Once you go beyond $100,000,000, there is no measurable difference in lifestyle. However, power accumulates. That amount of power shouldn’t be in the hands of so few.
One cannot reign innocently: the insanity of doing so is evident. Every king is a rebel and a usurper.
-Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, 1792
Or, put in modern terms: There is no such thing as an innocent billionaire.
This needs to become the mainstream opinion. Billionaires and ultra wealthy shouldn’t exist. There is no trickling down or any of that stolen wealth coming back into the hands of average people.
Before the oligarchs say this is “violence”.
This can be done peacefully. Just enact a law that taxes everything above like 999 million (or a fewer amount, to be debated on), and if you don’t comply, that’s tax evasion and you go to jail. Complelete peaceful (other than the tax-person we’d have to send to arrest the rich for non-complance), comply and everyone is happy.
Voila, no more billionaires, and that wealth redistributed will let everyone become a millionaire. Everyone is happy, maybe the 1% cries that they now have a few less yachts and mansions, but like, they can still enjoy that one house, same as everyone else would also have.
You know what? I don’t want it peaceful. They’ve stomped on people there entire lives, forced others to rely on social programs, dig through trash, and work to the bone.
I want a comeuppance, I want blood, and I want it to be that of every fucking billionaires’ head rolling off the guillotine
You have to ask yourself: Is fulfilling that desire for retribution worth the lives of the millions of vulnerable people who would be killed due to lack of medical treatment, potable water, food, etc?
???
You mean the ones who are already sick and dying from those exact things, caused by the greed of the aforementioned?
Agree. They had a choice. They shunned taxes and played at fake philanthropy. They have now dropped that and started playing like they are god. They are fragile mortals that need a reminder of revolution, I would like to see it done the French way but any way should do.
And you’ll have it. They have enough money to pay an army and you bet they will use that to stop you from taking their wealth. Understand that they have rationalized their immense wealth to the point where they trully believe they deserve it. You can see it sometimes in how they consider themselves hard working geniuses, or decide God somewhat chose them to be ridiculously rich.
Yes, they will resort to violence (but not themselves, of course). But they won’t need to get their hands too dirty.
They’ll fund campaigns, they’ll own law enforcements and will wield it against the people, meanwhile they’ll buy propaganda to convince as many people as they can it’s all for the best. That’s easy to predict because they already do exactly that.
Violent repression of demonstrations, violence and intimidation against activists and journalists. Owning of all the mainstream medias and a large share of the less mainstream ones. All of that is slowly normalized.
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Voila, no more billionaires
… in the country with the tax. They’ll just live somewhere else.
Let them, they don’t generate anything.
I’m getting downvoted like i i care they’d leave, just that it’s not gonna bring tax revenue.
They are not doing it even today. If they are businessmen, they are not going to leave their businesses just because they are being taxed.
Ok great.
People have to stop believing that wealthy people will leave instantly once they begin getting taxed. This is just a lie.
They are wealthy because of their assets and connections. They have houses, appartements, offices and factories. They have a network of influencer in the country they live in, in the city they live in ! They have a big family, kids. It’s actually harder for these people to move out than you and I.
The money is already escaping. They use any loopholes (fiscal optimization they call it) to pay much lower tax than anyone else proportionally.
They won’t leave ! Let the tax begin ! The loopholes have to be eliminated so that they cannot convert their wealth to escape tax artificially.
Fine by me, they weren’t paying taxes anyway.
But could this really be done? As far as I’ve understood, billionaires typically don’t have a billion liquidized and ready for spending. Rather, their value is distributed in ownership of several companies. How would the 100% taxes on ownership in companies be applied?
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to see it work, but I feel like it’s a lot more complicated than stated. And if a good way of applying those taxes would be introduced, I’m sure the billionaires would either find new ways to make the money untouchable or personally move to a country with looser tax laws.
That’s what conservatives always claim. Most of them won’t move and even if they do, good riddance. Simply tax their wealth beforehand.
My experience is from Norway where the taxes on the rich is balancing on a line. A lot of rich Norwegians have already moved to Switzerland to avoid annual taxes on their wealth. I would expect to see something similar if USA introduced reasonable taxes, unfortunately.
Than they have to sell their stock or property to either not be above the threshold or to liquidate it. It’s not untouchable.
or, here me out, they intentionally tank their assets value just before its value gets measured
As far as I’ve understood, billionaires typically don’t have a billion liquidized and ready for spending. Rather, their value is distributed in ownership of several companies. How would the 100% taxes on ownership in companies be applied?
If you can leverage assets to apply for a loan to buy twitter, then you can levarage assets to pay your taxes.
If everyone becomes a millionaire, then being a millionaire is useless. Inflation will be very high, imagine $1000 eggs. I think the wealth should be distributed to provide free food and services instead.
Here in the UK 78% of people support a 2% wealth tax on net assets worth more than £10 million yet our spineless neoliberal government is more focused on cutting disability benefits and bombing starving children.
We shouldn’t. And he thinks that too. Cool.
The wealth of the rich is still growing and it will continue to grow automatically until the middle class ceases to exist. If we do not take the assets back, it will become impossible for normal working people to ever buy a house, or have any economic power over their own lives at all - nevermind the political control or the media manipulation.
Extreme wealth concentration is THE biggest issue facing society. Mamdani is absolutely right.
Oooooh! He said the thing!
Nobody asked me, but I agree with him.
Now he can add “Endorsed by PoopSpiderman” on his campaign website.
Not a common endorsement.
Do you think we should have billionaires?
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Yes! Let’s stop this modern day slavery.
This guy sounds pretty based!
Lmao that’s because we shouldn’t have billionaires
Hoarding = mental illness = billionaires
Even the billionaires would be better off without billinaires. It their relative ranking was the same they would still have more money than they could spend but it would now come with clean air, water, land, better infrastructure, a healthier world, happier people to interact with.
He is right.
Imagine a “billionaire” in the wild: An animal sitting on a vast horde of food that it could never eat while others starved around it … yea, it would not last long.
Imagine a “billionaire” in a living body. A corporate money making entity would basically be a cancer that had to be removed to save the life of the patient.
