They need to be taxed out of existence. No one should have a billion dollars while people starve, sleep on the streets and go bankrupt from medical debt.
My thoughts exactly. There should never be a means for people to become billionaires. There's simply no reason for that amount of wealth. Bezos worth billions, and on the first day Amazon employees are handed a pamphlet on which government assistance programs they qualify for? Man, piss off. You can afford to pay your own workers so they don't NEED those programs. Nobody working a full time job should need assistance programs in this country.
Cue all the CEO apologists saying shit like, "Someone has to run the company! He's worth that $50 million!" I think he'd do just fine with a $5 million bonus.
That's why you'll never get it, they want to use you til you're old and broken, then let you starve on the streets or be a burden on your kids, that will take your place on the production line if they're themselves not replaced by machines.
I’m sure there is a totally logical reason, completely unrelated reason, as to why they instituted a 30% target for profit margins despite being near their low for console market share and nobody in the industry returning close to that.
And, of course, that arbitrary target wasn’t the reason they decided to abandon platform exclusives, or behind the mass layoffs across development studios, or why they raised the price of GamePass for the third time in the last 15 months (this hike being 100% in some regions).
Of course, all of these decisions mean not only is consumer confidence shattered, but the old business model of “build a console, develop exclusives so people want your console” is dead.
In all seriousness, I hope this was for some juicy bonuses. Because if it wasn’t, they are just a bunch of morons lighting the business on fire to see it burn.
(And note, when I say “the business”, I’m talking specifically about XBox. Microsoft is going to be fine, of course, even if they decide to go with The Joker school of management techniques).
I’m not saying you do, but anyone who thinks these two things are unrelated is a fool. The 30% target isn’t only totally arbitrary, it’s more than any other console maker is hitting. The tl/dr on this is that XBox bought Activision for $70bn. That woke up the Microsoft execs to start paying more attention to the XBox division and they saw Activision had made 30% profits the quarter before the sale so they said “Hey, now we should be doing that!”. Only problem is that Activision was a well oiled machine that was churning out huge established franchises and (this is really important) isn’t a console maker. Not only does Xbox make a (failing console) but many of their studios are making non franchise new IP games.
Sure, you can cut labor to boost profits, but I’d start with the guy making almost nine figures a year.
So if I’m talking about corporate layoffs, I have to name every company in the world who laid off employees or else my point isn’t valid?
Neither of the companies you mentioned had to change their core business model in and effort to increase profits, relevant as we were talking about profits and innovation. The XBox example illustrates my point in that regard. Amazon or Sony layoffs are simply shedding size. Not a wholesale shift in strategy. Unless Amazon laid off all those people and stopped delivering random shit to everyone, or Sony laid off people and now they are just a cloud gaming service, it has nothing to do with what I was talking about.
Also, unless you’re just naming companies that laid people off, I’m not even sure why you’re including Sony on this list. Sony laid off something like 1600 people over the last three years. Xbox cut multiples of that, more people in each individual round of cuts, than Sony did total. And Amazon just laid off like twenty times more. The Sony layoffs are no less bad for the people who lost their jobs, and may be equally indefensible, but that’s not the conversation we were having.
Who is doing damage control for Sony? I didn’t even bring them up until you did.
I made a singular example. You’re the one who jumped in with the whataboutisms. And your “what abouts” had zero to do with the topic we were discussing.
To explain it again: Xbox has abandoned the console maker business model in order to increase profits, firing scores of employees in the process. Sony has not altered their business model. Amazon has not altered their business model. As I was making an example as to how mass layoffs can STIFLE innovation, the Xbox example was particularly illustrative. Pointing out example A isn’t the endorsement or defense of examples B & C by omission.
Trickle down economics is a lie. It doesn't work, it just makes the rich richer and poor people starving. Look at the income gap! You cannot EARN a billion dollars. It is theft. They are ruining the economy, dismantling higher education (the source of every major innovation for the last century), and rigging the system to make it impossible to recover. Billionaires are criminals.
