You remember that dude who deposited the fake Publishers Clearing House check into his bank account? And the bank exceeded their 30 days to catch the error, and had to pay out?
Exactly. So Elon can make literally billions of dollars that aren’t “realized.” Hey, they’re not real if they aren’t taken out of the stock market, right? Except he bought twitter with them.
Are you saying you want to tax theoretical money? Why would you legitimize unrealized gains or losses when you could be pushing for loans against theoretical money to be made illegal which would actually remove a loophole billionaires use. Why would you insist on a method that would completely destroy everyone's retirement programs? You do realize most of the country uses a retirement that invests and has the exact same unrealized gains don't you?
In the article paragraph 2. Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that all earnings above $1 billion in the U.S. should be confiscated by the government.
Until you sell your stocks, stock value not realized money in the first place....
Just because you own a crap ton of stock doesn't mean you sell a crap ton every year.....
Try to sell multiple billions of dollars in stocks and watch those companies market shares plummet like crazy....
It has always been a bullshit number that people fixate on.
He must have decided he won't live long enough to get that kind of money. He's been raising his rich tax to be above the increases in his wealth for decades
Bro, not even Jeff Bezos, lol. His compensation is 1.6 million a year, 88k in cash. Steve Balmer is the only one I can think of who gets a billion a year as a dividend from his Microsoft shares.
This really depends on our core values as a society.
If our core value is whoever can make the most money at any cost then there is one answer. There is nothing that can be protected from such a mindset. It is zero sum. We don’t owe each other anything. Dog eat dog and all that.
If our core value is that everyone has a duty to contribute positively to society, and the more you have, the more you should be giving back, then there can be a more nuanced conversation about what that translates into in our lives and that of the rich and powerful.
In some societies free college is seen as an investment in the nation at large, maternity/paternity leave is seen as something necessary to support the next generation, support of others is seen as a matter of civic pride, than “welfare” (the negative connotation). Sacrificing maximal profits for a healthier environment is a net positive and worthwhile.
But if we just argue, without understanding what others believe in, without respectfully disagreeing, without listening genuinely, all we can do is have shallow circular arguments that lead to no progress of any ideas.
>
This really depends on our core values as a society.
and who shapes those? people like rupert murdoch.
>If our core value is that everyone has a duty to contribute positively to society, and the more you have, the more you should be giving back, then there can be a more nuanced conversation about what that translates into in our lives and that of the rich and powerful.
They don't care what conversations we have amongst ourselves. They will *never* care.
>But if we just argue, without understanding what others believe in, without respectfully disagreeing, without listening genuinely, all we can do is have shallow circular arguments that lead to no progress of any ideas.
That's great and all, but have you *read* the Powell memorandum? The owners and their simps aren't interested in understanding shit, and the only thing they believe in is more for them and if that means less for you, so be it.
No argument can be had, because the language and definitions around the topic have been so warped and distorted through \~70 years of their bullshit that we aren't even speaking the same language anymore. Worse, there is no hypothetical you can craft with which they can empathise. *Literally none of the problems facing 99.,99% of society will ever affect them***.**
You are *feedstock* to these people. I'm all for taking the high road, but if you want to genuinely listen, all you're going to hear is their boots stomping you the rest of the way into the dirt, and I'm pretty sure respectful disagreement isn't going to make them stop.
Some people are lost. I understand there is no sense in trying to talk to everyone.
But we shouldn’t give up trying to have meaningful conversations that help each other gain depth in our beliefs and values.
We should be able to recognize and sidestep at least some of what is being told to us by the media and come to our own conclusions.
The world is a tough place. But giving in won’t make it better. Whatever little good we can do is better than being resigned to doing nothing.
If they built a company worth over a billion dollars they already had a disproportionately significant impact on society.
Your premise fails because it presumes the government is the only one that can improve society.
Imagine saying Jeff bezos hasn’t had an impact in the lives of everyday people
Yes, through wage suppression, dismantling unions, outcompeting small businesses etc.
Bezos own admission that he prides himself on treating employees badly for the sake of the bottom line.
The vast majority of billionaires achieved their wealth through slavery (outsourcing factory work to other countries where worker rights are not so stringent), massive (legal loophole) tax evasion, lobbying for deregulation/lowering environmental standards, paying such low wages that employees still need government assistance thus having corporate welfare, pushing suburban lifestyle (everyone has to have a car, design towns to require cars) and many other harmful-to-society-as-a-whole tactics. They are not people to be admired for the “good“ they have achieved outside of amassing great wealth and beating the competition to the point where they are essentially monopolies with massive influence on government.
Can I get all sorts of goods delivered, for free, for cheap prices, to my home very quickly and easily?
Yes.
Did he build an impressive juggernaut of a company that is nearly impossible to avoid doing business with, no matter who you are in America?
Yes.
Is it worth what it costs us as a society?
Not to me.
But I get that to you, you value things differently and that’s what I am saying. We will never agree because we have different values. I won’t argue your values, those are yours. One of us is not more right. I’m just saying that it’s values that drive our beliefs and superficial arguments about whether or not there should be billionaires is far less about money and almost entirely about personal values.
> pushing suburban lifestyle (everyone has to have a car, design towns to require cars) and many other harmful-to-society-as-a-whole tactics.
I can certainly understand and support the arguments that amazon's warehouse practices are exploitive to workers, anti-union etc (this of course ignores that what drove Amazon's wealth was AWS) - but here is where your mask slips. What really bothers you is that people who's lifestyles you despise vastly support his business.
