r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 18d ago

Society Google cofounder Sergey Brin has spent $102 million to fight California’s proposed billionaire tax—he could owe $13 billion if he loses

https://fortune.com/article/how-much-has-google-cofounder-sergey-brin-spent-to-oppose-california-billionaire-tax-102-million-owe-13-billion-if-loses/
37k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

9.6k

u/JayBeeGooner 18d ago

And he’ll still be filthy rich and have more money than he could ever spend. i hate these greedy psychopaths.

1.8k

u/peepdabidness 18d ago

In clash royale, you can’t have more than $5,000,000 and causes no issues because nothing costs enough that couldn’t be recuperated quickly. I’m not saying we should do this, but we should do something. It’s time for a new type of economy.

1.1k

u/peazley 18d ago

$18 million, gives you $1,000 per day for 50 years. Without earning anything off your investment. That’s a nice hotel and fancy dinner every night for the rest of your life.

802

u/hammertime2009 18d ago

I’m ok with this idea. Hell even 100 million… let them have it. Fuck it 1 billion is the cutoff. Be rich as fuck. Nobody ever ever ever needs 10 billion or 1 trillion. It’s just insane.

725

u/EchoingAngel 17d ago

The real problem is people getting rich enough to start shaping the system. That's how it becomes a runaway issue

258

u/Waiting4Reccession 17d ago

The underlying problem is actual peoples own aversion to violence.

Even though they have all of history to look back on and see what has always been the only solution that actual ever worked.

94

u/MyUsernamePls 17d ago

This is why the media jumped on the dude that shot the big pharma CEO and they made an example out of him. They don't want common people shooting down the ultra rich.

35

u/caifaisai 17d ago

Technically it was a health insurance CEO (which I personally find even worse, at least pharma ostensibly provides a necessary service of developing and making medicine, can't say the same thing for the United healthcare). But the point remains the same.

64

u/Kiramic 17d ago

I keep thinking this is the reason that "violence is not the answer" is a message that is repeatedly banged into your head from childhood. Clever bit of brainwashing

23

u/HeadfulOfSugar 17d ago

& why we learn so much about MLK jr. (“So much” as if he & his beliefs aren’t insanely whitewashed), & virtually nothing at all about Malcom X & the Black Panthers. I’d genuinely never heard of The Black Panthers really until the literal marvel character, my school never said their name K-12, if Malcolm’s name ever came up for any reason all we needed to know was that he was the bad violent terrorist version of MLK. They want you to believe that everything that was ever accomplished here was accomplished kindly, women went out with picket signs so we gave them the right to vote, MLK organized big peaceful crowds & asked nicely so we decided “hey yknow what, maybe people with dark skin are actually real human beings…” lol

15

u/sheep_duck 17d ago

For me I definitely grew up learning about the black panthers with a tinge of negativity attached to it (they were civil rights activists but they were scary and they had guns, maybe they would’ve been more effective if they didn’t be so aggressive) but only in the last 5-10 years with marvel and then seeing the new wave of them pop up protecting their community and providing resources to people did I realize exactly the kind of organization they are and what their beliefs represent.

Our education has definitely been brainwashing us from a young age

18

u/HeadfulOfSugar 17d ago

Yeah when I learned about how they were running free breakfast programs across the nations largest cities, that fed 20,000+ kids daily because the powers that be wouldn’t, which Hoover described as the “greatest threat to the internal security of the country" because they were feeding both poor black AND white children, it suddenly all clicked into place lmao

-1

u/Redditributor 16d ago

They weren't the good guys

→ More replies

1

u/Zestyclose-Height-36 15d ago

the numbers of women raped and killed by police for wanting the voted is always ignored.

67

u/These-Prune-1529 17d ago

I agree. It's why they are all busy building bunkers.

33

u/Pseudonymico 17d ago

Bunkers with blockable air vents and guards who may or may not sympathise with their employers when the shit hits the fan.

13

u/UnknownLesson 17d ago

They have definitely thought of that

Nothing is perfect, but it will be anything but easy

And guards will be robots in a couple of years

16

u/SoochSooch 17d ago edited 12d ago

Sometime after the collapse, there will be massive bunkers scattered around the world, full of treasure, guarded by robots that attack anything that comes near.

This would make a great Zelda type game.

12

u/poonmaster64 17d ago

You’re describing the fallout franchise

3

u/Deep-Bonus8546 17d ago

It’s also similar to horizon new dawn and following games. There’s even a section where you try to find a billionaires bunker

4

u/PianoTrumpetMax 17d ago

Hmm, maybe realistic human bots called Synths?