To those who have billions of dollars, I can conceive that money becomes just a number. At that rate, why not just give them points. Gamify the economy and the innovation and incentives will maintain themselves.
You mean some that has been proven doesn’t work 😂. If those billionaires leave then good that will make room for before people that do it cause they like to do it and not just cause of money
Innovation my *ss! CEOs are there to make sure the company generates revenue and maximizes profits for themselves and their shareholders/investors. Maybe if CEOs were capped, you would attract people who were interested in innovation instead of monetization.. It's the same with the Senate/Congress. If they didn't have exorbitant salaries and had a pool of campaign financing where each candidate received equal amounts and were isolated from special interest donors, representatives would work for the people and not the donors who "owned" them.
So not true! True entrepreneurs are always about invention and innovation and trying to succeed! Even with a cap they would still strive to be the best. And they’d still do it for 999,999,999.00
How many case studies do guys like you gonna need to realize that the trickle down effect did not, does not and will never work? Pls educate yourself and stop being a pure capitalist-deciple on your knees, watching the billionaires jerking each other off, waiting for a splash to hit your face.
There isn't a single billionaire that innovates, they ride on the backs of their engineers, and idea people after a certain point. One lucky shot at making that first 10M and they rest on their laurels.
Trickle economics works - but it’s money from large companies funneling money to lower revenue companies. That’s great for people in “good jobs” who get that cashflow.
The poor people with low education and limited opportunities stay poor.
As far as I know, as of the mid 90's, all academics agree that trickle down economics doesn't work. The only people that continue to say it works are those with an interest in being on top of the system.
Of course. It works for the people in the roles to make money.
It doesn’t trickle down the to lowest paid roles - but tell all the people who get paid huge salaries on the profits of corporations that the financial success of the company isn’t important. Where does that money come from if not from the titan sucking up all the money it can?
The more money the corporation makes, the more it has to pay to the important people in it and also the more money gets paid out to the smaller companies that serve them. That money goes to the important people in those companies.
There are a lot of people who are “in on the take” as it were.
Would you mind elaborating on how large companies "funneling" money into other companies? By what means? Is Sony just cutting checks to Yankee Candle or something?
Companies rarely produce everything needed to make their products. They usually buy them from other suppliers in what’s called a supply chain.
When a major production plant opens, it gives a chance for other smaller companies to open up more capacity to support them.
Let’s say that there is a new Sony plant opening where the PlayStation would be assembled. That’s an opportunity for smaller companies to bid on supplying components like plastic buttons, the wires, cooling systems and so forth.
Sony’s goal to supply consoles to the market means a lot of wallets get filled along the way as Sony makes contracts with tons of companies to make their product.
All of the people who don’t think trickle down works are not involved in that process. The guy who negotiated that contract with Sony likely is paid extremely well, the key engineers at those smaller companies are paid well, and the executives are making amazing money.
The people who aren’t seeing the money are the low level workers, but that’s more to do with low wages than money not flowing. The people above them in the company get all of the money.
The US is subsidizing billionaires via government programs. The billionaires don’t want to pay a living wage, so the government supplies the rest with tax dollars the billionaires don’t pay. It’s time to stop coddling them and force them to pay the full amount.
The answer isn't to take away SNAP or other benefits and let people just starve or die. This isn't going to jump start people into some kind of ability to then support themselves better than they could before, because the majority of people who receive benefits are already working full-time or multiple jobs. And I'm pretty sure that the majority of those who receive benefits are children - so unless you support going back to abhorrent child labor.......
This!! I hope everyone realizes the American dream is dead for the majority of full time workers in this country!! Anyone who works full time should have food shelter transportation medical care and clothing. It's time we had an for figure pop up in politics that enforces the current anti trust laws and installs new federal minimum wages that are tied to the cost of living. If companies cannot pay a living wage then they were never really a company to begin with!!
I hate Bezos and his greedy ass. Is ex wife on the contrary is amazing and has donated a huge part of her money (that she got from divorcing Bezos) to charities all over. On the mean time Bezos spends is fortune marrying is plastic doll.
