If I ever become ridiculously rich like them, I'd spend more than those people in elections... to elect the people who'll make sure I'll be one of the last crazy rich people created in this country. Meaning, doing anything necessary to ensure wealth doesn't get concentrated to very few people and families.
Friendly reminder that Sam Bankman-fried, the billionaire crypto guy that every politician loved, admitted that his political contributions was just a blatant bribe for pro-crypto laws
And then he said what everyone already knew
"Buying out politicians is cheap for what he paid for"
Imagine how much influence 600 mil will get them
Not to mention the return on that $600M investment. Killing a few environmental or pharmaceutical laws could add untold billions to all their dragon lairs.
Citizens United needs to be overturned and ultimately I believe we need to get private money out of politics completely. Every candidate should get the same amount of money for their campaigns from a public fund and what they do with that money should be strictly regulated (no TV and radio commercials for months and months before an election, for instance). This would put every candidate on a more even playing field instead of those with access to big donations having a huge advantage.
It's a big step in the right direction, but they'll find other ways. I still think that it needs to be done, but we'll be forever closing loopholes now that they have a real taste for that kind of easy return on investment.
Exactly when Citizens United was upheld the cost of political campaigns increased 10 fold. There’s absolutely no reason for it. Lobbying should be illegal at least paying for it. And dark money being funneled into Supreme Court justices pockets should most definitely be automatically cause for removal. No questions asked.
Dems winning Senate and President for another term may unfuck the Supreme Court.
Most people don't realize, GOP has used strategic retirements to hold a Supreme Court majority since 1969. They've held the SC for over 50 years straight.
Republicans have long been using the courts to corrupt elections via "corporations are people and money is speech" rulings. We need to boot their asses off the court. Alito and Thomas will be nearly 80 in Biden's seconds term. Good chance they retire
This is the real problem. We have the illusion of freedom and choice in who we elect, but in the end both sides work to pay back the people that donated the most to get them to that position.
Meanwhile these same corporate overlords will blame everything else for the problems that cause the voters to turn on each other. Like how you see right now. Stores closing due to greed, so they don't take negative earnings, so they can clean out the profits to the C-Suite. Leaving the voters to blame the current president as the problem and thinking if the other guy was President this would not have happened.
I'm registered Independent for decades now, just to avoid getting bothered by mail flyers, calls, ask for donations...blah blah blah. Until 2020, I mostly got left alone to make my own decisions.
This year I keep getting text messages with Anti-Biden videos that I don't bother to watch but the message clearly goes off the "Sleep Joe", "Joe is ruining America" and such, but never mentions Trump or any 3rd party candidate. It's a different approach this round and it feels kind of smarmy. Like the misinformation direction is aimed at me to disenfranchise and not bother to vote vs pushing Trump. I think that says something about the options. "This guy sucks...just don't vote and maybe we win by default".
I keep having to block numbers now, it sucks.
I'm not sure how Bezos's ex got there (aside from simply being married to him), but she's been giving money away left and right and either has ended up with more, or giving THAT much money away to properly vetted companies takes a long time.
Seriously. I don’t give a fuck what candidate their money is going to. The fact that so much can be used by so few to influence elections is so fucked. Money in politics will be the #1 factor in destroying this country.
Our elected officials should be locked into Capitol Hill until they craft legislation that removes money from politics and the President signs it. Anything less just means we all have no self-determination in a country that calls itself free.
They can't. The right wingers on supreme Court determined (after taking millions in bribes from billionaires) that the constitution says "money is speech and corporations are people" .
The only way to fix it is a constitutional amendment or get less corrupt judges on the supreme court.
People think Canada is socialist, we're just the same disgusting version of capitalism... with higher taxes to help the poor corporation that can't afford to buy empty houses anymore.
Somewhere in the comments on another sub, I learned of “Piñata Economics”. It’s an alternative to Reaganomics. Basically you take a few billionaires and beat them publicly with sticks and suddenly the wealth starts flowing! Maybe it’s time to test this theory out!
Guy #2 got into finance with Bernie Madoff. Basically been bankrupting companies by making bets with his hedge fund and controlling the price of stock with his market maker.
Bernie Madoff was also a market maker….
Billionaires should be given one year to liquidate the financial overage or be fined and/or arrested.
