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

[u/Logical_Welder3467]

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

[u/Dear_Chasey_La1n]

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.

[u/Content-Nectarine875 → u/Dear_Chasey_La1n]

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.

[u/TrulyOutrageous42 → u/Content-Nectarine875]

Money existing but not moving hurts an economy.

[u/DanceWithEverything → u/TrulyOutrageous42]

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

[u/roguevirus → u/DanceWithEverything]

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.

[u/Ok_Umpire8214 → u/Content-Nectarine875]

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

[u/Impeesa_ → u/Content-Nectarine875]

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.

[u/Zestyclose-Height-36 → u/Impeesa_]

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

[u/snowflake37wao → u/Content-Nectarine875]

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.

[u/bigolefatguy → u/snowflake37wao]

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.

[u/47-45-45-4B → u/Content-Nectarine875]

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

[u/AssPennies → u/Dear_Chasey_La1n]

pile of money to jack off to

Well that escalated quickly, lmao!

(I'm dying over here!)