What’s with the obsession for each side to promise a big check for everyone? Surely the money is better spent on public services rather than bribery…
No. I never agree with anyone using engagement bait titles.
And yet you engaged
He’s not going to do it once he gets into office, these posts are just made to keep people trusting in two party system where both parties are against socialism and for bombing a new middle east country
It’s not going to happen and by the time americans realize it they’ll be distracted by invasion of bolivia and accepting that you can’t punish people for lying by ousting them like said bolivia
I think 99% of people agree with this - that Bernie Sanders wants to do it. Do they support it, though?
It’s so crazy to me that people eat stuff like this up. Pages like this make BANK slapping some text on a bunch of image while adding absolutely nothing to the conversation.
Everything they make exists not to make a difference but to drive page views to their stupid accounts. It’s so, so transparent.
And in this house, we hate all ads
Somebody’s Facebook sphincter-scrapings aren’t a very good source. Here’s an article on the subject: https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5764783-bernie-sanders-ro-khanna-tax-billionaires/
Now that’s a band name: sphincter scrapings
It shall be thrash metal
K-pop
K-thrash
K-rap
A boy band
At that age, it’s splash-metal
No, it should be 10% at least.
We could tax a billionaire 95% of their wealth, and they would still have more money than you or I could reasonably spend in a lifetime.
Oh yeah, I’m a big proponent of no more billionaires. But it appears to a lot of average people smaller amounts are more palpable because they think they’ll ever be that rich.
Yes.
Only 5%? Mine is approaching 30% and I can’t afford shit.
Also sending out checks is fucking stupid. Just lower our taxes.
It’s 5% of wealth, not income. But still, anything short of 100% will not stop the parasites. But its a nice gesture, if nothing else
But its a nice gesture, if nothing else
Not particularly. 5% is nothing to them.
I disagree, Bernie doesn’t go far enough. All large corporations are to be nationalised, and ran under workers control.
All rent collectors are to be stripped from they’re plunder and are to attend weekly struggle sessions with previous renters.
And most importantly, we overthrow the dictatorship of the capitalist class and replace it with our own proletariat dictatorship of the working class under democratic centralism.
Of course but I go further and want to outlaw anyone to “earn” a billion dollars. Think wealth should be capped at 100 million everything after that seize and used for the greater good.
And if a corporation gains a value cap of billion it is broken the fuck up into smaller companies.
$100m is still far more than one person could ever need. Why draw an arbitrary line at all? Why not use what’s required to have a fair society as the starting point, and let the inability to accumulate such absurd levels of wealth derive naturally from that?
I agree but first we need to start somewhere. To do what you are suggesting we need to destroy all billionaires and capitalism. That will take violence that the left just cant grasp unfortunately.
I also agree, but in order to outlaw anyone “earning” a billion dollars we would also still need to destroy all billionaires and capitalism. It seems the only way we can change this will take violence that the left just cant grasp unfortunately.
capping at a hard number doesn’t make sense when 100 million today means something different tomorrow. it should be relative to the cost of living. Anything over 200x cost of living could be considered not needed. But Republicans can’t do math so back to square 1.
Yea. When you’re so rich you could just not work a single other day in your life and still spend 10x a normal working class human would spend is where I’d cut it and make them pay out their asses.
arbitrary
There would be nothing arbitrary if we simply used a multiplier against the poverty line! If that number changes, then the cap changes; simple enough.
Why even have money its kind of a klunky bullshit abstraction
I get currency as a fundamental concept, like I don’t want to spend all day figuring out how many pints of goat’s milk will power my car for X miles, but I agree that it’s become far too abstract to be tenable
That’s not how shit worked before money the need for precise tracking rather than general damn erins been carrying the whole neighborhood pretty hard and what has Steve even for anybody lately and how do I get Hector back for that cup of flour he spotted me in a way that will make him smile type thoughts a society that runs on making things work or making people happy runs better than a society that deliberately grinds to a halt every five seconds based on petty obsessive grievance adjacent bullshit believe it or not
100 million? Fuck that. 10 million tops.
100 million is a bit low. There are privately held companies worth more than that because of infrustructure cost alone.
To bad to goddamn bad 100 million is being generous.
I love that you’re just standing on this number staunchly lol.
100 million is already an absurd amount of money that allows one to live out their entire life throwing money at all their whims without ever worrying about running out. The only way to go broke is by seeking out ways to spend it all.
The fact that billionaires exist is insane.