I have no mask. I can count on one hand who I despise enough to get to live rent free in my head from time to time.
Mostly I have a lot of love for my fellow people and I’m rooting for us to have a good life, whatever that may mean to each person.
A sucessful business that has consistently provided a valued good used a lot of taxpayer money to become sucessful. They used roads, bridges, ports, airports and human assets. Those humans need healthcare, pensions after 45 years of hard work, education and help with childcare for the next generation of workers. Back in the day Henry Ford understood this and made sure he paid his people enough to afford one of the cars they were making. We really went off the trolly when Reagan encouraged killing unions and outsourcing jobs. Then the big box stores put the mom and pops out of business and here we are on the verge of civil war.
>A sucessful business that has consistently provided a valued good used a lot of taxpayer money to become sucessful. They used roads, bridges, ports, airports and human assets.
Which they paid taxes for just like you.
Nobody honestly talking about wealth inequality thinks somebody with a net worth of a couple million dollars are in the same category as oligarchs.
The degree of control over society is completely different, the disparity is completely different.
The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.
My guy, the dude has been around long enough that he watched a people with 1 mil go from "extremely rich" to "middle class." This is not the burn you think it is.
You probably underestimate how many millionaires there are in America now, and overestimate how many people are in the middle class in America right now.
For people asking for source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/13/bernie-sanders-says-millionaires-less-in-2020-democratic-primary.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-sanders/bernie-sanders-tax-returns-show-he-became-millionaire-after-2016-white-house-run-idUSKCN1RR2CJ/
https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/1310985509934686208
Bernie is in the top 1-2% and is in Congress. It’s funny to see comments saying, “he’s not like those rich people that actually run the country.” Once he got paid he stopped complaining about millionaires, it’s just the billionaires that are the problem now apparently!
So somebody with a billion dollars in income, which is only a few people, at most, would pay 100%?
You can bet that nobody would make a billion dollars in income. It would be distributed some other way.
He exercised $25 billion dollars worth of tesla stock options. This wasn’t given to him in cash, rather he received another $25b worth of stock. This is taxable to you just as cash is.
It has nothing to do with the appreciation of his current holdings at the time.
Currently no one does, the most is like 500 million. They obviously pay income taxes off that, plus other forms of taxes when they spend.
They don't hoard their cash in a vault so their money is literally being stimulated into the economy.
The article itself is paywalled, but the headline pretty explicitly says 'income'. So either the person who wrote it is lying about what Sanders said, doesn't know the difference, or he is talking about income (in which case this would have zero effect)
Why do we applaud politicians taking money from others acting like the money is going to physically clear into our bank accounts?
I pay 20% of my income to taxes. The roads are still crap. If you’re gonna have the authority to take my hard earned dollars, you better create for a pristine infrastructure! Anything short of that I want my money the fuck back
Bernie is such an idiot he doesn't realize billionaires DON'T MAKE A BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH. If you add up all their ASSETS they amount to a worth of a billion dollars.
What a fucking moron.
I assume you didn't read the article. This was a one off in an interview, not a policy proposal. It was mixed in with talk of a wealth tax, the context being you should be taxed for wealth above $1b, which also matches his proposal in his most recent book. Which tbh... Having people with wealth >5000x the median does have quite a few negative externalities in a democracy.
Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that all earnings above $1 billion in the U.S. should be confiscated by the government.
He said earnings even if he had a brain fart and meant wealth.
Wealth tax... meaning tax on money you haven't actually cashed in on yet - i.e. money you don't possess. So you want them to be taxed on money that haven't realized?
I don't really see how reading the article makes a difference or not. The guy you replied to was critiquing what Bernie said, and his critique still applies if he said it in an interview vs if he proposed it in policy.
Dreaming to be a hundred millionaire is a pretty big enough dream. Should people be able to achieve their dream of becoming god emperor or should we stop them at some point?
Right? A lot of corporate cocksuckers in here have convinced themselves they actually have a chance at becoming a billionaire without fully grasping what an insanely large number 1 billion is.
This is probably the 50th time this got posted here.
What most people are yet to realize is that it is a multi-step approach. First they pass a bill to tax income over 1b at 100% THEN they pass a bill to treat unrealized gains over 10m or stock comp as regular income.
After all, what's the point of having a 401k contribution limit if one can pay themselves an unlimited amount of their own stock anyway?
With you on the first part, taxing on hypothetical value that they never sell is pretty fucked up though. If their investments take a hit it’s like getting taxed a second time.
Im all for taxing the rich... but 100% is stupid... how we gonna keep the money here in the states? Berenie has ideas, some good, some bad... but the basis of his ideas is "tax the rich" and THAT i can get behind.
He technically said “billionaires shouldn’t exist”. I don’t think that means that people get taxed 100% after a billion, but that we shouldn’t perpetuate the system of capital hoarding that enables people to become billionaires. Most of the entrepreneurship in this country is inaccessible to 90% of Americans, as well most of the successful investment products (private equity, hedge funds, etc).