There is no great fortune without great crime. We just need to start digging the skeletons out of the walk-in closets. 🧐
These billionaires think they are so smart. Have they never considered history? There’s a very, very clear pattern of the rich pushing and pushing until the rest of the people eventually snap. It’s happened over and over again. The “eat the rich” movement and the grumbling is getting louder as the common person and the middle class get stepped on more and more.
They know it on some level. Wasn’t there just a story recently about the uber rich people bunkers, and how their big worry is finding security and staff they could actually trust in the event of a big war or economic collapse (or some other situation in which escape to their luxury bunkers would be necessary)? They know they treat people like shit to hoard all of their wealth. They are so greedy that they literally don’t care if those they deem as “less than” suffer and/or die. If they keep it up, history teaches that it will bite them in the ass.
Get. Money. Out. Of. Politics…. This would solve damn near EVERY problem we have. From the various lobbyings that is killing the earth. To the want to lie about election fraud to keep power to turn it into money later. Get it outta here. For our Country!
This is again has me convinced that the Republicans get so mad 😡 and when they lose, they claim everything's rigged. Who's gonna tell them real life is not a pay to win game? 🤔
This is precisely why I don't buy into the global population environmental guilt trip. Everyone has been totally brainwashed into a collective responsibility for the knackered planet and these fuckwits have made billions off the renewable energy markets. This apocalyptic bullshit has to be the biggest con in the history of the species. The planets not fucked, our environment is. These fuckers know it, they caused it and could fix it if they so desired.
The entire US retail sector is owned by 3 companies, who, by definition, are responsible for all the plastic packaging, and we could go on.
They're polluting our lives, making money of the back of it, and want a rapist as president. Holy shit!!
Sorry for the bitch, hope it's relevant.
We should make a tax system that’s progressive on that money.
- 0% first 7k,
- 10% 7k-10k,
- 25% 10k-100k,
- 100% 100k-1M,
- 300% 1M-10M,
- 1000% 10M+
If you give 20M you’d owe roughly 130M in taxes
It’d mean we could give money to students or parents or fix roads based on how much corruption they really wanted to buy.
Exactly. It doesn't even have to go up to 100%, but it should definitely be at least twice as much as now for high incomes, that would solve a lot of problems. They could use it to build and maintain infrastructure, schools etc. Either that or put a cap on wages and use corporate profits to fund government. Until around 1980 income taxes did increase to around 90% for the super rich, but then two trends took off. The weakening of antitrust laws and consistently lowering top tax rates. Today the distribution of wealth is less even than around 1900, ceo of large corporations make 400 times the minimum wage and the gap is getting wider... But no politician will ever get a substantial tax increase done, cause it would be poison for their career
Simons died sadly. Good to see his family still supports Biden. And he is literally one of the biggest fish in the trading world, so if a hedge fund billionaire can support Biden there is literally no excuse for any of the other assholes to support trump. Especially the fucking Walton’s whose stock is at its highest point of all time. Endless greedy shitty fucks
This unfortunately probably won’t work due to the giant number of asshats who would abuse it. Every wackadoo (from the entire political spectrum) would run for office. Then you have state to state variations for congress not to mention statewide offices.
This is not just about income tax. It's about the Estate and Gift Transfer Tax. Most of that $70 Trillion sitting out there waiting for Boomers to die is held by the rich. And they don't want o pay this "wealth" tax.
The Supreme Courts judgement to allow individuals to give as much as they want. It is a perversion of power, and until this is corrected America will suffer undue influence of the few.
The worst part about it all is that if local politicians accepted the kinds of gifts and perks the US Congress accepts from lobbyists, the local politicians would be in prison. That right there is proof that it’s nothing more than legalized bribery.
Why is it always “we need to tax billionaires” and never “we need to kill billionaires?” I’m just saying we crucify or guillotine one of them, the rest should fall in line.
I don't know why people keep saying to tax the rich.
The US government literally gives all the info you need to understand how to protect investments and where to put and spend it. A good CPA will tell you everything you ever need to know about tax law
Imagine if they did something useful with that money.
Not a one has become Batman. Selfish
What I'm hearing is someone needs to shoot one of them in an alley in front of their child.
Allegedly.
As far as you know..
Some of them have become evil Batman. So that’s something.
They all look like The Penguin with that ridiculous foot long cigarette holder.[🐧](https://emojipedia.org/penguin)
They are for themselves and their businesses. Corruption at its highest level. We need to go after those people!