I feel like we’re conflating individual, personal wealth with corporate valuations in this thread. Yeah, 100 million is way more than enough for a single person obviously, but for a corporation it’s tough to even say what that amount means.
If we’re still even doing corporations, I feel they should be evaluated and tracked by the proper authorities (aka, we the people) and given the appropriate treatment based on what that entity existing even entails.
If we decide your corporation is a net benefit to society, maybe we’ll relax things a bit. If you give up top-down hierarchy, turn your org over to the workers, and provide something that enhances the public good, maybe we let you cook, ya know? But know that the people are always watching and reporting in.
Conversely, if we decide your little corporate fiefdom is a leech, yeah, we’re going to keep you on a short fuckin leash, you’ll be under the microscope and progressively taxed and picked apart until that entity dies, unless and until you clean up your act and keep it clean long enough - then you get to play with the big dogs that are doing it right and allowed to exist and even thrive.
I’d rather see no corporations at all, at least not in their current form, but this doesn’t seem too bad as an intermediate step on the way there.
Then it needs to be run as a public service since it relies on the public infrastructure, run and provided at cost just like the rest of the government runs.
If you want communism then just say that instead you of playing number games.
The issue with the 100 million figure is that it’s not a large amount of capital. It’s sounds like a lot because we’re all wage slaves.
Thinking our problems are solved by outlawing our master’s ownership of the castle is how we expose ourselves as fools.
The castle isn’t the problem, it’s that average wages should be far far greater. A six figure income should be the minimum wage of the educated.
you put earn in quotes because i think you know they dont usually earn a billion. so what exactly are you trying to stop?
He’s putting it in quotes because no one has ever earned a billion dollars, because it’s not possible for a person to do one billion dollars worth of labor. If they have accumulated a billion dollars (or a billion dollars in assets), they’ve done it by taking it from others.
Exactly and I was being kind leaving them with 100 million. Beyond that I want to bring out the gulitions. Because hoarding that much wealth is a mental disorder with no cure. These fuckers will never get enough.
gulitions
That’s overkill. Hunter-killer squadrons of unarmed gulls would suffice.
thats what i said… i feel like Data from Goonies
Wealth hoarding and exploitation
to be clear - i agree something needs to be done but nobody can define specifically what to do. how do you define it? what exactly are you taxing? how are you taxing it?
my argument, is that its a hard problem. bernie sanders is the only person i see coming up with ideas.
i can’t. its easy to say “billionaires must be stopped” but how? specifically, exactly what.
to give an example. what is wealth hoarding? how do you define it so it doesnt cover savings accout or retirement?
If your retirement account has $100,000,000 in it, it needs to be taxed. Tax capital gains income like regular income and put some progressively higher tax brackets back, a progressive wealth tax, progressive taxes for homes worth more than a certain amount, and higher rates for second, third, etc homes, and hell, maybe even tax unrealized gains over a certain amount.
Private property. That’s literally the definition. Abolish private property. Problem solved
100 million
You fuckin class traitor, you should ldar right now. Fucj you
Family farms are now illegal.
Eh, it’s a compromise, but I can live with it.
I have the same amount of power to make this happen as Bernie Sanders has.
I hate using this term because I don’t think he’s stupid but the phrase is “useful idiot”
If you think of the machine that is politics he serves a purpose. Allowing him to vocalize this message essentially is a pressure release valve. His existence and beliefs although not wrong are keeping more aggressive views at bay. He’s basically keeping a segment of the population docile by making them think “he speaks for me. I don’t have to do anything”
Hate to say it but AOC as well. They’re part of the machinery. They are not disruptors at all.
They keep the left in the Democratic Party so that a viable alternative doesn’t form.
You seem to be advocating that no one American even talks about taxing the wealthy so that there isn’t a “pressure relief valve”?!
In the world of shit that is American politics right now, your solution, out of all the things that possibly change, is to silence anyone suggesting that just maybe there’s a better way?
THIS?! This is what you would change? Remove even the discussion of anything even slightly left of the Clintons?!
Are you insane? Are you Nancy Pelosi? Are you JD Vance?
Do you hate the Democratic party so much that you want to remove all traces of progressive politics from it?
I’ve got news for you. The water is boiling and the lobster isn’t climbing out. Putting the lid on and turning up the heat isn’t going to work. Throwing younger lobsters in the pot isn’t going to work. And silencing the only people talking about turning the heat down isn’t going to fucking help.
Americans need him but more agressive
Disagree. Mamdami is a good example. They just need someone new and fresh without baggage. You go back far enough you will find inconsistencies in any politician. A fresh face benefits all.
