Billionaires/oligarchs/kleptocrats are incompatible with democracy, the rule of law, legitimate institutions, and human civilization

12 comments

1. First and foremost get rid of the TrickleDown-scam once and for all!

2. The pendulum will swing back the other way. AOC or Bernie may have a chance the next election.

3. This is the same guy that doesnt know what farms look like… I dont think you should hold any value in his thoughts.

4. I agree on we don’t need billionaires. But here is the problem, how do you tax assets?

   His wealth, is primarily in his assets. He can keep getting away with being a billionaire because it is unrealized gains on his assets.

   So if someone holds assets that were once valued at $250million then are now valued at $1billion, how can we properly tax them for those assets. Additionally what if the asset value drops below $1billion, then do we just turn off that 100% tax?

   Genuine question and looking to learn.

5. It cost a lot more than that. He had to pay $44 B for Twitter. Then we don’t know how much money was laundered through crypto and backchannels to pay for the election fraud. Still comparatively cheap though.

6. Taxation won’t work when they’ve bought all our politicians. They’ll never pass legislation that hurts their donors. We have to forcefully separate billionaires from the means of production.

7. TL;DR:
   Wealth Tax – 10% over 1B, 15% over 10B, perhaps more the higher; all current wealth, not unrealized capital gains

   Creating products and services for the bottom 80% makes no sense anymore because it’s a zero sum game. We need to fix this.

   Bottom 30% – give them free money – so I can sell them products and services

   Mid 50% – don’t tax them at all – so I can sell them products and services

   Top 20% – most money in the bottom 80% will get spent and eventually someone in the top 20% will receive it. This is when you tax it… graduated tax similar to what we have now but no loop holes.

   Inheritance tax – 100% over 10M; generational wealth beyond this anti-democratic and a scam. In current value, a family inheriting this amount should never have to work again. Anything more is feudalism.

   This will fix sooo much of what’s broken and make our economy much stronger.

   Rant:
   I’d like to push for a 10% wealth tax over 1B and 15% over 10B, and perhaps even higher at 25 and 50B. Not in unrealized capital gains, but all current wealth. If one wants to maintain their wealth, they will need to produce enough value that their shareholders award them more equity. Down market year? Doesn’t matter, you will be taxed on your current net worth. This same net worth of assets should be the only thing used when granting bank loans so they can’t pretend their assets are worth nothing for taxes and worth everything when getting loans against them.

   This will have a much greater impact than it may seem. If you stop working, that’s fine, your wealth will be taxed and used but you’ll still be wealthy for your entire life and there will never be a product or service that you can’t afford.

   Inheritance tax of 100% above 10M – which is already insanely generous for the next generation to have a leg up.

   The issue with buying elections is one of converting money to political power, and needs to be stopped by other means. End citizens united and do campaign finance reform. Their ability to translate economic power into political power must be ended.

   I don’t think Billionaires are inherently bad, but they do not add value to the economy after a point and wield far too much power to create and maintain monopolies and duopolies. I want them to exist, but they should be truly great to be able to maintain their wealth over a decade.

   We are destroying the consumers and it’s nearly impossible to make products and services for anyone that isn’t in the top 20% (or maybe even top 10%). Below that it’s a zero sum game for products and services to get the money or attention of the bottom 80% because it’s 100% tapped out.

   I would strongly prefer to just give money to the bottom 30% so I can sell more products and services to them, and tax 0% for the next 50% so I can sell more to them as well. The money will circulate!! And eventually get to someone in the top 20% where it can be taxed by government. This will be better for everyone in the economy (though perhaps worse for environmental sustainability).

8. God this guys a douche bag

9. I guess I’ll get downvoted, how much Elon spent is such a stupid example.

   Harris campaign spent 1.5 billion in 15 weeks and lost. It takes more than money to win the country.

10. It’s not that I don’t agree. I do. Being a billionaire is ludicrously unethical. However, he doesn’t have 300 billion “dollars” he has artificially inflated stock “worth” 300 billion. In America, right now, you can’t tax unrealized gains. It’s fake made up value until someone gives you cash for it that then is taxable. Let’s say for argument we took 299 billion dollars of stock away from him and his terrible leadership causes a crash so that the value falls to half, would we have to reimburse the value back to him? Not a trivial question believe it or not.
    Anyway, minimum taxes for high net worth individuals would be fine with me if it excluded one primary residence from the calculation. I don’t mind forcing a stock sale, but don’t want rich homeless people.

    Edit: also in theory, if he was awarded stock as compensation, he was taxed on its value upon issue, so there’s that. That’s always been a tricky part of compensation taxation. Oh well.

11. I mean yeah, but not the most eloquent stating of the problem nor is the proposed solution reasonable or actionable.  

    Musk does have dangerously outsized influence as a result of his wealth, but it might not matter if the culture of the US weren’t a dumpster fire.  His money might put him on TV standing in the Oval Office but it takes stupid people to believe the objectively false horseshit he’s spewing.

    Regardless, saying something like tax every dollar over X at 100% is just not going to go anywhere.  Our tax system certainly needs to be more progressive, but it isn’t as if Elon is sitting there with a billion dollars in a bank account from an accumulation of paychecks.  That isn’t how being or becoming a billionaire in the US works.  

    Nor is it likely he could make that happen by liquidating assets.  If Musk started selling his entire position in Tesla by the time it was over he might be lucky to have half of whatever it is currently valued at depending on timeframe and public knowledge of the event.

    It is access to financing and leveraging assets which could never actually be liquidated at their “on paper” value that gives people like Musk their influence.  That’s the thing which has to be curtailed in addition to a more progressive tax rate.  That situation is neither great politically nor is it great in general; a major economic and market downturn could tee us up for an economic disaster.

    But maybe that’s just how things are.  Maybe we’re just going to be unable to control ourselves and structure our society for the long term, maybe we just have to crash and burn hard every so often.

12. Oligarchs don’t just had control back to the other team because an “election” happened. It’s going to require some creative negotiations to take it back.

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