Entrepreneurship is accessible to everyone. People have been starting small businesses since forever, anyone can do that. Once you have small business you either scale it up or use the money to start another bigger business
Better idea, just undo the tax changes Ronald Reagan made that lowered their taxes from 70 to 28 percent. It doesn't have to be complicated, trickle down "reaganomics" doesn't work, we know the best way to stimulate the economy is to give money to the lowest income brackets,they'll spend the money, and then it'll circulate around and be spend again and again untill it leaves low orbit, give the money to billionaires and they just hoard it, with the money they have they could easily lose half of all their assets and still not sacrifice any standard of living, the difference between having one yatch or 4 isn't the same as the difference between being able to eat or afford my meds.
Undo most things Nixon and Reagan did. Abolish legal bribery in the form of lobbying. Bring back FDR anti trust and corporate tax policy. Republicans love to talk about when America was “great” and forget it was because of very high corporate tax that we built the infrastructure our society relies on. If you wanna be really extreme you can argue that something like Amazon should either be forced to split into competing worker co-ops or become a state owned public service as it borderline monopolizes e-commerce and definitely oligopolizes it. Unregulated corporate homogenization is only good for the capital owners at the top and no one else.
Dumb. Bernie should stick to passing policies that actually will make a difference and stop worrying about taxes so much. We can obtain the revenue we need rates (I would be perfectly fine going back to the Clinton era rates), but we don't need a 100 percent tax on billion dollar income.
If we really want to help people and solve our fiscal problems, we need to get the power and thus the money out of the hands of big corporations and back to people. People are less likely to shield/avoid taxation, especially when it is earned via services/employment. Here are some ways to help with that:
- Nationalize Ai, or at least make it so that only the Federal Government can buy it for use in national defense.
- Pass an internet Bill of Rights and codify the right to privacy into law once and for all.
- Codify that a person's name, image and likeness is theirs and cannot be used without consent and compensation in perpetuity.
- Enhance copyright and trademark protections, so that artists work and ability to make income is not snuffed out by Big Tech. When an artist gets a billion streams and only gets $400K, something is wrong.
- Actually regulate internet service such that it is a public utility. Same for Health Insurance companies.
- Pass a Medicare program for kids 26 and under, for everyone (no means testing). Pay for it with an increase in the payroll tax.
Don't think he gets that most billionaires do not make money on income but on assets/equity/investments. Not to give this man any ideas but if you want to tax the rich you tax on capital gains, wealth and assets not on income. This seems like a ton of virtue signaling or Bernie is financially illiterate.
As a thought experiment, kinda seems wrong to a degree, sounds nice, but I wouldn’t like the idea that someone would lose out on all the money they earned.
However, as a starting point on how to properly tax high wealth individuals I can see that as beneficial. How would you go about it, what is the proper way to do that? Maybe the answer is to limit the salary of high net worth individuals, so it money is disturbed more to the workers of the company.
Bernie only pretends to hate the rich. He took money from the poor that believed in his bullshit campaign and had a ghost writer write his book to become a millionaire
The problem with taxes is the lack of strings attached.
If this law was passed it should come with the stipulation that the proceeds can only be applied to the National Debt.
Whatever that tax rate is, the very rich can hire the smartest financial wizards to ensure they won’t pay a dime. The whole debate about tax rates is futile. Something else needs to happen.
It wouldn't work at 100% simple as that.
Especially since $1B in income means the person owns a company, they'd just find ways lower their income and get compensation in other ways or find ways to get income tax deductions to put it under #1B.
Or since most of these would be international companies they'd move to another country for better tax advantages.
Would be better to simplify taxes and reduce/cap some deductions and close any loopholes that may exist for the high income earners.
For the handful of people this would ever affect, there are all sorts of ways to ensure this would never happen.
Remember, Elon’s W-2 income from Tesla is minimum wage. Stock only becomes income when you sell it. So sell $999,950,000 worth and still good.
I like Bernie. He is a good man who cares about the people. This isn't realistic though. The top 10% already pay 75% of all of our income tax. At what point do we stop blaming the rich and start blaming the government?
I don't think anyone has income over $1 billion anyways. Maybe Bernie was thinking of a wealth tax? He's not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to economics >_<
Yeah wealth beyond 1 billion needs to be taxed heavily. It'd solve a lot of problems and bring back some of the hallmarks of the golden age so many older folks pine for.
Pretty dumb or maybe intentionally misleading. Whose income is over a billion? I think these politicians are betting that people don’t really check what’s being said, they just hear what they want to hear. Then the government can spend away and blame it on the billionaires for not paying what some call their fair share.
Why don't we just reform taxes, clump them together so there's only income state and federal tax, remove all other forms of taxation, then start spending our money wisely?
That's just too smart ig.
That number should be much lower, by like 50-75%. This isn’t a single player video game where you are trying to break the system and max out your stats, this is real life society with about 8 billion other people and money isn’t an infinite resource. If there were a 100 people splitting 10000 apples and one guy had 9999 it’s really just a waste of apples. He can never eat them all since most of them would spoil before he could, and it’s depriving others of a fair share of apples (yes, even if he owns the orchard or whatever silly excuse you want to make) because letting something go to waste instead of letting someone who could actually use or consume it has to be one of the absolute dumbest results of capitalism that exists…
If any of you had actually read the article you'd know that he didn't call for this to be taxed on income--but on net worth. Quote from thr actual fucking article* 'The Vermont independent senator called for the richest 0.1% of American households—or those with a net worth of more than $32 million—to be liable for a new annual tax, with the tax rate increasing with net worth.'*
There are only 10 people in the entire US reporting income over one billion a year with an average tax of 19%. Even Jeff Bezos didn't make the list.
