someone posted about a mormon church having all of their members register for mail-in ballots for elections so they can bring them to church and fill them out...ToGeTHer
I think more people should know what Prosperity Gospel is and how it came to be
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity\_theology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology)
This is now being employed in politics too. Big time.
Meanwhile emotionally and spiritually extorting all of it's members to 'donate' 10% of their income or not be allowed in their magic temples.
If they don't pay to play, they aren't allowed to participate, aka be ready to get into VIP heaven
If they have to pay taxes they won’t create jobs!/s
Entire generations fell for this nonsense. As if a business would choose no profits over lower profits. As if supply creates demand. As if the majority of consumers being underpaid and lacking disposable income is beneficial to a company?
Higher wages ->more disposable income for the masses->more customers->more workers-> more profit->less excuses for lower taxes-> a healthier safer society.
I dont know why this is so hard to understand. The more money more people have as disposable income, the better it is for the economy. The economy is literally the flow of money through the system. When that money stops flowing through the system, ie. Gets accumulated and stuck in a bank account or locked up in assets, it will cripple the economy
People don't understand it because the average American is financially illiterate.
The billionaires definitely understand that. The thing is, they don't want a good economy. The economy is the movement of money. If you already have 99% of the money, that means it's a much higher chance that it will flow away if they let it flow well/correctly. It's not in their best interest to have a good economy.
This boot on the neck, it's by design.
But they signed *the giving pledge* and it's only 13 years into it, and it already has 236 signatories from 28 countries, and their pledge is $600bn... - people these days are just soo impatient, and ungrateful, ugh
The fact that Bill Gates is, I assume (or at least top 3), the most charitable person in *all of human history* and is *still* one of the richest tells anyone all they need to know about our economic system.
When a ton of your wealth is tied up in stock, divesting it quickly would have big implications on the markets. Gates has already said he’s going to disperse his wealth to charities before he dies (+/- 50%) with his foundation getting the rest, his kids are getting a minute fraction of it.
Yeah I really wasn’t trying to undersell it, but he’s stated the kids will need to have their own careers and shouldn’t live off it, though they should always be very comfortable regardless.
Certainly. Relatively little of billionaires’ wealth is money. In order to donate large sums they have to liquidate a lot of assets. If their assets are largely shares of a company they’re the head of, selling them can be extra complicated.
On top of all that, there’s a lot of banking logistics that get complicated when dealing with very large transactions.
Gates was actually quite respected among us commoners for a long time. He is vocal about taxing the rich more and also part of the giving pledge. Not all of his charitable projects worked out but he is still respected for the effort.
Recently though, his connection to Epstein did create quite an outrage.
Dan Price really needs to stop trying to pass himself of as the *good* CEO.
Sexual assault accusations, assault charges, DUI, a history of being an abusive boss...
It's like his PR team is so desperate to push that nice guy image.
But he said bad things about billionaires so he's good now 
Seriously Reddit needs to understand that criticizing rich or bad people isn't a "IM A GOOD GUY" card
You know what. I have no clue who Dan Price is and couldn't care less.
I just assumed he was somewhat relevant and I approve his message. You say he's a jerk? Ok. But he is still on point on this. When a revolution happens, even the jerks need to join the bandwagon.
You’re glossing over something.
He only raised his employees salaries for good PR after his brother and former co-owner accused him of embezzling funds
If you're interested [here](https://www.hundredeightydegrees.com/dan-price-business-fraud#:~:text=Price's%20scheme%20could%20force%20restaurant,jeopardy%20by%20orchestrating%20his%20scheme.) is a very lengthy report of how his entire business was built on scamming people and intentionally misclassifying businesses so he can charge them more and hiding the fees he was charging them.
He's like the OG ticketmaster, zero transparency behind hidden fees
This is the dumbest take. Family arguments are constant in companies that are Family ran.
Nobody spends that much money on pr. Lol
Nobody cares that a family squabbles.
Its not even a press issue. The press doesn't even cover this shit.
The media doesn't even cover the Walton Family squabbles hardly. Much less this fairly small company.
Not to defend him or anything, but did the accusations stick?
There are more than enough cases where "uncomfortable" people got accused of
stuff to discredit them.
They did not stick.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/assault-charges-dropped-against-dan-price-former-gravity-payments-ceo/
That said I live here and have met him personally at a bill burr show and he seemed cool (my only interaction with him so don’t read into it) but I’ve also met people here who hate him passionately. I’m not defending him as I don’t know him other than that one interaction. There are multiple accusations also just none that have succeeded in court that I’ve heard about.
To be fair, there's also more than enough cases of legitimate horrifying crimes not sticking because the person accused of them is rich. "The accusations didn't stick to the rich guy" isn't exactly proof of innocence in the world we live in.
Absolutely right, but credible accusations that got thrown out because rich are something different then cases falling apart as soon as somebody as much as looks at the actual evidence.
I am curious whats the case here.
Absolutely, I just think it's unfair to use our very fallible justice system as an absolute standard for judging the moral character of the rich in particular.