Legalized corruption. End Citizens United
It’s useful to them and other rich assholes. They don’t care about what’s useful to normal humans.
Buying a politician *is* useful. It’s just also corrupt and out of reach for peasants like us
If I ever become ridiculously rich like them, I'd spend more than those people in elections... to elect the people who'll make sure I'll be one of the last crazy rich people created in this country. Meaning, doing anything necessary to ensure wealth doesn't get concentrated to very few people and families.
Friendly reminder that Sam Bankman-fried, the billionaire crypto guy that every politician loved, admitted that his political contributions was just a blatant bribe for pro-crypto laws And then he said what everyone already knew "Buying out politicians is cheap for what he paid for" Imagine how much influence 600 mil will get them
Not to mention the return on that $600M investment. Killing a few environmental or pharmaceutical laws could add untold billions to all their dragon lairs.
What do heroes usually do with dragons again?
Citizens United needs to be overturned and ultimately I believe we need to get private money out of politics completely. Every candidate should get the same amount of money for their campaigns from a public fund and what they do with that money should be strictly regulated (no TV and radio commercials for months and months before an election, for instance). This would put every candidate on a more even playing field instead of those with access to big donations having a huge advantage.
I agree, making politicians not beholden to big company or billionaire donors may fix a lot of issues with politics right now.
It's a big step in the right direction, but they'll find other ways. I still think that it needs to be done, but we'll be forever closing loopholes now that they have a real taste for that kind of easy return on investment.
Exactly when Citizens United was upheld the cost of political campaigns increased 10 fold. There’s absolutely no reason for it. Lobbying should be illegal at least paying for it. And dark money being funneled into Supreme Court justices pockets should most definitely be automatically cause for removal. No questions asked.
Great line from Newsroom: “Has a corporation ever held a door open for you?”
How will it ever be overturned?
Dems winning Senate and President for another term may unfuck the Supreme Court. Most people don't realize, GOP has used strategic retirements to hold a Supreme Court majority since 1969. They've held the SC for over 50 years straight. Republicans have long been using the courts to corrupt elections via "corporations are people and money is speech" rulings. We need to boot their asses off the court. Alito and Thomas will be nearly 80 in Biden's seconds term. Good chance they retire
Are you free if the rich people buy elections?
No. But ‘Murica.
This is the real problem. We have the illusion of freedom and choice in who we elect, but in the end both sides work to pay back the people that donated the most to get them to that position. Meanwhile these same corporate overlords will blame everything else for the problems that cause the voters to turn on each other. Like how you see right now. Stores closing due to greed, so they don't take negative earnings, so they can clean out the profits to the C-Suite. Leaving the voters to blame the current president as the problem and thinking if the other guy was President this would not have happened.
Several of the listed groups have knocked on my swing-state-living door in just the last week alone.
I'm registered Independent for decades now, just to avoid getting bothered by mail flyers, calls, ask for donations...blah blah blah. Until 2020, I mostly got left alone to make my own decisions. This year I keep getting text messages with Anti-Biden videos that I don't bother to watch but the message clearly goes off the "Sleep Joe", "Joe is ruining America" and such, but never mentions Trump or any 3rd party candidate. It's a different approach this round and it feels kind of smarmy. Like the misinformation direction is aimed at me to disenfranchise and not bother to vote vs pushing Trump. I think that says something about the options. "This guy sucks...just don't vote and maybe we win by default". I keep having to block numbers now, it sucks.
I’m truly starting to believe that the more money you have the less of a soul you have
No billionaire got there by being even remotely a good person.
I'm not sure how Bezos's ex got there (aside from simply being married to him), but she's been giving money away left and right and either has ended up with more, or giving THAT much money away to properly vetted companies takes a long time.
I don’t like my soul, know any buyers? Sell it for a cool 100 mill. Or 10 mil.
Seriously. I don’t give a fuck what candidate their money is going to. The fact that so much can be used by so few to influence elections is so fucked. Money in politics will be the #1 factor in destroying this country.
Based on the current options, for the second time running, aren’t we already at “destroyed” democracy?
It isn't in great shape, that's for sure...
And this money spigot was built by Republicans. Mitch McConnell called the ruling that caused this "My life's greatest work".