1

u/AirlineExpress5242 12d ago

Lmao, this hits so hard

→ More replies

9

u/TopTittyBardown 17d ago

It’s crazy that all they had to do was be a little less greedy and they could’ve not fucked the environment and the economy to the point that they feel like they’re going to have to retreat to live underground at some point. They’d rather live in holes in the dirt than put a little bit of effort into keeping this beautiful planet habitable for them to enjoy and a happy enough place for all that they don’t have to worry about revolt. They could still be rich beyond their wildest dreams and have everything they ever want without having to worry about being lynched by the poors if they just paid their fair share

3

u/Ckarles 16d ago

It's a disease. They're fucking mental. There is no other way to describe it. Endless growth for no purpose is called cancer.

They are not satisfied by anything, and they have literally everything. The only thing bigger than their need to have more than others is their own ego.

5

u/No-Spoilers 17d ago

Cool. Let them rot in it. What's the point of having hundreds of billions of dollars, if you are stuck living underground unable to spend it or even see the sun.

9

u/EnvironmentalLime464 17d ago

Right. It’s fine if they have their bunkers. Just chase them down there and make them fear coming out.

9

u/EnvironmentalValue18 17d ago

Would it be a funny coincidence if we chased all the worst into bunkers, somehow righted the ship and started living in a utopia while the evil, greedy dragons die underground thinking it’s all post-apocalyptic on the outside?

That would be beautiful. A girl can dream.

2

u/OwnWorstEnemy18 17d ago

Unfortunately, eventually the next wealthy greedy bastard drunk with ego and hubris would take their place. It’s the way of our world/species.

History doesn’t repeat but it rhymes.

1

u/No-Spoilers 17d ago

Bad times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create bad times.

WW2 ending started the good times, Trump was born in 1946, many of our politicians grew up in the golden age. They were the weak men, we are now in the bad times. itll never end.

→ More replies

1

u/BankshotMcG 17d ago

Username checks way out.

20

u/OutrageousThought646 17d ago

France is calling

20

u/Beibzi 17d ago

Be careful, reddit mods LOVE to ban people for daring to say anything remotely violent being done to their oligarchs because laws fail to rein them in.

6

u/__ZOMBOY__ 16d ago edited 13d ago

Ooo, I’ll risk it:

Violence is the ONLY answer when our overlords get out of control. Exhibit A: the creation of the USA

EDIT: four days after commenting and no ban yet!

4

u/Jared2345 17d ago

I’ve been put on timeouts for a guillotine gif.

2

u/Battystearsinrain 17d ago

The one with the melon?

5

u/SpitefulRedditScum 16d ago

Violence is the ONLY answer to this problem and We need to deal with this problem with extreme prejudice.

except we can’t acknowledge that without coping a ban. This comment will likely result in a ban

6

u/PurpEL 17d ago

I'm against violence.

Unless it's to bring fear to the billionaires.

1

u/Redditributor 16d ago

I disagree. I think the historical less violent protest works better

-1

u/zigzoing 17d ago

It works*

*^(if you only look at the times that it worked)

0

u/Dugen 17d ago

Violence is how the minority gets its way. Democracy is how the majority gets its way. We need to focus on making democracy work properly. Unless we figure out what rules make that happen, violence will just get us back to the same broken state.

-4

u/BellGloomy8679 17d ago

Wht don’t you start?

Everytime some chud who doesn’t know his history, but pretends he does, thinks violent revolution is a great idea - they never will be on the frontlines, they would want someone else to bleed for them.

-3

u/UrADumbdumbi 17d ago

It “works” for about a decade and then the same thing happens all over again.

-9

u/[deleted] 17d ago edited 17d ago

[deleted]

7

u/TheShruteFarmsCEO 17d ago

Wow. You are the prototype proletariat…it’s incredible to read so many of the billionaires’ talking points in a single post. “If we attack the billionaires the companies we need will disappear”, “you’ll end up living out of a mud hut without the billionaires”, “life is pretty amazing, because the billionaires let us have AC and Netflix, so let’s be grateful and don’t complain”.

-4

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

8

u/bussythrasher1973 17d ago

You're "just sayin'" a buncha bullshit. Politics were only ever "boring" if you weren't one of the minority groups the US actively oppresses, so you don't get to act like you know the first thing about US history. I couldn't legally get married to my own partner until a handful of years ago because it was illegal. That's your "boring." Fuck's sake.

→ More replies

11

u/Caleb_Reynolds 17d ago

The real problem is the workers aren't entitled to the value of their labor. This is all an inevitability of a system where capital is entitled to the profit of labor.

60

u/Conformatrix 17d ago

Which is why a 7 or maaaybe low 8 digit limit makes sense. At that point you have to actually weigh your grandiose nation/world-shaping ideals against your creature comforts.

Although reps are notoriously cheaper to buy than people imagine, so maybe lower would be better.

7

u/Hal_Fenn 17d ago

It's actually why, as unpopular as it tends to be, we should pay politicians a lot more while also clamping down on any and all types of gift/donation/bribe.

It generally gives you a much better quality of politician and obviously makes their opinions a lot harder to sway.

