
This guy sounds pretty based!
One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.
-Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, 1792
Or, put in modern terms: There is no such thing as an innocent billionaire.
You don't become a billionaire without exploitation.
Or an innocent politician...
No wealth above a certain amount should be inherited. There is no moral justification for absurd amounts of intergenerational wealth.
I don't think "leaving money for my kids" will even be a thing anymore if we all just have UBI, Socialized Healthcare, Tax-Funded Free college, and support for people with diability. I mean, your kida aren't gonna like depend on your wealth "or else they starve", with all the automation that is replacing human workers, there will be a huge pool of money for UBI and, the kids can survive on UBI.
No wealth above a certain amount. There is no moral justification for absurd amounts of wealth.
FTFY
Did you though
It's true yours is a far more civilized way of doing it. My version, if you really think about it puts a target on the back of the Dragons to be slain early so that their Hoard is redistributed to the Free Peoples. Your version ensures that no Dragon ever hoards up too much and we save ourselves all the Dragon slaying dramatics.
Alright, now I HAVE to donate to his campaign.
Here's the link for those who need to do the same after hearing this: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/
It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to believe that's a controversial opinion. Most people will never meet a billionaire in their lifetime, let alone become one.
I have met two minor billionaires in my life. They were both clearly involved in some sort of organized crime activity. And both Trump supporters before it was cool.
Ok... so... who here thinks he'll end up shot sooner or later?
NYC Mayor is his top track, he wasn't born in the USA so that should limit his exposure nationally. He's a convenient strawman for the right so I'd say that keeps him safe but there are guns everywhere so who really knows.
The natural-born limitation only applies to the President/VP, there is no such requirement for cabinet positions, Governorship, or Congressional seats.
Now, this guy still has a general election to win, and if he wins, he still has to prove he can do the job. But assuming he does all that, and he's as capable as he says he is, then maybe in a decade New York will have this guy and AOC in the Senate instead of Chuck and Kirstin....
But New York is probably the most world-wide well known city, and he's running for mayor in it with some rather European-left sentiments. That's no small thing.
All these guys just say what the public wants to hear before election.
Behind the scenes, this guy wants to be a billionarie, and the way there is to make a political career, saying whatever is popular with the voters.
There is no risk of being shot because all this guy is doing is trying to get popular, just like every other political guy before him. He wont be able to get rid of billionaries even if he wanted to.
Possible, but we'll happily take that chance. Candidates like this are rare and you will face the same worry about anyone. I dont think we can just give up. Theres nothing down the road of letting the cynicism win, except maybe fleeing to another country.
Yes, but all those other politicians tend to not be so... "extreme" with their crowd-pleasing language.
This is after he won the election, though
They could just stop impeding progress and let the working class have things like healthcare and a living wage. Guess that's too much to ask and they would prefer guillotines?
These people could still be fabulously wealthy and do anything they want for their entire lives while also ALLOWING for a healthy middle class and things like universal healthcare and living wages.
I capitalized "allowing" because I think it's absurd we're living under their domination and I think it's time we forcibly take what we need from them. The time for being amicable is over.
Trickle Down Economics was a huge success for the Aristocrats, and a disaster for the working class. Obviously, they want to keep the system that has worked so well for them, but it is unsustainable, and it is coming to an end. They are facing two choices:
Trickle UP Economics, in which more money is given to the workers, who will then spend it, stimulating the economy. Every time this has been tried (such as during Covid), it was wildly successful. The money eventually makes its way into the hands of the Sociopathic Oligarchs and Transnational Corporations anyway, but at least it greases the cogs of the economy on its journey upwards.
That would be the best way to handle the economy for everybody. The workers have more spending power, and the rich get richer. Everybody's happy.
OR
Robin Hood Economics, which is "Take from the Rich, and give to the Poor." This usually follows a brutally violent rebellion in which the wealthy do not prevail. It is usually very uncomfortable for them and their families. The wealthy would rather avoid this one.
Of course, they want to keep on going with the plan that has made them wealthy, but we have to show them that the gravy train has come to an end, and we will not be indulging their hoarding mental illness any longer.
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable.
A healthy and educated working class is better at recognizing and confronting exploitation.
