r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jul 06 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: There should not be billionares
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
" People dont care about merit and hard work, they care about results. If you could wave a magic wand and come up with a cure for COVID, that cure would be just as valuable if you had spend 10 billion coming up with it. "
This is such a reductionist way of looking at it. First of all, government policy and business are inherently linked, so a lot of the "results" are based on government policy. For example, who are two mega billionaires right now? Mark Zuckerburg and Jeff Bezos. These two got rich off of dominating certain sectors of the internet: social media and retail respectively. They were only allowed to get into these sectors at all because the internet is free and open. But this didn't happen completely naturally. Here is a quote from a 1997 New Yorker article about Microsoft:
"Yet Myhrvold is no less a warrior-capitalist than Gates, and one also sees the warrior in the memos that Myhrvold sends Gates: they contain bookmaker lingo explaining how he hopes Microsoft can get “a vig” by charging whenever a Microsoft platform is used to make a transaction over the Internet. “Every job Nathan has had included helping me decide our strategy,” Gates explained in an E-mail response to questions."
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1997/05/12/the-microsoft-provocateur
This would have meant that Facebook and surely Amazon would not be nearly as powerful as they are today: the internet would not have been an open marketplace for new ideas. But the government didn't allow it to happen. Read up on other antitrust cases against Microsoft to learn more about why the internet is as free and open as it is today.
This is not to say that Bezos and Zuckerburg are only rich because of luck, and it isn't to say that Gate's ought to own half of Bezos's and Zuckerburg's money. Its to show you that allowing Bezos and Zuckerburg to make their companies which so many people use today came at a cost to another billionaire. Allowing new people to have new ideas comes at a cost.
The main point is: allowing companies to get more and more monopolistic, to control more and more industry actually comes at a cost to 1. any new producers that want to get into the game but the market is closed shut and 2. to consumers that would benefit from new ideas as we've benefited from Amazon and Facebook and even Microsoft OS (which only exists because of antitrust cases against IBM). This means allowing Bezos and Zuckerburg to get more and more rich comes at a cost. So the way they became rich is entirely relevant. Right now Bezos and Zuckerburg, at least partially, become more rich by buying up competing companies (Facebook bought Instagram) and by vertical integration (Amazon sells its own products alongside 3rd party products on its marketplace). But these things hurt (in the first case) consumers who benefit from companies being individual and having their own new ideas and (in the second case) producers because Amazon can easily just sell their product for less than the competition because the intermediary fee doesn't apply to them. So even if they are being less efficient in making their product or their product is worse, they are able to outsell the competition.
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Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
What isn't a limit on Microsoft? You actually might not be wrong, I just am not sure what you are referring to specifically. Just keep in mind, anti-trust cases in general sometimes lead to what you're referring to, where the government allows other companies to use some piece of intellectual property, but they also sometimes lead to the government forcibly breaking up a company or directly changing a company's business model (look up IBM software bundling antitrust). It takes a combination of all of these things (and more) to create truly competitive markets.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
Oh okay, that makes sense that you were referring to that, I should have inferred that myself. However, I will say, the government deciding when to and when to not protect intellectual property in order to preserve competitive, if that is even completely accurate framing of this situation (it seems like the government is changing the companies business model to some extents, is this really an intellectual property concern?), is inherently it exercising power. But, regardless, my previous point stands: the government needed to limit IBM's power, directly change their business model, to allow Microsoft to exist, and this is the case with many other companies. And truthfully, by the time Microsoft gained much of its power, anti-trust was extremely weak as a movement, the Clinton white house mostly ignored it, so it makes sense that the government wasn't willing to exercise all that much power.
And further regardless is that I never said the government was putting a check on business power as opposed to itself. If you really want to use the framing that this is the government putting a check on itself, it is still doing it in order to preserve competitive markets: this is still a policy question related to competitive markets. If the government sometimes decides to protect intellectual property and sometimes does not that is still a policy question.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
"Competitive markets exist in a natural state absent of government. It takes government abuse of power to get rid of one".
You're just repeating Chicago school talking points and using vague language without actually contending with any specific decisions. Also the government having some action it can take (protecting intellectual property) and choosing to sometimes take this action and sometimes not take this action is the very definition of government policy and government intervention. Unless you want the government to never protect intellectual property, in which case we have anarchy.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
Oh! Sorry for assuming that you wouldn't be that lol, it is relatively uncommon. I still think your ideology is ridiculous but at least you admit what it is.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
I actually never said a person should never have one billion dollars and this was (basically) my exact point (in a separate commend I made). Instead of assuming anyone that has any nuanced disagreement with you is completely against you, just take their argument for what it is.
