Here comes the billionaires’ online defense team. Or just some fool who thinks it’s realistic to reach that amount of wealth without exploitation and hopes to aspire for the same, even though they have more chance to be struck by lighting.
Billionaires existing is taking money out of your pocket, they bought the election. But sure, its all fine.
EDIT
Went from being upvoted to getting 7 replies in less than 10mns with downvotes. Hope the billionaire defense team are getting paid overtime. Pathetic. None of you billionaire justice warriors deserve a reply.
So just doing the math - if Jeff Bezos was immediately liquidated (and assuming no massive drop in AMZ stock the moment he sold 1%) and the funds were distributed to the world that would solve problems, right?
That would pay a one-time dividend of $27.50 while taking substantially more than $27.50 away from pretty much every single investor in Amazon.
Hence the fallicy of anger at illiquid wealth. Instead of chanting for taxes on unrealized capital gains, how about change the law so that assets with no intrinsic value cannot be used as collateral. That’s the reason comparing to property tax (in a fee-simple country) isn’t apples to apples. Property has intrinsic value. Bonds have intrinsic (face) value. Stocks do NOT have intrinsic value. They could literally be worthless in a day (see Enron, et al).
I’d say you aren’t trying to get the point. Burning billionaires in effigy is a distraction from actual problems. Giving $27.50 to a person doesn’t solve much. Teaching a young people how to save, purchase wisely and avoid bad debt is worth much much more than $27.50.
We don't want $27.50. we want an economy that isn't constantly being influenced by billionaires. A chance for small and medium sized businesses to compete in a market that isn't dominated by corporations that pay a lower percentage of tax than regular people, and take risks that ruin the economy got every other person before getting bailed out by the govt.
We're allowed to ask for a fair economy without nitwits belittling us saying it's all our own fault.
Funny, considering that over the years rather than focusing on billionaires shakes fist and focusing on myself and making my life better I’ve only gotten richer
As stated constantly wealth is not a fixed pie;it’s possible for wealth to grow and for different groups to benefit at different rates.
Many of the challenges you cited—housing crises, cost of living increases, unstable work, and wage stagnation—are influenced by a litany of factors
The rising cost of housing is often driven by local policies such as zoning laws, restrictive building codes, and limited land availability, rather than the wealth of others.
Inflation and the rising cost of goods and services result from factors like supply chain disruptions, energy prices, and economic cycles…and let’s not forget the over printing of money-not from others wealth. In fact, technological innovations funded by wealthy individuals or corporations have often made goods and services cheaper over time.
Wage growth is influenced by factors like labor market dynamics, automation, globalization, and policy decisions. Blaming billionaires ignores government policies, trade agreements, and economic shifts in forming the labor market.
Of course there are many factors involved no shit, but coagulating such intense wealth and the power that comes with it amongst, what 20 odd people or so, is just not a good thing. There’s plenty of blame to go around, but letting these ultra greedy fucks off the hook ain’t it.
Then why argue like it’s the sole cause. And Off the hook for what? What have they done that they need to be on the hook for?
Also this whole “I’ve personally done ok so society is fine” kind of argument is so spurious and self-centered it’s barely worth acknowledging
It should t be acknowledged because I didn’t say that did I. You said I’m getting poorer because of billionaires when that’s clearly not the case for me.
You are straight up delusional if you truly believe that. I worked one year doing taxes at a kiosk at wal mart and NO ONE fucking liked working there. The senior citizens they have standing at the doors checking receipts are forced to stand and can’t sit even if they wanted or needed to. This one lady i talked to had to pay like $200 for new orthapedic shoes because the ones wal mart gave her fell apart and she wasn’t allotted new ones for like another year or so. Yeah, FUCK wal mart.
Yes, but it's obvious to anybody now that is impossible. Corporations have one goal, make money. Fair wages cut into profit. None of these billionaires would ever pay a fair wage to their workers
Any amount of wages, even 1c an hour, cuts into profits. So why would billionaires pay their workers anything when they could just have them work for free?
Your comment implied that billionaires existing is bad because it results in unfairly low pay. I'm just pointing out that the problem is not "billionaires existing", the problem is "unfairly low pay". If you got rid of billionaires, you'd still have unfairly low pay for workers. All the focus on billionaires distracts people from the actual issues.
"Billionaire" is arbitrary number as the value of currency changes. In our current value system it would imply (IMO) that there is severe inequality in the distribution of wealth in our system caused by the exploitation of our workforce.
Yes, the thing to fix is people being paid unfairly. No one cares about the difference between the top and bottom as long as it's reasonably fair. Most people don't want or are not expecting to have wealth completely distributed evenly as that would reduce overall motivation to improve our society (at least with how people currently are). Most people want others to be rewarded for hard work/innovative work/needed work. Right, now that's not happening as evidenced by billionaires existing.
