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Do we need billionaires?

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Re: Do we need billionaires?

#71

Post by Obscurity4340 »

papaver-somnamb wrote: post #65
voidUpdate wrote: post #22

I heard a while back that the average person will see about a million of their currency over their lifetime. So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's worth of money. Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money. I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? Of…

Billionaires are characterized as such due to their net wealth. They don't actually have that amount in cash silently rotting in bank accounts. What wealthy people, and people more generally, do have is ownership of assets and debts, where the grand sum >= +1B$. Case in point, Elon owns significant portions of valuable companies. Patent nonsense such as > So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's wort…

Whatever they are living of needs to be equalized so they are taxed irl much the same as a normal person. They often get away with this by getting ultra low interest loans backed by their holdings as collateral and living off credit.

That needs to change. They need to feel the same taxation everyone else has, it makes it harder to survive and they need to live by the same sword

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#72

Post by papaver-somnamb »

oulipo2 wrote: post #55
ChrisGreenHeur wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They own stock in the company they founded. So, you force the founder to sell 95% of the stock they own in the company. Is this a good idea for the stock price of that company as well as the for the ability of that company to raise cash?

Who cares about the stock price. They should be forced to split their companies in smaller, competing companies, so that: 1. there's not a huge asshole controlling enormous companies (and then also buying all the media and ruining the public information) 2. we have more competition and lower prices (that's EXACTLY why capitalism was supposed to have anti-concentration laws) 3. you spread the wealth. Now there are mor…

I feel this is closer, but still not equitable. More people owning less, but what about the vision that holds the ship together and leads the org to the goal? In the case of SpaceX, it's Elon and to a lesser extent Gwynn by way of osmosis that hold the light aloft. We force division of wealth, then what about the leadership and direction? SpaceX is what it is because the vision is much less tyranny of the masses, and much more damn the torpedoes no one can stop me.

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#73

Post by slashdev »

shrubby wrote: post #13

Human being, with very few exceptions, is corrupted by power. And a billion dollars is immense amount power. You can make your opponent's life a living hell with a hundred thousand and buy or figure out a way to frame extortion material from almost any decision maker with a million. See how wars are being started tweeting from the toilet seat by a man who has never known anything but power to harm others. See the man…

Suppose you add a very high tax (it would have to be a wealth tax, not income, because they don’t have much income.)

Zuckerberg just moved to Florida for a tiny wealth tax in California.

These people would just leave the state or leave the country. It’s been happening in Norway with just a small wealth tax.

It’s not impossible, but it’s also not that simple to do.

These kind of policies are risky, because you may drive away the next generation of entrepreneurs and the jobs they create.

The rich should pay more taxes, but not to the point that it would chase them away or disincentive them from building companies.

That being said, taxes are incredibly destructive. Every dollar you tax someone is much more than a dollar you take from that person and the economy. Government is too big, it’s out of control. They can’t balance a budget either, so we pay an additional destructive tax called inflation. I would personally like to see government go on a diet to half or a quarter of the size it is and reduce taxes at the low end instead.

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#74

Post by atmavatar »

hrunt wrote: post #42
voidUpdate wrote: post #22

I heard a while back that the average person will see about a million of their currency over their lifetime. So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's worth of money. Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money. I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? Of…

> I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? It wouldn't matter, because the ultra-wealthy generally don't have much income relative to their wealth. Elon Musk (in the article listed at $817B of wealth ) was reported to have had $1.52B of net income between 2014 and 2018, and had no taxable…

A much better tax change would be to automatically realize gains on stock used as collateral in loans.

That would cover loans the ultra-wealthy use for their day-to-day living as well as loans used for leveraged buyouts of other blocks of stock (usually to buy or become significant voting shareholders of a particular company).

The other side of things would be to start actually enforcing anti-trust laws. A big part of the reason we have people running around with 10^11 dollar wealth is due to extreme market consolidation.

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#75

Post by voidUpdate »

storus wrote: post #50
voidUpdate wrote: post #22

I heard a while back that the average person will see about a million of their currency over their lifetime. So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's worth of money. Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money. I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? Of…

95% income tax would remove any incentive to go above and beyond and you end up with collapsing economy where everybody is doing the bare minimum. See Soviet economy outcome and tofu dreg buildings.

95% over 20 million. Average Joe is never going to see 20 million in his life, so it's not exactly a concern for him. You can adjust the value as necessary to only apply to the top 1-2% or so. You can still have 20 million, and even more on top of that if you keep earning. Just most of that extra money will go back to society instead of being locked away inside a bank account forever

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#78

Post by deepsummer »

voidUpdate wrote: post #22

I heard a while back that the average person will see about a million of their currency over their lifetime. So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's worth of money. Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money. I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? Of…

"Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money."

I think that's a wrong perception, especially in this case. Elon Musk does not have nearly a trillion dollar in cash. He holds shares in companies that have a market worth of a trillion dollar. But as soon as he sells, and thus wouldn't be involved with them anymore, they would be only worth a fraction of that. Tesla, in particular, would probably be bankrupt.

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#79

Post by atmavatar »

slashdev wrote: post #73
shrubby wrote: post #13

Human being, with very few exceptions, is corrupted by power. And a billion dollars is immense amount power. You can make your opponent's life a living hell with a hundred thousand and buy or figure out a way to frame extortion material from almost any decision maker with a million. See how wars are being started tweeting from the toilet seat by a man who has never known anything but power to harm others. See the man…

Suppose you add a very high tax (it would have to be a wealth tax, not income, because they don’t have much income.) Zuckerberg just moved to Florida for a tiny wealth tax in California. These people would just leave the state or leave the country. It’s been happening in Norway with just a small wealth tax. It’s not impossible, but it’s also not that simple to do. These kind of policies are risky, because you may dri…

> These people would just leave the state or leave the country. It’s been happening in Norway with just a small wealth tax.

Would they really, though?

A lot of people say this, but I think one very important thing is being overlooked: should a billionaire leave the US, they'd also lose a significant amount of influence over US policy. Especially when their wealth is built significantly upon the stocks of major US companies, giving up that influence is a huge risk to their wealth.

Just think - not only would the billionaire's influence suddenly become stigmatized "foreign influence", but it would also become tainted by the fact that they fled the country to avoid taxes. Politicians on the opposing side of an issue the billionaire wants to fight for would have a field day pointing out both every time the billionaire attempted to influence any policy.

Re: Do we need billionaires?

#80

Post by voidUpdate »

deepsummer wrote: post #78
voidUpdate wrote: post #22

I heard a while back that the average person will see about a million of their currency over their lifetime. So we can take a million dollars to be about 1 lifetime's worth of money. Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money. I feel like we could have like a >95% income tax when you are worth more than like $20 million and it wouldnt actually matter too much to the people who would cap it out? Of…

"Elon is currently sitting on 817,000 lifetimes worth of money." I think that's a wrong perception, especially in this case. Elon Musk does not have nearly a trillion dollar in cash. He holds shares in companies that have a market worth of a trillion dollar. But as soon as he sells, and thus wouldn't be involved with them anymore, they would be only worth a fraction of that. Tesla, in particular, would probably be ba…

And if you sell the shares, you get money back. He owns assets that are valued in excess of 800,000 lifetimes of money. If you can sidestep income tax by simply getting your income in assets rather than banknotes, something has gone wrong somewhere
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