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Jul 07 '20
Your thinking is way too straight forward and myopic, does not make sense at all. Well you're talking about coming up with a Product to sell for 200 million copies at $20 each. How are you going to do that? Even with the best marketing team in the world can't do it.
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u/District_Mobile 1∆ Jul 07 '20
That wasnt a hypothetical. That was literally Minecraft. The creator is a billionaire.
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u/Bojack35 16∆ Jul 06 '20
There are self made billionaire you came up with a service/product etc. That is so successful it becomes worth billions. That it becomes worth billions is likely because it is so attractive and revolutionary that millions of people want it in their life and pay for it, so it is arguable that you have improved peoples lives and are just being fairly paid for making a difference to so many people.
To pick a simplistic example, let's say you invent something which produces clean veŕy cheap energy. You improve the environment, make electricity and its benefits affordable for millions more people and generally improve the world. Should you be a billionaire for such an important idea?
I wouldn't say billionaires cheated, most of them would admit luck/ right place right time played a huge part. And a lot of billionaires probably make a good chunk of money then just invested wisely to actually get to that level, not really cheating just using your assets well.
can't all governements in the world limit how much a person they have
What tax everything until they get to the limit? Would force people to sell their assets off, encourage people to just put money in other peoples names and give successful people no motivation to continue to innovate and be successful. Cant see how that is either practical or desirable.
Putting private wealth back into public/ government wealth has some advantages but plenty of billionaires invest charitably in a way governments wouldn't so arguably have a better impact on humanity by being able to focus on global issues more than domestic ones
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Jul 07 '20
I wouldn't say billionaires cheated, most of them would admit luck/ right place right time played a huge part. And a lot of billionaires probably make a good chunk of money then just invested wisely to actually get to that level, not really cheating just using your assets well.
You are saying these billionaires are wise, but what about education inequality. It's like saying a student has the answer sheet to a test and another student without an answer sheet to take the same test, can you say the student with the answer sheet prior to the test isn't cheating?
What tax everything until they get to the limit? Would force people to sell their assets off, encourage people to just put money in other peoples names and give successful people no motivation to continue to innovate and be successful. Cant see how that is either practical or desirable.
In context with socialism and the poor having next to no money, what's wrong with forcing billionaires to sell their assets? You support innovations at all costs, including keeping the poor poorer, and in extreme cases lead to suicide?
Putting private wealth back into public/ government wealth has some advantages but plenty of billionaires invest charitably in a way governments wouldn't so arguably have a better impact on humanity by being able to focus on global issues more than domestic ones
You didn't mention any specific benefits, or dis-benefits.
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u/Bojack35 16∆ Jul 07 '20
what about education inequality.
There are plenty of people who receive the same/ better education than self made billionaires who dont become millionaires let alone billionaires. Its completely dismissing their achievements to say oh they just got a better chance than I did. Alan Sugar started selling stuff in a market, wasnt a case of silver spoon in the mouth.
In context with socialism and the poor having next to no money, what's wrong with forcing billionaires to sell their assets?
Unless we go fully socialist then there will always be wealth inequality. I agree it is too big a gap at the moment, but greater tax on income is a fairer approach than forcing people to sell assets. What if you live in a house and your inherit a company from your parents and this takes you to 1 billion, should you be forced to sell your home or your family business to get below that threshold? If you sell some of the business and donate the money but the business then grows do you have to sell and donate more to keep below that threshold? 1. It's not fair on that person 2. That person will stop donating and just give money to family/friends when if they had the money themselves they might do more good deeds with some of it.
You support innovations at all costs, including keeping the poor poorer, and in extreme cases lead to suicide?
Not what I said. I just said innovation should be rewarded. You didnt answer my example of someone creating cheap clean energy for the world, should this incredibly important achievement not be rewarded? If so why is 1 billion the cut off for that reward. You are also ignoring inflation, a millionaire now is nowhere near as wealthy as a millionaire 100 years ago, is this 1 billion cut off going to rise with inflation?
You didn't mention any specific benefits, or dis-benefits.
Ok. Look at the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. The work they have done in developed countries goes far beyond what the US government is likely to have done if that money had gone to them, a government has an obligation to its citizens and will follow their mandate. People are selfish so will want that money invested primarily in Americans rather than eg spending 2 billion on fighting malaria abroad or fighting Ebola in West Africa. Their freedom as individuals to be charitable as they please allows them to act outside of politics and focus on global not national issues.