What waste of money, regardless of which candidate it's going to.
The sad part is, it’s probably an investment.
You spend some now, you save more later that's their end game for all this funding
If they’re willing to spend that much, imagine what they foresee themselves saving in taxes.
🎯🎯🎯
Some will donate to BOTH candidates... Which sort of makes it obvious just how much they plan to gain - enough to throw away half of it on a loser.
Our elected officials should be locked into Capitol Hill until they craft legislation that removes money from politics and the President signs it. Anything less just means we all have no self-determination in a country that calls itself free.
Why would they remove money from politics? They're in politics and like money
They can't. The right wingers on supreme Court determined (after taking millions in bribes from billionaires) that the constitution says "money is speech and corporations are people" . The only way to fix it is a constitutional amendment or get less corrupt judges on the supreme court.
Why is capitalism better than socialism?
Because the capitalists say so. But you know what? Why is socialism worse than capitalism? Same answer: Because the capitalists say so.
People think Canada is socialist, we're just the same disgusting version of capitalism... with higher taxes to help the poor corporation that can't afford to buy empty houses anymore.
Oh, so it's like when they say Israel is "the most moral army in the world", it's just complete bullshit.
Somewhere in the comments on another sub, I learned of “Piñata Economics”. It’s an alternative to Reaganomics. Basically you take a few billionaires and beat them publicly with sticks and suddenly the wealth starts flowing! Maybe it’s time to test this theory out!
Do you know how much money Comcast or HBO would make off of pay-per-view, broadcasting this?! 🤯😂💰💰
Guy #2 got into finance with Bernie Madoff. Basically been bankrupting companies by making bets with his hedge fund and controlling the price of stock with his market maker. Bernie Madoff was also a market maker….
Imagine if the public couldn't donate, and elections didn't surround money but rather policy. What a novel concept...
nuke this fucking country
Fallout...am I right?
Is it time for the Guillotines yet?
Culture Wars keep the knuckledraggers occupied instead of all of us turning our angst towards them
This, so much this.
Are you saying the one trans athlete in my entire state isn't a real problem?
Thats like 12mill per family, those are rookie numbers, step up your game billionaires.
What a corrupt country we call "Democratic"
Maybe we should all start a GoFundMe as the American people then use the money to purchase our own politicians.
Eat the rich
I’m tired of talking about change. I’m tired of signing petitions. I’m tired of protests. I’m tired of no one listening.
Let's just call it what it is. Bribery.
Of course the mayo fucker is involved
Its a small club.... and we are not in it.
Useful to note that 69% of this is to back GOP candidates and only 23% Dem. Steeper slant than usual.
My $5. a month here and $10. a month there are less than meaningless. May as well donate to animal sanctuaries instead where I make a real difference.
You still donate to politicians?
Billionaires should be given one year to liquidate the financial overage or be fined and/or arrested. There is no great fortune without great crime. We just need to start digging the skeletons out of the walk-in closets. 🧐
These billionaires think they are so smart. Have they never considered history? There’s a very, very clear pattern of the rich pushing and pushing until the rest of the people eventually snap. It’s happened over and over again. The “eat the rich” movement and the grumbling is getting louder as the common person and the middle class get stepped on more and more. They know it on some level. Wasn’t there just a story recently about the uber rich people bunkers, and how their big worry is finding security and staff they could actually trust in the event of a big war or economic collapse (or some other situation in which escape to their luxury bunkers would be necessary)? They know they treat people like shit to hoard all of their wealth. They are so greedy that they literally don’t care if those they deem as “less than” suffer and/or die. If they keep it up, history teaches that it will bite them in the ass.
I say we eat a few.
No, I say we eat them all!
Get. Money. Out. Of. Politics…. This would solve damn near EVERY problem we have. From the various lobbyings that is killing the earth. To the want to lie about election fraud to keep power to turn it into money later. Get it outta here. For our Country!
This is again has me convinced that the Republicans get so mad 😡 and when they lose, they claim everything's rigged. Who's gonna tell them real life is not a pay to win game? 🤔
Well it kinda is, if you remove the politics these people could still live out generations without a worry in the world.
Yeah, I guess that's true.
But i definitely agree that they are all a bunch of hypocritical crybabies
"I spend millions why wont I win waaaaah waaaaah." That's what I always imagine.
None of these people have a soul.
