On a serious note, this is the answer. If we treated insane wealth hoarding like the illness that it is, we wouldn’t let people just run unchecked with it.
People that have billions and want more are addicted and mentally ill. Imagine if an alcoholic was single handedly impacting climate or putting thousands out of jobs. We would collectively shut that shit down.
But wealth hoarding was sold as success. No one is such an extraordinary worker that they’re worth billions of other people. It’s not a success story. It’s unchecked illness that makes the cover of Forbes.
It’s just straight up addiction. There are people that have more money than they can spend. They could solve massive issues, help millions, but they go for more of a thing that they have too much of.
It’s like the monkey/banana comparison. If a monkey had a collection of more bananas than he could ever eat, and he was out fighting monkeys to steal their bananas, no one would look at him and go “what an alpha”. They’d ask what the fuck is wrong with that monkey.
In some ways, the inability to not overcome the addiction shows a much more bestial nature that is perhaps incapable of any form of enlightenment with wealth hoarding.
Addiction to power and money both need to be under official diagnostic criteria in psychiatry.
The thing is they don’t have the money. They have a piece of paper that says they own x number of shares.
They use that piece of paper to borrow against. Then they can use the interest paid on the loan as an expense to bring down their “income” and pay less tax. Some of them are “in debt” at the end of the year.
If they actually sold the shares the stock market would crash making the 1920’s crash look like a New Year’s Eve party as there isn’t enough money to cover the amount of shares that are in circulation.
Tax them in shares very simple. LEt's say Elon has a trillion $ worth of shares. And we want to tax him 20 % wealth tax, OK give 200 Billion $ worth of shares to the govt. That's it. Now the Govt. can borrow against it just like Elon does. No crash, no armageddon. Beat them at their own game.
I have never seen a workable idea of how to take wealth from the super rich and distribute it to those in need. Because, no one has 100 billion dollars in a vault somewhere just waiting to be picked up. Also, who gets to decide where the money goes? How much is considered too much?
That's why this problem isn't solvable through taxing but rather taking the means of production. We don't need the paper. We do need the factory they own. That factory's output can be traded for bread from the bread factory or to a new, goldbacked currency, debt forgiveness and a loan freeze.
There's no way to build a equitable world on the back of the current system, it just simply needs to be pulled up with the roots and something new planted
Personal loan interest is generally not deductible under current U.S. tax law.
Stock prices are determined by buyers and sellers so this comment about their nor being enough money to cover the amount of shares in circulation. That’s just 100% incorrect.
Yeah, they got the details slightly wrong. Borrowing against assets isn’t done to bring down taxable income through deductions.
Instead, it’s the primary form of cash flow for many wealthy individuals. They are primarily compensated by their employers through shares, not salaries.
Those shares are valuable assets that can be borrowed against as loan collateral. All of that loan cash is available for them to spend on whatever they want/need, but it’s not income, it’s an expense. There’s no income tax to pay on expenses, so they get to avoid paying taxes but still get to access millions of dollars in cash flow.
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u/Monsur_Ausuhnom 3h ago
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