• Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I got into it with someone I worked with [who made exactly as much as me.] Asked what would someone buy with $5 billion that they couldn’t get with $1 billion. He couldn’t come up with something, but was still going to defend someone else’s right to have it.

      • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At the expense of giving 100,000 people a $1000,000 raise, which would massively stimulate the economy.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          And those 100,000 people being the country’s industrial elite, the raise being tax breaks for those people, and the country being USA.

          You could run on a over the counter GOP ticket.

              • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Yeah the conservative fine print is really becoming their front page material fast.

                It’s like, they don’t have to cover it up anymore, decades of political brainwashing has gotten enough people on board with the original psychosis for them to just flaunt it.

                • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Abortion access is really hurting them on that front.

                  It’s all well and good to obsess over and villanise minorities like trans people that have no meaningful effect on conservative lives, but you start attaching a life-long responsibility to another human for an accident, and people aren’t going to like it.

    • Azteh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The only issue I can think of is that when people reach that billion, they’ll just close up shop cause why continue if your revenue is limited to your spending habits. I’d want the answer to that question to be “out of the goodness of my heart” or “to help people” but I sadly don’t think a lot of them would do so

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Your commnet reminds be about a story I heard. A American guy graduated college and then volunteered to go out and do good in the world. After a year he checked in with some of his fellow grads and saw how much they were making. He did some calculations and decided that he should come back to the USA and get a job. He got a great job with a big salary, and by living frugally he was able to donate enough to support five aide workers.

        • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          That should be more common, especially among “Christians”. But people rarely act altruistically. That’s what makes it nice when they do.

          Donate to Doctors Without Borders (or something similar) people. Charities have volunteers coming out their ears.

  • TryingToEscapeTarkov@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    When you can’t have an engaging conversation about anything related to the wealthy because everyone has Stockholm Syndrome.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      “Why are you poor? You clearly belong with us rich folk. Hop on, there’s always room for one more, innit!”

  • NutWrench@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    “We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same. Like somehow the rich will eventually get SO full that they’ll explode. And the candy will rain down on the rest of us. Like they’re some kind of pinata of benevolence. But here’s the thing about a pinata: it doesn’t open on its own. You have to beat it with a Stick.”

  • Shake747@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.

    I’m sure another nation would be more than willing to house billionaires/ultra millionaires and their assets, and your country would lose a lot of money/cash flow/jobs

    It’s a hard challenge to solve in a world wide setting.

    • yourgodlucifer@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Good riddance

      Having the wealthy here hasnt really helped us they lobby for laws that hurt the common person and benifit them and they dont pay their fair share in taxes.

      They can’t take all their resources with them.

      As for jobs most of the resources that create those jobs would still be here why coulden’t they just change ownership?

    • BeautifulMind ♾️@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.

      We did tax the wealthy heavily- in the period between FDR and Reagan. From the 40s to the 80s the top marginal income tax rate was between 70 and 94%. And do you know what the ultra-rich did? They prospered along with everybody else, they stayed put in the USA, and they seethed about other people prospering and their loss of power and influence.

      You know what else they did? They spent money to corrupt politics, to pack the judiciary, to legalize bribery and money in politics, to build international legal frameworks to prevent countries from regulating or taxing their billionaires. They stood up propaganda organs to subvert democracy, they paid politicians to betray the voters and strip away their labor protections, and here we are today deep into the garters of another gilded age.

    • Asafum@feddit.nl
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      1 year ago

      They didn’t leave when the top tax rate was something like 90% back in FDRs day so why would they leave if it’s 40, 50, even 60%? I seriously doubt we’d EVER go that high as the ones that would be affected control our government, but still.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      So you’re telling me that we’ve been able to get Musk, Bezos, Thiel, and the rest of the god-tier narcissists to GTFO this whole time?!

      It’d be even funnier to clawback their dinero after they go to Panama or wherever they fuck off to.

    • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If they did tax the wealthy heavily, they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.

      Good. Billionaires take many times more wealth from society than they put into it. That’s how they became obscenely rich to begin with.

    • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Why are you against asking billionaires to contribute back? They get many services from our country, and Uncle Sam expects their duty as well.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      they’d probably leave the country, and pull their money and resources with them.

      No rich people live in New York City, Chicago, San Fransisco, or LA, because the taxes are so high.

      Please don’t Google “cities where the highest net worth people live”.

      I’m sure another nation would be more than willing to house billionaires/ultra millionaires and their assets

      But would Elon Musk want to move to the slums of Mumbai or the desert wastes of Sudan just to save on taxes? Why don’t all the billionaires live in Jackson Hole, Wyoming or Nashville, Tennessee or Dallas, Texas?

      • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Dallas has a whole lot due to the energy and telecom sectors. The city itself is pretty blue, but sometimes out in the suburbs like Rockwall a full on Alex Jones emerges. It’s pretty much the same for every city in Texas.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Dallas has a whole lot due to the energy and telecom sectors.

          Absolutely. What’s more, they have an enormous influence over who gets to run for office and how much positive press they receive. And yet the taxes in Dallas are still some of the highest in the state. Almost as though taxes pay for the public utilities that make Dallas a major energy/telecom hub, and the exceptionally wealthy consider this tax money an investment rather than a loss or a theft.

          It’s pretty much the same for every city in Texas.

          The dirty truth about Texas suburbs is that they’ll have shockingly high taxes and fees for the purpose of building up local infrastructure. Houston Chronicle did an article a few months back about how the Texas tax system raised more per-capita than California, thanks in large part to the property tax base that has seen housing prices skyrocket over the last decade.

          The big difference between these red and blue states isn’t how much money is raised but where it is spent.

    • dangblingus@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Ahh yes, we’re all very familiar with the tale of the time the Billionaire came to town and gave everyone money, jobs, and a golden toilet.

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        The sky scraper is technically owned by a hive collective of financial AI instruments based out of Kiribati anyway, nothing would change for the elite.

    • ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s weird how no one remembers the paradise papers and all that. Most of their wealth is already off shore and none of it is taxed. There’s no such thing as “trickle down.” They are not good for the economy even if they did invest in it in any way other than proverbially setting their money on fire. Meanwhile, most of the property being bought and sold in the US now is owned by the wealthiest people from other countries, not US billionaires.

    • Stern@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      If a mega rich dude pulls out, someone else who is okay with making great rather then ungodly money is going to step in to take their place. Richie Rich can’t take his factories and land with him, and its rather unlikely his workers would be willing or able to move elsewhere, especially to leave the country, and even moreso depending on the country, so enjoy the brain drain.