• Track_Shovel
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    892 years ago

    They can live, but it has to be on 60k a year, with all of their initial assets liquidated and used to support people in need.

    • @[email protected]
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      62 years ago

      Look I’m all for taxing the wealthy, but saying we should force billionaires, or really anyone for that matter, to give up everything more than $60k/year is fucking laughably insane.

      • Nepenthe
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        2 years ago

        Why, exactly? Only two years ago, 37.9 million people were below the poverty line, which is only $20k/yr. And that’s only counting the US. If we can do it, they can do it.

        If those making over $60k currently cannot make it work when so many of their own countrymen have been doing so for their entire lives, perhaps we need to talk. If nothing else, I can give you financial advice.

        • xedrak
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          52 years ago

          Nice red herring. The argument was that demanding a billionaire give up all of their money and live on a relatively small salary is absurd, and nothing you said refutes that.

          • VenoraTheBarbarian
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            152 years ago

            Sounded to me like what they meant was basically as a friendlier option than death. What’s absurd about it if you weren’t saying it’s too little to live on?

      • Narrrz
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        662 years ago

        I think most of us start with the assumption that they’ll never give up their stranglehold willingly, and move on to more practical solutions.

          • Narrrz
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            2 years ago

            what other pressure do you have the ability to put on a billionaire that they wouldn’t find utterly laughable, if they even noticed it? but you can’t buy your way out of death. sure, if the threat to their lives were to become credible, they could leverage their wealth to protect against it, but being surrounded by bodyguards at all times, having every rooftop surveyed for snipers before you go out to get coffee - these are things that disrupt their overly-cruisy existences. and the more people there are gunning for them, figuratively or literally, the worse their lives get.

            and sure, if you off them, their wealth will just default to someone else. but if billionaires start dying left and right, their inheritants might just start to find ways to make sure their fortune stays a little shy of that magical 9-digit mark.

        • Seraph
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          342 years ago

          They need to make the choice: pay a lot more taxes, or take the second option. I’m not threatening violence, but as our society gets more desperate the targets on their backs get larger.

          There are 756 billionaires in the US and 330 million of us. Once that becomes clear to people things might change, one way or the other. All other “culture wars” are noise generated to distract from this one.

          • gabe [he/him]
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            132 years ago

            Shameless displays of excess wealth is increasingly being met with more and more cultural hostility, especially amongst younger people. Gen Zers are highly likely to view people who flaunt their wealth or indulge heavily in luxury goods as being tacky or just generally negatively. The hostility as the climate crisis increases will only increase as well.

          • unfnknblvbl
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            52 years ago

            Former tax professional here. The problem is that the billionaires aren’t really billionaires. Elon Musk does not have a quarter trillion dollars in his bank account. His net worth is calculated from what other people think his holdings are worth. He cannot be taxed on this.

            Unless someone is game enough to pass legislation enabling taxation of “unrealised gains” (while not allowing credits/offsets for unrealised losses), billionaires will continue not paying their fair share of tax.

    • @[email protected]
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      342 years ago

      60k a year is probably already too generous in most cases, make them live off of the equivalent salary of their lowest paid employee

  • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe
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    512 years ago

    Yes. Your a naive fool.

    Unironically choosing the lives of some of the most vile despicable people to have ever lived over the lives of 50,000x as many completely normal people.

    I want to eradicate their genomes.

  • @[email protected]
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    512 years ago

    …And?

    Murder can be just without being legal.

    The murder of billionaires, and CEOs of oil companies (along with all other oil executives) is morally justified, even if it’s not legal.

  • @[email protected]
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    412 years ago

    Murdering people is wrong.

    People work together to build a society that helps those who cannot help themselves.

    By this metric, billionaires aren’t people.

    • @[email protected]
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      52 years ago

      Is there a point where someone who is born human is beyond humanity? Where their depravity and lack of empathy no longer links them to actual society?

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        I’m feeling a lot of that in this thread as far a lack of empathy goes.

        We all act as if we’re experts on what it takes to become a billionaire and are confident enough in our knowledge to the point that some people here are actually ok with murder because they think they know enough to justify it.

        Just one, possibly shitty, example: Bezos’ ex wife. Did she do anything wrong to people? Bezos more than likely did, but as far as I can tell the worst thing she did was be married to him. She’s a billionaire now. Do we murder her? Is that really justified?

        Personally I’d much rather have them all stripped of their wealth and made to live like the rest of us. Their endless quest for more and more wealth would leave them distraught if it was all taken away. Murder is not only wrong, but too quick of a thing especially if you truly hate these people.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 years ago

        It’s more of a line in the sand or a gradient than a hard point of “pass this and you’re not human anymore”.

      • @[email protected]
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        12 years ago

        Crimes against humanity and warcrimes meet the thresh in my mind.

        I’d shoot someone like Al-Assad myself and I doubt I’d be very disturbed by it.

  • xedrak
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    142 years ago

    I’m sorry, but this point of view is so brain-dead to me. What do you think happens when a billionaire dies? The money magically disappears? It’s redistributed to the masses? No, it’s inherited by relatives. Killing billionaires only creates different billionaires. How about we use our brains and come up with actual solutions rather than parroting brain-dead bullshit?

    • @[email protected]
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      442 years ago

      You’re taking the argument at it’s most basic level, assuming that we would kill the billionaires and then sit around twiddling out thumbs. I don’t think it’s much of a leap to assume we’d change how the system works as well lol.

      • xedrak
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        92 years ago

        Ok? Then maybe do that without the murder part??? If you have actual ideas of how to change the system, then do it?

        • Rozaŭtuno
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          102 years ago

          “Ok, can we do this french revolution without killing the aristocracy? If you have actual ideas of how to change the system, then do it?”

          Maybe an online petition, those always work.

          • xedrak
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            32 years ago

            But you still haven’t refuted my main point. If killing them just creates new billionaires, what does that actually achieve?

            • @[email protected]
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              32 years ago

              It wouldn’t create new billionaires if you’re also changing the system lol that was my point.

            • @[email protected]
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              62 years ago

              Why not murdering them AND Robin Hood all their shit? At least until the systemic problem that made them billionaires in the first place gets dismantled bit by bit.

            • @[email protected]
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              102 years ago

              I mean the general idea is we kill them and take their property instead of giving it to their heirs. Killing the billionaires is generally something that occurs as part of the larger revolution and not just a leisurely Sunday activity

              • xedrak
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                22 years ago

                Sure, and that worked when money was a tangible asset rather than a speculative one. It really doesn’t apply in modern times when most money can’t be physically taken.

                • @[email protected]
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                  62 years ago

                  Bro what part of a revolution do you not understand. The people saying this stuff are communists and leftists. After a revolution there won’t be stocks left to own or corporations. The whole point of communist revolution is to seize the companies and desolve the capitalist institutions. Surely you understand this no?

                • @[email protected]
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                  42 years ago

                  Do you think billionaires actually have billions sitting in banks holy shit. They own assets bruh. That’s what we’d be taking.

  • unfnknblvbl
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    262 years ago

    It’s only murder if you subscribe to the “meat is murder” mantra…

    • ᚲᛇᛚ᛫ᛞᚨᛞᛁ
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      112 years ago

      I think meat is murder, but i still think we should kill billionaires.

      The same way I wouldn’t kill a cow for a burger, but Id defend myself if some wild animal was trying to kill me.