Why America only wants geriatrics is beyond me.
They don’t want geriatrics, but being an incumbent comes with a massive fund raising and name recognition boost. Making it a huge accomplishment to break into the debate. AOC was a major upset for a reason when she took office. That was not a small accomplishment.
No. I don’t agree. I don’t want a wealth tax. I want a wealth CAP. 1000x the median household income should be the maximum allowable fortune. That would be something like $80 million today.
I like that number because 1000x the median income is a good approximation for the largest honest fortune a person can earn by their own work. Imagine you had a married couple:
- Both were brain surgeons and highly paid.
- Both attended school young and worked til old age.
- Both lived like absolute paupers, saved and invested every penny they could.
Even in such an extreme scenario, two people in a couple working highly paid jobs and saving and investing nearly everything they could. Even then, they would struggle to die with a fortune 1000x the median income. The only way you can earn more money than this is if you inherit it or if you arbitrage the labor of others. You need to start a business, be an executive, or have other means of scalping the surplus off of other people’s labor.
1000x the median income is the largest honest fortune. It’s the largest fortune you can earn through an ordinary salary and prudent individual investing. And it’s well below the level where you have so much money you’re becoming a threat to society. No one should have an individual fortune so large that they can sway nations through their own wealth. That is just too much power for one individual to have. We don’t let people own nuclear bombs. We shouldn’t let people be billionaires.
I don’t want to tax billionaires. I want to eliminate them entirely. I would make all fortunes over 1000x the median income taxed at 100%. And if you secretly amass a larger fortune? There would be escalating criminal penalties. To the point where having a fortune 10x the legal limit would get you in as much legal trouble as if you tried to acquire your own nuclear bomb.
Equating mass wealth to weapons of mass destruction is not the metaphor I thought I’d be agreeing with today but it is extremely apt.
Yeah, it does make sense if you think about it. Imagine if Bezos or Musk decided to use their fortune to do as much damage to a city as possible. Musk could go to a city of hundreds of thousands and absolutely decimate if he wanted. Buy up all the big employers in town and shut them down. Fund local politicians who will screw things up as much as possible. Buy up residences by the thousand and pay to have them demolished. A billionaire like Musk or Bezos could, if they chose to, absolutely do as much damage to a city as a nuclear bomb. And countless people would die deaths of despair as a result.
Bezos could literally destroy a city if he wanted to. Let’s say a city of 100k people has 33,000 residences. Let’s say the average cost of buying and demolishing one is $500k. For about $16 billion, Bezos could literally buy up every residence in a city and tear them all down. Hell, they could afford to literally level a city that is home to millions of people, forcing the city to be abandoned.
One person should simply not have that much power. We don’t let people own nuclear bomb, period. We don’t say “only really ethical people get to own nukes.” We don’t say “only people with an expensive permit and license can own a nuke.” No. There we recognize that no person, no matter how sane or moral, gets to own a nuke. Mr. Rogers wasn’t allowed to own a nuke, even if he wanted one. Because even Mr. Rogers with a nuke isn’t safe. There’s always a chance of one individual going nuts and killing millions. There are simply levels of power that only large groups of people should have. Some things just should never be trusted to individuals.
i… just don’t get the point of billionaires. what is the point of amassing so much wealth? you’re never going to be able to spend all those billions in multiple lifetimes. Why does someone need more a few million to live comfortably? Just enough that you can buy ONE house, eat, pay your bills etc. Why the fuck does someone need a TRILLION FUCKING DOLLARS.
It’s about power. It’s just about power. Extreme wealth is a way for someone in democratic society to exercise the power of high office without actually having to convince the people to vote for you.
You hand me a few million? I’m never going to work again. I’ll spend the rest of my days happily hanging with friends and family, pursuing my hobbies, and volunteering for causes I support. But then again, I’m not a psychopath bent on amassing as much power as possible.
sad but true. This is why people like us will never be billionaires or trillionaires. You don’t get to that amount of wealth by being a good person. You get there by exploiting people and cheating and whatever. Fuck.
America is deeply, heavily in debt
Normally when this happens the rich are forced to take a haircut
25% of the global assets of anyone worth over 250 million
If they do much as complain seize their entire global assets and imprison them and their families
That’s America’s money take it back
Dont even need to give the familys the 12,000… just use it to pay down the debt
Yep, its a haircut
You profited, now we need that money back, thanks for your patriotism