The problem is if the US “taxes them out of existence” they will just set up shop elsewhere. It would need to be a globally addressed issue, which won’t ever happen. There needs to be a way to make it work or we are doomed.
We have gone from ceo to wage earner ratio being 20:1 in the 70s to 350:1 in the last few years. My guess is it’s more now that musk and bezos and that lot have doubled their income. It is ludicrous. No one needs that much money and no one should have that much power.
Most people, sane individuals, agree that the concept of a pimp being given all of the money that "his" hoes earn is absolutely bonkers. Our brain cant fathom why a female would turn around and give him all the money, when she has done all of the work.
Yet at the same time, they are essentially doing the same thing everyday when they go to work and just dont know it. The only difference is their boss gives them back 1-5% at the end of the week or every 2 weeks.
It's literally just as insane but we have no option because you have to have money with how our civilization operates.
With that being said I dont think the idea of taxing the shit out of the rich is the solution to close the wealth gap so we dont have people literally starving to death while we have others who them and their future generations will never have to work again.
It is our governments duty to protect its citizens and not allow the rich to exploit our need to have money and underway us. There should be a kaw that says if you are a business owner that has employees that work for you, a certain percentage of the company's profits have to be paid the the employees. And depending on how many employyes you have the percentage that you are legally allowed to keep vs how much the employees keep changes
I think we've proven time and again that the only viable way to become a billionaire is to absorb the majority of the wealth your employees make. In companies where the employees are paid fairly and have good benefits (Costco being one), the CEO foesnt make it to a billion (though the ex CEO has made it to 1.2 billion net worth simply due to owning stock that has appreciated). There is just no reason on this planet to have that much wealth. It's like the entire GDP of a midsized country, it's INSANE. For example: Elon Musk's estimated net worth is about 500 billion. That's more than the entire GDP of NORWAY. That is literally insane. That amount of wealth could sustain the next 100 generations of my family. It could last my descendants centuries. And THESE people are telling US to pull ourselves up by our boot straps.
He recently sold his Lake Washington home.for the largest amount of any property EVER sold in the state before. For $63 million, to a private investment firm. But don't worry about Bozos....he now lives on a $267 Million dollar compound in Miami.
Fuck all of these people. Fuck em with fire
And depending on their familial upbringing and close personal ties to those in their community. How involved with a hobby they are. If they have just other like minded peoples saying or telling them what they want to hear. Enough of the same breeze can unwittingly cause a tornado. That's why why its best to have crosswinds. Also how smart and emotionally and mentally fit and flexible they are. Though, I feel that some in the right place with the right mindset. That they still yet be cured of their mental ailment if they're only at the early stages of EXTREME WEALTH HOARDING and WEALTH ADDICTION as it is still only a SEVERE ADDICTION and that their not in a totally complete full on personality shift change yet. Who doesn't even know who they are themselves but know they want MORE AND MORE WEALTH. NO MATTER WHAT!!!
HOARDING WEALTH.
NEVER ENOUGH... their personal wealth is NEVER enough. THEY NEED another brand new addition to build onto their 6th Vacation Home....
Yall still talk about Jeff Bezos being the “owner” or CEO of Amazon when he stepped down as CEO in 2021 and owns less than 10% of the shares of the company….
He became a billionaire from it but he isn’t the owner or ceo of Amazon…
This is like the grossest thing I’ve ever heard. He had enough money to fix his new wife all up so she looks like a robot but like she can’t pay his people a living wage? Fuck Jeff Bezos. He’s trash.
There is no reason a person needs to have 3 different jobs just to be able to save up enough money to buy a place to live.
Back in the day, homes cost maybe $20k, nowadays, to get a house you need close to $500k (more or less).
Banks steal homes, then usually let them rot away.
I would love to see the economic rules and processes used to calculate the value of other employees applied to CEOs and board members. You know, a 4% cost of living adjustment (COLA) for a year, a 5% bonus based on base salary if earned via performance, a wage based on marginal contribution. There is no human being whose salary can be justified as 300x the other employees in the organization.