Keeping us down lets them rise to aristocracy.
I've always been anti-capitalist but in a Big Sean song he said "money is the greatest drug" and I hadn't really thought about it that simply, they really are just addicted to wealth and it warps the brain. The dynastic capitalist families have encouraged this delusion for generations, further entrenching their alternate worldview.
It's not money it's power (of which money is a manifestation).
Power corrupts.
Nobody should have a right to more than, say, 10 million dollars. Any worth over that, tax it at 100%.
Similarly for companies, tax them dynamically. Ybr bigger the company, the higher the tax. At, say, over a billion dollars, tax it 100%. Limit company sizes to 1000 employees.
This way, nobody is too big, nobody is too powerful, nobody is too rich
10 million seems low only because there are realistic things that can cost more than that. Nothing an individual could buy costs a billion. That’s the heinous part of billionaires in my opinion—it is just numbers on a screen for them to measure their dicks with. No realistic change of lifestyle is happening after the first billion, yet they continue to inhale dollars out of greed and habit.
Bezos is halfway there; his yacht cost 500 million:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koru_(yacht)
Give it a few more years and I bet one of them will buy a a billion dollar yacht. But in an ideal world, such absurdities wouldn't exist.
wrong.
you can buy a lot of political favors
I don't like the idea of limiting company size - there are a lot of advantages of scale. Instead let's say any company over 1000 employees must be fully employee owned
Nah, 1000.is good. Have different companies work together to do the same sized production. Why not?
At that point you might as well just go full socialism; 1000 people is just a mid-sized factory.
Uh huh. Fidsized factory is fine. Also, different employees from different companies. Cleaning? Other company. Transport? Different company
Yeah but what about Elon?
Make the tax scale into an exponential multiplier. Two companies? Double taxed. Three companies? Your taxes are now cubed. So on and so forth.
Maybe subsidiaries of larger conglomerates should be taxed this way as well, take giants like Nestle and Unilever down a few pegs.
I agree there is no reason why an individual should have that much economic power. There is no justification for that amount of wealth in so few hands.
I don't mind people being wealthy, if they are just going to indulge their personal needs. The problem becomes when they have enough economic power that they can enter into personal economic negotiations with other nations that may run counter to the needs of their own nation. It would be bad enough if even a single Sociopathic Oligarchs did this, but imagine if there were multiple people doing it.
What the current Sociopathic Oligarchs are doing is bad enough, but they are still managing to operate like human beings, more or less. What will happen if the billionaire class throws off a straight up psychopath who has no problem killing mass numbers of people, or even likes it? It is only a matter of time before one of these people emerges, with enough money to indulge his perversions, and also to buy his way out of any trouble he may get into.
We have to anticipate these inevitabilities, and avoid them preemptively. We have to stop waiting for easily predictable problems to happen, and only THEN start to address them.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
It's not that we shouldn't have billionaires. Its that we have billionaires when we have people living on the streets because the rent is so ridiculous. Its that we have people dying on the streets because they cannot afford health insurance. The gravy on the shit-fest is that billionaires are actively bribing the politicians to prevent those policies from being implemented. That is the textbook recipe for guillotines.
All of these are reasons why we shouldn't have billionaires, though.
I mean, I agree. It's very bad out there.
I think its more a "we shouldn't have billionaires right now" rather than a blanket prevention of billionaires. They are being a cancer on our politics in the bribery scheme we have from Citizens United in that they are paying politicians to prevent the American people from getting their basic needs met. The existence of billionaires isn't inherently wrong. Hell, if we ever figure out asteroid mining, there'd be quadrillionaires. But, its the psychotic system we have of having billionaires is by them bribe the politicians to deny the people their basic needs. At this point, such behavior is parasitic.
And he's right.
By any measure, the exidtence of that great of a disparity in wealth in a society is evidence of the failure of the systems on which that society is built.
It's akin to if you were responsible for caring for a field of crops, and you ended up with a field in which two or three plants were enormous, bloated and overgrown. a few were more or less healthy, snd the rest were weak and shriveled and starving.
That rather obviously would mean you'd failed.
What is the other sides' argument for why we SHOULD have billionaires?
Genuinely asking if they have anything tough to contend with or is it just another critical avoidance of theirs?