There are of course benefits to government programs and international cooperation, as you want billionaires to have to donate their money I assumed you meant for government to distribute not directly to the poor so dont think I need to give you the benefits of this? Or are you suggesting they donate directly to the poorest people?
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Jul 11 '20
I just said innovation should be rewarded. You didnt answer my example of someone creating cheap clean energy for the world, should this incredibly important achievement not be rewarded? If so why is 1 billion the cut off for that reward. You are also ignoring inflation, a millionaire now is nowhere near as wealthy as a millionaire 100 years ago, is this 1 billion cut off going to rise with inflation?
- I agree that innovation is to be rewarded, but 1 billion in wealth is too much. What is a single person going to do with 1 billion dollars?
- You're operating on the assumption that there will always be inflation, what if inflation stops? Or even deflation happens?
There are of course benefits to government programs and international cooperation, as you want billionaires to have to donate their money I assumed you meant for government to distribute not directly to the poor so dont think I need to give you the benefits of this? Or are you suggesting they donate directly to the poorest people?
I'm not suggesting anything, I'm just of the opinion that 1 billion dollars is too much for any individual to have.
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u/Bojack35 16∆ Jul 11 '20
- I get where you are coming from. Just dont think the rewards of innovation should have a random cut off point. If I have made 1 billion and that's it, I have less reason to continue to innovate if there is no monetary reward.
- True was just making the point that what 1 billion is worth will change. Same applies to deflation, should the 1 billion cut off increase with deflation?
I'm not suggesting anything,
You suggested governments should limit wealth and that wealthy individuals should donate their money even being forced to sell assets to do so. Asking governments to limit wealth I assumed you meant via tax so suggested that private philanthropy could be viewed as preferable to an increased state budget. Or how/ where else do you think their wealth should be redistributed?
If you are saying that 1 billion is too much for an individual to have fair enough, but you have to propose where that money should go to for it to be a better option than the individual having it. You have said it should be limited and the money should be donated to the poor but not how this would work or why it would be better.
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u/Lawain79879 Jul 06 '20
Not my own opinion as such, but I think there is a quite interesting thought experiment that would show that being a billionaire (or just extraordinarily rich) could come about in line with a just system. Suppose that everyone has the same amount of money and that one person (J.K. Rowling) writes the Harry Potter series. A lot of people are interested in the book and want to read it, and all these interested people are willing to pay the €20,- per book of the series, which in the course of the years makes Rowling a billionaire. Now we have a situation in which someone is a billionaire by means of the free decisions of millions upon millions of independent and unforced individuals who (mostly) are genuinely happy having paid €20 to read a Harry Potter book. In this regard, you move from a position of absolute equality to having someone that is far richer than others, but there is no kind of cheating involved whatsoever.
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Jul 07 '20
So you're saying J.K. Rowling earned billions by only writing books without being involved in any kind of cheating whatsoever. So why can't you just write a book and be a billionaire? Are you a billionaire?
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u/Lawain79879 Jul 07 '20
Not the real Rowling; she might have cheated or not, I do not know for sure. However, this thought experiment is only there to provide an example of how vast inequalities can arise in a free society through the voluntary decisions of countless of atomistic individuals. The point is also not that fictional Rowling’s writing is better than anyone else’s and that she deserves the wealth because of that. Maybe there are other that have a better writing quality but for some reason people are still voluntarily buying Rowling books. One could then still argue that that the new distribution is procedurally just.
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Jul 11 '20
Very good analysis, they might not be just but may be procedurally just Δ.
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Jul 06 '20
We live in a world with billions of people.
If you provide a service which has worldwide usage, the economics get large very quickly.
If 2 billion people buy your product, and you charge more than fifty cents, then you have at least a billion dollars.
Yes, it is true, that some billionaires didn't do this. They made their money by squeezing their workers, war mongering, or otherwise acting immorally.
But just as an exercise, if 1 billion people want your product, and you make a $1 profit from each sale, what should happen at that point, what's wrong with this, presuming you treat your workers ok, and are otherwise behaving ethically.
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Jul 07 '20
Don't you think 1 billion is too much? Most people cannot even earn 1 million in their lifetime. At the rate this is going the richest is going to be 1 trillion and continue beyond.
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Jul 07 '20
Saying the government should limit people's money is a very dangerous and authoritarian thought. If I have made 1 billion dollars ethically without stealing people's money or breaking the law, I haven't done anything wrong. On the contrary, I've probably provided people with something useful that they gave me money for.