3

u/otakuarchivist 17d ago

Yep. I was tired enough of how bad things are that I was actually thinking about running for office at one point. When I saw the salary rates and considered that I'd have to reapply for my job every four years, I quickly realized that wouldn't be a good option compared to my current sufficiently paying very safe career. Not to mention the cost of campaigning in the first place.

2

u/Acceptable-Piccolo57 17d ago

Yup, no stock/ investments etc, and a decent salary

0

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/Leviticus_Sux 17d ago

But 100 million in what? Net worth or liquid assets? Being a billionaire doesn't mean having a billion dollars. It means owning shares and assets that are estimated to be worth a billion dollars.

If you start a company and you build it to become worth a billion dollars, does that mean you now have to give away shares in your company above 100 million? Now you only own 10 percent of your company and you no longer control the very thing you built... What if the people who now control it run the business into the ground and you now are broke and penniless? That wouldn't be fair at all...

And if it's based on liquid assets, then the billionaires will just reinvest the money above the limit in other businesses and assets so that they don't have to give it away in taxes (which is sort of what they already do to avoid taxes now...). Then they just take out loans against their assets when they want to buy something expensive.

Point being, there's no easy way to enforce such a limit because the concept of being a billionaire isn't what most people think.

I'd love to find a way to limit their wealth and power too, but it's not such a simple thing.

1

u/Conformatrix 17d ago

I don't think we should dismiss the idea of limiting the size of private business entities. The more powerful a given company, the more they're able to exert influence over government to optimize for their own needs over that of the people a government is meant to serve. That's one argument for nationalizing any corporation past a certain size, then there's the "too big to fail" scenario- if they're so large that it would destabilize the town/state/country for them to fail, then the town/state/country should have a say in what the business does.

Also, it's just logically sensible for you to only own 10% of your company once it's that size? There exists no billion dollar company that's just one dude. You are not the one person who built the company to a billion dollar valuation.

Past 100 million, you start portioning off ownership to the other people who built your business with you. Does that sound fair?

2

u/Leviticus_Sux 17d ago

Fair? I don't know. Not necessarily...

Sure, other people may have helped you build it to become that large, but you were in control of it and led the company to its size. Giving away that control when you've done nothing but lead a business to success probably wouldn't seem very fair to you if you were in that position.

But, even if we agreed what you said was a fair thing to do, this is not a simple thing to enforce. While I completely agree that we have too many individuals with too much money and power, I'm not convinced that the solution is a simple and direct limiting of their assets like that. There's a million ways around that kind of thing and it would be virtually impossible to define and enforce.

As I stated in other comments, I think the solution is more about limiting corporate influence in politics (repealing citizens United and banning large political donations by individuals and businesses), closing tax loopholes for wealthy individuals and corporations, improving workers rights (like undoing laws that make it hard for unions and labor organizations to be created & function and/or create new laws that make it easier for them to form), actually enforce laws against monopolies, and better regulate news organizations (not by interfering with what they can and can't report on and say, but by limiting large corporations or wealthy individuals that own other businesses from owning and/or controlling them. In other words, a news organization should be just that: a news organization. Not a subsidiary of a large corporate conglomerate that has a vested interest in using news stations to control narratives that can benefit them and hurt their competitors.).

The problem with any of the ideas being talked about by you, me, and most of the others in this thread is it requires the very politicians that are corrupted by these wealthy businesses and individuals to enact/repeal these laws. Not only that, but the supreme court itself has become blatantly corrupt, and they were supposed to be the guiding light in our system. If the supposed impartial judges of our country have been corrupted by wealthy individuals/businesses, I'm not sure how we can expect our politicians to be better....

Getting enough of the public to vote for actually honest politicians is near impossible when the "news" organizations and social media is weaponized by the wealthy to divide our country into two halves and have them fight against themselves...

A significant portion of the right literally thinks Democrats are evil socialists and communists (because they think those are the same thing) that want to take away their guns, murder babies, open the borders for Mexicans to come in and steal jobs & commit crimes, give away all the other jobs to non-whites, and a bunch of other "scary" things.

They've literally scared their base into thinking that the left are enemies and not just fellow countrymen that happen to disagree on some issues here and there. This fear-mongering is what allows them to be ok with breaking rules and political norms because it's not just about political differences. It's about "the fate of our country".

What they don't realize is that it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy, but not in the way that they are scared of. The left must become more inflexible and more extreme to effectively counteract this onslaught. It's almost impossible for one side to play by the rules and still be effective when the other side constantly breaks those rules to get their way.

The Democrats have never been a super unified force (at least not in my lifetime), whereas the right have become quite unified and focused on winning at all costs, and that is a dangerous thing...

1

u/Conformatrix 16d ago

Giving away that control when you've done nothing but lead a business to success

Again- at the scale of 1 billion dollars, it's literally and objectively not just you. Can we agree on that? I'll respond to the other stuff after we settle this point.