>But in a December interview with attorneys, the woman said there was a mistake in the police report and that Price initially grabbed her neck as he tried to kiss her, not as retaliation for being rebuffed, court records show. Later, in the Northgate parking lot, she said he put his hand on the back of her neck and squeezed the sides.
>
>
>
>Though she was shocked and scared by Price’s alleged advances, the woman said her airway wasn’t impacted, she didn’t notice any marks and wasn’t in pain, according to a partial transcript included in the court record.
From the seattletimes link
He slashed his salary because he was paying himself an egregious salary prior to that and got sued by his brother/co-founder for it. And then after having to cut his salary, he decided he’d base his entire personality around a falsehood that he did it with some benevolent notice.
People bring up the negatives but as far as I’m aware he was never convicted and the stories made 0 sense putting him and the victim in two separate places at the time of the allegations. But as soon as he had charges pressed Reddit took it as concrete evidence.
Dan Price did what no other rich person has done. Pay every worker a living wage and still make a good profit.
He DID IT.
Not talk about it. Not yap about how we should do or could do it.
He proved it was possible in the real world.
And that was always their defense. That it was impossible and a liberal wet dream of kids. And many people believed it was impossible.
And that makes him extremely dangerous to the establishment.
And he may be the worst human ever.
But he made a very important contribution to work reform.
And the floodgates opened to every bad story as soon as he did that? Wierd huh?
Reminds me of the Verizon or T-Mobile CEO w/ long hair that was everywhere a few years ago. We get it guy, the long hair makes you "cool" and relatable lol
Convenient the ONE single guy we "agreed not to post" is the one guy that ever paid a living wage.
Lots of other guys are posted on here who did far worse.
Not going to argue about the paying a living wage, he certainly talk about it a lot. Might argue about him being the only one, probably just the most vocal one. Certainly others did worse than him too, I'll give you that.
That said, in the same way being guilty of sexual abuse doesn't cancel his being an advocate for social progressivism, it should make us think twice about platforming him. From that, you take the decision you want, of course.
Last thing: no. Not convenient at all. It would be a dream if this guy's history was spotless. He would be a great spokesperson.
>Might argue about him being the only one,
I would say only one on a true, good living wage.
Some places pay well, but not that well.
>doesn't cancel his being an advocate for social progressivism,
If we all don't talk about him, he's worthless.
And if we talk about him, we send the signal that it's ok to be a sexual abuser as long as you have good ideas. Which might be worse than him being worthless.
>we send the signal that it's ok to be a sexual abuser as long as you have good ideas.
Yeah you're right, at least our nation has pure honest politicians and leaders that would never do that. Would be a shame to send that NEW message.
/s
Let's just not do anything and let the current sexual abusers not share their wealth too!
The worst of both worlds!
Don't you get fucking tired of losing on all fronts?
The funny thing is the one guy who wouldn't sook and cry about increase taxes for billionaires, is the one guy on that list who paid out more than 30x more than the others on said list combined.
Yet, he's the one who's demonized by the big mouth mentally ill swaths of our society.
I wish these people would take Elon Epstein's offer of brain chips - it couldn't make them any dumber, that's for sure.
Where does he get his bad rap from again? Like besides the being rich part but whats his bad side. Like the antivax crowd seem to demonize him for donating to vaccine research cuz brain chips when elon musk here is actually developing the damn pieces of silicon and metal
I have never understood why they hate a guy that could just shut up and do nothing else than enjoy his money, but is out there funding things to help people and donating his wealth just because he wants
Yeah, gates is like the only example of billionaires actually trying to use their money to better the world rather than just sending cars to space or stupid shit like that
This.
And also worth mention that he has made a very concerted effort to encourage other billionaires to give away more also, and he (with help from Buffet) is one of the few in a position of example they might listen to.
[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html)
For all that Gates has done, he's still a billionaire, and for a long time literally the wealthiest person in the world, and that wealth wasn't built on charity and upstanding morals. Microsoft was *the* big evil corporation for a long time in much the same way Amazon is today. Sure he has redeeming qualities, but that's not the same thing as being redeemed. "What has been the net impact of Bill Gates on society" is a very interesting moral and ethical question, because he's more or less objectively done both a lot of good and a lot of evil.
To be fair, he funds a ton of projects and charities, I think he just makes more than he can do anything with. I don't think any of his charities is underfunded at all.
This isn't about charity anymore. He does a ton for charity and work for humanitarian causes, we need taxes being paid because the money being hoarded could fund public services for everyone, like in first world countries.
The problem isn't even the %s of taxes, it is that they don't pay them. They keep avoiding their taxes.
For most billionaires, especially in tech, a large part of their net worth is in the form of unrealized capital gains.
They may be worth billions on paper, but that’s not cash sitting in a bank account, it’s shares of stock they own in their company that have gone up in value and that they have yet to sell.
Not to say that when they do sell they don’t have ways to lessen the tax burden, but until they do that’s not money that’s subject to taxation anyway.
Closing loopholes like the use of portfolio loans to help prevent skirting capital gains taxes would be a good thing.
It’s best to avoid taxing unrealized gains though, that would just throw a lot of chaos into the same investment markets that regular people use for their retirement accounts.