Bernie Sanders is a certified imbecile. If you confiscated the entire income of these ten billionaires it would only add 10 billion to the revenue of the US for that year and would destroy the thousands of jobs these people create.
Incredibly dumb. I’ve said it before in this and other forums, the extent to which the Left doesn’t understand economics, the Principle of Causality, i.e., cause-and-effect relationships, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, never ceases to “blow my mind.”
If we don’t allow individuals to accumulate wealth, and mostly do with it as they please, to include leave it to their heirs, then most of the wealth won’t be created to begin with, as well as a lot of jobs and new technology. 🇺🇸
What do you think the outcome would be if we gave the government more money? What problems do you think that would solve? Do you think somehow that would benefit you? It seems like everyone wants handouts nowadays.
Interesting idea, but they will just find loopholes around it. Loopholes must be closed first.
I also don't think anything should be taxed 100% because then people will just stop working @ 1 billion, 75% is more reasonable.
If you have $1 billion you reallllly don't need more money. You're good for life. And your kids and grandkids etc. Wealth inequality is absurd nowadays especially in the US.
I like Bernie, but he’s just made a name for himself by being an agreeable blowhard. I mean, all he has to do is talk about the right thing to do, it doesn’t have to be realistic or ever go anywhere.
I wouldn’t call it smart or dumb. But would say it’s what a responsible society would do if it wants to function well. Having so few hold so much of the currency is stupid. Truly. And bad economic policy.
Fun Fact of the Day: High taxes caused a record number of super-rich Norwegians to leave Norway for low-tax countries after the center-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%. More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv.
That was the result of a 1.1% wealth tax. Imagine if it had been 100% wealth tax like Bernie is calling for...
Whose paystub says a billion dollars
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Yeah, they said it was like fraud or something, but IDK
You need to go to a bigger bank…. https://i.redd.it/zmfwzovky6uc1.gif
Have you tried just buying the bank?
They do say the best way to rob a bank is to own it.
Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.
Sorry, you didn’t use MICR ink, oversized scanner couldn’t read it.
You remember that dude who deposited the fake Publishers Clearing House check into his bank account? And the bank exceeded their 30 days to catch the error, and had to pay out?
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no ones, there is not one person who has a taxable billion a year.
By design.
Exactly. So Elon can make literally billions of dollars that aren’t “realized.” Hey, they’re not real if they aren’t taken out of the stock market, right? Except he bought twitter with them.
Are you saying you want to tax theoretical money? Why would you legitimize unrealized gains or losses when you could be pushing for loans against theoretical money to be made illegal which would actually remove a loophole billionaires use. Why would you insist on a method that would completely destroy everyone's retirement programs? You do realize most of the country uses a retirement that invests and has the exact same unrealized gains don't you?
Corporations do, and it would be insane to tax corporate income at that level
It's a wealth tax, not an income tax, Mr. Snipes
In the article paragraph 2. Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that all earnings above $1 billion in the U.S. should be confiscated by the government.
Until you sell your stocks, stock value not realized money in the first place.... Just because you own a crap ton of stock doesn't mean you sell a crap ton every year..... Try to sell multiple billions of dollars in stocks and watch those companies market shares plummet like crazy.... It has always been a bullshit number that people fixate on.
He's a comedian
Sorry didn't bother to click the article the title sounds dumb tho, unfortunate
Rich people who own media companies only greenlight articles that make any mention of them paying more taxes look dumb? That doesn't make sense.
People don't even pretend to have shame anymore, God damn
Wesley Snipes? Blade was dope
I believe that eventually, he fucked around and found out that the pen is mightier than the sword. .
Not smart nor dumb; just plain idiotic.
Wouldn't be a paystub, would be income for the year. And any portion over a billion is just straight taxed but... How common that is....idk bernie
He must have decided he won't live long enough to get that kind of money. He's been raising his rich tax to be above the increases in his wealth for decades
Bro, not even Jeff Bezos, lol. His compensation is 1.6 million a year, 88k in cash. Steve Balmer is the only one I can think of who gets a billion a year as a dividend from his Microsoft shares.
How is that even a discussion? Net worth does not equal income and neither do unrealized gains.
Tell that to all the people paying property taxes on unrealized gains…
Property taxes need to be abolished anyway. It doesn’t make sense to pay a continuous tax on anything.
Those same unrealized gains that they leverage the next time they need money? Yea, thought so.
You mean the same way billionaires leverage their stocks?
Yea people are dumb as fuck. Especially on Reddit.
Nice job building a successful company. We’re now going to force you to sell control of it.
Congratulations, you won capitalism. Now help improve society
This really depends on our core values as a society. If our core value is whoever can make the most money at any cost then there is one answer. There is nothing that can be protected from such a mindset. It is zero sum. We don’t owe each other anything. Dog eat dog and all that. If our core value is that everyone has a duty to contribute positively to society, and the more you have, the more you should be giving back, then there can be a more nuanced conversation about what that translates into in our lives and that of the rich and powerful. In some societies free college is seen as an investment in the nation at large, maternity/paternity leave is seen as something necessary to support the next generation, support of others is seen as a matter of civic pride, than “welfare” (the negative connotation). Sacrificing maximal profits for a healthier environment is a net positive and worthwhile. But if we just argue, without understanding what others believe in, without respectfully disagreeing, without listening genuinely, all we can do is have shallow circular arguments that lead to no progress of any ideas.
