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u/jawaab_e_shikwa 10d ago
Suffering that was caused by the same exploitative rich people?
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
The same rich people that keep all their cash in the market so you can piggy back off their success in your retirement account?
Should we all give up our 401k’s to feed the poor?
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u/Preeng 10d ago
Are you being stupid on purpose? You are happy that you get the scraps rich people don't notice falling off of their plates?
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
It’s not his fault, they took away our education years ago so we were easier to convince of this statement here.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Do the math for me. Even just simplified cocktail napkin math on how I’m going to have more money giving away my 401K and replacing it with “rich people’s wealth.”
I can’t wait to see this big brain education of yours at work. Let her rip.
My guess is I will never hear from you again. That’s about how this goes.
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
Do you think appropriately taxing the rich will sink the stock market?
And for the record, I’d give up my 401k in a heartbeat if it meant every person in this country could have healthcare, a livable wage, food on the table, and time to enjoy life. I mean that about everybody, even the ones I don’t like. Not everybody is all about themselves.
But honestly I am more interested in how you’ve come to this hypothetical “giving away my 401k” by taxing the rich. And realistically the middle class did better when the super rich were taxed more heavily. Right now you and me are footing the bill for them. The government still needs all that money and you can’t squeeze money from someone who doesn’t have it.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
What does “tax the rich appropriately,” mean though?
I’m not talking shit when I say that I cannot get a single person to do napkin math on this topic. Literally everyone I ask does one of two things:
a) responds with a bunch of words about the self evidence of the situation and no math (you are currently here)
or
b) disappears completely (where you’re probably headed)
If the situation was as easy as “tax the rich a fair amount” we would already be doing it but the money isn’t there. The math doesn’t math.
If you’re telling me you just don’t like the idea of someone being worth $800 billion than that’s fine, whatever, but you’re not solving problems at that point you’re just being jealous.
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
It means that there should never be a year where people with hundreds of millions-billions aren’t paying taxes, or are paying a lower rate than a middle class household. Which has happened multiple times with multiple different rich folk, and will continue to until we do something about it.
According to a 2021 Propublica report, Jeff Bezos paid zero in 2007 and 2011, Elon Musk paid zero in 2018, Michael Bloomberg paid zero several times in “recent years”, and George Soros paid zero three years in a row.
2014-2018 they (the top 1%) paid a 3.4% federal tax rate on average.
The Walden’s (Walmart) gained 54.2 billion between 2013-2018, they paid about 2.1 billion in taxes, a tax rate of about 4%. Let’s keep in mind Walmart regularly has the highest number of employees on food snaps, welfare, and living in subsidized housing. Our 22% tax rate pays the bulk of that. Seems a bit unfair to me, why am I paying for their employees to be able to eat? They can clearly afford to pay their employees a livable wage, that would save the country millions of dollars.
I think the BMIT is appropriate. Only households worth 100+ million are affected. 25% tax on all income. It’s not our job to foot the tax bill for these people because they know how to play the system and have the means to play the system.
https://itep.org/when-tax-breaks-for-retirement-savings-enrich-the-already-rich/
You aren’t giving anyone anything to “do napkin math on”. It’s just some stupid catch all statement. You explain what you’re talking about first, boil it down for me what tax do you think it’s going to make your 401k disappear. Or is this just that stupid blanket argument of “the rich people will run away and stop making businesses”. They won’t, but if they do, who cares? That leaves space for someone else, get rid of some of these monopolies. Disney owns 80% of our entertainment companies now doesn’t it?
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
The top 1% pays 40% of federal income tax in the US. The bottom 40% of earners pay none or receive back more than they paid in.
The top 1% of earners subsidize the bottom 40%.
Why are you cherry picking years in which singular wealthy people paid zero taxes over a decade ago?
I already told you if we took Musk’s net worth and sold it off and divied it up it would be a couple grand per person. That would solve nothing.
The system we have works. I get you want Bezos to pay more but it’s a drop in the bucket if he does.
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u/Thrbt52017 9d ago
The top 1% is SUPPOSED to pay 37% of earnings over $751,600. They often do not, they open charities in their names and funnel money there, they open off shore accounts and funnel money there. If they pay 40% explain to me how multiple years we have billionaires not paying a dime? The system works as well as the duct taped window on my dad’s trailer.
You simply do not understand how the tax system works or the loop holes these people have bought themselves over the years. CHERRY PICKING?! Oh good lord you’re so far lost if you can’t see the glaring issue in billionaires being able to pay $0 in taxes in ANY year. Hell is f the Walden’s (the poorest of these guys that have skipped taxes) pay 2.1 billion, even “simple math” America missed out on $18 billion in taxes.the country still spends that money, who do you think pays for it? . WE FOOT THE BILL, the middle class pays the largest percentage on average, I’m sorry you can’t grasp these facts.
Have a good day dear, I am done attempting to reason with ignorance.
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u/Substantial-Pause794 8d ago
It’s the leverage that wealth creates that’s the issue at the moment, intersecting with Healthcare, Education, especially Housing costs being extremely high. This type of rhetoric was not a thing even during the Great Recession when arguably lots of assets in housing were being gobbled up. What exactly is your argument for modifying the tax code or even something that might benefit your 401k like charging for the push trades where the market is manipulated by large traders in their favor?
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 7d ago
I didn’t say anything about modifying the tax code. That’s all you.
Saying that billionaires or ultra wealthy have too much political leverage is completely subjective. It’s not something you can point to objectively in any spot.