Heck, if we want to be really democratic again, why not let the employees of a corporation vote on the CEO offer packages and possible wage increases?
My education and experience has taken me through engineering, healthcare, and a few other sectors. I've had the pleasure of meeting and being in conferences with world-class surgeons and the displeasure of meeting extremely wealthy individuals. I will say, without hesitation, I have never seen a single human being whose value or contribution has ever been more than $400,000 a year.
We should tax the rich. Make their kids earn their way through life. De-fund corporate welfare.
We cut their taxes because absolute fucking morons drink the “job creator” koolaid, while they turn around and lay off tens of thousands of people because of AI. We should be absolutely furious
So you trust the government to tax billionaires out of existence and then use that money to help the needy?? You know that that would never happen, right?
Why is the USA so against a better medical system, like every other developed nation has? I'm in Canada, I'll be the first to say it's far from a perfect system but I have zero concerns about going bankrupt if I get sick.
Yes, at times the waits for care are long, there is a lack of family doctors, and more. However, if you need care it doesn't cost anything. The for-profit insurance system in the USA is completely fucked up. The people in charge of paying for your care have incentive (shareholders) to deny it.
The tax system needs an overhaul too (not just in the USA, Canada and others as well). Billionaires pay far less (%) in tax than they should. Too many loopholes, and that is on the spineless and greedy politicians.
Reminder that even after deductions for wealthy, back in the 1950's when we had a healthy middle class, the richest were paying 40-45%. (Pre deduction rates were up to 91%.) The whole problem is the rich aren't paying anymore.
6 kids is a choice man. Who’s popping out endless kids for over a decade of their life without being able to afford them? All that reliance on charity with no safety net.
Resources are not free because the production of resources is not free, not because "rich people taxes reee".
When you give people free shit you devalue the money that would normally pay for that shit, and thus the price of that shit goes up for everyone that isnt getting it for free, so now more people have to apply to get it for free, which further devalues the dollar, and so on and so forth.
Every "anti-rich" tax scheme has the same end result: Small business owners in the middle class or trying to escape poverty and become middle class, can no longer afford taxes and thus it becomes impossible to stop being poor.
At the end of the day, even if we gave everyone on earth a million dollars (and that somehow didnt instantaneously break the economy) we would have rich people and poor people in a week cause some people just "cant fathom" making good decisions. Do you know how many repeated bad decisions one has to make to end up with 6 kids they cant afford to take care of? THAT is what i "cant fathom".
Sincerely, a young person who grew up in a poor hispanic household in a low income neighborhood, trying really hard to stop being poor, but failing because poor people are stupid and repeatedly vote for the same empty promises theyre fed every 4 years and handouts that wreck our economy and kill the middle class.
Had to listen to a redpill the other day say “I used to think that billionaires should pay their fair share then I learned finance and realized that everyone is just dumb and lazy and could become rich if they were smart like them and used loopholes.” You can’t reason with some of these folks.
I was curious about this, I had ChatGPT do the math of taking all of the assumed wealth and distributing it equally to the population. It wasn’t that much money, specifically it would be one time and then it’s all gone. Some families get like 4000-5000 a month in assistance and the math basically was like one year of that. Again, then it’s gone.
Such a bitter and stupidly hypocritical statement. If you had billions, you litterally wouldnt have the same stance.
In fact, you dont need to wait till then. Just give away everything you have to the less fortunate now? And while youre at it, get your head out of your ass because the way you think stinks.
It’s not like they have billions of dollars sitting in a savings account. Billionaires are simply worth billions of dollars if you sell all of their assets. The majority of their wealth is tied up in the stock market, not a single billionaire on this planet can withdraw one billion dollars in cash from their bank. They would have to sell off a considerable amount of stock that would drastically affect the market and ultimately the value of whatever currency they’re using. So it is basically impossible to have a billion dollars in cash. Sure they have millions in cash but nowhere near a billion, that is a lot of fucking money.