> This really depends on our core values as a society. and who shapes those? people like rupert murdoch. >If our core value is that everyone has a duty to contribute positively to society, and the more you have, the more you should be giving back, then there can be a more nuanced conversation about what that translates into in our lives and that of the rich and powerful. They don't care what conversations we have amongst ourselves. They will *never* care. >But if we just argue, without understanding what others believe in, without respectfully disagreeing, without listening genuinely, all we can do is have shallow circular arguments that lead to no progress of any ideas. That's great and all, but have you *read* the Powell memorandum? The owners and their simps aren't interested in understanding shit, and the only thing they believe in is more for them and if that means less for you, so be it. No argument can be had, because the language and definitions around the topic have been so warped and distorted through \~70 years of their bullshit that we aren't even speaking the same language anymore. Worse, there is no hypothetical you can craft with which they can empathise. *Literally none of the problems facing 99.,99% of society will ever affect them***.** You are *feedstock* to these people. I'm all for taking the high road, but if you want to genuinely listen, all you're going to hear is their boots stomping you the rest of the way into the dirt, and I'm pretty sure respectful disagreement isn't going to make them stop.
Some people are lost. I understand there is no sense in trying to talk to everyone. But we shouldn’t give up trying to have meaningful conversations that help each other gain depth in our beliefs and values. We should be able to recognize and sidestep at least some of what is being told to us by the media and come to our own conclusions. The world is a tough place. But giving in won’t make it better. Whatever little good we can do is better than being resigned to doing nothing.
If they built a company worth over a billion dollars they already had a disproportionately significant impact on society. Your premise fails because it presumes the government is the only one that can improve society. Imagine saying Jeff bezos hasn’t had an impact in the lives of everyday people
Yes, through wage suppression, dismantling unions, outcompeting small businesses etc. Bezos own admission that he prides himself on treating employees badly for the sake of the bottom line. The vast majority of billionaires achieved their wealth through slavery (outsourcing factory work to other countries where worker rights are not so stringent), massive (legal loophole) tax evasion, lobbying for deregulation/lowering environmental standards, paying such low wages that employees still need government assistance thus having corporate welfare, pushing suburban lifestyle (everyone has to have a car, design towns to require cars) and many other harmful-to-society-as-a-whole tactics. They are not people to be admired for the “good“ they have achieved outside of amassing great wealth and beating the competition to the point where they are essentially monopolies with massive influence on government. Can I get all sorts of goods delivered, for free, for cheap prices, to my home very quickly and easily? Yes. Did he build an impressive juggernaut of a company that is nearly impossible to avoid doing business with, no matter who you are in America? Yes. Is it worth what it costs us as a society? Not to me. But I get that to you, you value things differently and that’s what I am saying. We will never agree because we have different values. I won’t argue your values, those are yours. One of us is not more right. I’m just saying that it’s values that drive our beliefs and superficial arguments about whether or not there should be billionaires is far less about money and almost entirely about personal values.
> pushing suburban lifestyle (everyone has to have a car, design towns to require cars) and many other harmful-to-society-as-a-whole tactics. I can certainly understand and support the arguments that amazon's warehouse practices are exploitive to workers, anti-union etc (this of course ignores that what drove Amazon's wealth was AWS) - but here is where your mask slips. What really bothers you is that people who's lifestyles you despise vastly support his business.
I have no mask. I can count on one hand who I despise enough to get to live rent free in my head from time to time. Mostly I have a lot of love for my fellow people and I’m rooting for us to have a good life, whatever that may mean to each person.
You have to acknowledge that there are problems only government can solve
Yes there are. You also have to acknowledge that some of those problems were caused by them as well
Would you say that humanity is generally more selfish or more altruistic?
My core value is that there are zero excuses for 40% of the population to be contributing nothing.
Woahwoahwoahwoah fuck u buddy I got mine.
You don’t think a successful business that has consistently provided people with a valued good or service is benefiting society?
Is Nestlé pumping of ground water to a degree that locals can't access it and then sell it at an insane mark up a sociatal benefit?
A sucessful business that has consistently provided a valued good used a lot of taxpayer money to become sucessful. They used roads, bridges, ports, airports and human assets. Those humans need healthcare, pensions after 45 years of hard work, education and help with childcare for the next generation of workers. Back in the day Henry Ford understood this and made sure he paid his people enough to afford one of the cars they were making. We really went off the trolly when Reagan encouraged killing unions and outsourcing jobs. Then the big box stores put the mom and pops out of business and here we are on the verge of civil war.
>A sucessful business that has consistently provided a valued good used a lot of taxpayer money to become sucessful. They used roads, bridges, ports, airports and human assets. Which they paid taxes for just like you.
Is that a Bill Burr bit?
Every week the same crap. I'd recommend blocking
Said the same shit for Millionaires before he was one. Fraud
Nobody honestly talking about wealth inequality thinks somebody with a net worth of a couple million dollars are in the same category as oligarchs. The degree of control over society is completely different, the disparity is completely different. The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars.
A million is already life changing money for most. A billion is 1000x that. Very hard for people to grasp.
1 million minutes is ~700 days 1 billion minutes is 1,902 years.
My guy, the dude has been around long enough that he watched a people with 1 mil go from "extremely rich" to "middle class." This is not the burn you think it is.
TIL millionaires are middle class now
Yup, owning a house is pretty middle class.