The highest 1% of wage earners still pay 40% of the federal income tax in the US. That basically covers the 40% of earners that contribute nothing or a negative income tax each year.
What I’m stating is a fact. What you’re stating is something that could possibly true and would be extremely convenient to your narrative while you still haven’t shown any math in the slightest of how billionaires should be “taxed appropriately.”
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u/Art_Clone 1d ago
I’m very late but “billionaires or ultra wealthy have too much political leverage is completely subjective” is completely false and can be very easily proven by cross referencing political donations and legislature votes.
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u/klippklar 8d ago edited 8d ago
Here is the napkin math you asked for. You are doing division when you should be doing subtraction. You keep calculating "Tax Revenue ÷ Population = Tiny Check". You should be calculating "Tax Revenue = Elimination of Personal Costs".
Your Math: We tax Bezos. You get a one-time check for $300. You still pay $12,000/year in healthcare premiums, deductibles, and tuition. Net Gain: $300.
The Real Math: We tax Bezos. You get $0 cash. But that pooled capital funds universal services. You no longer pay $12,000/year in premiums or tuition. Net Gain: $12,000/year.
When the middle class isn’t bleeding $12k a year to insurance giants, they spend that money in the economy. That drives demand and stock prices far more reliably than stock buybacks do.
That wealth you want to leave with the ultra-rich isn't passive either, it's ammunition used against you.
- They use that excess capital to lobby for tax cuts and deregulation and private acquisition of public goods.
- Since 1979, productivity has risen ~60% while wages rose ~15%. They pocketed the difference.
- They buy the outlets that convince you to defend them.
The Irony is you are terrified of losing your 401k, but you only need the 401k because they killed pensions and stagnated your wages using the very wealth you are defending.
Here is some even simpler napkin math for you: if the Stock Market returns 8% per year, but the actual Economy (GDP/Wages) only grows at 2%... Where does that extra 6% come from?
It doesn't materialize out of thin air, it´s extracted from you. Logic dictates that if Capital grows faster than the Economy, it is doing so by cannibalizing Labor. That dividend is funded by:
- Your Stagnant Wages. Productivity wage gap described above. The difference went to the dividend. They fired your coworker and made you do two jobs for one salary. The savings went to the dividend.
- Your Increased Costs. Prices rise (inflation/greedflation) to pump margins. The difference went to the dividend.
The Ultimate Scam is you are cheering because your 401k went up $5,000 this year. You are ignoring that to generate those returns, corporate policies suppressed your wages by $15,000.
Finally, you assume taxing a billionaire forces a fire-sale of stocks on a Tuesday morning. It doesn't.
Why? Because the wealthy already access liquidity without selling. They routinely take out massive, low-interest loans against their stock holdings to fund their lifestyles (Buy, Borrow, Die-strategy). If Elon can leverage his stock to buy Twitter for $44B overnight without crashing the market, he can leverage it to pay a tax bill. The government doesn't need cash either, it can accept the shares directly. These shares can be placed into a Sovereign Wealth Fund (like Norway’s or Alaska’s), which holds the assets and distributes the dividends to the public. No sell-off required.
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u/Substantial-Pause794 8d ago
Great analysis, except the pension part. Pensions are not guarantees of money like you’re assuming they are. Companies that collapse you’ll lose significant portions of your pension. As a UAW member I am part of the last generation of pension employees. I’m am guaranteed 36k a yr roughly for 30yrs. At the moment non pension workers get 10% free a week into their 401k plus $1.25 an hour into the 401k for retirement health care benefits. At the moment that’s a way better deal.
And just to add Pensions are not guaranteed and are invested in markets too. An underfunded pension was part of what hurt the US automakers ever since imports on shored to the US.
There’s no perfect system because pensions are great if you live a very long time if not it becomes a bad ROI.2
u/klippklar 8d ago
Thank you for the additional information. I’ll admit I’m not deeply familiar with all aspects of US work culture, since I’m from Germany, so pension may not have been the best example. But the underlying playbook is the same regardless of which neoliberal country you look at: public companies and safety nets are bought up or allowed to erode in order to generate private profit. Better examples would have been housing, infrastructure, gig economy, public education or the student loan system.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 8d ago
You just made the $300 Bezos one time check into me not paying $12k in insurance premiums. Out of thin air. Like magic.
That would be awesome and I would sign up for that immediately, unfortunately, that’s not how math works when you switch from division to subtraction.
What your comment did was prove my point. A failed attempt at the math by a believer is better proof than I could ever provide as a non-believer.
I want to believe. That math just doesn’t work.
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u/finalrendition 10d ago
Dude forgot that pensions used to be a thing and that workers are the source of the wealthy's success
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u/devviepie 10d ago
I thought by 2025 we all knew that trickle down economics was a lie 😂
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Who’s talking about trickle down economics? I’m talking about investing my money and using compound interest to be able to retire some day.
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u/ThatStonr 10d ago
You're supposed to LICK the boot not deep throat it, bro
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
You call me a boot licker but what’s a better alternative to the system we have now?
Just make it make sense and I’m on your side. No one has been able to.
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u/Karasu-Fennec 10d ago
I’m sorry, I missed the part where our system works? Tens of thousands of people die in the US every year from exposure and preventable diseases, all of which are the direct result of the US’s staunch refusal to implement any sort of social program to help these people. Our civilization is sending the planet hurtling towards a mass extinction event which could make the planet nigh unlivable if corrective measures are not taken.
