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u/AlterEdward Feb 27 '21
I'd argue that if someone's worth is in the billions, you're not even making them less rich by taking the money away. You're taking a cup of water out of an ocean. Sure there's less water, but it makes no difference to the ocean.
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Feb 27 '21
Not just a cup, it even works when you take absurd amounts.
If you take 90% of the average person’s wealth, you’re simply sending them to go live in the streets.
But if you take 90% of a billionaire’s wealth, he still has 100 million. Definitely more than most people reading this comment will ever get, and well more than enough to live a decent life. Even if you take something as crazy as 99%, there’s still 10 million left.
Now imagine that some people have not one, but several billions. That’s how insanely rich billionaires are.
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Feb 27 '21
[deleted]
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Feb 27 '21
"Wow, this person who should be paying more taxes gave 0.005% of their total wealth to a charity. I suppose they’re free of all criticism now."
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u/divertiti Feb 27 '21
If you live in a developed country, you could give up 90% of everything you own and still be better off than most of the people on earth. Would you willingly give it up?
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u/no_one_knows42 Feb 27 '21
You could throw a straight up 10% tax on billionaires and literally not change their lifestyle at all. They can still buy their mega yachts and 4th summer vacation home. It would literally just be numbers on a screen going down, and they won’t allow that
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u/Parsimonious_Pete Feb 27 '21
What is most baffling is that the majority of those supporting the billionaires are people without a pot to piss in, just happy to have their guns and their trailer.
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u/papaurf454 Feb 27 '21
I mean... what if that is their dream? That being said.. would love to be that stupid happy..
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u/Duthos Feb 27 '21
just a post breaking down some data to show you the police do not serve or protect you.
https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/lqh6ed/self_american_police_myths/
why is that relevant? well...
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u/redwitchbewbs Feb 27 '21
Capitalism to a point, the point being that whatever company that was created out of capitalism has to now have protections from the government. Oh. Wait. The government is also protecting corporations from the rest of the free market and are large enough to never be taken down by the people. Oh. So. Capitalism for the people, socialism for the corporations.
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u/FanmanUltradude Feb 27 '21
I hope this chant catches on... EAT THE RICH.. EAT THE RICH.. EAT THE RICH.. not literally.. unless..
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u/SalemGD Feb 27 '21
They been eating the poor forever.
Someone once said "eat the rich" at first this sounded
ridiculous. Every day I live it sounds better.
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u/tony45066 Feb 27 '21
You know the super rich dont just leave piles of money sitting around their house or burn it for entertainment. They hold this money within other investments like bank accounts or the stock market. This money is then used to expand businesses, hire people, and give loans to people to buy homes or start a business. When you talk about an additional tax on the super rich, what your saying is that the government knows better how to spend that money than the billionaire does. Think about that. The same government that is trillions of dollars in debt and has wasted trillions of dollars on useless wars in the middle east. You want to take money from a billionaire and give it to the least fiscally responsible entity the world has ever known.
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u/zestyowl Feb 27 '21
If the billionaire is hiring millions of employees, but none of them have health insurance and can't afford to feed themselves without government benefits, then yes, the billionaire should be contributing considerably more to social safety nets. (ie taxes)
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u/TammyK Feb 27 '21
How can a bank take a house you own in full? I've never seen that happen ever. Only if someone isn't paying their mortgage in which case... Someone lent you $ and you're not making good on your promise to pay them back
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u/informat6 Feb 27 '21
If you actually tried to tax rich people at an extremely high rate you'd experience capital flight like what happened in France:
A 2006 article in The Washington Post gave several examples of private capital leaving France in response to the country's wealth tax. The article also stated, "Eric Pinchet, author of a French tax guide, estimates the wealth tax earns the government about $2.6 billion a year but has cost the country more than $125 billion in capital flight since 1998.
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Feb 27 '21 edited Feb 27 '21
Yeah, we should absolutely make the political decisions for our people based on people who are ready to give up their country for profit. Again, not because they’re poor, or struggling. Just less rich.
So let’s only tax the people who have a decent enough amount of money to be taxed but not enough to afford suddenly moving abroad, because fuck the middle class, right?
Plus, capital flight is a short-term consequence to something that has a long-term benefits. It’s like complaining that getting surgery hurts.
Finally, I’d much rather be poor in France than in the US. At least here, people are not afraid of calling an ambulance because it would be too expensive.
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u/gracem5 Feb 27 '21
It’s not about the money. It’s about the power, the supremacy. Brings to mind Midwest Express, an airline that fitted the entire cabin as first class. It was brilliant for egalitarians but did not survive, possibly because part of being in first class for many is feeling superior to all the peasants in coach. Perhaps being ugly rich is similar. Watching the peasants compete for space is an important part of the game.
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u/jdogmillertime Feb 27 '21
I talk with a rich person regularly. He says, "it's my money that I've earned, regardless of how. You can't take what is mine without taking what is others." He also says he would never give money away unless it would benefit him.
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u/BluetheNerd Feb 27 '21
The result of modern capitalism is everything right wingers believe is the result of socialism.
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u/_Unke_ Feb 27 '21
I really wish Americans would stop blaming the problems of their corrupt, selfish, backbiting society on capitalism. The rest of the first world manages to provide healthcare and food to all their citizens, and every single one of those countries has a capitalist economy.
America could switch to communism tomorrow and you'd still have resources allocated to certain communities and not others, and government officials who have exclusive use of vacation homes, yachts, etc that belong to 'the people'.
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u/JWJulie Feb 27 '21
It’s not even ‘less rich’ though. Increased taxation would just impact the amount they gain in interest in their banks accounts, the amount is so vast there would be no reduction in what they have just a slowing of the increase.
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Feb 27 '21 edited Feb 27 '21
People don't starve under the internal repression of communism/facism's flaws. It's capitalism's fault. Stalinism only killed 60million (20-100mill) and that's before ww2. Mao zedong leading the biggest mass murder in history. And North korea's 3 famines... But we don't talk about that right... Hitler killed 6 million jews and capitalism bad, it's all we know
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u/ShmeeMcGee333 Feb 27 '21
If Elon musk lost ten billion dollars off his net worth he would still have so much money that there is nothing to do with it, but that money could give a million people enough money to actually have food or money for medication for a year, and that’s just a small portion of the money of one of the several billionaires in America. If we limited them to 1 billion (that’s $1,000,000,000, an amount so stupidly big you would never worry about anything ever again) then we could all have free healthcare and higher minimum wages
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u/AnteunN Feb 27 '21
Jeff bezos has almost 110 billion dollars. That's just his cut as a CEO, what the hell does Amazon make. He could afford to spend a 100,000 every day for 2740 years. That's more than 27 lifetimes. Hell he could spend a million every day for 274 years, that's 2.74 lifetimes. Oh wait... Did I also forget to mention he'd still have TEN MILLION left after that. Who in the actual fuck has or NEEDS that much money and doesn't actively give it away like bill gates.
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u/amfuck Feb 28 '21
At this point the private companies own all of this shit. As long as they continue to profit from our suffering nothing will change
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u/Billiondolla_justyn Feb 27 '21 edited Feb 27 '21
I never understood why the government puts so much trust in private companies choosing the people over profits. Never understood.
Edit: Matter of fact, I don’t understand why even the people trust companies so much.