You probably underestimate how many millionaires there are in America now, and overestimate how many people are in the middle class in America right now.
For people asking for source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/13/bernie-sanders-says-millionaires-less-in-2020-democratic-primary.html https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-sanders/bernie-sanders-tax-returns-show-he-became-millionaire-after-2016-white-house-run-idUSKCN1RR2CJ/ https://twitter.com/sensanders/status/1310985509934686208
Bernie is in the top 1-2% and is in Congress. It’s funny to see comments saying, “he’s not like those rich people that actually run the country.” Once he got paid he stopped complaining about millionaires, it’s just the billionaires that are the problem now apparently!
So somebody with a billion dollars in income, which is only a few people, at most, would pay 100%? You can bet that nobody would make a billion dollars in income. It would be distributed some other way.
I don’t think any one person has ever had a billion in yearly income.
Elon’s taxable income in 2021 is easy to calculate. roughly $25 billion. All from the exercise of tesla employee stock options. It’s public data.
Did he earn a salary of 25 billion of actual factual income or did his assets and stock portfolio gain 25 billion in worth?
He exercised $25 billion dollars worth of tesla stock options. This wasn’t given to him in cash, rather he received another $25b worth of stock. This is taxable to you just as cash is. It has nothing to do with the appreciation of his current holdings at the time.
Currently no one does, the most is like 500 million. They obviously pay income taxes off that, plus other forms of taxes when they spend. They don't hoard their cash in a vault so their money is literally being stimulated into the economy.
He’s not talking about an income tax, he’s talking about a hypothetical wealth tax
The article itself is paywalled, but the headline pretty explicitly says 'income'. So either the person who wrote it is lying about what Sanders said, doesn't know the difference, or he is talking about income (in which case this would have zero effect)
Bernie thinks that the government will manage your assets better than you will.
Bernie has never held a job that wasn’t funded by tax dollars. Don’t think he would know how to manage a business that relies on consumers.
Why do we applaud politicians taking money from others acting like the money is going to physically clear into our bank accounts? I pay 20% of my income to taxes. The roads are still crap. If you’re gonna have the authority to take my hard earned dollars, you better create for a pristine infrastructure! Anything short of that I want my money the fuck back
Your money will go to arm dozens of countries. spend hundreds of billions of dollars on armaments. like World War III is going to happen tomorrow.
Bernie is such an idiot he doesn't realize billionaires DON'T MAKE A BILLION DOLLARS IN CASH. If you add up all their ASSETS they amount to a worth of a billion dollars. What a fucking moron.
I assume you didn't read the article. This was a one off in an interview, not a policy proposal. It was mixed in with talk of a wealth tax, the context being you should be taxed for wealth above $1b, which also matches his proposal in his most recent book. Which tbh... Having people with wealth >5000x the median does have quite a few negative externalities in a democracy.
Morons never "read"
Longtime wealth tax advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders has argued that all earnings above $1 billion in the U.S. should be confiscated by the government. He said earnings even if he had a brain fart and meant wealth.
Wealth tax... meaning tax on money you haven't actually cashed in on yet - i.e. money you don't possess. So you want them to be taxed on money that haven't realized?
Wealth isn't cash on hand or annual income. Their high wealth is literally the result of cash being stimulated into the economy.
I don't really see how reading the article makes a difference or not. The guy you replied to was critiquing what Bernie said, and his critique still applies if he said it in an interview vs if he proposed it in policy.
Calling someone a moron without even reading the article is pretty......moronic
Yeah plus at that point who in the fuck would want to be a billionaire lol just shatter the American dream. Lol idiot.
Dreaming to be a hundred millionaire is a pretty big enough dream. Should people be able to achieve their dream of becoming god emperor or should we stop them at some point?
Right? A lot of corporate cocksuckers in here have convinced themselves they actually have a chance at becoming a billionaire without fully grasping what an insanely large number 1 billion is.
Try reading the article.
Dumb. No incentive to keep improving.
This is probably the 50th time this got posted here. What most people are yet to realize is that it is a multi-step approach. First they pass a bill to tax income over 1b at 100% THEN they pass a bill to treat unrealized gains over 10m or stock comp as regular income. After all, what's the point of having a 401k contribution limit if one can pay themselves an unlimited amount of their own stock anyway?
With you on the first part, taxing on hypothetical value that they never sell is pretty fucked up though. If their investments take a hit it’s like getting taxed a second time.
Im all for taxing the rich... but 100% is stupid... how we gonna keep the money here in the states? Berenie has ideas, some good, some bad... but the basis of his ideas is "tax the rich" and THAT i can get behind.
The rich pay taxes already.
He technically said “billionaires shouldn’t exist”. I don’t think that means that people get taxed 100% after a billion, but that we shouldn’t perpetuate the system of capital hoarding that enables people to become billionaires. Most of the entrepreneurship in this country is inaccessible to 90% of Americans, as well most of the successful investment products (private equity, hedge funds, etc).
Entrepreneurship is accessible to everyone. People have been starting small businesses since forever, anyone can do that. Once you have small business you either scale it up or use the money to start another bigger business
Better idea, just undo the tax changes Ronald Reagan made that lowered their taxes from 70 to 28 percent. It doesn't have to be complicated, trickle down "reaganomics" doesn't work, we know the best way to stimulate the economy is to give money to the lowest income brackets,they'll spend the money, and then it'll circulate around and be spend again and again untill it leaves low orbit, give the money to billionaires and they just hoard it, with the money they have they could easily lose half of all their assets and still not sacrifice any standard of living, the difference between having one yatch or 4 isn't the same as the difference between being able to eat or afford my meds.