I usually get some variation of “They worked hard and deserve the reward. We shouldn’t take that away from them, they earned it fairly.” Yes, it’s infuriating.
The argument for billionaires is "why should the government be allowed to set arbitrary caps on the amount of wealth you can accumulate" which I generally agree with, but it's clear that wealth hoarding has become a problem. Maybe we say that the most you can keep is 1 billion. Once per year, any personal wealth over 1 billion is surrendered. So you can earn as much money as you want, but you need to spend it or surrender it.
I'd imagine it's just the argument for capitalism. You know, profit incentive increasing efficiency and productivity and all that. Now this stuff is true to an extent (though a lot of politically active Lemmy likes to pretend otherwise), but all the good stuff happens before a single person reaches a billion dollars so if that's the idea it would pretty much fall flat on its face.
I can imagine an argument for certain artists that are so beloved that their art sells globally or they entertain at a massive scale. Think Taylor Swift, or LeBron James. You can wrangle over the specifics of any individual, of course, but in theory that seems reasonable to me on the face of it. I can also imagine a persuasive argument for a business tycoon that builds up his workforce along with his own coffers and keeps them wanting for nothing. But the circumstances around that are pretty far fetched as far as the typical sociopathic billionaire tycoon goes.
AFAIK even seemingly successful musicians often don't really make out with much cash. They incur a lot of costs even under the most "honest" industry contracts. Then there are cases of getting blatantly scammed like the Backstreet Boys or George Clinton.
What is the other sides' argument for why we SHOULD have billionaires?
They think they'll get a chance to bootstrap themselves into being one.
because
The whole billionaire thing is completely arbitrary. It used to be that being a millionaire was a big deal. With inflation, in a couple more years we'll have trillionaires, if Mohammed bin Salman hasn't become the first one already.
If you make more than most people, regardless of how much that is, you should be heavily taxed.
Billionaire says 'I don't think we should have Zohran Mamdani '
Luigi has entered the chat.
He's going to send so many right-wing working poors into hysterics over that.
god he's so hot
Mamdani. He’s so hot right now. Mamdani.
that picture of him in the white shirt
until he could clap with both hands in it
We shouldn't. And he thinks that too. Cool.
I worry the billionaires will send assassins after him. It would cost them so much less than what he's suggesting.
This is an illustration of why it's a problem in the first place.
Great idea. You only need enough money for one lifetime. Not 100000
a hundred thousand is only enough for a few years, not a lifetime
Not a strong stance to be anti-thief. I'll take it though! We all need to speak plain sense more often.
not surprised considering his other views but glad to see his courage in sticking to his principles against a very biased media landscape. even his rap was fun af. this guy never misses.
Zohran the destroyer of billionaires
So happy to finally find a politician who agrees with me
He's going to get killed... Isn't he...
Not if they want to keep order on this continent
BREAKING: Worlds most based man strikes again
Duh, dude is a socialist.
Aye. No way this would fly in a country where capitalism is the culture.
I don't think we should have the situations and lack of regulation that leads to billionaires, especially as it will likely continue to drain/erode the quality-of-life for everyone else to eventually lead to trillionaires...
Yeah, we probably shouldn't have people who horde so much wealth it negatively affects the economy.
If your economy consists of marble bathrooms, mega yachts and third trophy homes then it is working great!
I like this guy
If a Billionaire turned comic book EVIL and decided to go rogue.... What exactly would stop him. Most countries don't have the money or desire to do anything
yea you're watching that now
They are, already there, and have been for decades. How do you think they get all the money they do? One being private equity and market makers. Main street was destroyed in many countries to fuel them.
Never heard of him. He's apparently going to be the next Mayor of NYC, if you haven't either.
For now he's a candidate from the Democratic party
There should be a tax that ramps up more and more the closer you are to be worth 1 billion dollars. If you are worth 999.999 million 100% of your income is taxed so you never reach 1 billion. And guess what? Your quality of life will not be affected in any way whatsoever.
We can give them "would have been dollars" so they can still do their pathetic dick measuring contests
Tax wealth, not income.
Taxes can, and should go over 100% of income. Billionaires have enough assets to live without income.