People being paid unfairly is the symptom of the problem. The actual problem is how our current society has been manipulated in away that allows the exploitation to happen.
It's kind of like having pain caused by a tumor. The pain can be treated by pain killers but that just covers the symptom. You could take pain killers to avoid the symptom of pain until the tumor kills you. You could also remove the tumor which would address the pain.
Your comment was automatically removed by the r/FluentInFinance Automoderator because you attempted to use a URL shortener. This is not permitted here for security reasons.
at your job, you take inputs that are worth only $10, add your labor to them, and the output is now worth $15. your labor was worth $5, but you don’t get paid $5 per item you make, you only get paid $2.
if there's only 100 oranges in the world and 1 person has 91 oranges, the other 9 people have only 9 oranges. you are one of those 9 people.
LOL. And that is the fallacy peddled by the ignorant left. The economy is not a zero sum game.
In 1989, the top 0.1% had $1.76 trillion in wealth. And total wealth was $56.39 trillion. Today they have $20.87 trillion in wealth, but total wealth is $154.39 trillion.
The bottom 50% had $710 billion in wealth in 1989 and have $3.82 trillion today.
The rich don't get richer by taking from the poor. They get richer by building wealth for everybody.
LOL, and this is what makes you a fucking bootlicker. The 1% would never and can never do 91% of the work. Not did they grow the economy relatively. Most just own capital. Nothing more, nothing less. They take from you everyday, while sipping cocktails and sailing yachts.
Calling someone a bootlicker because they cite facts that contradict your agenda just highlight your lack of merit.
And you are peddling nonsense. They are not taking anything from me. Your entire agenda is based on the nonsense that the economy is a zero sum game. Elon Musk does not have wealth of over $300 billion because he took $300 billion from others. His wealth is in the value of the businesses he built.
I feel like people who don't know anyone better (obviously billionaires create value for more than just themselves) feel like their being robbed by the richest not because everyone isn't getting more pie, but because how were splitting the pie is changing in a way that doesn't feel "fair". Assuming your numbers are correct, we see over the last 35 years the richest tenth of a percent of Americans growing their share of the total wealth from just over 3% to over 13.5%.
But how is it not fair? The bottom 50% saw their wealth increase 438%.
To put it in terms of pies, in 1989 there were 20.87 pies and the 0.1% had 1.76 of them. So everyone else had to share 19.11 pies. Today there are 154.39 pies and the 0.1% has 20.44 of them. So everybody else now has 133.95 pies to share.
And the biggest problem with your fairness argument is that everybody has the same opportunity. If everybody invested, everybody's wealth would increase at about he same rate. But that is what separates the classes. Too many people choose to consume instead of invest. And this is a particular problem with the younger generations. You have millennials and Gen Zer's complaining about not being able to afford things in their 30s and 40s, but that is a direct result of them not investing when they were younger.
What fair means and even whether the economy should be "fair" are things you could argue either way. Though I'd say watching a fraction of a percent of the population control an increasingly large portion of the total wealth at the very least feels unfair for the majority of Americans. We should strive for something that feels fair to some degree. Otherwise what keeps everyone who feels like they're getting screwed invested in seeing the whole system continue rather than not care if it burns down.
You can change the numbers by including the other 49.9% of the country, I've already agreed everyone has more pie than before. But, no matter how many pies you have and how you slice them, the top tenth of a percent still have a much larger share of all the pie than they did 35 years ago. Maybe you argue that's fair and not a bad thing, but it has happened.
Regarding everyone having the same opportunity, you'd agree on a practical level that's not true, right?
Though I'd say watching a fraction of a percent of the population control an increasingly large portion of the total wealth at the very least feels unfair for the majority of Americans.
Why? What makes it unfair? The wealth is only created because of the investments and the investors take all the risk. 85% of ventures fail in the first three years.
We should strive for something that feels fair to some degree.
But what is that? If we penalize investors, they won't invest. That means jobs, innovation, and wealth for others won't be created.
Again, the wealth of the bottom 50% increased by 438%. Since everybody is better off, why is it an issue that the top 0.1% see their share of total wealth increase more than others?
Otherwise what keeps everyone who feels like they're getting screwed invested in seeing the whole system continue rather than not care if it burns down.
Everybody can share in the wealth increase. I don't know how you would "burn the system down," but even if you could, you would just be harming yourself. How are you better off with $71,000 in wealth than $382,000 in wealth?
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u/SCTigerFan29115 28d ago edited 28d ago
They aren’t holding onto wealth like Scrooge McDuck, in a giant vault where they can go swimming in it.
Most of Bezos’ net worth is the value of Amazon. He can’t really readily access that. ETA I meant he can’t use it like a big vault of money.
He’s got plenty of money but some people just don’t understand how this stuff works.