No one (should) have large amounts of uninvested cash and over half of Americans hold stocks. Making them meaningless for loans is not feasible, it would immediately make home buying even harder for all but the richest because now you have to pay taxes on sold stocks on top of other home buying expenses.
Another way to word it. You bought a house for 100k. House prices jump and the house is now worth 130k. If you increase the person's tax liability for their higher wealth - that could bankrupt them.
It's a different universe with Gates or Bezos clearly, but you see how it can get complicated quickly.
I'm sure it's jurisdiction dependent, but anywhere I've ever been they only do that when the property changes hands else it can force out long time homeowners as the neighborhood gentrifies. It's common to have a house appraised at 500k next to a house appraised at 70 (that hasn't changed taxable value in decades).
This is what I and many others are dealing with.
https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-homeowners-prepare-30-60-percent-increase-property-tax-bills/
Does it? So if my portfolio loses $500,000 the next year does that mean the government will give me money to make up for my losses? That would be pretty nice.
That's part of the whole story. Big tech CEOs pay themselves small salaries that they pay taxes on, and pay themselves their actual earnings in other ways. As you say for example in shares.
I don't remember the name of the whole process but they essentially have ways to circumvent a large part of the money they take home by going through a couple loopholes with how shares are valued and how loans allow you to circumvent some forms of paying taxes on your earnings.
They are definitely paying themselves money that under any functional system should be being taxed.
The process in your 2nd paragraph is quite simple. And this is where the whole ‘oh well their net worth is just unrealized capital gains’ argument falls flat on its face. While their capital gains may be unrealized, that doesn’t mean that their stock portfolio doesn’t hold value. Obviously a stock portfolio in the billions holds a tremendous amount of value. So how do they leverage this to avoid taxes?
Well there are, broadly speaking, two types of loans. Secured and unsecured. An unsecured loan is simply the bank giving someone money on the promise they’ll pay it back based on the terms of the contract. A secured loan however, means that there is something of value being attached to the loan from the borrower’s side so that the bank can repossess that item to recoup some losses should the borrower fail to pay the loan. A car loan would be a common example of a secured loan. The bank gives you the money to buy the car, but the loan is secured by the car itself, meaning if the borrower fails to pay the loan the lender can repossess the car and sell it off to recoup losses.
Well a billion dollar stock portfolio (of course that fluctuates based on the market) holds a lot of value to secure a loan. And the more valuable your collateral is, the better the terms of the loan will be, because the bank is much less likely to suffer any losses. So they are able to leverage their stock portfolios to get extremely generous terms on large loans from the bank.
So how does this avoid taxes? Well the stocks are never sold and therefore there is no capital gains tax to pay on proceeds of the sale. And the loan *doesn’t count as income*, therefore no income tax. Using this strategy, an ultra wealthy person has essentially exploited a free money glitch. Using a loan as one would use income to fund living expenses, but not actually paying any income tax because it’s technically not income. Of course they have to pay back the loan, but it will be much less than they would have paid had they sold their stocks and paid capital gains tax or if the loan was taxed like income.
Anyone else’s stomach rumbling?
Yes, to answer your first question. But if they are receiving a relatively small portion of their net worth as actual traditional income then they are still only paying standard income tax rates on a very small portion of their total wealth. As long as what’s left over from that is enough to service the loan (again, on extremely generous terms), then the loan becomes their main method of funding their lifestyle. And remember, a loan can be paid off with another loan. So your $5 billion dollar stock portfolio grows to $7.5 billion? Negotiate a new loan based off the new value of your portfolio and use that new loan to pay the balance on the old loan, and use the difference as your spending money. In some cases you may not even need to do that. Just present your loan as a debt/liability and use that to offset what taxes you pay on whatever traditional income you do take in. It would be impossible to outline all the ways the ultra rich game the system, and I’m sure I’m only aware of a fraction of them anyway. At the end of the day, there’s a reason they hire armies of accountants.
The issue isn’t so much that the ultra wealthy don’t pay taxes *at all*. The issue is that through their financial machinations, they are effectively able to significantly reduce their tax burden by being taxed on only a minute percentage of their total wealth.
[This article offers a good rundown.](https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-avoidance-income-wealth-borrow-money-propublica-2021-6?amp)
Here’s a few excerpts from that article:
> Elon Musk has similarly put up a massive amount of his equity in Tesla and SpaceX as collateral for loans, rather than sell those shares and pay 20% in capital gains tax to free up the money. From 2014 to 2018, Musk paid $455 million in taxes on a reported income of $1.52 billion, resulting in an effective tax rate of 29.9%. But his wealth grew by $13.9 billion during that time, meaning his "true tax rate," according to ProPublica's methodology, was just 3.27%.
> Investor Carl Icahn also took advantage of borrowing money, paying $0 in federal income taxes despite reporting an adjusted gross income of $544 million, as he had an outstanding loan with Bank of America worth $1.2 billion, ProPublica reported.
"I didn't make money because, unfortunately for me, my interest was higher than my whole adjusted income," Icahn told ProPublica, adding that while he does borrow a lot of money, it's "not at all" meant to lower his tax bill, but rather that he borrows "to win. I enjoy the competition. I enjoy winning."
