How many more years of these news stories do I have to read before we actually do something about this?
I'm so fucking sick of this happening constantly.
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2024
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The sad thing is we’ll keep reading stories like this until we die. I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m tired of being that guy talking about this issue.
we die
Or they do. This level of wealth inequality is a new phenomenon, and it is already showing how great it goes, with fascism and other fringe ideologies on the rise.
The chance that Trump or a similar idiot being elected and turning dictator is a possibility in the US is a direct consequence of these fuckwits gutting society itself. It is very well possible that these guys will either become sock puppets of a Trump-like figure, and keep some of their wealth in exchange for losing all of their power, or commit grisly murder-suicides of their whole family in droves like in Russia.
They either don't see or don't care that they are cutting down the branch that they (and everyone else) are sitting on.
We have to stop voting for rich or wanna-be-rich business people. It's the only way. Combined votes for the best of the worst to eliminate the tyrants, then vote out the wealth focused. Can't believe that's the situation we are in.
Voting alone will not get us out of this situation. Maybe implementing rank choice of voting might do it. I just don't see good solutions because the politicians were all about sold anyway it doesn't matter which one gets voted in, voters never get the final say.
There's very little we can do. Even the 'eat the rich' idea isn't very viable since they can hide in their nuclear war protection bunkers surrounded by armed security.
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The economy is a fucking joke.
always has been
And yet the majority of Trump voters will cite it as the reason they're voting for him.
People are unredeemingly stupid.
It's not irrational to depend on the economy (as defined by news media) because a good economy does mean a lot of good things for even the lowest level workers. The problem is a good economy means the rich get richer and a bad economy means poor people lose their jobs. There is no consequence for the rich except maybe having to reorganize their investments and lose a marginal amount of their wealth. Whereas in comparison poor people can end up on the streets.
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It's put very simply here:
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $869bn (£681.5bn) since 2020, while the world’s poorest 60% – almost 5 billion people – have lost money.
... the world’s billionaires were $3.3tn (£2.6tn) richer than in 2020, and their wealth had grown three times faster than the rate of inflation.
Divided you beg - the Republican way. United you bargain - the Democrats way. Keep voting Republican and keep making the rich richer.
It will trickle down any moment now. Any moment.
Something d-o-o economics. Voo-doo economics.
Frye.. Frye.. Frye..
This is such a good visualization of big numbers and big bank accounts.
It's also a good way to really see the bull shit argument that it's unfair to tax the wealthy at a higher rate. Even if they get taxed at 90% (which I don't think will happen in my lifetime) they still will have enough money for them and their decedents to live a lavish lifestyle. And that extra money could really make America into the country that it pretends to be.
Also, the "taxed at 90%" is a red herring too, since that's not how progressive tax brackets work. Nobody's effective tax rate would be close to 90%, even if we raised the top marginal rate to nearly 100%.
If tax brackets were sensibly set, with a >90% rate for the top bracket, these people would still be very wealthy but the amount given to tax would be almost all of their wealth, since the highest tax bracket would kick in just a few pixels into the giant boxes on that diagram. And there would be nothing wrong with that.
Right. If they were sensible. But I'm OK with taking it one step at a time and ease into it so it doesn't immediately get shut down.
That’s why taxing net worth is our next step. Make it a sigmoid curve that starts out at $10M and hits 100% taxation at $100M.
And yes, plenty of things can be “valued”. The Insurance industry has plenty of experience at this, as do branches of the government that estimate property values so cities can levy property taxes, and banks that extend loans to billionaires on the basis of securities being held.
If companies can attach dollar values to the lives that they destroyed due to OSHA/labour violations, then a taxable value can be assigned to pretty much anything a card-carrying member or the Parasite Class might own, or holds through a shell corp, holding company, or trust.
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That makes me infurious rex.
This is from 2021 so remember that the biggest boxes there need to be twice as big now. Your box, however, is the same size or smaller.
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Taxes or guillotines. Pick one.
Guillotines and then tax the next ones.
People think for some reason working themselves to death will move them upwards. Fuck this stupid system.
What about those that are being forcefully coerced into doing so? I’m broke, and I’ll be working until the day I die, but it sure as hell isn’t because I want to.
That is understandable. I meant mostly people who say you can grind your way out of poverty through hardwork. Like work-life balance isn't important.
How about we stop calling it their fucking money. It's inconceivable that someone can look at what has got to be at least 50% of all wealth ever made by humankind and say, "this is mine and just mine". That isn't what sane rational people think
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fuck capitalism
Elon Musk, Bernard Arnault, Jeff Bezos, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg
Coincidentally, those same 5 are 2024's "who's who of sociopathic shitheads", a title they've earned with lifetimes of dedication to the craft
Kill them.
Wait Musk is still such a strong first place? I thought with twitter bombing, people starting to dislike Tesla, general weird behavior, he was losing quite a bit? I'm probably way out of touch but isn't someone catching uo to him?
That's the neat part. When you're rich you can make as many mistakes as you want, and you'll still be rich.
Lost more money than anyone ever has ever and is still the richest human alive. Howzat for fucked
They don't even lose money. Those huge figures that keep changing are literally imaginary. For example, let's say I have company and I make it publicly traded. I keep 100 shares and sell 100 shares for a dollar each. some guy buys 1 then sells it to someone else for $10. Now I have $1000 because each share is valued at $10 now. A few days later some other guys sells his 1 share for $5. Now I have $500 and I've lost half my money overnight. And during all this up 1000% down 50% advanture only $115 changed hands. There has never been a 1000 or even 500 dolars.
If I wanted to sell. my 100 shares when it was 10 a piece I wouldn't be able to do so, because as soon as I start selling shares on mass it would lose its value. But I can show it as collateral and get credit from a bank. I didn't create any value but now I have lots of cash. The more I think about it the more pissed of I get.
Yep money keeps making money
Tesla shares constitute something like 70% of Elon's total fortune. Twitter is overall not that relevant for his big picture wealth, and weird behavior even less so.
At the moment Tesla's stock price is in decline because of competition from China and the overall EV market not growing as fast, so Bezos or somebody else could indeed overtake Musk in the near term. But this could easily change again next month, the stock market is fickle.
It so cool that you can buy your way into an existing company that already had talent and an idea, and then become among the richest people in the world...
Wait sorry, Hard Work™©® yeah... That's what he did... Hard Work...
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Rich assets grow exponentially. They will exceed government budgets if they haven't yet. Then, they will have far bigger budget than governments.
Maybe the world will all become North Korea.
Just capitalism working as intended, nothing to see here, please keep walking.
You spelled working wrong.
That took a second, good one, lol
You guys ready to eat em yet?
space billionaires. well defined, much more fun.
Yes, but I wouldn't eat a rich person. All the chemicals and drugs in the meat. Gross. We need to just cull the rich.
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Eat the rich
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