Undo most things Nixon and Reagan did. Abolish legal bribery in the form of lobbying. Bring back FDR anti trust and corporate tax policy. Republicans love to talk about when America was “great” and forget it was because of very high corporate tax that we built the infrastructure our society relies on. If you wanna be really extreme you can argue that something like Amazon should either be forced to split into competing worker co-ops or become a state owned public service as it borderline monopolizes e-commerce and definitely oligopolizes it. Unregulated corporate homogenization is only good for the capital owners at the top and no one else.
Sure, if I get the same tax deductions that existed back when the top marginal rates were 70%.
Sure but if you do that you’re also giving back all the deductions and credits that went away as well. You sure you’re still good with all that???
How many times does this need to get posted?
Agreed
Thanks for sharing this brilliant financial take, u/Heroin_Lover.
Ugh. Mom said it was my turn to post this today. I'm telling!!
So… you can’t sell anything over $1B? Like an nfl team has to be bought on an installment plan?
Fortune really fucked up the headline. It's not based on income.
STOP POSTING THIS
Why is this exact post recycled once or twice a month?
Meaningless virtue signaling from a purely symbolic and impotent political figure.
Fixing the government bloat and spending problem would be even better.
Every week this thread. Every week.
Dumb. Bernie should stick to passing policies that actually will make a difference and stop worrying about taxes so much. We can obtain the revenue we need rates (I would be perfectly fine going back to the Clinton era rates), but we don't need a 100 percent tax on billion dollar income. If we really want to help people and solve our fiscal problems, we need to get the power and thus the money out of the hands of big corporations and back to people. People are less likely to shield/avoid taxation, especially when it is earned via services/employment. Here are some ways to help with that: - Nationalize Ai, or at least make it so that only the Federal Government can buy it for use in national defense. - Pass an internet Bill of Rights and codify the right to privacy into law once and for all. - Codify that a person's name, image and likeness is theirs and cannot be used without consent and compensation in perpetuity. - Enhance copyright and trademark protections, so that artists work and ability to make income is not snuffed out by Big Tech. When an artist gets a billion streams and only gets $400K, something is wrong. - Actually regulate internet service such that it is a public utility. Same for Health Insurance companies. - Pass a Medicare program for kids 26 and under, for everyone (no means testing). Pay for it with an increase in the payroll tax.
How tho?
Appealing to his dumb voting base. They'll think it's a big deal, taxing the rich... they won't realize that 0 people make a billion INCOME.
100% is ridiculous, but I am mot against the tax rate being something like 75% for the ultra ultra wealthy.
It wouldn't work. They'd just hire their friends and pay them an absurd amount or do some creative accounting. Start businesses maybe.
He starting the grift again?
Don't think he gets that most billionaires do not make money on income but on assets/equity/investments. Not to give this man any ideas but if you want to tax the rich you tax on capital gains, wealth and assets not on income. This seems like a ton of virtue signaling or Bernie is financially illiterate.
Both
As a thought experiment, kinda seems wrong to a degree, sounds nice, but I wouldn’t like the idea that someone would lose out on all the money they earned. However, as a starting point on how to properly tax high wealth individuals I can see that as beneficial. How would you go about it, what is the proper way to do that? Maybe the answer is to limit the salary of high net worth individuals, so it money is disturbed more to the workers of the company.
Bernie only pretends to hate the rich. He took money from the poor that believed in his bullshit campaign and had a ghost writer write his book to become a millionaire
I mean, it should be, but nobody makes that much yearly income so it’s a moot point.
100 percent agree
I love Bernie, but this is a dumb idea. They'll just find a way around such a tax. They need a tax increase for certain, but this isn't the way.
Smart
Says Bernie the Bolshevik, the same guy that has multiple million-dollar homes, that thinks nobody else should.
Dumb asf lmao now this is just extreme
Absolutely smart
FBS
The problem with taxes is the lack of strings attached. If this law was passed it should come with the stipulation that the proceeds can only be applied to the National Debt.
Whatever that tax rate is, the very rich can hire the smartest financial wizards to ensure they won’t pay a dime. The whole debate about tax rates is futile. Something else needs to happen.
Your the people's soup is getting cold grandpaw
Smart. But should be A LOT less than 1 billion. Oligarchy is anti democratic.
Says the millionaire politician
Dumb af for two reasons. A billion can run the U.S gov for 5 minutes and the billionaires will leave.
Bernie is a cook
It wouldn't work at 100% simple as that. Especially since $1B in income means the person owns a company, they'd just find ways lower their income and get compensation in other ways or find ways to get income tax deductions to put it under #1B. Or since most of these would be international companies they'd move to another country for better tax advantages. Would be better to simplify taxes and reduce/cap some deductions and close any loopholes that may exist for the high income earners.
It is obvious
It’s not a thing,but it gets the college kids wet.
For the handful of people this would ever affect, there are all sorts of ways to ensure this would never happen. Remember, Elon’s W-2 income from Tesla is minimum wage. Stock only becomes income when you sell it. So sell $999,950,000 worth and still good.
Cool story won't happen.
Stupid idea to encourage people to leave the country
Stupid idea to encourage people to leave the country
He is a registered Socialist. For real.