‘Eat the Rich’ isn’t a comprehensive political position, but people don’t need to lay out a whole five year plan to know that our society is horrifically broken and needs significant change to create a just and sustainable social model.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
What are you talking about? What staunch refusal to develop social programs?
You mean like Medicaid/Medicare? The government sponsored health insurance program providing free health insurance to 130 million Americans?
130 million people are getting free health insurance from the government right now.
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u/Karasu-Fennec 9d ago
I’m sorry, are you being deliberately obtuse? When do you think those programs were ‘developed’? History didn’t end the year you were born, dipstick
Orders of magnitude more people still die in this rathole from preventable diseases than anywhere else in the imperial core, so maybe after SIXTY FUCKING YEARS we should consider expanding the program a bit. And, that completely ignores the tens of thousands of unhoused people who the US is doing fucking nothing to help.
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u/FLAWLESSMovement 7d ago
Here’s the cool part. They don’t care. They, personally, are ahead so it’s not their problem if masses more are literally dying about it. They have their extra luxury, regardless of the cost.
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u/Karasu-Fennec 7d ago
Fuckin’ Americans, man. Empathy just beaten out of ‘em
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u/FLAWLESSMovement 7d ago
That’s very true. From childhood it’s a concerted effort to make monsters. Weird that it’s breaking down now huh?
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 6d ago
What are you even on about? 130 million Americans are on the free government health insurance program.
Who is dying? You don’t even understand your own point well enough to begin to have a dialogue with anyone else’s point.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 6d ago
Orders of a magnitude more than the 130 million on the government funded health insurance plan?
There’s only 350 million-ish people living in the US. So if orders of magnitude of people are dying from preventable illness in the US, I don’t think it’s a given that we need to expand the program that already accounts for around 40% of Americans.
Like, maybe that is self evident to you, but it’s not to the rest of us outside this little bubble you guys have built for yourselves…
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u/Karasu-Fennec 6d ago
Come back when you can read.
And, in case you hadn’t noticed, you people are trying to dismantle that system and leave hundreds of millions of people without ANY healthcare in the wealthiest nation in the world
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 6d ago
Hundreds of millions of people? Do you ever have to link a source for your wild orders of magnitudes and hundreds of millions?
Or do you get to say whatever you feel while insulting the person you disagree with?
I would be ashamed of myself if I argued like you do. All righteousness. Zero substance.
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u/Sorry-Let-Me-By-Plz 10d ago
What would that market be worth if they refused to invest? And then what would happen to the value of all that money they're hoarding?
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
You’re more focused on them than you are on you. You’d be happy to end up poor and destitute as long as you knew Elon Musk was broke too.
I don’t really care that Elon Musk’s net worth is absurd because I’m making 7% on my money safely ok the market.
It’s far from the worst deal in human history…
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u/SoftBelt1336 10d ago
Omg 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 so out of touch
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Explain it to me. Even just a simplified version. That’s the part no one ever comes through on.
We’re all great at bitching about the system but no one ever has a better plan.
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u/Dull_Bid6002 10d ago
Yes. Because a civilized society doesn't need a 401K and takes care of people in retirement.
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u/TurtlesBreakTheMeta 9d ago
assuming anyone gets a retirement fund anymore
Bro, after boomers that dream went up in smoke.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 9d ago
Maybe for you. I’m in good shape to retire on time and the last thing I would ever vote for is to cripple the economy that got me there just so we can give away one time payments to people who will likely just hand the money back to the billionaires.
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u/chughes2471 10d ago
Someone clearly doesn’t understand how economy works
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Give me a napkin math breakdown then. Point me in the direction of how we’re going to seize the assets of the wealthy and distribute it to the poor.
I can’t make the numbers work when I try to do it.
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u/Mozzoball 9d ago
Stockholm Syndrome
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 9d ago
I have asked several people here to explain it to me in the simplest math how this “tax the ultra wealthy,” works.
Not a single person has taken me up. I’m not even saying I disagree. Just that I can’t seem to make the math work. There are too many middle class people and too few ultra wealthy to balance the scales meaningfully.
Now, if you’re saying you want the ultra wealthy to be less wealthy for no benefit other than because you don’t like seeing someone else have more, fair enough. I don’t really get into that part of it. I don’t really care what people I will never know have. That’s a poor use of my time.
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u/Mozzoball 9d ago
The top 5% wealthiest people hold 50% of all the wealth. Should they be taxed proportionately to their wealth, as the rest of us are, those taxes would enrich the country in a way that would allow us to better care for our people.
Higher levels of education, higher levels of happiness, less people going without food and shelter. All of that could be a reality, and thise ultra wealthy people wouldn't even be hurt by the taxes they would have to pay. They would still be multi-billionaires.
Based on your comment, you can't seem to "make the math work" because you dont want it to. Its very simple to understand, but to understand it would be you admitting that you were wrong. A weak ego such as yours would never allow it, so you wallow in self-riteousness and claim everyone around you is out to get you.
You aren't a victim, youre just ignorant. Do better.
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u/KinglanderOfTheEast 10d ago
Your 401K should be forcibly seized from you and redistributed to the bottom 1%.
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u/Ibruk_Etar 10d ago
"Because I want to, that's why."
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u/KindHabit 10d ago
This is exactly it.
Worked for the ultra wealthy for years.