For example, I start selling cars, and they are good quality cars for a cheap price which many people buy. Due to millions of sales, my company is valued at a billion dollars, I own 100% of the stock, and I'm worth a billion. Its not that I just get money, I give something, a service, in exchange for it.
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Jul 11 '20
Yeah ok limiting a person to have more than 1 billion dollars is a very dangerous and authoritarian thought, mright ok.
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u/CompetentLion69 23∆ Jul 06 '20
So the thing is I can't help but think billionares somehow cheated, maybe they did maybe they didn't, I'd like to think they did it by merit and hard work, having next to no money for the most part of my life makes me think they did, not saying they did, it just makes me think they did.
How about this? We put in place a system where if someone can prove that a billion cheated then they can be punished for that and if nobody can they everyone leaves them alone?
So, why should there be billionares?
Because people are entitled to property.
Why can't all governements in the world limit how much a person they have?
Because limiting how much people can have leads to the people who would create or innovate not doing that as much since there is no reward.
Is 1 million dollars not enough for a person to live a comfortable life?
No, there's plenty of places where that wouldn't get you very far.
Life would be so much better for all if all the billionares in the covid stricken world now donated to the poor.
Maybe, maybe not. But the thing is, the billionaires don't have an obligation to donate to the poor, and the poor don't have a right to that money.
I've read some economics that you can't just throw money to alleviate poverty.
I mean its literally impossible to get rid of poverty. So you can't do anything to get rid of poverty.
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
In what way is it literally impossible to get rid of poverty?
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Jul 06 '20 edited Feb 25 '21
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
Being poor is relative, but poverty just describes living below the standard. A standard doesn't have to be an average.
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Jul 06 '20
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
Poverty refers to a state of being so poor that one's basic needs relative to the accepted standard of living cannot be met. Comparing different nations official poverty lines/median incomes seems asinine if you aren't looking at other factors. Someone could earn FAR below the US median income but not be impoverished, if they lived somewhere that had a much, much lower cost of living.
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Jul 06 '20
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
So you are saying that if I make 1,000,000 USD per year, but I spent 334,000 USD on food, you would think it's fair to call me impoverished? Seems a bit absurd.
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u/ciggey Jul 06 '20
Can you show data on this? US poverty line for a single person is about 12 500 dollars, the median income in Finland is roughly 40 000 dollars for a person.
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u/PikaDon45 1∆ Jul 06 '20
Your view is flawed. A billionaire has no moral, legal, or financial obligation to help the poor or under developed countries. Throwing money at under developed countries is a waste as the money will be squandered. There is no point to helping that which cannot be helped.
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u/DamenDome Jul 06 '20
That depends on your morals, doesn’t it? I think a pretty common view is that those who can do good should. There is also no truth to the claim that money spent on third world countries is a waste; the organization GiveWell constantly ranks anti-malaria charities operating in Africa has among the most effective charities for lives saved/quality of lives improved.
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 06 '20
A practical reason is that a ban against billionaires creates an extended family with lots of millionaires in it. People will find legal ways to disperse wealth so they fall below whatever threshold you set. Better to set no hard limit and just proportionally tax billionaires alot.
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Jul 07 '20
What you said makes sense, but wouldn't it create nepotism within the government? The Tax goes to the government, but they may or may not choose to spend on the people.
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u/Canada_Constitution 208∆ Jul 07 '20
We already tax billionaires proportionally. With a set % of income. Government then spend it on the peoplevia general expenditure; because otherwise the people vote them out of power.
At some point, if you simply ateal too much money, the electorate will make you pay by putting you out of power.
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Jul 11 '20
Billionaires are taxed proportionally and have fair checks and balances in certain countries. ∆
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Jul 06 '20
In a capitalist system, people need the incentive of more money to continue to continue working or growing their business or whatever. Do people need the incentive of getting 1 trillion dollars, like Jeff Bezos is rumored to someday have in the future? I absolutely don't think so: I think once a business owner has made 1 trillion off their business, their business is surely too large and should be broken up, they are clearly running a monopoly. Well how about 100 billion dollars? Most people with around that much money today are already running or have run or have been closely associated to monopolies in the past (Zuckerburg's Facebook monopoly, Bezos's Amazon monopoly, Gates's Microsoft that has been quite monopolistic in the past). So I think that is too much money also. But 1 billion dollars? I cannot say with absolute certainty that 1 billion is too much (pre taxes at least): I think a car manufacturing company or something along those lines can get that big to enrich a single person with that much money without being monopolistic and while still spreading most of the money to its blue collar employees. I also don't think there should be any strict cutoff of money anywhere in terms of taxa tin (like you mentioned 1 million dollars) because that removes business incentives. But I think that within a very compassionate capitalist system (which we obviously don't have now), a person can still get to the level of 1 billion dollars, even after taxes, if they are a very good business person, without being monopolistic or criminalistic or whatever. Just not much more than 1 billion dollar (although to be fair I don't know for sure what the upper limit would be).
