- cross-posted to:
- shitposting@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- shitposting@lemmy.ml
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Which is why the capitalist argument is never that they physically performed enough labour to earn that amount. The argument is that they took risks that paid off in that amount.
Being a billionaire is moral failing
Can someone explain what the picture is from?
I know its megaman, but why?
Relatability. I probably would have scrolled passed a flower bed with a meme or some other pop culture reference. But Megaman, I will read what’s going on.
Better question, why not?
I figured maybe it was an infograph screen in the game or something.
It’s sad that even the idea of a very high tax rate for even the top 0.1% is off the table. I really like the suggestion of capping net worth at $999 million and the government gets the rest.
I completely agree. It is likely a constitutional amendment will be needed to institute a wealth tax/ceiling. But it is needed, for national security. The centre cannot hold.
How does that work when for example a single company is worth two billion? Does the government now own >50% of it?
Companies are not people. That court case needs to be overturned. Companies can be worth more. People should not have that much money.
People don’t have that much money. They have companies that are worth that much.
Easiest implementation would be shares start getting shared to all other employees. No more big owner when profits come from the laborers.
Could you imagine the talent pool the most profitable companies would have if all net profits over X billion dollars were automatically redistributed to it’s labor force? Suddenly the wealthiest middle class on earth would be in the US until then somehow clawed that money back.
That’s how it should be. When you actually think about how a few rich people who don’t actually do the work get to “own” the entire company it’s absurd.
They certainly do more ketamine though.
They shouldn’t exist and people should stop glorifying them. This goes for the ceo of valve too.
This goes for the ceo of valve too.
They gloat about overworking employees so they can remain short staffed
six billionaires saw this post, apparently
That, or six (seven now) people who really enjoy the taste of boot
Perhaps both.
I love sucking
Wanna get a room?
I worked in a school with a pretty good amount of students whose families had probably not entered the country legally.
I had a student who would be out at the end of the day. Like, yeah, lots of kids are zonked out by the last hour, and the fake sleep to watch silent TikToks was ever popular.
But this girl was out. The bell would ring and I’d try to wake her up. Like starting with a “hey the bell just rang, time to go home.” Gently nudging her to get no response. This was routine.
She worked a full time job at night. She didn’t get to sleep. She worked at night, she went to high school during the day.
There have been times that I’ve had to work three jobs to survive as an adult, and I’ve worked my share of fifteen+ hour shifts with no OT because who needs labor laws?
But that girl had to work harder to survive than any billionaire I’ve met could even conceive of (and I fucked a billionaire for quite a while). She was a child. She should have been tired because she had stayed up all night playing video games or talking to her friends - she should not have been tired because she had to have a full time job to survive as a teenager in high school.
and I fucked a billionaire for quite a while
Soooooooo
Are we just glossing over this or…
Lmao
Yeah, I married and was economically devastated by a billionaire. Turns out, if you can afford good lawyers, you can keep the house and ditch your spouse with a hopeless amount of CC debt. Long story.
Oh. Well I was totally thinking that was going to go in a “I was a secret billionaire’s mistress” sort-a-way. Not, “I have a legit supervillain backstory because of a billionaire” kinda way, sorry lol
Superhero backstory. The billionaire is already the supervillain in this story.
The ups of my life are things like dinner for three at the top of Harrod’s that cost more than my current apartments rent (and steak. oh god actual fancy steak house steak. foie gras on a rare filet), the downs are analingus for grocery money (pan fried chicken hearts in butter with rice got me through college).
analingus
Did you mean “analogous?” Or did you have to eat ass for groceries? 🤔
Hunger is the best spice.
Did the tongue stutter?
Idk…they can afford a lot of viagra
We need to wipe them from existence.
Let every nation have a maximum wealth cap. 1000x the median national household income. Anything else is taxed at 100%. This cap in the US would be about $80 million today.
But if you’re somehow in flagrant violation of this limit? If your wealth is the equivalent of over one billion 2025 dollars? Unless you quickly earn a multi-billion fortune and immediate give it away or spend it, having a net worth over $1 billion will be a felony. It will be a capital offense. Oh you’re secretly billionaire, having hid your vast illegal fortune from the IRS? You are guilty of trying to amass a geopolitically-significant level of wealth. We’re going to treat this as seriously as we would someone who attempts to build their own personal nuclear weapons. Really, you are guilty of a form of treason. Except instead of aiding a foreign nation, you were trying to become a threat to your nation yourself. And the traditional penalty for treason will be applied.
This is the world we could have. We could, if we wanted it badly enough, simply make being a billionaire a capital offense. Force them to give away or spend most everything they have. Either way, given or spent, wealth is distributed enough so that no individual can threaten the nation through their own personal wealth.
It is time we wiped billionaires off the face of the Earth. No individual should ever be allowed to become so wealthy that they become a threat to nation states.
This really shows how little you actually understand about money. Let’s say this hypothetical played out. Where do you realistically think these taxes will end up? What do you think an economically monopolistic and highly supercharged government will get you? What will happen to the quality and ubiquity of goods and services available to you?
Not op, and any Marxist feel free to step in, but 100% tax is technically communism. And I mean full final stage communism where money no longer exists. If income is taxed at 100%, then money no longer needs to exist since… well you never really see it. The tax is spent on everything. You work if you can and everything that can be, is provided for you. Purely from an economic point of view. This is though an ideal and something that would need to be worked towards over long periods of time.