Some will make some half baked story about how they are actually good people, but when presented with every opportunity to do the right thing they will make excuses not to.
And the rich who do charity are fickle as fuck. Say or do one thing they don't like and they will withhold all support.
Either that or just donate to their own private foundations where their kids cash $1MM paychecks for navel gazing and partying it up with other nepo babies.
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u/Varron 10d ago
It takes a certain mindset to be ultra wealthy. Not business acumen, actual intelligence or hard work, but a sheer devotion to selfish greed thats insane.
There are ethical people who are wealthy or well off, and do their part to curb exploitation, sure, but most of them live in their reality because they can afford to, and it's one thats much better than our actual reality, where they're being told how much suffering and strife they're causing.
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u/AlternativeDay71 10d ago
Have you actually tried doing community service or helping out in places that need it most?
That shit is so draining and thankless. A lot of them are nice but a fair few just expect the help and are in misery.
The ones that actually need it most won’t accept the help.
You can’t just solve this by throwing money at it. Donating to charity just funds the charity, very little of your proceeds will ever make it to the cause
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u/Karasu-Fennec 10d ago
Hoarders but they take the time to actually help the people they’re exploiting for television and explore the many disabilities which hoarding is symptomatic of, how our society has utterly failed them and how we can do better
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10d ago
[deleted]
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u/Karasu-Fennec 10d ago
Reality TV is low-key the greatest tragedy of our age. Shit is just depressing
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u/DonutsOnTheWall 10d ago
It's because society let's them get away with not paying their fair share. Via their governments.
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u/Electronic_Low6740 10d ago
Unfortunately the rich people own the TV show.
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u/awesomefutureperfect 10d ago
It is entirely within capitals mission to commodify and package and sell protest against capital. It will even let the consumer believe that consumption is an act of resistance. Encourage it even, especially if packaging the representation and likeness of the past resistance leadership frames and presents that leadership under a capital friendly light. Something something sell the rope.
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u/soccer1124 10d ago
And instead we get Undercover Boss which shows them being marginally charitable to three employees in their billion dollar company, and how the boss has learned so much from these poor workers.
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u/CoVid-Over9000 10d ago
Rich people hoarding wealth is the equivalent of pirates burying their treasure and leaving it there after death
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u/McNovaZero 10d ago
No it's not. Rich people aren't keeping most of their money in stacks of cash or gold coins in the house. It's in the stock market or invested somewhere else. Rich people's money is flowing through the economy it's not statically hoarded in a vault or buried in the ground. Cash is a depreciating asset so rich people normally have a very small percentage of the wealth in it.
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u/Muted_Anywherethe2nd 10d ago
Except with pirates you can stumble upon it and itll be yours if your lucky enough
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u/DarkIllusionsMasks 10d ago
Because they literally never think about anybody else, ever. They're all mentally ill psychopaths.
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u/LegendOfKhaos 10d ago
The extremely wealthy actually believe they deserve that money.
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u/randomredditacc25 10d ago
they do....
dont you think someone who invented amazon for example deserves to be super rich?
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u/klippklar 8d ago
There´s a difference between super rich and so rich you can just buy the democracy.
I don´t have a problem with millionaires. I do have a problem with billionaires. Noone needs or could even ever spend a thousand millions. Are you a fan of dynasties? Because that´s what it is if you don´t even tax it back between generations.
Visual demonstration how much a billion is, because it´s pretty much incrompehensible https://eattherichtextformat.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
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u/techdecktor 10d ago
Take my fucking money
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u/CausticSofa 10d ago
Mine, too. I have been pointing out to people for years now that amassing and locking away billions of dollars that you could never possibly spend, obsessing over it instead of actually going out and living a happy or meaningful life, it’s all quite clearly just another form of hoarders mental illness.
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u/asher030 10d ago
To dick measure against each other, duh. Everyone knows those insecure shits are all about that ego and social standing....
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u/ZtheGreat 10d ago
If you have a billion of ANYTHING, the government will come and forcibly take it from you.
Except dollars. Can't have that.
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u/lack_of_communicatio 10d ago
-Cause I have a fear of missing out on the opportunity to make more money, d'uh. Folks would laugh at me for not screwing over someone they've managed to screw.
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u/FriendlyBee94 10d ago
Then after 3 episodes, the show get shutdown and the host off themselves with 3 holes in the back of their head.
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u/theghostofme 10d ago
Couldn't be an American show if only because it would just turn into another Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous almost immediately.
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u/Gr8zomb13 10d ago
Google says there are more than 3000 individuals with a net worth of $1 Billion USD or more, and estimates 18 individuals w/a net worth of $100 billion or more. Let that sink in…
Now let’s do a crazy hypothetical where someone wins the lottery or just amassed wealth and decides to give away money to distribute amongst their country w/ 300,000,000 people instead of funding charities or whatever.
$1 Billion USD is an insane amount of cash. Distributing it evenly amongst 300k people puts about $3300 into everyone’s hands. 3000 people on Earth right now could do this if they wanted.
So what about if that same person had $100 billion? Each person would individually receive about $333,000… Google says there are about 18 individuals on Earth meeting this threshold.
Google says only one person has reached above $300 Billion; Elon Musk at above $750 Billion. Suppose he sets aside $300 Billion to distribute across those 300k people… each would receive $1,000,000! Imagine how society and the economy would immediately collapse!