→ More replies

7

u/MoodyBernoulli 17d ago

Lobbying should even be a thing. It’s daylight corruption.

It should be called ‘bribing’

3

u/moddingminecrafter 17d ago

Exactly this. $100 million is too much. $18 million is better - I think still too high but I’d take it in a compromise. All money made over the limit goes to local-federal taxes.

Also the loopholes for reinvestment to hide profits need to be closed, along with corporate bankruptcy rules as it’s used for money laundering schemes. Also revoke Citizens United and make it illegal for a representative to accept any individual or corporate money for political races - this can now be paid fairly by taxes with much of the bloat removed (for example, no more $20k lobster dinners). Bring back fair news, with a requirement to cover some percentage of global news.

3

u/EchoingAngel 17d ago

A heavy-handed tax cap creates an ecosystem of many medium players and kneecaps the ability to swell into giant monopolies. Many medium players means proper capitalistic competition for customers AND workers.

Instead, we let giants grow infinitely and they turn into hideous dragons that behave as if the society exists for their good, rather than the other way around.

2

u/accountno543210 17d ago

Rich people statutorily would not be able to rig the system if it wasn't for the 2010 citizens united ruling which will take a constitutional amendment to over overthrow.

1

u/ontheweed 17d ago

Becomes?

1

u/DonkeyOfWallStreet 17d ago

Bill Gates has entered the chart

1

u/SpaceSteak 17d ago

Becomes? I've got some bad news friend!

1

u/Comfortable-Bread249 17d ago

Wrong verb tense. I think you mean “became.” Because that scenario is here in the present.

-1

u/cib2018 17d ago

How does that work?

9

u/GingerbreadMommy 17d ago

They buy politicians

-1

u/cib2018 17d ago

Really? Which ones are bought by whom?

69

u/htx1114 18d ago

But won't anyone think of the custom yacht makers? How are people going to afford a $50 billion yacht - fucking timeshares?

106

u/Dear_Chasey_La1n 18d ago

The irony would be, instead of building a 50 billion yacht he gets to build 30 2.5 billion USD yachts. The problem with wealth is they aren't spending it. When people have less wealth, they are more likely to spend more. 100 1 billion billionaires will spend together more into the society than 1 100 billion billionaire.

Which is why welfare to the poor is fantastic, they have no ability to save they are cash strapped. Give them 100-200-500 USD monthly and they will spend it on daily needs. Give a billionaire 1 million he will add it to the pile of money to jack off to.

48

u/Content-Nectarine875 17d ago

Yeah when I learnt that giving money to the poor actually makes a profit for society. Took a while for me to get my head around it.

57

u/TrulyOutrageous42 17d ago

Money existing but not moving hurts an economy.

-2

u/DanceWithEverything 17d ago

That’s true for cash, is it true for equities?

8

u/roguevirus 17d ago

is it true for equities?

Technically yes, but that is because equities are fungible assets valued in cash, not because they are an inherently special part of the economy like real estate.

12

u/Ok_Umpire8214 17d ago

Our economy works bc we are poor and need to spend money to survive. Rich people hoarding money only hurts the majority. It’s like these people skipped economics

7

u/Impeesa_ 17d ago

Allegedly business-minded people suddenly stop understanding "you have to spend money to make money" as soon as it looks like investing in people and infrastructure.

2

u/Zestyclose-Height-36 17d ago

they get massive tax breaks to invest in people and infrastructure outside the US

1

u/snowflake37wao 17d ago

pretty sure every dollar worth of food stamps the government disperses reimburses them with more than a dollar worth in taxes back, before even regarding all the other stimulus/beneficial arguments harder to put a number on. yet that hard fact ratio is not brought up enough during all the many times assistance programs are brought up that I cant even recount the exact amount, let alone mechanisms or sources. all I remember is the ratio of taxes spent to taxes made is not positive::negative or even 1::1, its 1::>1. It should be where the conversation starts if we are gunna keep talking about it but never is.

3

u/bigolefatguy 17d ago

you give $20 to a guy via tax dollars. he spends that on a buritto, service rendered that goes into someone else’s pocket, which then someone else, and so on until it ends up in the governments pocket. you might have just made some weird circulation of non existent value but you did motivate a lot of people to make a lot of burritos. i don’t remember to well but i’ve heard it described as the velocity of money.

1

u/47-45-45-4B 17d ago

Ties into the idea, the velocity of money. Sitting still and not changing hands takes it out of the economy.

1

u/AssPennies 17d ago

pile of money to jack off to

Well that escalated quickly, lmao!

(I'm dying over here!)

5

u/ComradeJohnS 18d ago

they can chip in together and share one really really nice one.

3

u/Tasgall 17d ago

fucking timeshares

You joke, but that's more or less what they already do, lol.