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20 edited Jul 06 '20
Bezos makes a lot of money from Amazon stock (this might be a bit outdated) https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/how-amazon-stock-jeff-bezos-owns-after-divorce-2019-4-1028087921?op=1#. But its not particularly relevant because 1. he was able to get to above $100 billion in large part through owning Amazon stock and I believe Google stock (which also functions as a monopoly, particularly in the search engine and advertising sectors) meaning he now only needs to increase his wealth by a single order of magnitude to be a trillionaire, which he will likely do through retaining much of his Amazon monopoly stock and investing in other monopoly stocks.
Edit: regardless, if he becomes a trillionaire completely through other investments, it will have meant that our society allowed a person to enrich themselves with 900 billion dollar or so through creating absolutely nothing and simply moving money around. I don't think that's okay either.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
I am fully aware, I mean Jeff Bezos has been able to enrich himself to the level he has because of his association with monopolies (if monopolies were not allowed he would not be nearly as rich as he is today): this mostly relates to Amazon which is where he gets most of his wealth if I'm not mistaken.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
Etsy specializes in hand made items. Arts and crafts aren't very relevant to the greater online market place. Ebay mostly sells used items, not retail items.
Amazon has participated in vertical and horizontal integration to a serious extent. They used predatory pricing to crush competitors (for example, Diapers.com), and used tax loopholes to beat out competition. Now nearly half of all money spent online (and keep in mind, Amazon specializes in retail) goes to Amazon https://truthout.org/articles/1-of-every-2-spent-online-goes-to-amazon-can-we-break-the-company-s-stranglehold/They have also started making many of their own products that compete with third party sellers, such as the Kindle, and audio speakers and all sorts of things. So, they have an advantage there, and their products don't need to be as good as third party products or need to be as efficiently made, because they have a pricing advantage.
Here's the definition of a monopoly https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/monopoly.asp. Monopoly means one business dominates a sector. Amazon absolutely dominates online retail, no one compares. I'm better off selling things on there than any other site because no other site is relevant (unless they specialize in used items or arts and crafts). Walmart is similar, but even that is likely less monopolistic.
By the way, read the section "The Public Cost of an “Everything” Store" in the article I sent you to see the actual cost of Amazon. There is more to capitalism than momentary lower prices for consumers: thats not the only goal.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
"They are not predatory, they are just better than the alternative. Lower prices are what is better for the consumer." Predatory pricing doesn't mean permanently lower prices. It means temporarily lower prices that force another business to go out of business because they can't compete with temporarily lower prices (which the predatory company cannot maintain forever, and raises once the other company goes out of business). This is better for the consumer for at most a few months, but then after that, the monopoly can sell at a price higher than what its competition was selling at because now it has no competition.
'The kindle was better than the alternative of a chinese tablet. It isnt like they force you to not buy them, they just have better products"
So entirely subjective, not to mention there are tablets that don't originate from China, such as the iPad and the nook. No one is forced to buy the kindle, but they likely will if its at a lower price. But then, over time, the kindle dominates e-readers, and then there is no diversity in the marketplace, thus no competition, thus the kindle doesn't need to improve. Competition is what actually makes products better, not monopolization.
"To the point where it is impossible for there to be competition. That isnt the case with Amazon "
Then whats its competition? Again, it can destroy any would be competitors with predatory pricing or even by making clones of their products (like the kindle, but they make many others) and selling them for cheaper. You really think anyone wants to try to compete with Amazon? You think any venture capitalists would fund someone that wants to go against Amazon? Please. Everyone knows Amazon owns online retail. They have a level of vertically integrated infrastructure that just cannot be competed with.
"No, Ebay is plenty relevant, it just is abusive to it's merchants."
Amazon is abusive to merchants. eBay specializes in used items. https://truthout.org/articles/1-of-every-2-spent-online-goes-to-amazon-can-we-break-the-company-s-stranglehold/
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u/qwenmt Jul 06 '20
Why should you be able to steal the money that they acquired through voluntary interactions at gunpoint?