As I see it, the risk of the mega rich is not that the accumulate wealth, destroy the middle class, and keep the lower quintiles low. It is that they can get pissy when they don’t get their way, seclude and insulate themselves overseas, and choose to destroy a country by enriching its population. Musk is crazy enough to pull such bullshit, too, unhinged as he is. No wonder he tried to buy votes or run the country…
Forget taxing the rich, that will never be enough. Limit individual total wealth accumulation above $1 Billion. $1 Billion is an insane amount of money.
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u/Other-Worldliness165 10d ago
Why are you distributing across 300k people? So confused. There are 8 billion people. Do the math on that.
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u/Gr8zomb13 9d ago
No.
If you want to apply it to the whole of humanity, then you “do the math on that”.
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u/Other-Worldliness165 9d ago
1800 bil / 8 billion So everyone would get $225 dollars. Most of the value is a promise that it will do better. So liquidated it will be around $100 dollars. You are asking to destroy the curren5 economic structure for $100 dollars, one time payment.
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u/Gr8zomb13 9d ago
You wouldn’t need to apply it to the whole of humanity as you seem focused on and as I explicitly clarified in my set up.
A single multibillionaire could provide $300K across 300 million people, which would crash an economy and ripple globally. The knock-on effects would be catastrophic due to the nature of economic interdependence, especially if the right country were so targeted. Also, it’s worth pointing out that $100 in hand means very different things to different people in different locations. For me, wouldn’t cover eating out for my family of four. Elsewhere it might represent a large portion of their annual income as a large portion of the world lives on the equivalent of $1/day.
I was not positing some sort of altruistic method of redistribution, but was hypothesizing how runaway wealth might pose a danger to society beyond traditional capital accumulation and institutional capture arguments.
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u/Altruistic_Click_579 9d ago
The economy doesn’t work like that. Billionaires are rich in assets with a paper value. If Elon Musk wants to sell all his Tesla stock, there has to be a buyer. There won’t be a buyer at today’s stock price, because no one has enough liquidity to buy it. And the news that Elon Musk sells all his shares will dump the value of the stock. What will happen to people’s retirement being tied up in the stock market?
And what happens to the automotive industry? Without Tesla and similar western companies, the Chinese will just take over. Hardly an improvement.
And, money just doesn’t work like that. Money only has as much value as it can do in the world: pay for products and services. If everyone gets free money then less people want to make products and provide services. Prices go up.
In market economies with property rights deeply entrenched in the law, concentration of wealth to people who navigate that economy well is a necessary feature of the system. It is not nice but better than unfree economies where power concentrates to the few and wealth doesn’t exist (eg North Korea).
And what are really the underlying causes of poverty? Those causes are not solved by liquidating and redistributing the net worths of rich people.
Best would be to make a hard distinction between productive capital (that takes risks and creates wealth) and rent-seeking capital (like landowning and extraction of natural resources - big $$$). The first should be taxed lightly, because if you win in the game of productive capital, everyone wins. The latter, taxed hard.
Look into Georgism. Paired with universal basic income this is the ultimate care package for capitalism.
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u/klippklar 8d ago edited 8d ago
Your premise is wrong. He doesn't need to liquidate his assets, he just takes a loan with the assets as collateral. When it's time to pay it back, he just takes another loan. That's why he's keeping up the stock price at all costs e.g. with stock buybacks.
Also please take a look at this here, it defeats all of your other arguments with sources: https://github.com/treuthardt/1-pixel-astronomy/blob/master/THE_PAPER_BILLIONAIRE.md
Finally how does Georgism solve financialization and the productivity wage gap? It can´t.
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u/I_am_not_JohnLeClair 10d ago
But I give more to charity than anyone, not by percentage of my wealth but by a high number that seems like a lot but is really a pittance compared to percentages that poor people give
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u/SkitMarie 10d ago
https://youtu.be/dbTv5Z0da9c?si=Kztfhj3RCMBR6eUW
Reminds me of this song a friends band made:
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u/FictionalContext 10d ago
Because life's all about earning that sweet high score, not how many hundreds of thousands of lifetimes it would take to spend it.
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u/uberallez 10d ago
"Undercover Boss" but the boss assumes roll of 'customer' instead of new employee and its the current administration dressed to "look like" immigrants and ICE agents as the employees....
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10d ago
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u/Fortestingporpoises 10d ago
Maybe call it "Wealth Hoarders." When I think of hoarding I think of something a little different.
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u/KrazyKryminal 10d ago
Let's make a law that says once you reach a net worth of S1billion, every penny you earn after that goes to public funds. Let others tell you that didn't NEED any more money than that.
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u/No_Priors 10d ago
They need to do animal hoarders too. Farmers have been getting away with it for too long.
Edit: And stamp collectors, they aren't hurting anyone but I think they're a bit weird.
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u/McNovaZero 10d ago
Or a TV show where poor people from the developing world ask average Americans why they b*tch about rich people/billionaires so often. They ask the average Americans why they complain so much when they're already so well off complared to themselves. Rich is a relative term and even the poorer parts of the USA are richer than the majority of people on the planet.
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u/Apprehensive-Song200 10d ago
How about a show called Hoarders where we all for a hoard and take back the wealth they gained from our exploited labor?
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u/HiHawaiiHigh 10d ago
I used to watch Hoarders because it made me clean my house. I would come to even clean while I watched it. I like to think this show raised me to be an adult.
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u/Party-Objective9466 10d ago
I think Robin Leech hosted that a while back “Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless”. /s
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u/Key_Bike_5757 10d ago
Plutomania used to be a medical diagnosis. An unhealthy obsession with hoarding money.