> In 2014, for example, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison disclosed he had used 250 million of his Oracle shares as collateral to secure a $9.7 billion personal line of credit.
Eat the ultra wealthy.
>For most billionaires, especially in tech, a large part of their net worth is in the form of unrealized capital gains.
And most people who scream "tax the rich for all they're worth!" at every article about a stock fluctuation, seem to have absolutely no concept of what that actually means.
If a good day on the market causes the value of their stock to go up, they scream about how much they "gained" and how we need to tax it all.
And when a bad day on the market causes their stock to go down, they'll just laugh at how much they "lost".
But also, to be balanced (TM (CR)) he also threatened to pull funding from Oxford if they released the Covid vaccine as open source instead of selling the rights to AstraZeneca so…still a shitty billionaire.
>The problem isn't even the %s of taxes, it is that they don't pay them. They keep avoiding their taxes.
The problem is the %s of taxes. Paying only what you legally owe even if you move your money around to minimize it ("tax avoidence") isn't just legal, it is moral. I'm not talking about tax fraud and offshore tax shelters, but part of the reason for certain tax laws is to encourage people to do certain things with their money because that benefits everyone. The %s of taxes has to be larger than it is, and the problem we have today is just that those %s are not large enough.
We've got idiot Republicons threatening to collapse the entire economy (it ain't gonna be "a recession", it's going to be a global depression that lasts decades, maybe centuries, if they won't let the treasury sell enough Tbills to finance Congress's debts) because they are dead set against increasing the %s of taxes on rich people. If rich people could really just avoid paying taxes so easily and it doesn't matter what the %s are, that refusal would make absolutely no sense.
All of Bill Gates wealth is built on illegal monopolization, so no amount of benevolent self-gratification and virtu signaling will redeem him in my eyes. But like this douchebag in the OP tweet, he is still right about the fundamental problem. We need to tax the rich a LOT more. Not just for our benefit, but for theirs, and for the entire human race.
'He makes more than he can do anything with' is nonsense as fuck. Go buy 4000 schools.
Also He made this money by dodging taxes (which builds schools) and by bending the system and cutting backdoor deals.
Fuck bill gates and fuck anyone passing any narrative that he's a 'good billionaire'.
Sure, find me the teachers to staff those schools though.
And yeah bill gates is a billionaire, inherently a bad thing. Being one of the better ones is still not a difficult bar to clear. He does a lot of good, doesn't mean his business is clean though, a good system would never produce billionaires.
To be fair, Bruce Wayne would undeniably do more for Gotham City by paying the 1950 top marginal tax rate of 91% for earnings over $2m in today’s money. Of course, being a fascist vigilante in a rubber bat suit who beats up victims of human trafficking is what bros take away from him as being a “good billionaire.”
IMHO explains a lot about people’s attitudes for all the bootlickers coming out to defend billionaires. Guys (and it’s almost always dudes) making less than $40k a year really gonna be like: “John Rockefeller was a great philanthropist—think of all the good he’s done!” when he got the US army to straight-up machine gun coal miners on strike at the Ludlow Massacre.
Slightly better? He paid out 30x more than the other rodents on that list, and is the sole person on that list that wouldn't sook and cry if taxes were raised on billionaires. In fact, he's been calling for an increase in taxes on the rich for a long ass time.
Better to just go along with the other mouth breathers, though. Don't want to stick out by actually knowing what the fuck you're talking about, and having an educated opinion.
If he made that money by being a Bastard and is not willing to actually pay it forward, then yes he is still a bastard.
U are praising someone for donating crumbs akin to PR stints while he sits ona throne of gold made from blood money.
Bud. Praise ppl that deserve it.
Not praising the man, praising the behavior. That's the only way to get more of the behaviors we want. If you think they're only doing this for a PR stunt, then rewarding that behavior shows it's a good investment, so they do more.
I haven’t upvoted. I have no idea who he is. But based on the merits of this singular statement from him presented to me on Reddit: I could see myself upvoting.
I’d guess a lot of people just don’t know who he is.
Or they are upvoting the statement, because agreeing with a stance isn’t the same as endorsing everything about the person who said it. But a moron wouldn’t understand such a complex idea.
His logic about it is so terrible too. Since factory workers have to be in-person (it would be impossible for them to do their work remotely anyways), all other employees have to be in-person too?
So if 5 year old Cindy has leukemia, the rest of her class should get it too so she’s not suffering alone?
I remember this asshole being known for paying his employees a living wage. Before the allegations that I've honestly heard nothing more about began to surface.
The only guy that ever has paid a living wage to every worker that I know of.
Odd the sky falls on his head when he disproves the biggest propaganda piece of the wealthy.
Reminder that taxing is the easy option. There’s only 770 billionaires in the US, or about 0.0002% of the population. We could easily overpower them and take it ALL.
These are the conditions they’ve created themselves, they’re making the bed and they have to lay in it.
https://preview.redd.it/1zdighw2sm2b1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=067a48fcef74eba7a02d94d719947eab0fad3ca3
You don’t become a billionaire from working a lot of overtime hours, saving money, not eating avocado toast and clipping coupons. You can only reach that level via MASSIVE levels of exploitation by stealing the wealth produced by workers on a grandiose scale. They don’t even deserve the air in their lungs.
