1y ago

Everyone's a temporarily disgraced m̶i̶l̶l̶i̶o̶n̶a̶i̶r̶e̶ billionaire

80 comments

I got into it with someone I worked with [who made exactly as much as me.] Asked what would someone buy with $5 billion that they couldn't get with $1 billion. He couldn't come up with something, but was still going to defend someone else's right to have it.
- Twitter in about 6 more months?
  
  Funny, but you have to admit it was low hanging fruit.
- A small country
  
  At the expense of giving 100,000 people a $1000,000 raise, which would massively stimulate the economy.
- The only issue I can think of is that when people reach that billion, they'll just close up shop cause why continue if your revenue is limited to your spending habits. I'd want the answer to that question to be "out of the goodness of my heart" or "to help people" but I sadly don't think a lot of them would do so
  
  Your commnet reminds be about a story I heard. A American guy graduated college and then volunteered to go out and do good in the world. After a year he checked in with some of his fellow grads and saw how much they were making. He did some calculations and decided that he should come back to the USA and get a job. He got a great job with a big salary, and by living frugally he was able to donate enough to support five aide workers.

When you can't have an engaging conversation about anything related to the wealthy because everyone has Stockholm Syndrome.

Maybe if they simp hard enough the billionaire will see their hidden worth and befriend them.
- "Why are you poor? You clearly belong with us rich folk. Hop on, there's always room for one more, innit!"

They're all just as entitled as this character was too.
- At least Joffrey was actually rich though.
  
  They did depend on a big bank, didn't they? And they also used debt as a currency

“We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same. Like somehow the rich will eventually get SO full that they'll explode. And the candy will rain down on the rest of us. Like they're some kind of pinata of benevolence. But here's the thing about a pinata: it doesn't open on its own. You have to beat it with a Stick.”

Why should the fact the guy makes 35k change his opinion?

That is contradictory. If there are no billionaires you cannot tax them. Obviously the 35K guy reacts to that.
- I still call the guy with 900 mil "ultra wealthy".
  
  Obviously not for 35K guy. :)
  Edit: asker chatGPT about it:
  The most well-known lists that rank the wealth of individuals are Forbes’ various lists, including the Forbes 400 for the United States and the Forbes World’s Billionaires list for international rankings. As of 2023, to be included on the Forbes 400 list, which ranks the wealthiest individuals in the United States, a person needed to have a net worth of at least $2.9 billion
  My point is that we often forget how rich the rich are. Human brain just is not good operating with billions.
- I feel like you don't understand how much a billion dollars is. Look the mice don't get fed by giving all of their cheese to the owner of the house in order to feed on the crumbs. This is just the dumbest shit I've ever seen, and it's time to admit that trickle down does not work, will not work, and has never worked.
  
  it’s time to admit that trickle down does not work, will not work, ~~and~~ has never worked, and was always a scam to begin with.
  FTFY.
  
  Thank you for the horrible image you painted in my mind with mice giving their cheese to the owner of the house
  
  it's time to admit that trickle down does not work, will not work, and has never worked.
  Well, we just haven't done it hard enough! That's why we have to eliminate all of the "entitlement" programs that are starving those poor billionaires. Then the wealth will really flow!
  
  It was a sad day in the Stern house when I found out trickle down was once called horse and sparrow ("If you feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows."), but got hit with the ol' bowdlerization beam to be more palettable to the masses.
- Nice crown bro
  
  Succinct.

If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they'd probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.
I'm sure another nation would be more than willing to house billionaires/ultra millionaires and their assets, and your country would lose a lot of money/cash flow/jobs
It's a hard challenge to solve in a world wide setting.
- While that is a load of horseshit, it doesn't matter.
  Either they leave and cost the country less to prop up their businesses through tax exemptions so someone else can fill the void, or they don't leave and pay their taxes. Society wins either way.
  