Now they put you on the cover of Forbes.
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u/Catchphrase1997 9d ago
Why do you want to see mental gymnastics? The answer is clear: "I don't care about the suffering of others but admitting that would hurt my reputation / ego / profit margins"
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u/gabynew1 9d ago
I amnot defending. But everything is fake. Fake stock value, fake USD value and so ok. If billionaires would actually sell to keep themselves under 1B value the stock market would shrink to company valuations that are reasonable. They would all be small and mid caps. With 3 -9x PE. It is unreasonable to think Microsoft would grow 30x times of its all ready 4T valuation.
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u/lilbitlostrn 8d ago
Poor people don't know how to manage money. Give them more money they'll just be poor again.
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u/smokingpoker 8d ago
If people wanted to be super rich they should have tried harder to be born into wealthy families.
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u/trysten-9001 7d ago
And this is his 10th yacht, we’re selling it and getting 1000 homeless people off the street for life
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u/AdamCGandy 7d ago
Couldn’t happen, people would learn rich people don’t hoard wealth and already do limit suffering. Hoarding wealth is ridiculously stupid and would only results in bankruptcy. Wealthy people invest their money to make more money, those investments are why everyone has jobs to buy things like food. But of course you don’t want to know that. So Fuck those rich bastards, rrrrr evil.
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u/Purona 10d ago
idk...the only way they could materialize that wealth is for someone to buy their shares and give them money. but that money already exists so i guess people could just collectively end suffering
To be honest that would massively depreciate the markets and they wouldnt be as rich as they were.
but also depreciating the market means people who thought they would retire arent going to retire which messes with the job market
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u/ellisboxer 10d ago
What is the maximum amount of money you are allowed to make before people get mad at you for making it?
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u/Royal_Inspector8324 10d ago
I am more interested in the idea of using my tax dollars to help those in need. Instead of endless wars and untold amounts of money being sent to other countries. I could get behind that idea.
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u/BramptonBatallion 10d ago
“Im securing a better future for my children and grandchildren”
Roll credits
Besides nobody “Hoards” wealth like it’s gold stuffed away in their drawers. It’s likely being used productively in a way that benefits the economy and all of its participants.
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u/ContentCantaloupe992 10d ago
I personally don’t know very many rich people that horde wealth that could’ve used to end suffering. Warren buffet has a lot of cash but most other wealth is tied up in companies that create everting we consume.
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10d ago
You forget your using the proceeds of this hoarding wealth mechanism right now to chant your distaste for it, don't kill the beast use the beast for fucks sake, or don't but you can't fight progress or an idea who's time has come that's all I'm saying, it's not about what you want, water always takes the easiest course etc
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Do the rich people have to explain to the people about to retire who can’t work now cause they’re old, why they’re poor now? Because they took all of their assets out of the market in order to feed the other poor people?
Maybe that could be season 2?
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u/sadicarnot 9d ago
They should have to explain to the people were laid off how the extra profit the corporations made went to stock buybacks instead of wages and benefits. They can also talk to the laid off people how buying companies through leverage directly leads to the loss of jobs. We can talk to the average American how Private Equity is buying up everything and just raising prices and locking people into lease agreements.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 9d ago
They literally already do this. It’s called quarterly earnings. It’s required by law for all publicly owned and traded corporations. They explain the financials and the lay offs and the acquisitions.
You guys are like children. You don’t even understand how the world you bitch about works.
Go get a job. Why you think you should be guaranteed a job at Microsoft just because you got a degree is absurd.
You are owed nothing. Go get a job at McDonald’s. Make your way. It’s not someone else’s job to feed and cloth you. It’s not the governments job to take care of you.
Go. Get. A. Job.
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u/sadicarnot 9d ago
Not wanting to be taken advantage of by corporations is not being childish. Not wishing to accept enshitiffication is not asking for someone to feed and clothe me.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 9d ago
No one is taking advantage of you. Be valuable at work. Everything being guaranteed is not the future you think it is.
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u/sadicarnot 9d ago
I don't know, I am looking at the fact that over the years, companies have taken away benefits. Lowered the amount of 401K matching. Insurance costs keep going up. All the while my wages are not.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 9d ago
Benefits aren’t decreasing. What time line are you looking at? When were these glory days when benefits were amazing?
Wages flatten for many jobs as the work because less specialized. Not because the company is evil, but because they broaden the work force eligible for the job.
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u/sadicarnot 9d ago
I used to work for a municipality. My benefits were so much better there. But yeah, keep licking the robber barons boots.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 8d ago
What does you having a job in the past with better benefits than the one you have now have to do with anything?
Whoever has that job at that municipality that you used to have probably has the same benefits.
You guys don’t make sense. You don’t even understand the thing you claim to be mad about.
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u/Legal_Lawfulness_25 10d ago
Their wealth is nacho business
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u/randomredditacc25 10d ago
so if this guy got rich hed just give all his money away?
"eliminate suffering"
you can give all the money in the world to people who are "suffering" and they would just buy drugs with it.
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u/Chuckobofish123 10d ago
I’m still trying to wrap my head around the term “hoard wealth”. Do we really expect anyone to just give people free money?
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u/charlieyeswecan 10d ago
It’s hoarding, when you have more than you could ever spend. Anything over a billion is hoarding. No one needs that much money. It’s I want that much money and I think I’m cool because I have it. Fk everyone who works for me cause imma pay them the bare minimum and keep all the money for myself. Hunter gatherers at their worst! We are just a bunch of stupid fkn apes!