I’m a full on no money commie. To me any society that has money is capitalist, doesn’t matter what happens to it, it’s a capitalist society once you introduce money to it. I propose a gift economy. It is the first economy recorded and is how humans should be living. We just give people what they need, not expectining anything in r eturn. No money, no bartering system. We just give anyone what they need. The gift econmmy is so engrained in human life and we do a little even when in a captalist society. Ever explained the rules to a boardgame? I imagine you did that for free, asking for nothing in return, gift economy. Helped a family member with tech support, you did that for free, asking for nothing in return. Even writing a internet comment, you likely did that for free and a lot of internet comments are written because someone asked a question, you’re helping them for nothing in return. We need to get to the gift economy.
How do you determine who gets what they need when a given resource becomes scarce? Everything is finite. Human greed is also real. Do you just take someone at their word that they’re desperate for something when they may not be?
Human greed is a problem of capitalism because it makes competition out of humanity. We can still track what people have in the gift economy. If everyone gets what they need, then there will be no greed at all and more sustainable lifestyles will be lived. Most scarcity in the world is fabricated in order to drive up the value of goods in a profit driven system like capitalism. In the case of actual scarcity in the gift economy, we would simply go on need, who needs these resources the most? Anyone that doesn’t need whatever resources wouldn’t be asking for them in the gift economy.
This assumes billionaires fell into money. Not true. The person with two jobs puts in more hours ongoing, but they either aren’t or don’t know how to actually work
What billionaire didn’t start out with a healthy infusion of cash? Sure, some turned millions into billions, but I don’t know of any that didn’t start with a line on several millions of investment available.
• Oprah Winfrey • Howard Schultz • John Paul DeJoria • Ralph Lauren • Jan Koum • Shahid Khan • George Soros • Leonardo Del Vecchio
Now you know. You can look up their stories yourself. Now stop perpetuating the false dogma that somehow these people are special and unique and have something that you don’t. You can do it too, you just choose not to.
How do you define work?
There’s many facets, but some core tenets are to be highly focused, highly committed, and increasingly efficient in efforts to make a goal (in the right direction) happen.
The idea I’m thinking of explicitly here though is scaling this definition to hold increasing amounts of leverage over time. To put it simply, your continued highly focused, efficient, and effective work leads to a system where more work gets accomplished overall, and the time that you put in accomplishes much, much more.
Can you give a practical example of how someone can start with no money, and “work” their way up to $1B?
John Paul DeJoria: Born to immigrant parents in Los Angeles, DeJoria faced early adversity when his parents divorced, leading him to live in a foster home at age two. By nine, he was selling newspapers and Christmas cards to help support his family. After periods of homelessness and working odd jobs like janitor and door-to-door shampoo salesman, he co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems in 1980 with just $700. Later, he launched Patrón Tequila, revolutionizing the premium tequila market. His net worth stands at around $4 billion, per Forbes, a testament to his self-made journey.
Someone want to break the bad news to this guy that it’s not 1980 anymore and hasn’t been 45 years? You cannot become a “self made” billionaire in 2025 because the current billionaires want that money for themselves. Keep drinking the kool-aid like the billionaire class wants though, it’s how they make more money off of your back.
Selling newspapers is an example of work.
co-founded John Paul Mitchell Systems in 1980 with just $700. Later, he launched Patrón Tequila, revolutionizing the premium tequila market.
“Co-founding” is spending money and “launching” is a concept. What work did he do?
How would you define accomplishing stuff and what do you mean by accomplishing more? Does selling something to someone count? Does creating something for your own use count? Does creating entertainment for other people count? Does doing something to better your mental health count? What about doing something to better another persons mental health? Does selling an addictive product count?
Yup, you are correct. Billionaires didn’t fell into money, they stole money. From the poor.
And how do you propose they stole it?
surely that means you’re a billionaire who knows how to actually work, then, right? since that’s all it takes?
Nope, not a billionaire. But I can see a path to it and yes, work is what it takes. But one needs to have the right understanding of work and what that means to do it and scale what work is for you.
How’s that boot taste?
Just get a better paying job is what you are saying? Or start a company, but remember that it needs to be a successful company?
If someone wants to break the cycle and have a stab at a better life, then I do believe that yes, business and hard as hell work to make it happen is the cost. Most people would rather sit in comfort and point blame at some external figure for their misfortunes, yet they are in no better of a place in the end.
A better paying job can help certainly. And it can ease the pressure of being a lesser earner if treated responsibly. But in the end, working a job is still working for someone else and taking all your time to do so. Someone could run a business in a way that they create a full-time job for themselves and still end up here.
Great! Most new businesses fail, which makes sense given the people starting them are new at this. Billionaires often have had several failed attempts. The difference is, they have room to fail and try again.
How do we give others that chance, if not by keeping billionaires from hoovering up all the resources?
Sounds like an excuse to stop yourself from starting and continue pointing fingers at someone else. Also, sounds like you think they are somehow special and unique and have powers that you don’t. They’re a human just like you. Everybody fails at everything at some point, but the differentiating factor is whether you’re going to pick yourself up and keep going with the new information you’ve gotten. It doesn’t cost anything to hedge against risk and make a plan for potential failure, and you certainly don’t need to be a billionaire to do it.
They do have something special that the rest of us don’t have. They have money.
That’s what I mean when I say they have room to try again. They don’t go broke when their business fails, so they can try more than once. Most of us don’t have the time or resources to have another go without some serious recovery time.
This is propagating your limiting beliefs and connecting their end with your beginning. Many have don’t this and started from scraps in the working class.
Not in 2025. The age of “self made” billionaires has passed, and you missed the chance. Now, the current billionaires will gladly work you to the bone and steal your money and life.