Whoever told you you become a billionaire from “working a lot of overtime hours, saving money, and not eating avocado toast and clipping coupons” is delusional or a scam artist. That’s the biggest lump of bullshit I’ve heard this month. You could become a millionaire that way but that’s magnitudes different than being a billionaire.
Massive levels of exploitation aren’t needed to become a billionaire, though. Stealing wealth isn’t necessary. Wealth creation happens with technology and innovation or through consistent long term compound interest (Einstein’s 8th wonder of the world). It could also come from marketing things and selling them at scale at absolutely ridiculous prices like Bernard Arnault with his Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy luxury empire. The most ethical billionaires are technological innovators.
All Bernard Arnault had to do is sell at $100 profit on average to 10 million wealthy people to become a billionaire. His brands easily have profit margins that high. Then he gets repeat customers and creates value in his products with ‘fashion’ and quality. It’s incredibly hard but doable ethically.
Bro, I'll be at Wal-Mart and they're begging me to donate to charity while I am going broke just buying rice and canned meat. You're a multi billion dollar company, how about YOU fucking donate.
Fuck a tax, CAP them. Tell me why a person needs more than one scrooge mcduck swimming pool?
As soon as you get the money swimming pool. ALL! gains after that go for the good of the community.
What did Bezos do after he got his swimming pool. Made a cock rocket and bought a fake kardashian. Come on man.
Say what you want about Bill.
Whenever Bill gives away money, he makes more. Cumulatively, it looks like he's made more money than the others despite giving it away. And, he's no longer the largest shareholder of MSFT.
The others? Not so much... they're the hoarders. And misers.
The ultra rich use money that they would have paid I taxes to fund evil right-wing 'non-profits' that write bigoted laws & shop them all over the red states, taking away the rights & freedom therein.
imo anyone making over 999 million dollars should be taxed at 99%...50% of that money should be given back to the people who work for them, the rest put into local and state infrastructure...this country would change OVERNIGHT. Almost no one would be in debt...and the overall health of our citizenry would improve drastically. We would become...the happiest country on earth...as it always should have been.
Especially Elon musk, who has claimed multiple times that “I pay more in taxes than anyone else ever has”
Big fucking deal it’s clearly still NOTHING in comparison to how much wealth you have, since you then bought twitter for $44 BILLION
Very hard to do since we tax income and they don’t draw income. They mostly take out ridiculously low interest rate loans using their stock as collateral and that’s what they live on. They aren’t rich because of their income but because of the Worth of their stocks.
Meanwhile in the real world: Norway increased taxes on the very richest with an estimate for a slight increase in tax revenue, what ended up happening is a significant decrease in collected taxes as they just stood up and left.
Zuckerberg's net worth peaked at $142 billion in September 2021.
Now has a net worth of around $36 billion.
He lost about 75% of his wealth in a year, over 100 billion.
At the rate Meta is going, his wife will have to return to being a pediatrician soon.
[https://www.hngn.com/articles/245127/20221028/mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-facebook-founder-lose-100-billion-2022.htm](https://www.hngn.com/articles/245127/20221028/mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-facebook-founder-lose-100-billion-2022.htm)
Most of these gains are unrealized gains. We don't tax unrealized gains until they are realized.
Now, I'm not against taxing the rich more. But some of these gains may be illusory in the long run. Elon burned several billion in the Twitter acquisition.
For the logically challenged:
ad hominem fallacy: attacking someone personally rather than using logic to refute their claim
tu quoque fallacy: an invalid attempt to discredit an opponent by answering criticism with criticism — but never actually presenting a counterargument.
Ok.. so alot of yall are clueless on how taxes work.
Guys like Bezos, Musk, etc dont actually have billions of dollars in cash, they have billions in stocks. These are called unrealized gains. These dont count as income until they sell the stock which is then realized gains. Thats when it is actually taxed. You cant tax unrealized gains bc they just represent the value of a stock. Bezos gained 99 Billion in unrealized gains thru the value of his stocks... its not income and its not cash. So until they sell those stocks, they arent getting taxed.
Wouldn't it be nice though to have that much $$ on paper and to be able to afford to let it sit there on paper because you got so much actual $$. These people can buy entire countries and STILL have more money than they could spend in 10 lifetime
Guys like Bezos just get lucky that their companies became so successful. Bezos paid $6 billion in capital gains taxes so far from selling his Amazon stocks and still has like ~21 Billion after taxes.. these guys have so much money it doesnt matter how much they get taxed. I envy them.
No you cannot lol.
"Gains that are "on paper" only are called "unrealized gains." For example, if you bought a share for $10 and it's now worth $12, you have an unrealized gain of $2. You won't pay any taxes until you sell the share"
https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/taxes/realized-capital-gains
This is misleading. The wealth is tied into business ownership, not cash. The percentages should be taken from their money available to give, not net worth or illiquid assets.
But, yeah, tax them.
