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/
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 17d ago

Money existing but not moving hurts an economy.

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u/DanceWithEverything 17d ago

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

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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.

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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

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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.

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u/Zestyclose-Height-36 17d ago

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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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u/AssPennies 17d ago

pile of money to jack off to

Well that escalated quickly, lmao!

(I'm dying over here!)

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u/ComradeJohnS 18d ago

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

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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.

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u/snowflake37wao 17d ago

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

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u/Shot-Swimming-9098 17d ago

Those yachts cost millions, not billions.