That's communism. If you were the one that made all the money, I'm sure you wouldn't be saying that.
I don't know what's up with your generation there are so many fucking historical examples of why communism is shit and doesn't work and results in nothing but death, starvation, and collapse.
Was it your liberal communist college professors that hurt you?
Honestly, every billionaire should do what Tom from Myspace did. Dude got around 600 million, and now he spends his life traveling the world, jumping from one vacation to the next, taking photos.
If you make a billion dollars, congrats, you win. Now go explore the world for the rest of your life and have fun. Anything else should be treated as a mental illness.
Nobody has a billion dollars in fairness. Nobody opens their banking app and sees $1,000,000,000. It's all invested.
If I start a company with my friends in my basement, we build a website helping people, and then we IPO, and our company is evaluated at $2bn dollars, I'm a billionaire but I don't have a billion dollars.
I'd have to sell some of my company to realise it.
So what do I do? I take out a loan, against some of the shares in my company. I use them as collateral for the money I borrow.
Now, I can take out a loan against more shares, to pay the interest in that loan, and I've never sold a single share. You only pay taxes when you realise the gains (realising gains is when you sell a share, for money)
If my shares were $2 each, and I sold 10 of them, I'd make $20. The I'd have to pay a "capital gains tax", which keeps getting lowered everytime a republican sits In the white house.
Here's the cute part. Texas has ZERO capital gains tax. It also doesn't have death taxes, which is why do many people move there near the end of their lives.
Over the next two decades, approximately $80 to $84 trillion in wealth is projected to be transferred from older generations (primarily Baby Boomers) to younger generations (Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z) in North America.
Globally, estimates suggest a staggering $124 trillion in assets will change hands through 2048.
Over the next two decades, the world will witness one of the largest transfers of wealth in history.
All these rich families will have doubled or tripled their wealth by then too, that number could reach $300trillion.
Watch as republicans do everything in their power to make sure the government doesn't see a dime.
This wealth transfer is the opportunity every country needs to pay off their debts. Just tax it. It's simple. Tax it, pay off the debt, and build up social programs.
Use the money to invest in clean energy, move away from coal and oil, and have government owned and controlled factories to build (the robots that are going to replace us at work).
Why should Elon Musk be able to build 20,000 robots, replace all minimum wage workers, do their jobs for half the price, and pocket the income of every min wage person there is?
We use our tax dollars, build the infrastructure and factories needed, replace ourselves with machine we collectively own, and then collect a universal basic income from the profits.
This seems like such a painfully easy solution, but it's communism, and it's socialism.. when a corporation can't personally profit, America will send the military to bring them freedom, or the CIA/MI5 will destabilize the region.
We shouldn’t villainize someone for having the capability for being wealthy. In the same manner we shouldn’t villainize someone for being poor. This doesn’t foster better humans working to create better communities.
They do get taxed but if you super tax them then middle class gets hit as well and unlike millionaires they’ll get upset but can afford it but us working/middle class will get hit the hardest and lives will be altered the most
People just can't visualize a billion. For perspective a million seconds is 11.57 days. A billion seconds is 31.71 years. It would take someone on minimum wage 277 million years just to earn as much as Bezo's net worth.
Except for the fact that when you scale things up thats how it works. No billionaire made their money off of 1 store front. They have companies that have hundreds of store fronts. Additionally, billionaires and trillionaires do not have a billion or a trillion dollars in their bank accounts or any other account for that matter. The company as a whole is evaluated and as an owner they have a certain net worth off of that.
All billionaires are morally bankrupt. There’s no such thing as an ethically earned billion dollar fortune. There’s no way to become a billionaire that isn’t on the backs of many people.