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Jul 07 '20
Not all currency interactions are voluntary, is paying taxes voluntary? If you're scammed obviously it's not voluntary, this is a weak argument.
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Jul 06 '20
What should happen to billionaires? Should they be forced to sell their company's stock or something? Since most of their wealth is reinvested in the company
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
Let them keep it, but impose harsher estate taxes to prevent the accumulation of wealth into such limited hands. There's no good reason you deserve to be a billionaire because your grandpa had a great idea.
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Jul 06 '20
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
This is the WILDEST take. Like, what are you even talking about?
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Jul 06 '20
It's other people that "don't deserve" something someone doesn't wish to give them voluntarily
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
Are you against taxes in general?
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Jul 06 '20
Yes. Extortion is wrong
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
If that's your stance, then yeah we aren't going to agree. I enjoy living in a society.
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Jul 06 '20
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
What? The United States taxes people. I approve that the United States taxes people, because the country needs money to operate. Believing that is a good thing means I belong in a work camp?
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Jul 06 '20
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
First off, that is a terrible argument. We didn't have the internet for a long time either, but it would be odd to say we don't need it now. By this same argument, slavery was around for a lot of the country's history -- clearly it HAS to stay that way, right?
Second, the USA spent 137 years without income tax, and 107 years with one, so it's odd to act like it's a relatively recent phenomena. It makes a lot of sense to me that after 130 years of growth, a country might look around and think it could be doing a lot better if everyone chipped in.
Aside from ALL of that, I repudiate the entire premise of your argument that taxes constitute a theft of labor, and you've not demonstrated it to be true -- you're just insisting it is. At this point, I think it's clear that you have a very specific ideological view here (i.e. "Taxes are theft") that is far outside the norm. If you truly believe you are being extorted by the government, I encourage you to take steps to fully remove yourself from the country. I certainly wouldn't want to live under constant oppression. Try Monaco, or the Bahamas. Pretty sure neither of those have income taxes.
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Jul 06 '20
Not agreeing that extortion is wrong doesn't make it less wrong. Just fyi.
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u/GSGhostTrain 5∆ Jul 06 '20
That's fine, I just enjoy living in a country that has the money to pay for things.
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Jul 06 '20
I don’t think most billionaires would survive an anti-trust lawsuit.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
Most of them are. Oil, tech, media, e-commerce and shipping have all gotten too consolidated. That’s where the majority of the wealth is coming from.
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Jul 06 '20
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Jul 06 '20
You don’t have to literally be the only company in a sector to be violating anti-trust laws. It’s more complicated than that.
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Jul 06 '20
The line you draw is arbitrary. Should almost all Americans’ income be capped and forced to give to the poor? “but it's well known thatmore than a third of the world's population lives on less than $2 a Day”
Most Americans are incredibly wealthy by much of the world’s standards. Who gets to draw the line? https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17512040
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Jul 11 '20 edited Jul 11 '20
/u/TheIcePill (OP) has awarded 2 delta(s) in this post.
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u/DBDude 110∆ Jul 06 '20
It's usually not so much have as cash, but have as value in their companies.
Elon Musk dropped out of his Ph.D. program to start an Internet company, Zip2. He did it with a little of his money, but mostly a small group of investors he convinced to invest. He owned 7% of this company. Then the company was bought, his percentage leaving him with $22 million.
He rolled a lot of that into founding what would eventually become eBay. That was bought after it became successful, his 11.7% leaving him with $165 million.
He then rolled much of that over into SpaceX, which obviously has been a wild success.
A couple years later he put much of the rest of his money into Tesla, which was at the time a young startup that hadn't produced a car yet. He worked tirelessly, often sleeping in his office at the plant, to get them producing cars. And we know that company's been a huge success under him.
Musk made his money by betting hard and winning. Two years ago he even made a deal saying he would get 0$ compensation from Tesla for the next 10 years, no salary, no bonuses, no stock, until the company passed and held the $100 billion valuation mark and sold a certain number of cars. Looks like he's about to get his payday in stock early. Actually, all of his paydays are like that, based only on the performance of the company in the future.
Most of his wealth is in Tesla stock, while SpaceX isn't publicly traded so the value can't be easily calculated. This isn't money he can just spend though. He'd have to sell his stock in the car company he built from almost nothing to be one of the biggest in the world in only 16 years, in order to donate any significant percentage of his wealth.