That, and a land tax
Comment on Poignant post on the state of things
Lilith_the_serpent@lemmy.world 9 months agoBillionaires shouldn’t exist. Everything after $999,999,999 should be taxed 100%. There is absolutely no reason for anyone to ever have a billion dollars. All that tax could pay for universal health care, free education, ending hunger, and homelessness. Billionaires are the problem.
Olgratin_Magmatoe@startrek.website 9 months ago
Telodzrum@lemmy.world 9 months ago
So, no corporations and no individual wealth? Who owns a factory or a datacenter? These are fantastically expensive things. A chip foundry cannot exist under these conditions.
Leg@lemmy.world 9 months ago
$999,999,999 no individual wealth
I don’t think you have a strong enough concept of large numbers to be able to hold a respectable opinion here.
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 9 months ago
Lmao brutal, but -1 for ad hominem.
Leg@lemmy.world 9 months ago
That’s fair. I chose violence.
Cryophilia@lemmy.world 9 months ago
You didn’t answer the question though.
Who owns a factory or a datacenter? These are fantastically expensive things. A chip foundry cannot exist under these conditions.
Toine@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
It could be owned by, like, multiple people? Also, a lot of companies in the world, and especially the ones managing costly infrastructure assets, are owned by states (which are a form of “multiple people”).
Nalivai@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Workers own the factory. Collectively. Through democratic process of any variety.
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 9 months ago
In those situations what do the workers that have no interest in owning the means of production do? Like, if you just want to do your job and go home, is there still room for you under that system? Or does it require active participation from every worker?
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 9 months ago
Do you think Capitalist owners can’t just do their job and go home? Do you even think Capitalist Owners work?
If Workers share ownership, they can hold electoral councils, elect a manager, or do any other form of decision making without requiring constant input.
Do you actively participate in every company you own in your S&P 500 ETF?
TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world 9 months ago
They get a part of the company’s gains regardless because they are workers.
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 9 months ago
Do billionaires actually have billions of dollars cash?
This implies it’s income, although if it’s taken as assets + unrealized gains then that would be very cool. Each year, anyone with cash + assets over $999,999,999 will get a bill from the IRS for the entirety of the overage. That would put sell pressure on real estate and stocks while funding (hopefully) social programs. Sounds like a good solution.
TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Either they are billionaires or they are not billionaires. Which is it?
If it’s all stock options, then redistribute their stock options.
bartolomeo@suppo.fi 9 months ago
The way net worth works, if I understand it correctly, is like this:
Take Bob for example. If Bob has $100M in his checking account, 4 houses worth $100M each, and 500,000 shares of NILE (the company he owns) which are each worth $1,000 each, then it’s said his net worth is a billion dollars. He’s Bob the Billionaire.
Say he starts selling his NILE shares, but he has so much that each sale puts downward pressure on the price (and spooks investors) so that instead of cashing out for the full $500M he only gets $400M for the sale. Then his net worth is $900M and he’s no longer a billionaire.
Or say Costa Rica invades his country and both the stock market and real estate markets crash. He’s not Bob the Billionaire anymore, he probably has just the $100M now.
After writing that example it seems a better threshhold would be $100M, lol. Here’s a good visualization of the resources under the control of Jeff Bezos.
TengoDosVacas@lemmy.world 9 months ago
The first question is why the fuck does Bob have four houses, and the second would be how is it that people like Bob are easily able to become billionaires only since the Reagan administration? Certainly Bob did not actually work for this money, all those shares, for all four of those houses. That amount of wealth is far beyond what any reasonably productive person could possibly earn. The only possibilities for him to have all of that is either through nepotism, inheritance, or corruption. If he is gaining that wealth by being given stock options and then borrowing money against those stock options and then using tax write-offs to not pay that money back, then Bob is stealing from his company, the country, and his employees.