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Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

fortune.com

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Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#101

Post by Arubis »

Ekaros wrote: post #68

I am not against idea of only net tax payers getting single vote. Say if you use government services or receive money such as grant that is counted against your total. If you own part of corporation that gets such support that is counted again. If you or your corporation gets tax deductions or relief those are counted as double. Total everything up and if you are net payer you get to vote. If not no vote for you.

To a first approximation this creates and enforces a permanent unvoiced underclass. Without any political representation, said underclass's differentiation from actual slavery would be pretty small.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#102

Post by otterley »

vivekd wrote: post #41

I think the title is inaccurate and a bit inflammatory. He's not advocating stripping most Americans of their voting rights. He's advocating stripping a tiny minority of Americans of their voting rights - specifically the minority of Americans that pay no income tax

The suggestion is inflammatory in and of itself. The right to vote is core to democracy. One should expect even the slightest suggestion of abrogating this right, even to a tiny minority, to be met with a vociferous allergic reaction.

Stripping voting rights is a historical leading indicator of a trend to totalitarianism so it has to be nipped in the bud immediately.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#104

Post by throw1234567891 »

sph wrote: post #61
duped wrote: post #35

Shopify seems to have a fascist problem.

Words have a well-defined meaning. Fascism, as established by Benito Mussolini, has nothing to do with oligarchy or plutarchy.

No idea why people downvote you when you’re right.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#105

Post by anonym29 »

andsoitis wrote: post #29

> one that would strip voting rights from anyone who pays no income tax It could be an interesting thought experiment to consider the second and third order consequences, even if, from first principles this is a non-starter in a democratic society. First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income? What portion of them are poor vs. hedge fund managers or other super wealthy people who have structur…

>First off all, what percent of people do not pay any taxes on income?

If you modify this slightly to the percent of people who are not net taxpayers, meaning you subtract transfer payments (including social security, medicare, medicaid) to them from the taxes they pay (including social security, medicare, and medicaid), it's about 60% of the country, which tracks quite closely to the percentage of Americans who could not afford an unexpected $1000 expense.

Most of the country is on a constant financial cliff.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#106

Post by nozzlegear »

vivekd wrote: post #41

I think the title is inaccurate and a bit inflammatory. He's not advocating stripping most Americans of their voting rights. He's advocating stripping a tiny minority of Americans of their voting rights - specifically the minority of Americans that pay no income tax

He's advocating stripping rights, periodt.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#107

Post by pc86 »

throw2ih020 wrote: post #52
kennywinker wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Most "normal" people would hit $5-30 million, realize they have enough money for themselves and their descendants to be comfortable in perpetuity with some decent wealth management, and either retire or change careers to a passion project. Going to 100s, 1,000s, or 100,000s of millions inherently filters for people who have either absurd greediness (seeing wealth as a scoreboard) or a desire for power.

This is it, it's absolutely a filter beyond a certain point. I have a family member, far enough removed I'll never see any of it, that sold a business in his early 30s for something like $35-40M. Set his kids up for life with trusts, bought some toys and a second home, and been just sort of hanging out ever since (this was 15-20 years ago). He's happy, has a ton of hobbies, and if you ever suggested he start another business or start putting his name on cap tables he'd laugh his ass off. It would never even occur to him that he should try to double, triple, 10x his money, because he already has 10x more than he'll ever spend.

And for what it's worth his kids are remarkably well adjusted and nice, if a little bit out of touch about what most people deal with.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#108

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

FLeXMurphy wrote: post #57
robinhood wrote: post #4

Fascinating to see how many tech people, as soon as they get rich, turn to extreme. Name them all - they mostly all are very active on X, and each new tweet pushes the limits of what was previously deemed unacceptable. I'm rich, so my opinion must be more important, right?

Who is going to say what is and isn't acceptable? You?

I get to say what I'll tolerate, and what I'll interfere with. We all do.

Re: Why a $154B CEO just endorsed stripping most Americans of voting rights

#110

Post by cogogo »

This is hilarious in that many very rich people pay zero income tax today. In this system “all of a sudden” all these people would be paying taxes on exactly 500k. Near zero for them anyway but with an explicit albeit BS claim of funding the majority of government expense. From a bit of quick research the top 1% of earners are about 40% of the tax base.

Everyone gets screwed in this system but especially those paying a good amount of taxes and getting fewer votes like the 200-400k range. Or maybe not especially. This just an outright terrible idea.

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