We need intensely ambitious and competitive people. We shouldn't use money to keep score.
What do you propose as the alternative? Whuffie?
Do we need billionaires?
81–90 of 144 posts
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
"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
A Tesla without Musk isn't worth much. It's not that profitable. Tesla's P/E ratio is 350 or so - absolutely crazy. Ford's and Toyota's are about 10. The largest Chinese electric car maker's (BYD) PE/ratio is 20. People are buying Tesla shares because they believe in Musk. The moment he announces that he is out, his wealth is going down by 90% or more.
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#83I 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…
Sort of agree, yea. The issue is we allow high wealth individuals to use their assets as collateral for low interest loans, without having that be a taxable event. They can cash in on their equity, effectively withdrawing from their stake in these companies, and avoid taxes altogether.
I think just closing this loophole, and having personal loans over a certain % that are backed by specific equities (stocks, land, etc), be taxable. This fixes the loophole, in that they now need to pay taxes on these loans, on top of interest. It would incentivize them to then increase their base pay, where they'd pay income tax like the rest of us.
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#84The wrong question to ask.
We need much higher taxes on the high end, at all levels, especially on loans on expensive assets, estates, and carried interest. And make stock buybacks illegal. Higher high-end only taxes realign interests promoting a middle class rather than a serfdom, unequal world of neoliberal utopian fantasies.
Furthermore, we need much less corruption and influence purchasing by separation between wealth and social/mass media and journalism and state.
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#85We don't. Tax the rich, globally
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
A Tesla without Musk isn't worth much. It's not that profitable. Tesla's P/E ratio is 350 or so - absolutely crazy. Ford's and Toyota's are about 10. The largest Chinese electric car maker's (BYD) PE/ratio is 20. People are buying Tesla shares because they believe in Musk. The moment he announces that he is out, his wealth is going down by 90% or more.
If he wanted to get out and sell his stocks, why would he care if it collapses after he leaves? He sells his stocks when the value of the company is still high
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#87The money experiment is a failure, there is nothing else to add, you just have to look outside of your rotten mind to notice how mankind has collapsed, there no longer is a society
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 co…
"If you don't wanna play with our rules, you probably won't do business within our jurisdiction".
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#89It seems like China has about the right approach to billionaires: allow them to come to exist, to drive up economic growth, but when they start trying to influence the political system, just execute them, so that the others know their place.
Re: Do we need billionaires?
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 co…
Based on what Sarah Wynn-Williams told about Zuck and what we've seen a lot of these state out loud (and know a lot more that have exrepessed this in private) seems that the society is being held hostage by child's who are threatening us with a tantrum, should we refuse the lollipop.
I think it's about time we turn adult now. The coming of age for humanity, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer used to say.