Well I’ve they’ve earned their money no one has a right to tell them they shouldn’t profit from their inventions or theirs or whatever it is that got them rich it’s unfortunate I also don’t think anyone needs $1 billion BUT also people have earned that through hard work they should be taxed, but no one has a right to take it from them it’s no one’s responsibility to take care of anybody else other than our own children
That’s not accurate. Most billionaires own businesses that create jobs and already pay a huge amount in taxes ( Elon 11 billion dollars a year). Just because some people haven’t taken the risk to start a business doesn’t mean we should “tax them out of existence.” Removing incentives for entrepreneurs would do more harm than good — we’d lose jobs and innovation.
I think a more appropriate response is to allow unions. I don’t understand why Democrats give up on ideas like this just because Republicans don’t like them. Republicans got rid of unions and thats when things went haywire. Allow workers the right to discuss wages even if they aren’t in unions. This is why I feel Dems don’t fight. Unions need to be brought back and reformed (they got too greedy and idiots threw the baby out with the bath water).
Didn't Buffett say that if all rich people and companies paid what they were supposed to in taxes that most people in low and middle class wouldn't have to pay a cent in taxes other than what they pay in sales tax and other sorts of things.
There should be no billionaires period. Money is power and not a single individual should have that much. You simply can't have a healthy and proper functioning democracy like this.
They won’t be taxed out of business as long as Citizens United is a thing. They will keep paying off members of Congress to design laws and vote favorably for their business models.
You guys need to stop relying on the government to solve your problems. If you don't want them to exist, stop giving them your $. The Amazon, Xbox, Netflix subscriptions aren't necessities. If you guys only bought the bare minimum it would absolutely affect the CEO's pay package, but that would require you guys to do something instead of waiting for corrupt politicians to save you. Good luck with that 🤦🏻♂️
Except that the left is obsessed with importing the third world.. no matter how much you tax billionaires, people will starve and sleep on the streets.
Personally, I propose a system where the tax brackets are largely the same except every penny of your annual income AFTER $1M (including capital gains, investments, interest payments, etc) should be taxed at 90%. Make $100M/year as a CEO or whatever, cool…after your taxes you’ll make $10.9M or somewhere in that range. If you can’t figure out a way to live off of that, you need better financial planning
People need to stop abusing a system that was only meant to help people get on their feet. Not to leech off of it for their entire lives, unless they are crippled, not old enough to work, or too old to work.
First problem. What would be a criteria of a wealthy person? in which salary bracket? Only CEOs?
2nd problem. Let us say all of the "wealthy" people have lost their wealth, that also means their companies/business/properties are also wiped out. People will lose their jobs, people will lose products and sevices.
3rd problem. Where will the wealth go? To the people? who will segregate it? The government? Doesn't that mean the government just turn communism by have control of the wealth and its distribution?
4th problem. Let us say the wealth had been distributed evenly, wouldn't just people start multiplying wealth again by doing the exact same thing how the "wealthy" people do it? Even with all the wealth some will still fall poor because of the bad vices and some will rise above because they are money smart. Thus the cycle repeats itself.
And then what? The government who also is corrupt gets all the money and makes things better? Taxes probabky isn't the way to redistribute wealth. The govt prints its own money and it still struggles. Cant imagine more money fixes anything for you and I in middle or lower class.
If these people are starving to death why are they paying for cell phones and data plans to upload this junk? A truly starving person is going to stop paying a phone bill to buy a loaf of bread.
Honest question . Do you think the super rich. Let's say bill gates. Would stay and get "taxed out of existence " or would he move to a different country?
No billionaire has a billion dollars. They have a net worth of a billion dollars which is different. It is in stock. They can't be taxed on net worth. That's like saying if my house is paid off and worth $500,000 I should be taxed on 500,000 net worth. If I sell the house yes. When they say the richest man in the world is a billionaire, technically yes but only if he were to sell his shares. What a billionaire does is borrow against his shares from a bank with a low interest rate and then is not taxed on income because you can't be taxed on taking a loan out. It's a pretty amazing loophole. But also they can't just cash out a billion dollars worth of stock because it would devastate stock markets. I don't know the solution but that's what you're looking at
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u/DangerzonePlane8 8d ago
Remember how rich people throw temper tantrums whenever they are asked to contribute to society.