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Who died and left the US $7B?

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Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#51

Post by somethoughts »

Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Interestingly a lot of the larger philanthropic organizations are just as administration heavy as the US government and suffer from the same mission creep and the same obfuscated, bureaucratic decision making process, etc. Not to mention the leadership is often richly compensated (i.e. $1M in salary) and non-elected.

In fact we should probably celebrate gifts to the US government more than we do.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#53

Post by bawolff »

mmmpetrichor wrote: post #25
FredPret wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's draconian to have some upper limit on wealth? what if a small number of people managed to, legally, extract wealth to the point where we all became vassals? (Or is that what we've already gone very far towards?)

I think anti-trust laws are generally more effective at dealing with that than wealth limits. When capitalism is functioning well, what cones up must go down, and the main trick is to make sure the ultra-wealthy can't leverage their wealth to prevent anyone competiting with them.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#55

Post by fragmede »

amatecha wrote: post #49
mxkopy wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make just about anything a slippery slope if you wanted to - “they’re putting limits on guns, what’s next, kitchen knives?” Morally you should probably be spending more time figuring out how to get everyone their first car instead of worrying about your legal rights in owning your second.

Right? What's with all the volunteer billionaire-wealth advocates?

well, see, it's embarrassing to admit, but you see, I'm a billionaire. I mean, I'm not one right now, it's a temporary thing. Once I'm back on my feet, I'll have a billion dollars and then, see, I just couldn't have restrictions like that placed on me. I think everyone should be able to get that. So even though it's hurting me now that the rich don't get taxed more, it's just this temporary embarrassing thing where I'm not currently a billionaire.

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#58

Post by mynameishere »

jrockway wrote: post #44
Kapura wrote: post #10

Pretty obscene that somebody could have so much wealth that $7,000,000,000 is just the tax bill. Also weird that it's framed as a "gift."

Anyone can make a voluntary contribution to the United States Treasury: https://fiscal.treasury.gov/public/gifts-to-government.html

I always wondered if there was a way to effectively "burn" one's entire wealth, creating a small deflationary event that would increase the value of existing dollars. How could one do this? Donate to the Federal Reserve? Or would you literally have to cash everything out and burn it?

Re: Who died and left the US $7B?

#59

Post by xpe »

bawolff wrote: post #53
mmmpetrichor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's draconian to have some upper limit on wealth? what if a small number of people managed to, legally, extract wealth to the point where we all became vassals? (Or is that what we've already gone very far towards?)

I think anti-trust laws are generally more effective at dealing with that than wealth limits. When capitalism is functioning well, what cones up must go down, and the main trick is to make sure the ultra-wealthy can't leverage their wealth to prevent anyone competiting with them.

> When capitalism is functioning well, ...

I recommend this question as an interesting conversation starter at parties: Is it in the self-interest of the most successful capitalists to have a well-functioning capitalism?

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