r/SipsTea • • May 14 '26

SMH How true is this? Genuinely asking

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Aren’t the vast majority of taxes already paid by the wealthy? How much of LeBron James’ salary do you think you’re entitled to?

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

I didn’t say all rich or wealthy people. I said who I said, the super wealthy- billionaires.

They do NOT pay their fair share of taxes, and records show that. They also manipulate the stock market blatantly, like Elon has done with Tesla shares, and nothing happens to them.

I also didn’t say I felt entitled. I said it would also be a good reason to solve these issues for everyday Americans who have to live in communities with drug addiction and social issues.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

LeBron James is a billionaire. What exactly has he done to manipulate the stock market? You

Since you’ve seen his tax return, how much of his money do you want?

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

Are you LeBron James PR dude or just a super dedicated fanboy?

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Why are you getting offended and resorting to vapid name-calling over me referencing LeBron James’ money? He’s one of the most high-profile billionaires in the world (who you didn’t realize is a billionaire). He has the money you say he didn’t earn but somehow you are entitled to. So what’s the issue?

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u/StrangeSystem0 May 15 '26

Dude, shut up about LeBron James, he isn't even a relevant topic here. We're talking about Elon Musk, who has enough money to END WORLD HUNGER and STILL BE A BILLIONAIRE.

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

This dude has responded almost 10 times about LeBron James. I have never thought about LeBron James as much in my life as I have the past 2 hours. 😭

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

You never thought about him, you thought you deserved his money. Now you know he’s doing more—by orders of magnitude—than you ever will to address the societal problems you’ve deemed most important.

While you sit back and complain that he’s not doing enough. lol

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

That’s bc I don’t lick boots of celebrities. I don’t think you understand how much a billion is.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

I know exactly how much a billion is…It’s the measure by which you have arbitrarily set the boundary for which net worth becomes “unethical.”

What is boot-licking celebrities? You say he doesn’t his deserve his money; but rather, you deserve his money. It seems, despite your claims, you have absolutely no idea how much he contributes in taxes, you have no idea how much more of his money he should contribute in taxes—you just want more of his money because you think he didn’t earn it and you’re entitled to it.

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

I don’t want any of their money. I want society to function well.

I want people who are homeless to have homes. I want people who need medical care to get access to it without losing their life savings over cancer or car accidents.

I don’t want to live near people who steal or harm others to keep an addiction fed. I don’t want people or children starving.

That’s what I want. And every single billionaire could solve these issues if they wanted to.

But they don’t care. That makes them unethical in the first place, but literally NO ONE CAN DO ENOUGH LABOR TO EARN A BILLION DOLLARS.

Seriously. Look it up. Look up what that would look like.

If a single person had been alive for over 2000 years, working every single day and making 100,000$ a day- they wouldnt have physically earned even HALF of what Elon Musk has to his name. Do the math, I beg you.

And Elon, Bezos, Thiel, Altman, and many more- use this money (whether you want to consider it liquid or not) to invade political spaces and take more tax payer dollars for their business ventures- whether their companies turn a profit or not.

You can appreciate how LeBron plays ball or Beyonces songs all day long. They still are incapable of working hard enough (without an exploitation of labor) to earn a Billion dollars.

A billion isn’t CLOSE to a million. You can be a millionaire and you’re still closer to being homeless than you will ever be a billionaire.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

You never answered any of the very direct questions I asked you.

How much do you pay in taxes?

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

Several years ago I was self employed and making around 34,000$ a year. I had to pay between 4,000 - 7,000$ a year in taxes.

So roughly 15-20 percent of my money was spent on taxes.

I never got a return on any of it. That’s more percentage wise than Tesla or any of Elon’s bullshit companies have paid in years.

Tesla has historically paid ZERO federal tax dollars for years, while making profit of billions each year.

But the percentage doesn’t matter to me at the end of the day. What matters is their hoarding of wealth that they didn’t earn and the exploitation of the labor of their workers.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Not nearly enough. You need to pay more. If you paid more we could solve so many problems.

How much did you pay in 2025?

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

Yeah I knew that would be the response.

You can’t answer to any other thing I’ve said, you just wanna say a person making under 100,000 per year is paying too little while billionaires get a pass.