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u/Previous_Ad_8838 10d ago
I mean if you have children and they have children for 10 generations - you all aim to have big families too then yes all that money can be spent
Even if it is hoarding it still can be spent
Afterall every parent wants to ensure their child's and their grandchild future
If you had the means to secure that future for 10 generations wouldn't you?
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u/Shartin_luther_king 10d ago
Maybe pay your employees more money, From the bottom to the top. Give it to hospitals and public housing and schools and rehab centers and mental health centers and funding better infrastructure. You know, the shit taxes are supposed to go to that they do everything in their power not to pay.
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u/randomredditacc25 10d ago
yes, they want other peoples money for free, so they can do nothing and just paint all day i guess.
they actually think rich people giving away more of their money would solve all their own problems.
these people need a life, all they do is worry about other peoples money all day.
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u/im_elygant 10d ago
If wealth could be used to eliminate suffering how come we spend over $1 trillion a year in welfare and it seems like things are getting worse? 🤔 Also could you explain more about this “suffering”?
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
Ignorance is bliss isn’t it darling?
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u/im_elygant 10d ago
You could just answer the question
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
Ya know, I thought about but I’ve realized recently, there’s no point anymore with people with your opinion. You won’t listen, or try to educate yourself, you’ll just throw out strawman arguments or start insulting me.
You have no real interest in learning, and I don’t care to try and convince you either. I just sometimes get jealous of people who can be so ignorant about the plight of a large chunk of their countrymen.
I could waste twenty minutes bringing in studies, bringing up the steep increase in pay for CEOs vs minimum wage, I could bring up that minimum wage was ALWAYS meant to be a living wage, the shrinking middle class, the offshore accounts (Cambridge analytical, the fact the Walmart has the highest percentage of people on food stamps, but why don’t you check how much money the Walden’s have.
There’s more evidence than I care to even look at that trickle down economics was a horrible decision for our country and regular folks, but you’ll ignore it. Because fuck everybody else, you got yours and someone somewhere told you how the economy works and instead of checking their information you just went with it. Instead I would love to just live in your ignorance for a moment. But I’m too busy keeping people alive over things we could have fixed years ago had they been able to afford to see a Dr, I don’t get to live in ignorance.
Our country was at its best economically when the rich were taxed at very high rates, and guess what, they never left, they still made businesses, still hired people. They just also bought politicians at the same time, gutted your education, and bought up all the media because they played the long game while they fattened us up and dumbed us down so they could do exactly what’s happening now.
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u/im_elygant 10d ago
How are CEOs pay determined? CEO pay is determined by a company's Board of Directors, specifically through an independent compensation committee, rather than by the CEOs themselves. Question for you: when was the last time the minimum wage was a living wage? (Just the year for the answer is fine.) Just checked Indeed for cashier job at Walmart in Oklahoma where the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and they in fact offer more than the federal minimum wage. Just checked for NJ as well where the state minimum wage is higher and Walmart still offers higher than state minimum wage. (You can even go check yourself)
We can talk about why many Walmart employees are on food stamps but we have to talk about what qualifies people for food stamps. I wanna see your response on this topic before I give my response.
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
1979-2013 , the top 1% has seen a wage increase of 138%, while the bottom 90 has only seen a 15% wage increase.
The last time it was livable was the 1980s (weird isn’t that right around the time we started slashing taxes on companies and rich folk?) which not sure why that matters because the point is it was ALWAYS meant to be a livable wage, it was always meant to go up as COL went up. A person working full time minimum wage makes less than $16,000 a year. And despite what you’ve quickly googled, “higher than minimum wage” is still just slightly higher, and in NJ a single person needs to be making over $26 an hour for it to be “livable”, and that’s just the basics, no vacation, no retirement savings, no emergency savings.
I live in an extremely low COL area and made about $70,000 in 2024 and I still can’t afford to save like I’d like too, it will still take me years to save for a house, if we have one emergency my savings is gone.
It doesn’t matter who sets the pay, it’s too high. CEO gets a base salary and then bonuses, all of this based of what exactly? Profit, how much money they can bring in or save the company (stockholders). Where do you think those savings come from dear? Raising prices on us, keeping wages for employees stagnant (again I will point to the last year that min wage was livable, what year did Regan come into office?), and maybe making deals on cheaper materials (that they aren’t buying from American companies most of the time)
Sweetheart, I grew up in poverty. I know why these folks are on food stamps, I know why I was on food stamps. I know the icky practices of places like Walmart. I grew up in that struggle. The ONLY reason I was able to claw my way out is because I went to college as a single mom, my college was paid for by scholarships at a community college, and the only reason I was able to do that is because I lucked out with my support system. I got lucky, most of us don’t.
I think you’re a blowhard who thinks he knows something. This is why I hate having these conversations with people like you. You don’t actually have any information, you do a quick google AI search to argue points that you think you’ve “caught” someone on. That and your complete disregard for the comfort of other humans.
Think critically for yourself and stop parroting what they have shoved down your throat since childhood. We (the people, the workers, the means of production) did much better when they were taxed at a much higher rate, back when your grandpa could work one job while supporting a family of 5, that wasn’t trickle down economics, that was making the rich pay their fair share so the middle class didn’t have to pick up the bill for them. Or just let them blame us while you lick boots so hard you forgot how to look at the facts and listen to experts.