Billionaires don't own yachts directly. They own a stake in a company (could be 100%) that owns the yachts. They then rent out the yacht (to themselves) so they can count the voyage as a "business expense". For tax purposes, lol.

1

u/snowflake37wao 17d ago

holy shit forgot about timeshares. what happened with those anyway, something something 2008 something?

0

u/Shot-Swimming-9098 17d ago

Those yachts cost millions, not billions.

9

u/CraigArndt 17d ago

Being a billionaire isn’t about a persons needs. It’s about starting a dynasty so your children and grandchildren are the ruling class for generations to come.

We will have a Bezos, Trumps, and Musks running major companies and running for Office for the foreseeable future because of the money they stole in the past few years.

2

u/Jessir12 17d ago

Which is why jail time isn’t enough punishment for said crimes. Tearing down the legacy seems like a necessary punishment for it to actually be effective(trim the money down so the children inherit let’s say 100 million each).

3

u/Elementium 17d ago

The problem with a billion is it's still a goal. Billionaires aren't needed. Honestly even 500-750m is too much. You should never have so much money that you can't face consequences. 

3

u/777umm777 17d ago

Not my idea but perhaps after some obscene amout of wealth, say 999 million dollars, you get a nice trophy stating that you won capitalism and the rest goes to help humanity. Billionaires shouldn't exist.

2

u/Leviticus_Sux 17d ago

Right, but how do you enforce that? For example, Elon may be a trillionaire, but he doesn't have a trillion dollars. He's worth a trillion dollars because of the estimated value of the businesses and assets he owns.

So are we cutting people off at their worth, or their liquid assets? If it's based on their worth, then what does that mean? Do you have to sell off the shares of your businesses above the limit? Who do you sell them to? What if you can't find somebody to buy the shares? What does that mean for who controls the company? Will you lose control of your own company because it's worth so much more than the cutoff?

And then if it's based on liquid assets instead of worth, then how is that enforced? Wouldn't they just hide their assets by investing it in other businesses or putting it in overseas accounts (which is what they kind of already do to avoid paying taxes)?

I too have thought that there should be some kind of limit on one individual person's wealth and power, but the reality is, that is a very difficult thing to define and enforce.

The way we define a billionaire is a very simplified summarization of their worth. Being a billionaire doesn't mean having a billion dollars. It means you potentially have access to a billion dollars. In reality, you could be called a billionaire and have less than a million dollars in all of your bank accounts. If you need to buy something really expensive, you just take a loan out against your assets/shares and then you pay it off as you get profits/dividends from those assets/shares or from selling off some of those assets/shares (or you take out another loan to pay the previous one off and keep doing that forever because why not??).

There's dozens and dozens of ways they have to leverage their worth without ever having much actual liquid cash...

It sucks, but I'm not sure there's an easy way to do much about it in a capitalist society (or at least in the capitalist society that we currently have). I think the real problem is how we have deprioritized workers rights, given too much power to corporations (like the citizens United act), and allowed journalistic integrity to be overtaken by corporate interests.

1

u/VinesOverScars 16d ago

I think by now we all have an understanding of the colloquial use of billionaire, and still collectively agree it is bad for society. No one accumulates that much value in assets without predatory practices, which harm both the workers and the very concept of capitalism. There can be no competition when a business has the power to buy the land out from under another and evict them. Without competition the very thesis of capitalism fails.

And honestly? Yeah, just continue to fracture ownership of a company after it's reached the value of $18m. Ownership should continue acclimating under the workers. Install board of directors to keep operations running smoothly or something. 

How will this effect things? IDFK, it's just the concept of an idea, man. I, an undereducated moron can't think of any flaws though.

1

u/Leviticus_Sux 16d ago

I don't think a lot of people do understand the colloquial use of billionaire. When somebody is called a millionaire, it is usually thought of as somebody that has actually accumulated a million or more dollars in actual liquid money. So, when people hear billionaire, they often times think of it as the same thing, but that just isn't true. That isn't what being a billionaire means at all. You can have very little money in the bank and still be called a billionaire.

And saying that somebody worth a billion dollars got there by performing predatory practices is such a gross generalization. Running a successful business that eventually becomes worth a billion doesn't mean you're automatically an awful person. It can actually mean that you are just incredibly lucky that your business did really well and/or that you're just a good businessman (probably a lot of both).

While I do agree that providing employees more shares and/or profits of a business should be a normal thing, I'm not convinced that mandating that is a good idea, nor do I think it could be done in such a way that would prevent people from finding workarounds for the system or without businesses pulling the ownership (and thus vital investments) outside of America.

