Billionaires are a political choice as much as homelessness. They are allowed to exist because nobody does anything about it.
7 years ago there were no billionaires worth more than $100 billion - today there are 18!
Submitted 1 day ago by darnisha1@sh.itjust.works to aboringdystopia@lemmy.world
Comments
BestBouclettes@jlai.lu 1 day ago
tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 hours ago
They are allowed to exist because they can literally buy their own political system
Asafum@feddit.nl 1 day ago
There was an article celebrating the fact that we’re on our way to having the first trillionare.
I wanted to die. It’s so insanely fucking disgusting
Rubisco@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Dis pos rel’van to beltalowda intres
yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
How is space an adjective in the first one? Shouldn’t it be a noun?
These Anglo-Saxons again, putting random spaces into compound words.
abbadon420@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Why would you go around celebrating untreated and ignored mental illnesses?
pingveno@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Look at all our WONDERFUL job creators amassing their dragon hoards!
PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world 1 day ago
On the other hand, if we all work really hard, go the extra mile, burn the midnight oil… we can make that happen faster.
technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
Well when paper money is continually speeding towards zero value, it’s no surprise that the most privileged have an endless supply.
Kbobabob@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Well when paper money is continually speeding towards zero value
Time to start saving bottle caps I guess.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Well when paper money is continually speeding towards zero value
Zeno’s Monetary Policy
jinarched@lemm.ee 1 day ago
tail -n +2 listAbove | cut -f 2 > DeathNote.txt
Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
Don’t forget you still need facial recognition data.
reallykindasorta@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
It’s almost seems like the main thing you need to make money is money
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
And that’s just the wealth that we know about
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 day ago
kamala harris’ proposed tax on unrealized gains seems like a great idea rn
stormesp@lemm.ee 1 day ago
A boring distopia is already even a single person having more than a single billion.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Yup, there was that post a while back, like you reach a billion, you get a plaque that says “congrats you won capitalism” and then they start at 0 again
itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
Not even a billion, as soon as you’re in 8 figures you have more than a reasonable person can spend in a lifetime. Cap it at 50 million, every cent more goes towards public infrastructure and welfare
Or we could do away with capitalism entirely. Just saying
stormesp@lemm.ee 1 day ago
For real, like Prestige in Call of Duty
ReallyActuallyFrankenstein@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
The overall average median lifetime earnings of $1,850,000 for men and $1,100,200 for women. Let’s just take the average and say an average American earns $1,475,100 in their lifetime.
The important thing to remember is, in an unequal system where workers have most of the value of their work taken by a single person who the system disproportionately favors, that value is translatable to literal life. They are directly, inexorably going to die having had that value simply transferred to the other person or people who collect that value. Or put succinctly, they are giving up life, and the CEO is gaining the value of their life.
Another note is that even though most valuations are stock, stock valuations do not exist in a vacuum. The stock market is the realizable increase in productivity value that we all collectively have caused.
So based on that principle, just for fun, let’s convert these fortunes to human lives, to better understand just how much (economically-valued) life force these people have taken from people:
Elon Musk: 262,000,000,000 = 176,259 human lives. Jeff Bezos: 208,000,000,000 = 141,007 human lives. Mark Zuckerberg: 203,000,000,000 = 137,617 human lives.
thisfro@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
just for fun, let’s convert these fortunes to human lives
Muh capitalism
Asafum@feddit.nl 1 day ago
To take that farther I wonder how many employees they have. How close is the ratio of workers to their life value obtained by the owner.
RattlerSix@lemmy.world 1 day ago
If my math is correct and we taxed everything over 100 billion at 100% we’d get over 900 billion in taxes. Nearly a trillion bucks if we limited these assholes to a measly 100 billion.
chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A trillion bucks, but not in cash; in shares of those companies. Try to sell it all for cash and you tank the share price. People lose their jobs, pension funds that own shares in those companies lose value.
That’s the trouble with taxing wealth. It’s not liquid like income. All that net worth is tied up in the companies and not easily accessed.
ebc@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
I’d be okay with the govt owning shares, honestly. That way the public would get a voice in how these megacorps operate, and that voice would get bigger the larger the company becomes.
Brosplosion@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Is this inflation corrected? Cause an arbitrary line across 7 years of inflation is gonna be crossed…
LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
A dollar in 2017 is worth 1.28 today. So yes, in today’s dollars there would have been 4 people above 100 billion in 2017.
itslilith@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 hours ago
I don’t think we had 250% inflation in the last 7 years
We certainly didn’t have a 250% increase in wages or median wealth in the last 7 years
They are parasites and criminals
Brosplosion@lemm.ee 6 hours ago
These sorts of stats are misleading and can erode the footing of the argument you are making. Showing the numbers adjusted for inflation is damning enough.