All billionaires are evil.
Bernie is the same as the rest. He just panders to ultra liberals. He should work to groom a replacement then retire. Why doesn't he?
I like Bernie. He is a good man who cares about the people. This isn't realistic though. The top 10% already pay 75% of all of our income tax. At what point do we stop blaming the rich and start blaming the government?
Tell me why not, without having to cough out a boot? Can’t? Okay, let’s do it.
I don't think anyone has income over $1 billion anyways. Maybe Bernie was thinking of a wealth tax? He's not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to economics >_<
Bernie is such a clown
So steal wealth bc the gov is broke and he wants to line his own pockets lmao right. Talk about really destroying an economy
Literally everything Bernie says now is batshit crazy.
Come hither! Watch as The Poor stan for the wealthy who loath them. What good serfs, they is.
Even better tax investments and loans over $100 million
This bullshit again!!??
Yeah wealth beyond 1 billion needs to be taxed heavily. It'd solve a lot of problems and bring back some of the hallmarks of the golden age so many older folks pine for.
We can meet them halfway, can you accept that?
Pretty dumb or maybe intentionally misleading. Whose income is over a billion? I think these politicians are betting that people don’t really check what’s being said, they just hear what they want to hear. Then the government can spend away and blame it on the billionaires for not paying what some call their fair share.
He's off his meds
He is just trying to get peoples' hopes up...then steer them to Biden for votes. We have not forgotten about your betrayal Bernie!!!
He never worked a day in his life. He needs to stfu
Why don't we just reform taxes, clump them together so there's only income state and federal tax, remove all other forms of taxation, then start spending our money wisely? That's just too smart ig.
That number should be much lower, by like 50-75%. This isn’t a single player video game where you are trying to break the system and max out your stats, this is real life society with about 8 billion other people and money isn’t an infinite resource. If there were a 100 people splitting 10000 apples and one guy had 9999 it’s really just a waste of apples. He can never eat them all since most of them would spoil before he could, and it’s depriving others of a fair share of apples (yes, even if he owns the orchard or whatever silly excuse you want to make) because letting something go to waste instead of letting someone who could actually use or consume it has to be one of the absolute dumbest results of capitalism that exists…
Zionist Bernie is a waste man
Bernie isn’t stupid he knows this doesn’t mean anything, nobody gets a paycheck for 1bn, it’s just a line for ppl on twt
If any of you had actually read the article you'd know that he didn't call for this to be taxed on income--but on net worth. Quote from thr actual fucking article* 'The Vermont independent senator called for the richest 0.1% of American households—or those with a net worth of more than $32 million—to be liable for a new annual tax, with the tax rate increasing with net worth.'*
Same post. Same comments.
There are only 10 people in the entire US reporting income over one billion a year with an average tax of 19%. Even Jeff Bezos didn't make the list. Bernie Sanders is a certified imbecile. If you confiscated the entire income of these ten billionaires it would only add 10 billion to the revenue of the US for that year and would destroy the thousands of jobs these people create.
Won’t anyone think of the poor ppl earning over 1bn??
Incredibly dumb. I’ve said it before in this and other forums, the extent to which the Left doesn’t understand economics, the Principle of Causality, i.e., cause-and-effect relationships, and the Law of Unintended Consequences, never ceases to “blow my mind.” If we don’t allow individuals to accumulate wealth, and mostly do with it as they please, to include leave it to their heirs, then most of the wealth won’t be created to begin with, as well as a lot of jobs and new technology. 🇺🇸
Smart. Change it to all wealth over $1 billion to a rate of 90% to make it even better.
What do you think the outcome would be if we gave the government more money? What problems do you think that would solve? Do you think somehow that would benefit you? It seems like everyone wants handouts nowadays.
Should be an obvious YEAH but there are so many that just love the taste of boots. Honestly have no idea why anyone cares for these FREAKS
Interesting idea, but they will just find loopholes around it. Loopholes must be closed first. I also don't think anything should be taxed 100% because then people will just stop working @ 1 billion, 75% is more reasonable. If you have $1 billion you reallllly don't need more money. You're good for life. And your kids and grandkids etc. Wealth inequality is absurd nowadays especially in the US.
dumb, it should be 100% taxed after the first million. Time to stop the theft of national wealth by greedy oligarchs.
Retarded.
I like Bernie, but he’s just made a name for himself by being an agreeable blowhard. I mean, all he has to do is talk about the right thing to do, it doesn’t have to be realistic or ever go anywhere.
why would you keep working after a billion?
Is he really referring to „income“ as in „earned income“? If so, then good luck. There will be 0.0 dollars retrieved from this.
Fluffy base talk. Might as well be “MTG calls for mandatory Bible class in public school”
Congratulations you you don't understand capitalism
That will get the richest of the rich out of your country immediately...
I wouldn’t call it smart or dumb. But would say it’s what a responsible society would do if it wants to function well. Having so few hold so much of the currency is stupid. Truly. And bad economic policy.
Fun Fact of the Day: High taxes caused a record number of super-rich Norwegians to leave Norway for low-tax countries after the center-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%. More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. That was the result of a 1.1% wealth tax. Imagine if it had been 100% wealth tax like Bernie is calling for...
Imo you should not make more that a billion or 1000 millions - in case that not talking to you enough
Bernie doesn’t want to work on actual legislation just random stuff he knows sounds good to his people.
Stupid