It's inspiring to see Americans are still fighting the good fight.
Tru dat
Keep this man alive!
Yah I don’t think we should either.
I like this guy.
I agree with him. there's no morally good reason to be hoarding that much money
Based
He fuckin better, at the very least.
Trump-the dems are socialists!
Some dems-i mean were were not, but thank for the idea.
Trump-.....
Had anyone ever said yet... Lin Manuel Mayoranda
I hope he goes far and makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Brave man in a moment that needs brave people.
The super-wealthy are a cancer on society, and just like cancer, they suck up all of the resources while killing the patient.
Yes, that is the word I like.
I don't think we should have any sort of criminal. Murderers, rapists, billionaires.
Order to eliminate all billionaires confirmed! To the Priuses, we ride!
*lift sword out window
*slowly pull away from curb with loud prius humming noise
/s I dont advicate violence and I agree billionaire level accrual of wealth shouldnt happen. When it does it should be taxed like FDR did it. We've never done so well as a country than when we had real progressive taxation. When Maga people talk about making america great agin, thats the era they are thinking about, when a single worker could support a whole family and buy a house and raise kids with a normal job, and a normal job was respected and dignified.
@kreskin @return2ozma Also before Civil Rigths. MAGA is inherently racist as the "great America" is the Amercia with segregation.
very true, although I still believe in progressive taxation and I dont understand if magats want the racism back or their self respect that they cant seem to get any way but being angry and violent. Maybe its both.
Good, I agree.
He has painted a target on his own back though and he should be careful, lest he gets JFK'd or RFK'd.
He's gonna die, calling it now he's gonna have a tragic accident or sudden 'suicide'.
They're calling for his citizenship to be stripped and for him to be deported to El Salvador. If anything happens it'll be right out in the open.
wtf is wrong with you?
harsh truth
They are already proving the rule of law they claim to adore means nothing to them on many fronts, and on this specific topic of Mamdani have already gone from 0-100. When a court blocks their attempt to revoke his citizenship, then what? "Accidental" ICE abduction I guess, but that might be a little risky even for them with such a high profile and beloved politician.
I think we should have billionaires.
Because they wouldn't miss a 90% tax on their highest bracket, and they aren't going away, so why not turn them into the resource they should have stayed.
I mean there's lots of other problems that have gotten far worse in the past decades to make the wealth inequality ridiculous, but a good starting point is MAGA. Bring back the high taxes on those who can afford it, to fund helping those in need.
Well now they're definitely got to pull all the stuff out to try and prevent him from winning. I mean they already were but now they're going to try even harder I guess?
Regardless I'm totally here for it
I am looking forward to rewatching the action mockumentary film about your future president, "Zohran the Destroyer", 30 years from now. The part with him using a morningstar to tear down Mar-a-Lago is great!
I hope nobody tries to assassinate him. Seems like there’s A LOT of money involved in this race.
Mera bhai <3
Agreed.
No shit
I've said this for years, even before getting my brain dirty. Back then I used to say no millionaires should exist, but with the current price of everything, I could at least see an argument now.
But I'm still leaning towards no millionaires should be allowed to exist.
Even 6 digits is actually too many outside of just having a savings hoard if you have a bunch of people to split an inheritance into.
House prices should be 5 digits anyway.
Well too late and they control the government and most of society so whaddaya wanna do about it?
Billionaires are a byproduct of the capitalist system. People will always try to hoard money. What governments should try is to appropriately tax people according to their wealth, material possessions, assets etc and not merely because they earn money beyond a certain arbitrary threshold. In order to do this governments have to spy on their own people. And this will make many people mad.
I guarantee that you could tax rich people more without spying.
Ironically, NYs last good mayor was a billionaire.
He’s going for the martyr angle already. Shame…
He’s absolutely right. Billionaires should not exist.
Wealth concentration is bad for everyone but the wealthy. https://inequality.org/facts/
IDK even they don't seem happy. Elon seems fucking miserable. I mean, I don't feel bad for them, but knowing that literally everyone thinks the world would be a better place without you can't feel great.
And one of the reasons why there's so much more wealth inequality now is what conservatives have done to the tax code. Take a loot at this chart on the highest tax bracket over time.