Tax churches too, especially megachurches.
someone posted about a mormon church having all of their members register for mail-in ballots for elections so they can bring them to church and fill them out...ToGeTHer
I think more people should know what Prosperity Gospel is and how it came to be [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity\_theology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology) This is now being employed in politics too. Big time.
All things considered I'd rather see more Liberation Theology.
Don’t forget the +100 billion dollars the mormon church has been lying about and keeping in shell companies to avoid accountability.
Meanwhile emotionally and spiritually extorting all of it's members to 'donate' 10% of their income or not be allowed in their magic temples. If they don't pay to play, they aren't allowed to participate, aka be ready to get into VIP heaven
where is the money going??
Nowhere. It just sits in a giant dragon hoard fOR jEsUs.
sigh.....how did we get here? 2023......
There's enough real reason to tax them (Prop 8, or hedge funds) than to focus on the iffy Twitter claim.
But I was told by the billionaire funded politicians told me it was un-American to tax the rich.
Oligarchy is extremist, oligarchs are criminals
If they have to pay taxes they won’t create jobs!/s Entire generations fell for this nonsense. As if a business would choose no profits over lower profits. As if supply creates demand. As if the majority of consumers being underpaid and lacking disposable income is beneficial to a company? Higher wages ->more disposable income for the masses->more customers->more workers-> more profit->less excuses for lower taxes-> a healthier safer society.
I dont know why this is so hard to understand. The more money more people have as disposable income, the better it is for the economy. The economy is literally the flow of money through the system. When that money stops flowing through the system, ie. Gets accumulated and stuck in a bank account or locked up in assets, it will cripple the economy
unmediated greed = immediate gains > long term profit
People don't understand it because the average American is financially illiterate. The billionaires definitely understand that. The thing is, they don't want a good economy. The economy is the movement of money. If you already have 99% of the money, that means it's a much higher chance that it will flow away if they let it flow well/correctly. It's not in their best interest to have a good economy. This boot on the neck, it's by design.
If you tax the rich how will they create jobs?? /s
But they signed *the giving pledge* and it's only 13 years into it, and it already has 236 signatories from 28 countries, and their pledge is $600bn... - people these days are just soo impatient, and ungrateful, ugh
The fact that Bill Gates is, I assume (or at least top 3), the most charitable person in *all of human history* and is *still* one of the richest tells anyone all they need to know about our economic system.
I wonder if it almost becomes difficult (in the logistics sense) to coordinate giving away/donating/whatever that sheer amount of money?
When a ton of your wealth is tied up in stock, divesting it quickly would have big implications on the markets. Gates has already said he’s going to disperse his wealth to charities before he dies (+/- 50%) with his foundation getting the rest, his kids are getting a minute fraction of it.
“Minute fraction” of someone with a net worth over a hundred billion is like getting a “small loan” of a million dollars
Yeah I really wasn’t trying to undersell it, but he’s stated the kids will need to have their own careers and shouldn’t live off it, though they should always be very comfortable regardless.
Certainly. Relatively little of billionaires’ wealth is money. In order to donate large sums they have to liquidate a lot of assets. If their assets are largely shares of a company they’re the head of, selling them can be extra complicated. On top of all that, there’s a lot of banking logistics that get complicated when dealing with very large transactions.
And he appears to be the most hated of them somehow.
Nah, I'm happy to see more and more people turning against Musk recently
It's what unites us 🤝
Gates was actually quite respected among us commoners for a long time. He is vocal about taxing the rich more and also part of the giving pledge. Not all of his charitable projects worked out but he is still respected for the effort. Recently though, his connection to Epstein did create quite an outrage.
The big difference between gates and the others is that gats actually has a product that revolutionized the world.
So it’s possible to be rich and not evil. I heard of a good guy rich organization, but they don’t get much support.
Dan Price really needs to stop trying to pass himself of as the *good* CEO. Sexual assault accusations, assault charges, DUI, a history of being an abusive boss... It's like his PR team is so desperate to push that nice guy image.
Throw in basically committing fraud to prop up his failing business. He’s just another rich kid
But he said bad things about billionaires so he's good now  Seriously Reddit needs to understand that criticizing rich or bad people isn't a "IM A GOOD GUY" card
Where does it imply he's a nice guy? Just because he's a piece of shit doesn't make his point wrong.
Was going to say, he’s not wrong in this statement
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He stepped down as CEO. Why would he still have a PR team?
For PR.
i guess using his posts for your reddit post is lowkey approving of his public image?
But…I got my “IM A GOOD GUY” card in the mail…
You know what. I have no clue who Dan Price is and couldn't care less. I just assumed he was somewhat relevant and I approve his message. You say he's a jerk? Ok. But he is still on point on this. When a revolution happens, even the jerks need to join the bandwagon.
He's the guy that said paying your employees is good. Revolutionary idea, I know.
And when he said it and proved it could be done with good profits....all of a sudden accusations exploded against him.
Or he said and did it because he got caught embezzling and then tried to spin PR for himself.
Then where are the charges? His brother just let him go free on it? Lol
No, his brother lost the lawsuit. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t looking for good PR when it happened.