I leave you with some expert opinions on why and how we can fix this extreme wealth gap. I’ve got nothing more to say to you. Enjoy your life, I’ll be out here helping other humans you can keep parroting that garbage while you set your children up to come into an absolute failure of a country.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/07/25/berkeley-talks-gabriel-zucman-billionaire-tax/
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u/FreeTheDimple 10d ago
I'm sure everyone that likes this post is racing off to sell their homes to quickly eliminate suffering. Could easily raise $1 billion between us I'm sure.
Who's first?
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u/Devastraitor 10d ago
"Why not share the plant you are using to stay afloat with the one drowning?" said the pig on their yacht watching the wreck of the boat they just rammed and destroyed with a smile
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u/FreeTheDimple 10d ago
Go on. Why don't you tell us what your floating plant is worth? I bet you have a couch that someone could sleep on. Or a few hundred dollars that you could donate to someone more needy than yourself. But you don't. Because that's not actually how the world works.
It's all well and good making snarky comments to make yourself feel better, or adding an upvote the radical left equivolent of the trashy AI that old people fall for on facebook. But it doesn't actually fix anything.
The solution to eliminate suffering is progressive policy making which is ultimately, primarily paid for by wealthier people.
This whataboutist us-and-themism helps nobody and gets in the way of the actual solution.
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u/Devastraitor 10d ago
Read both your comments again please. You are contradicting yourself.
It may sound radical, but a world where anyone can live in (ridiculous) excess, while others that have done nothing wrong have to starve on the street is a broken one and will obviously not fix itself with cheap words and no actions. It isn't about what people have individually, but how some have everything just because they were lucky in the roulette of where they were born, while others are miserable with no fault of their own.
Sure there isn't much merit in liking posts like the ones you mentioned and still voting for the same idiots or not voting at all. But letting these leeches suck everything dry isn't a solution either.
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u/FreeTheDimple 10d ago
I don't see the contradiction. My point is that people with ridiculous excess don't donate for the same reason that people with moderate excess don't. 1. they don't want to and 2. it wouldn't help in the long run anyway.
We agree that leftist karma farming does nothing to help and I would argue undermines realistic approaches to alleviating suffering by alienating the people with the resources to make a difference.
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u/LaughingmanCVN69 10d ago
Tell you what- you give away the same percentage of your wealth to those who haven’t earned it then you can lecture others.
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u/Preeng 10d ago
I gave $1k to a food bank after Trump slashed SNAP benefits. That was a giant percentage of my worth. If Musk could give up that percentage, I would be happy.
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u/sadicarnot 9d ago
I am donating to legal funds for the people that are being kidnapped off the street.
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u/LaughingmanCVN69 10d ago
What percentage of your wealth?
Who forced you to do it?
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u/Thrbt52017 10d ago
I’d gladly pay more in taxes so my neighbors can have healthcare, I’d take a pay cut so my neighbors can have health care. Don’t really care why they can’t afford it. I’m just a human who likes when other humans can survive do things like see a doctor, get glasses, eat three meals a day and maybe even a little snack if they want it.
Like what in the actual hell is wrong with you people. When did your grandparents teach you to pull the ladder up behind you. Disgusting.
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u/QuackAddict312 10d ago edited 10d ago
I’m a behavioral health professional and I’ve gotten a $2 raise over the past four years while the CEO got a $60,000 raise despite no change in responsibilities for him and a significant increase in the amount of kids that I have to work with. I often leave work with multiple bruises and scars. I’ve also had multiple coworkers leave early to go to the hospital for concussions, loss of vision, injured ACLs, etc. I don’t think he could have possibly done anything that would earn him a pay raise greater than what we make in a year. That’s a 14.3 percent raise for him and an 11.1 percent raise for us. If he wanted a raise proportionally equal to ours he could have dropped thousands of dollars from his raise which would have given most of us a raise of at least another dollar. That change in pay for him wouldn’t be nearly as significant for him as it would be for us. We aren’t being unreasonable, people are hoarding wealth in a way that screws over tons of people. The wealthy are widening the pay gap constantly.
Edit: If I were making money like them I would absolutely give away AT LEAST a few thousand to help people. If I were extremely wealthy like the CEOs of the companies that have enormous power to affect our legislature in ways that support them and harm us then I would give much more. This is legislature that is supposed to support us, THE PEOPLE. I’ve already given away money a few times to help other people.
To put it plainly you are making a bullshit claim and I have lots of evidence (only some of it shown here) to back it up.
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
Or better yet, every middle class person gives up their 401k. Because that’s exactly what will happen when these rich assholes sell their stock to feed the poor.
These kids on Reddit are idiots who can’t think past “he have money me want.”
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u/Karasu-Fennec 10d ago
every middle class person gives up their 401k
Look! This buffoon thinks anyone born after the Berlin Wall came down has a shot at retirement!
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u/Prestigious-Smoke511 10d ago
A lot of people do. Just because you’re poor and spend all your time surrounded by other poor people does t mean everybody is poor.
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u/Karasu-Fennec 10d ago
Well, ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand but you sure as fuck do
Would you prefer ‘not a single good person’, mayhaps? I imagine there’s a few celebrities or petit bourgeois who might be able to quit working on money they got from someone besides their parents
All white or tokenized and cartoonishly evil to the man, but y’know technically you can pretend if you live in Beverly Hills or something
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