We’ve had around 60% inflation over the past seven years, does it explain all their increases? No.
But not including that information and saying “but number is bigger!” Just makes your argument look weak when it could be statistically sound.
Jimmyeatsausage@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Hey, look, I found the thing the US is still number 1 at!
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There are probably several Russian Oligarchs missing from this list because their wealth is mostly dark money. Rumor has it Putin is the wealthiest man in the world and has been for some time.
FabledAepitaph@lemmy.world 20 hours ago
This is a list of people who’s creations I’d like to avoid, if at all possible.
It’s obvious for several people on this list, but how do I boycott someone like the Oracle guy? As a non-tech guy, it just seems impossible. I don’t even recognize several of these people, tbh.
Gullible@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
How has musk maintained his companies’ valuations? Particularly Tesla.
Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Blatant fraud
over_clox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Eat the rich!
I’ll take a #8, with fries please…
Clent@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Socioeconomic weeds choking out the rest of us.
Utter ignorance is how we find ourselves with so many morons admiring the thistle in the garden for its pretty purple flower. While economists stand around debating the merits of these weeds by divining dogma to give meaning to weeds natural stubborn deep roots.
taiyang@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Ugh, I hate ladderboards for games with cheaters and exploiters on top. Where are the moderarors?! I demand a refund.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Didn’t Bill Gates sign a pledge to give all of his money away? And he is billions richer than last year? Huh.
Krono@lemmy.today 1 day ago
Yes he signed up to give his money away. To a charitable trust. Which he and his family controls. And can withdraw from at any time.
It isnt a charity pledge, its a plan to avoid paying taxes.
negativenull@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Adam Conover video on the “Billionaire Donation/Charity” scam:
youtu.be/0Cu6EbELZ6I
Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de 1 day ago
It’s all bullshit and marketing so people will regurgitate this lie. Everyone that says that puts it into a charity that they or their friends run.
Their children get high positions that allow them to have high paying jobs from the start. They have huge political influence which helps them with their other companies.
We need to redo our tax system and increase the top brackets. We also need to redo what is considered taxable and what can be claimed as a tax benefit.
Valmond@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Bill Gates a lying piese of shit? Who would have thought?
I went out in the rain yesterday and I got slightly moist. More at seven.
pingveno@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m not sure who is doing the calculations here, but the latest estimates I’m seeing for Gates have him down a bit for the year. He also is down after is divorce from Melinda, which included splitting off a good chunk of money for her own personal and philanthropic use.
iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Bill Gates signed his pledge more than 10 years ago. His wealth doubled in the last 7 years, meaning that he’s gotten average increases of like 10% per year.
Mr. Gates, you’re going the wrong way!
Linkerbaan@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Oil princes are far richer than this
zcd@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Purée them
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Poseidon must be satiated
psycho_driver@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Looks like Sam Walton would be atop the list had he figured out immortality.
Probably would top this list as the most decent person of the bunch too. He wasn’t a saint, but I haven’t seen evidence that he was rotten to the core, either.
911@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
I am super confused by this post.
Yes, there is a huge problem of equality in societies around the world.
I even posted a arricle here that was talking about how the difference in distribution of wealth among families in USA is huge.
Yet the existence of billionaires alone, is not something surprising considering factors affecting the means of production, inflation and many other factors.
In order to be a boring dystopia you need to list the top earners from the middle class or the poor to demonstrate your point.
Otherwise, this post is kind of meaningless in my opinion.
randomdeadguy@lemmy.world 21 hours ago
Sorta harsh take, but I do agree that comparing these numbers with additional data would be helpful for establishing a clear understanding of income equality. It seems this particular table was written for comparing differences in the shown group only.
heavy@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
When is it ever enough?
LazerDickMcCheese@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
“Inflation probably” -dumbasses in denial
match@pawb.social 1 day ago
jensen’s cool but the rest should get expropriated
bitjunkie@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
That’s 18 people who own about a tenth of the US GDP. Something needs to be done, and soon.
BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 6 hours ago
Including 14 inn the US.
Kallioapina@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
How many security guards can one of these assholes have on duty at any one time?
Dont y’all have assault rifles and semiautomatics on you at all times and you are all about being against tyranny? WHAT GIVES?
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Okay, sure. But that’s bad analysis. GDP is annual and net-worth is lifetime total. That’s also global wealth, not US-domestic (four of them aren’t even American).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_to_Be_Done