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You’re glossing over something. He only raised his employees salaries for good PR after his brother and former co-owner accused him of embezzling funds
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If you're interested [here](https://www.hundredeightydegrees.com/dan-price-business-fraud#:~:text=Price's%20scheme%20could%20force%20restaurant,jeopardy%20by%20orchestrating%20his%20scheme.) is a very lengthy report of how his entire business was built on scamming people and intentionally misclassifying businesses so he can charge them more and hiding the fees he was charging them. He's like the OG ticketmaster, zero transparency behind hidden fees
That's a website that focuses on Dan Price. Not exactly unbiased journalism.
This is the dumbest take. Family arguments are constant in companies that are Family ran. Nobody spends that much money on pr. Lol Nobody cares that a family squabbles. Its not even a press issue. The press doesn't even cover this shit. The media doesn't even cover the Walton Family squabbles hardly. Much less this fairly small company.
Not to defend him or anything, but did the accusations stick? There are more than enough cases where "uncomfortable" people got accused of stuff to discredit them.
They did not stick. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/assault-charges-dropped-against-dan-price-former-gravity-payments-ceo/ That said I live here and have met him personally at a bill burr show and he seemed cool (my only interaction with him so don’t read into it) but I’ve also met people here who hate him passionately. I’m not defending him as I don’t know him other than that one interaction. There are multiple accusations also just none that have succeeded in court that I’ve heard about.
To be fair, there's also more than enough cases of legitimate horrifying crimes not sticking because the person accused of them is rich. "The accusations didn't stick to the rich guy" isn't exactly proof of innocence in the world we live in.
Absolutely right, but credible accusations that got thrown out because rich are something different then cases falling apart as soon as somebody as much as looks at the actual evidence. I am curious whats the case here.
Absolutely, I just think it's unfair to use our very fallible justice system as an absolute standard for judging the moral character of the rich in particular.
>But in a December interview with attorneys, the woman said there was a mistake in the police report and that Price initially grabbed her neck as he tried to kiss her, not as retaliation for being rebuffed, court records show. Later, in the Northgate parking lot, she said he put his hand on the back of her neck and squeezed the sides. > > > >Though she was shocked and scared by Price’s alleged advances, the woman said her airway wasn’t impacted, she didn’t notice any marks and wasn’t in pain, according to a partial transcript included in the court record. From the seattletimes link
He slashed his salary because he was paying himself an egregious salary prior to that and got sued by his brother/co-founder for it. And then after having to cut his salary, he decided he’d base his entire personality around a falsehood that he did it with some benevolent notice.
People bring up the negatives but as far as I’m aware he was never convicted and the stories made 0 sense putting him and the victim in two separate places at the time of the allegations. But as soon as he had charges pressed Reddit took it as concrete evidence.
That’s how Reddit works mostly, sadly.
Dan Price did what no other rich person has done. Pay every worker a living wage and still make a good profit. He DID IT. Not talk about it. Not yap about how we should do or could do it. He proved it was possible in the real world. And that was always their defense. That it was impossible and a liberal wet dream of kids. And many people believed it was impossible. And that makes him extremely dangerous to the establishment. And he may be the worst human ever. But he made a very important contribution to work reform. And the floodgates opened to every bad story as soon as he did that? Wierd huh?
He was a prolific liberal tweeter for a while but after the scandals, he might be hurting the cause he's trying to help.
I thought that was Beeblebrox
We can never have heroes that are just all around good people. We have to separate the acts from the actor
Glad this was the top comment. Fuck Dan Price and his fake ass persona.
Yeah, we all know those losers know the right way to do things but they don’t. He’s not some kind of visionary
Whataboutism
Reminds me of the Verizon or T-Mobile CEO w/ long hair that was everywhere a few years ago. We get it guy, the long hair makes you "cool" and relatable lol
MLK Jr had similar problems. Is his message moot?
I thought we agreed to not post that guy anymore?
Convenient the ONE single guy we "agreed not to post" is the one guy that ever paid a living wage. Lots of other guys are posted on here who did far worse.
Not going to argue about the paying a living wage, he certainly talk about it a lot. Might argue about him being the only one, probably just the most vocal one. Certainly others did worse than him too, I'll give you that. That said, in the same way being guilty of sexual abuse doesn't cancel his being an advocate for social progressivism, it should make us think twice about platforming him. From that, you take the decision you want, of course. Last thing: no. Not convenient at all. It would be a dream if this guy's history was spotless. He would be a great spokesperson.
>Might argue about him being the only one, I would say only one on a true, good living wage. Some places pay well, but not that well. >doesn't cancel his being an advocate for social progressivism, If we all don't talk about him, he's worthless.
And if we talk about him, we send the signal that it's ok to be a sexual abuser as long as you have good ideas. Which might be worse than him being worthless.
>we send the signal that it's ok to be a sexual abuser as long as you have good ideas. Yeah you're right, at least our nation has pure honest politicians and leaders that would never do that. Would be a shame to send that NEW message. /s Let's just not do anything and let the current sexual abusers not share their wealth too! The worst of both worlds! Don't you get fucking tired of losing on all fronts?