My point being, while I agree that a single person accumulating too much wealth and power can be a bad thing, I believe people are vastly oversimplifying the problem and trying to solve it in a way that doesn't really address the actual issues and aren't realistic methods that would ever happen (at least without a MAJOR shift in American society that would probably take 20 or more years to take hold). Instead, other, more realistic (but still unlikely without a shift in society) policies should be used to address the problems, like better workers rights, less corporate rights (especially in politics), better focus on anti-monopolistic practices, and the removal of conflicting corporate interests in news companies.

1

u/VinesOverScars 16d ago

It's a central point of modern discourse, those imagining a Scrooge McDuck in today's modern age is willfully ignorant and unlikely to voice an opinion on the matter without someone like you soft defending the billionaire class. Having "very little in the bank" has very different implications when you're already asset poor compared to asset rich, it's honestly strange to even bring this up. Wealth at that level is abstract and complicated because we allow it.

There is no oversimplification, if your business is valued at billions of dollars, it is because that business screwed their competition, their employees, their community, and their partners. Let the billionaires leave, we'll just transfer their nonliquid assets to the working class, and they can retire on an island with a cool $18m after they sell their stock to be split among the workers. That should be the point of accumulating so much wealth, to retire in luxury at a young age.

I fail to see how the system proposed by me doesn't address your concerns outright. Less incentive to form corporate mafia monopolies when that monopoly suddenly lacks the financial power to sway politics, all while granting employees more power. The only way to fix these problems is a dramatic shift in the very roots of the system. You didn't really provide any reasons it couldn't work either, I don't really care that you "don't think it'd work" if you don't provide examples of how it could fail, ones that couldn't just be regulated against. 

You believe the billionaire class should not have so much power, but not enough for us to do anything about it. Billionaires are a net drain on society. No matter your business acumen and luck and sociopathic tendencies, or even just heritage, you do not deserve to control enough assets to sway world politics. Keep pussyfooting about it though, idfc, we're just going to keep trying nothing while the disparity gets even greater until collapse. 

In other news I'd run the perfect Utopia, unlike all the other Utopias, because I'm just smarter than them. 

1

u/Leviticus_Sux 16d ago

You said to understand. What you're talking about isn't realistic and is just essentially dreaming. It also assumes gross generalizations that aren't true. Saying that every business worth a billion or more dollars got that way because they must have screwed over somebody else is completely unfounded. Just because some have doesn't mean all have.
But regardless, your proposed system will literally never happen, so what is the point? More realistic ideas that could actually address the problem are a much more helpful discourse than oversimplified fantasies...

1

u/VinesOverScars 16d ago

Yeah, dude, it's called a thought experiment. None of our discourse is helpful, you're just as bad as I am. You're also just willfully not engaging in the concept laid before you because you're a wet blanket getting too caught up in defending a class of people who do not care about if you live, die, or suffer. Feel free to "nuh-uh" my outlook all you like, the material fact is that their existence alone is a drain on society, even the "good" ones are unintentionally harmful.  Of course I've oversimplified some aspects, I'm not about to flesh out every aspect of a crackpot economic management system past midnight stoned as fuck.

The point of engaging in thought experiments is to expand beyond the normal scope of conversation and find solutions among outlandish thinking. Are you always this damn pretentious?

1

u/Unrigg3D 14d ago

Theres 2 interesting books. "Never Enough" by Andrew Wilkinson and "Let my people go surfing" by Yvon Chouinard

Two people who unwillingly became billionaires. I think if more people were inspired by these types of people instead of Elon Musk types we would have a better world.

1

u/VinesOverScars 14d ago

No human is worth a trillion other humans, though wealth disparity says otherwise. There is no moral billionaire, to remain of the billionaire class without using your position vehemently fighting the oppression caused by the peers of your class is to be an enemy to the people.

1

u/Unrigg3D 14d ago

I never disagreed with you. I said these books might be interesting to you for another perspective. If you refuse to look at other perspectives you won't see outside the box they all want you to be stuck in.

The whole point of the books is to show even though they always made the moral choice for their customers and business the way things just work out a certain way.

You have to understand the game if you want to change it.

2

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

1

u/jryi 13d ago

I'd push back on that advancement point: I don't believe that even Elon's main motivation is money, but rather the drive to invent. He has become outrageously rich, which has probably made him greedy AF, but even if he'd only made one billion, he would have started SpaceX and this other shit.

But as to the wealth cap, yeah, there should not be one. The right way to go is 90+ percent tax on income of over $100M or so.

2

u/flamingbabyjesus 17d ago

What is your proposal for how to tax his stock?

Personally I think the best way to do something that will actually work is tax borrowing against unrealized gains

4

u/Ok_Umpire8214 17d ago

If you can’t live a happy successful life w 100 mil, then you don’t deserve a 100 mil. No dollar amount over that can make you not a miserable prick

2

u/madeinatube 17d ago

I don’t know if this is ignorant, but I was thinking about this if there was actually a wealth cut off like that I wonder if it would actually make money worth more Like our money worth more

You know, kind of like when a teacher grades on a curve

5

u/Drict 17d ago

Certain goods would go up, others would go down.