  That'd be awesome if it were always the case, but it doesn't appear to be - below are a couple articles about raising taxes in nations and what happened when they did:
  https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2019/02/26/698057356/if-a-wealth-tax-is-such-a-good-idea-why-did-europe-kill-theirs
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/10/super-rich-abandoning-norway-at-record-rate-as-wealth-tax-rises-slightly
  Hopefully we can figure something out though, there is too much wealth being horded by only a few at this point. That always seems to be what happens in every modern system we've made on a large scale. Communism or Capitalism, the wealth/power eventually ends up in the hands of a only a few people
- Good riddance
  Having the wealthy here hasnt really helped us they lobby for laws that hurt the common person and benifit them and they dont pay their fair share in taxes.
  They can't take all their resources with them.
  As for jobs most of the resources that create those jobs would still be here why coulden't they just change ownership?
- If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.
  We did tax the wealthy heavily- in the period between FDR and Reagan. From the 40s to the 80s the top marginal income tax rate was between 70 and 94%. And do you know what the ultra-rich did? They prospered along with everybody else, they stayed put in the USA, and they seethed about other people prospering and their loss of power and influence.
  You know what else they did? They spent money to corrupt politics, to pack the judiciary, to legalize bribery and money in politics, to build international legal frameworks to prevent countries from regulating or taxing their billionaires. They stood up propaganda organs to subvert democracy, they paid politicians to betray the voters and strip away their labor protections, and here we are today deep into the garters of another gilded age.
- They didn't leave when the top tax rate was something like 90% back in FDRs day so why would they leave if it's 40, 50, even 60%? I seriously doubt we'd EVER go that high as the ones that would be affected control our government, but still.
  
  But didn't they leave? I think most 70s British rock bands have a chapter where they leave to France or Switzerland directly because of the taxes.
- So you're telling me that we've been able to get Musk, Bezos, Thiel, and the rest of the god-tier narcissists to GTFO this whole time?!
  It'd be even funnier to clawback their dinero after they go to Panama or wherever they fuck off to.
- If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they'd probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.
  Good. Billionaires take many times more wealth from society than they put into it. That's how they became obscenely rich to begin with.
  
  💀💀💀
- Why are you against asking billionaires to contribute back? They get many services from our country, and Uncle Sam expects their duty as well.
- they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.
  No rich people live in New York City, Chicago, San Fransisco, or LA, because the taxes are so high.
  Please don't Google "cities where the highest net worth people live".
  I’m sure another nation would be more than willing to house billionaires/ultra millionaires and their assets
  But would Elon Musk want to move to the slums of Mumbai or the desert wastes of Sudan just to save on taxes? Why don't all the billionaires live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Nashville, Tennessee or Dallas, Texas?
  
  Dallas has a whole lot due to the energy and telecom sectors. The city itself is pretty blue, but sometimes out in the suburbs like Rockwall a full on Alex Jones emerges. It's pretty much the same for every city in Texas.
- Ahh yes, we're all very familiar with the tale of the time the Billionaire came to town and gave everyone money, jobs, and a golden toilet.
- Good luck taking your fucking sky scraper to Dubai
  
  The sky scraper is technically owned by a hive collective of financial AI instruments based out of Kiribati anyway, nothing would change for the elite.
- "oh no"
  
  Anyway
- It's weird how no one remembers the paradise papers and all that. Most of their wealth is already off shore and none of it is taxed. There's no such thing as "trickle down." They are not good for the economy even if they did invest in it in any way other than proverbially setting their money on fire. Meanwhile, most of the property being bought and sold in the US now is owned by the wealthiest people from other countries, not US billionaires.
- Maybe they can go live in China. Jack Ma says hi.
- Lol, where they gonna go?
  
  Literally any tax haven
- If a mega rich dude pulls out, someone else who is okay with making great rather then ungodly money is going to step in to take their place. Richie Rich can't take his factories and land with him, and its rather unlikely his workers would be willing or able to move elsewhere, especially to leave the country, and even moreso depending on the country, so enjoy the brain drain.

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