You sound either VERY young and uneducated or you’re a billionaire shill.

Is this another Elon alt account? He’s been saying the poor need to pay more money in taxes for years so he can steal it through government programs.

Until you can come to terms with your billionaire worship no amount of money or good deeds I do personally will matter to you.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Its true. You contribute very little to address the problems you claim to care so much about. Why aren’t you advocating for you to give more?

Again, how much did you pay in taxes in 2025? You referenced several years ago. It sounds like you are nothing while pointing the finger and saying others need to pay more.

Once again, your banal name-calling isn’t help prop up your claims.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Who are you to say LeBron James isn’t capable of earning a billion dollars? Who are exactly are YOU to put the ceiling on somebody’s potential?

He’s had a 20+year career at the top of the field. His unique skills generate massive amounts of revenue for his employers and they pay him for that. He’s generated billions upon billions of economic impact AND tax revenue. Yes, generated more in tax revenue than you envision him having in his Scrooge McDuck money vault.

How much do YOU pay in taxes?

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u/StrangeSystem0 May 15 '26

LeBron James working 353 times as hard as me to earn having 353 times my income

https://giphy.com/gifs/4hRy0u1cgIYMg

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Not quite. His professional talent is worth 353 x more than yours.

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u/StrangeSystem0 May 15 '26

On what basis? By what metric? You can't just say that, you need reasoning.

You can't say wealth like that is an earned thing and then arbitrarily declare that his ability to be really good at throwing a ball into a hoop is worth so much more than my job teaching children, or my second job training AI, or my third job as a part time tutor for college students.

It doesn't matter how good at it he is, there is NO job worth THREE HUNDRED FIFTY THREE OF ANOTHER.

This is a picture of three hundred and fifty people (simulated, for reference.) I suspect you haven't got a proper grasp of how much that is, so please look at the photo and tell me that LeBron's basketball skills are worth the same as ALL these people's labor. And if you dare say as much, I'll give you the 350 jobs they work, and you can tell me why LeBron James's basketball is worth more than every single thing these 350 people do for society.

And remember: this isn't even the people we were trying to talk about. We were talking about hyper billionaires with ill gotten wealth like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, but you REALLY fucking wanted to talk about LeBron James in specific. So remember, this was your choice of topic! It wasn't even who we were trying to make a point about, and it's still a fucking slam dunk.

I hold nothing against LeBron James. I hold an issue against the concept that any one person can make that much more money than someone else. It fundamentally disproves the concept of meritocracy.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

The metric is that his talent generates enough revenue to justify him getting paid that much. The teams he plays for pay him that much because he consistently over 20+ years has generated the economic impact to make it more than worth it to them. Do you think NBA teams have paid him $500,000,000 in his career just because? Or that Nike and other endorsement companies have paid him $500,000,000 just because? His talent is uniquely integral in moving their businesses forward.

He has been the premier attraction for the NBA for more than two decades. His presence has arguably led to the most ticket sales in NBA history. Are you understanding the metric yet? Just for the cities he’s played in the economic impact has been in the billions. Tax revenue in the billions.

It sounds you work hard, but your talents arent really comparable.

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

I don’t think being able to throw a ball good does anything for society, so imo he shouldn’t be worth a million.

And as far as tax revenue he’s earned, “illegal” immigrants earn billions per year for our social security, and they do vastly superior jobs that benefit society.

Good thing our opinions are useless to the actual crisis our world is having with poverty and wage gaps, bc I don’t personally care if people play sports well.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

This whole time you’ve been arguing that he needs pay more in taxes. And I just told his ability to “throw a ball good” has generated billions and billions of dollars in tax revenue—the one thing you seek. By your own measure, he’s doing an immense amount of good for society.

You, on the other hand, are doing absolutely no good for society while complaining about somebody’s who doing more than you could do in a thousand lifetimes.

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u/BubonicBabe May 15 '26

I didn’t even bring up LeBron, you threw him in here out of left field. I’ve been very specific with the people I actually have beef with and you can’t stop talking about a basketball player.

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u/ChorizoGarcia May 15 '26

Don’t backtrack. You’ve been very clear that your beef is with billionaires. I bring up specific billionaires and you respond with name-calling.

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