ESPECIALLY if all of that money got circulated back into the market.

Like, some luxury things would become 100% unobtainable, because the pricing structure would mean that the demand would outstrip the production/supply.

Similarly, other things would fall off of a cliff. If everyone can afford to eat "normally" the substitutes goods, wouldn't be purchased.

2

u/madeinatube 17d ago

There aren’t words to even thank you for this wonderful answer. Thanks for not telling me to google it or something.

I really really appreciate it. Thank you fellow Redditor !!!

2

u/Drict 17d ago

I am generalizing, and I might be completely off with the assessment of luxury goods vs substitute goods; but the point is that there would be major changes in how available some things are.

Another way of thinking of it, is that if you took all of Elon's wealth at its height, over 1 TRILLION dollars, that is assuming ever share for every company sold at the same time at the top out point, which is a broad assumption that is probably inaccurate, but aside from technical details, you took his 1 TRILLION dollars, and distributed that money to every person in the US evenly, literally every one of them, and gave them the money, every person would have ~$3k.

If you did that with every billionaire (roughly 1000 of them), every person would have something like $25k handed to them. (BTW that is 8 Trillion dollars)

Now, think about what people can do with that money. Pay off debt (more spending money monthly after that), they could by a low end car (lots of demand, so car prices would go up), put money down on a house (lots of demand, so house prices would go up), etc. etc.

If you suddenly had an extra $25k in your bank account, would you buy the cheapest food or would you go out to a nice dinner?

Thus the "substitutes" wouldn't sell (prices have to go down to entice people or the quality HAS to go up to compete with the new floor of quality) and luxury goods (oh, I have been looking at this expensive watch or purse; suddenly I have the cash to buy it, so does everyone else. Either it sells out, or the prices go UP!)

That is the logic that I basically explained.

1

u/rockerscott 17d ago

$499 million…you get an island and a plaque saying you won capitalism and then everything above that is taxed 100% by nation of origin.

1

u/pornbt5 17d ago

I've got no issue with a wealth tax, but how do you propose that majority share holders have to sell their share in companies for this?

Firms already own more voting shares worth more than 1b in other companies. You force the owner who has multiple companies to hold less than 1b they effectively no longer own that company.

Majority share holders in large companies already need board and government approval to sell shares.

1

u/Einn1Tveir2 17d ago

But what if you want to buy an election and get Trump voted? wait, that only costs about 200 million. Never mind.

1

u/Alieges 17d ago

Shit, count every dollar over a 10 million a year as income, and add 3% to the incremental tax rate every roughly 2x.

So right now it’s 37% at ~650k So 40% at 1.2 million, 43% at 2.5 million, 46% at 5 million, 49% at 10 mil, 52% at 20 mil, 55% at 40 mil, 58% at 80 mil, 61% at 160 mil….

Then a few year later start sliding the brackets over 5 mil/year down a bit every few years.

1

u/anadem 17d ago

Um no, not a billion .. there's a LOT of difference between a million and a billion:

One million seconds is about 11 days. One billion seconds is about 32 years

1

u/camebackforpopcorn 17d ago

If we go by arbitrary number I would just take everything beyond 500k/year. In my country, France, everything beyond 10k/month I take for health, education, transportation, culture, etc. I don't even know what you need more than 10k/month for

1

u/VCTRYDTX 17d ago

Tf? How am I supposed to look down on someone who also has a Billion? I didn't get here by settling. I have to have more, and when I get there I have to make sure my offspring has more. And when they get there I have to make sure they rule everything eventually. And to make sure of that I have to keep you all poor and use my wealth to change things against everyone's interest. And once my bloodline inherites the earth, they must conquer more worlds. Everyone throughout the universe must witness my greatness and see how much better I am than everyone and how small my weiner is.

-7

u/Smackety 18d ago

Are shares of stock legal tender to pay taxes with? Because no one has billions in cash like scrooge mcduck.

7

u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

-1

u/Smackety 17d ago

I agree we should tax it, but I don't think it is simple.

3

u/Zalophusdvm 18d ago

Ya! I think that sounds like a good plan.

Alternatively, we could tax those shares just like we tax physical land and houses. Ie come up with a number associated with the asset and then make it the asset holder’s problem to come up with the cash.

Even if you just require them to sell it to pay…that actually makes a lot of good economic sense. From an economic growth perspective, saving isn’t good. It locks up money that could be moving through the economy. Taxing savings isn’t the worst economic policy position in the world. Particularly if it’s a “tax savings beyond what is necessary to live,” idea.

-2

u/Smackety 17d ago

Elon selling 20% of Tesla to pay taxes would be a wild day on the stock market

1

u/Zalophusdvm 17d ago

Not really.