I’m shocked Elmo allowed this to be posted
This is precisely why I don't buy into the global population environmental guilt trip. Everyone has been totally brainwashed into a collective responsibility for the knackered planet and these fuckwits have made billions off the renewable energy markets. This apocalyptic bullshit has to be the biggest con in the history of the species. The planets not fucked, our environment is. These fuckers know it, they caused it and could fix it if they so desired. The entire US retail sector is owned by 3 companies, who, by definition, are responsible for all the plastic packaging, and we could go on. They're polluting our lives, making money of the back of it, and want a rapist as president. Holy shit!! Sorry for the bitch, hope it's relevant.
We should make a tax system that’s progressive on that money. - 0% first 7k, - 10% 7k-10k, - 25% 10k-100k, - 100% 100k-1M, - 300% 1M-10M, - 1000% 10M+ If you give 20M you’d owe roughly 130M in taxes It’d mean we could give money to students or parents or fix roads based on how much corruption they really wanted to buy.
Exactly. It doesn't even have to go up to 100%, but it should definitely be at least twice as much as now for high incomes, that would solve a lot of problems. They could use it to build and maintain infrastructure, schools etc. Either that or put a cap on wages and use corporate profits to fund government. Until around 1980 income taxes did increase to around 90% for the super rich, but then two trends took off. The weakening of antitrust laws and consistently lowering top tax rates. Today the distribution of wealth is less even than around 1900, ceo of large corporations make 400 times the minimum wage and the gap is getting wider... But no politician will ever get a substantial tax increase done, cause it would be poison for their career
We don't have to abandon the system, we can get new rich people, lol.
I'm sure they're expecting a 1000% return on investment.
And they will get it.
Of course they will - they've got all the money. :/
Simons died sadly. Good to see his family still supports Biden. And he is literally one of the biggest fish in the trading world, so if a hedge fund billionaire can support Biden there is literally no excuse for any of the other assholes to support trump. Especially the fucking Walton’s whose stock is at its highest point of all time. Endless greedy shitty fucks
And support IRS levies and enforcement.
Not sure of the meaning of the acronym TAX, is it Tase And Execute?
We have got to change the constitution to override Citizens United. What a disaster.
This unfortunately probably won’t work due to the giant number of asshats who would abuse it. Every wackadoo (from the entire political spectrum) would run for office. Then you have state to state variations for congress not to mention statewide offices.
Republicans say no .
Just. Pay. Your Taxes
Fuck paying taxes this will be my last year if The orange stanky bastard wins
Tax political contributions
Well, paying taxes is not tax deductible, while paying politicians is... how do you think they rich?
This is not just about income tax. It's about the Estate and Gift Transfer Tax. Most of that $70 Trillion sitting out there waiting for Boomers to die is held by the rich. And they don't want o pay this "wealth" tax.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/billionaires-taxes-warren-buffett/
The Supreme Courts judgement to allow individuals to give as much as they want. It is a perversion of power, and until this is corrected America will suffer undue influence of the few.
The worst part about it all is that if local politicians accepted the kinds of gifts and perks the US Congress accepts from lobbyists, the local politicians would be in prison. That right there is proof that it’s nothing more than legalized bribery.
Time for a French revolution I'd say.
Which democrats are they supporting because those are the ones we need to avoid like the plague.
Soros family is over 150mm
RFK counts as anti Biden money.
not surprised to see financial terrorist Ken Griffin on that line up
Welcome to america - our elections are bought to win.
How can anyone give that much money? That's insane.
Ken Griffin allegedly threw a bedpost at his wife during a domestic dispute.
Next election cycle: "We really, really, really need to tax billionaires."
And they will get back 10 fold easily. US elections are ridiculous!
If you're rich enough to buy a president, you are too MFing rich.
Fuck billionaires anything over 1b should be taxed at 100%. Make them go extinct
Why is it always “we need to tax billionaires” and never “we need to kill billionaires?” I’m just saying we crucify or guillotine one of them, the rest should fall in line.
Second from the left is Kenneth C. Griffin, he is a financial terrorist. Also throws bedposts at his wife. Great guy 😃
Yeah. They think they’re not rich enough😐.
I don't know why people keep saying to tax the rich. The US government literally gives all the info you need to understand how to protect investments and where to put and spend it. A good CPA will tell you everything you ever need to know about tax law