He’d still have to follow all the various rules around executives selling stock. If he chooses to dump it all on April 14 to pay his tax bill on the 15th…then just chuck him in prison for market manipulation. 🤷 (Aside from the fact that would be blatantly against his own self interest more than anyone else’s…)

Also, it might just bring Tesla down to…idk….a sane valuation?

But, if you don’t like that option, I have NO problem with him paying the taxes with stock. The price would be determined based on government assessment of the value in their hands, not current market valuation, so it would probably cost him 30%.

0

u/[deleted] 17d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Zalophusdvm 17d ago

No. Why would he get a rebate for a change in net worth AFTER taxes are assessed? Do YOU get a rebate to a lower tax bracket after paying your income tax? No. What a stupid question. But his tax bill is lower next year! Don’t you worry about poor ol’ Elon.

And no….I want to throw him in prison for breaking SEC rules. CEOs and other major executive stock sales need to be pre-published and follow a host of other SEC rules to prevent exactly this sorta situation already. I’m not sure you’ve thought through your endless Elon dick sucking?

After-all, do you panic and try to sell your house (or even just a fractional share of it) every year on April 14th to pay taxes? No, because that would be insane. You also completely ignored the fact that doing so would be atrocious for his net worth. Taking actions that purposely tank the stock while it is still what’s propping up your wealth…even if you have slightly less wealth…is a level of self destruction that is EXTREMELY unlikely. (Again, even if he does, wouldn’t bother me, Tesla in particular is crazy over valued anyway. But the idea that it’s at all likely is laughable.)

And remember, he’s always got the option of paying directly with stock!

→ More replies

2

u/Various-Solid-9543 18d ago

Sell the stocks pay your taxes. This unrealized gains argument doesn't hold water.

1

u/Smackety 17d ago

What if selling the shares would cost you the majority shareholder position and you would lose control of your own company?

0

u/thirdegree 17d ago

Then you should have financially planned better. Nobody forced you to publicly list the company, you did that because you wanted more money. Well, there you go.

0

u/Various-Solid-9543 17d ago

Then you aren't the majority shareholder

-1

u/TrulyOutrageous42 17d ago

Let's be real - nobody needs 18million, and anything above 50ish is where we get into real problems with wealth disparity as a society. I personally think the current cutoff should be 10mil, total wealth. IDGAF. If you've made that much, you're literally set for life to do basically anything you could possibly want every single day. Until the housing crisis is addressed as a human right, if you want a 50million dollar mega mansion or to own a football team, fucking find some friends.

0

u/snowflake37wao 17d ago

the cutoff, literally. 999,999,999? gucci. make a buck? 10 figures, off with the head.

0

u/SenorSalsa 17d ago

At $999,999,999 a choice should be offered, you can either be barred from making any more money and get to live with what you have and get a giant novelty trophy that says "I Beat Capitalism!".

Or you can make another penny, but it becomes legal for everyone else to steal from you.

-2

u/Alexmackzie 17d ago

The issue is that the vast vast majority of billionaires dont actually have "money". They have ownership shares in their companies, and in stocks.

So if you create a company that becomes wildly successful. and it is valued by investors at $10 billion. And you own 80% of the shares, since you founded and created it. maybe some investors bought in early on for 20% or you give shares to employees.

You are technically worth $8 billion. And you can't force them to sell their shares. because then they would lose control of their company.

So now they have these shares, and they can leverage it for loans. Tax free of course.

So let's say you tax the company worth. You own 100% of shares. Your company is at $800 million. And has an amazing year and booms to $2 billion. And we decide that no one is worth more than $1 billion, the rest is taxed.

So somehow you owe the government $1 billion in taxes. cause your company did so well. How do you pay it? sell shares? Ok, then we run into the same issue where you lose control of your own company. Give the government shares? same issue.

-8

u/Forkrul 18d ago

No one has that. People have ownership stakes in companies that the market says is worth that much. If you tried to convert even 10% into cash the value would crash immediately.

When someone says a person's net worth is X, that is not how much money they have. It's the theoretical cash value of everything they own minus any debt they have.

7

u/SwankyBobolink 18d ago

Correct which is why they leverage the stock for extremely low interest loans and pay those off over time while the stock makes more money than the loan costs, so they can just pay the loan back with a small stock sale later.

1

u/Forkrul 17d ago

For day-to-day expenses or smaller deals, sure. But when ~250 billionaires need to do that for 5% of their combined net worth all at once? That might legitimately make a significant number of banks in CA and surrounding states unable to give out more loans to anyone.

2

u/_DaBau5_ 18d ago

you don’t have to sell you can use it as collateral and get a loan against it

1

u/Forkrul 17d ago

Sure, but taking out a 13B loan is not going to get the same low interest you get when take out a loan for a few million for living expenses. You'd still have to sell quite a lot to pay interest on that. And it's not just Brin that would have to do this, California has about 250 billionaires that could be subject to this tax.