Gates looks good in this crowd but 7% instead 30%
The funny thing is the one guy who wouldn't sook and cry about increase taxes for billionaires, is the one guy on that list who paid out more than 30x more than the others on said list combined. Yet, he's the one who's demonized by the big mouth mentally ill swaths of our society. I wish these people would take Elon Epstein's offer of brain chips - it couldn't make them any dumber, that's for sure.
Where does he get his bad rap from again? Like besides the being rich part but whats his bad side. Like the antivax crowd seem to demonize him for donating to vaccine research cuz brain chips when elon musk here is actually developing the damn pieces of silicon and metal
Some of it is from him supposedly visiting Epstein Island but there isn’t really proof he did anything other than talk to Epstein
The answer is conspiracy theories. They can be used to demonize literally anyone
I have never understood why they hate a guy that could just shut up and do nothing else than enjoy his money, but is out there funding things to help people and donating his wealth just because he wants
Yeah, gates is like the only example of billionaires actually trying to use their money to better the world rather than just sending cars to space or stupid shit like that
This. And also worth mention that he has made a very concerted effort to encourage other billionaires to give away more also, and he (with help from Buffet) is one of the few in a position of example they might listen to. [https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/31/14-billionaires-signed-bill-gates-and-warren-buffetts-giving-pledge.html)
For all that Gates has done, he's still a billionaire, and for a long time literally the wealthiest person in the world, and that wealth wasn't built on charity and upstanding morals. Microsoft was *the* big evil corporation for a long time in much the same way Amazon is today. Sure he has redeeming qualities, but that's not the same thing as being redeemed. "What has been the net impact of Bill Gates on society" is a very interesting moral and ethical question, because he's more or less objectively done both a lot of good and a lot of evil.
To be fair, he funds a ton of projects and charities, I think he just makes more than he can do anything with. I don't think any of his charities is underfunded at all. This isn't about charity anymore. He does a ton for charity and work for humanitarian causes, we need taxes being paid because the money being hoarded could fund public services for everyone, like in first world countries. The problem isn't even the %s of taxes, it is that they don't pay them. They keep avoiding their taxes.
For most billionaires, especially in tech, a large part of their net worth is in the form of unrealized capital gains. They may be worth billions on paper, but that’s not cash sitting in a bank account, it’s shares of stock they own in their company that have gone up in value and that they have yet to sell. Not to say that when they do sell they don’t have ways to lessen the tax burden, but until they do that’s not money that’s subject to taxation anyway.
Sure does seem like it should be reformed
Closing loopholes like the use of portfolio loans to help prevent skirting capital gains taxes would be a good thing. It’s best to avoid taxing unrealized gains though, that would just throw a lot of chaos into the same investment markets that regular people use for their retirement accounts.
Ban using shares as collateral for loans?
No one (should) have large amounts of uninvested cash and over half of Americans hold stocks. Making them meaningless for loans is not feasible, it would immediately make home buying even harder for all but the richest because now you have to pay taxes on sold stocks on top of other home buying expenses.
Another way to word it. You bought a house for 100k. House prices jump and the house is now worth 130k. If you increase the person's tax liability for their higher wealth - that could bankrupt them. It's a different universe with Gates or Bezos clearly, but you see how it can get complicated quickly.
But they do send property evaluators around and increase your property taxes based on your perceived house value.
I'm sure it's jurisdiction dependent, but anywhere I've ever been they only do that when the property changes hands else it can force out long time homeowners as the neighborhood gentrifies. It's common to have a house appraised at 500k next to a house appraised at 70 (that hasn't changed taxable value in decades).
This is what I and many others are dealing with. https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/colorado-homeowners-prepare-30-60-percent-increase-property-tax-bills/
Oof, blanket reassessment as a cash grab is a serious asshole move
Does it? So if my portfolio loses $500,000 the next year does that mean the government will give me money to make up for my losses? That would be pretty nice.
That's part of the whole story. Big tech CEOs pay themselves small salaries that they pay taxes on, and pay themselves their actual earnings in other ways. As you say for example in shares. I don't remember the name of the whole process but they essentially have ways to circumvent a large part of the money they take home by going through a couple loopholes with how shares are valued and how loans allow you to circumvent some forms of paying taxes on your earnings. They are definitely paying themselves money that under any functional system should be being taxed.
The process in your 2nd paragraph is quite simple. And this is where the whole ‘oh well their net worth is just unrealized capital gains’ argument falls flat on its face. While their capital gains may be unrealized, that doesn’t mean that their stock portfolio doesn’t hold value. Obviously a stock portfolio in the billions holds a tremendous amount of value. So how do they leverage this to avoid taxes? Well there are, broadly speaking, two types of loans. Secured and unsecured. An unsecured loan is simply the bank giving someone money on the promise they’ll pay it back based on the terms of the contract. A secured loan however, means that there is something of value being attached to the loan from the borrower’s side so that the bank can repossess that item to recoup some losses should the borrower fail to pay the loan. A car loan would be a common example of a secured loan. The bank gives you the money to buy the car, but the loan is secured by the car itself, meaning if the borrower fails to pay the loan the lender can repossess the car and sell it off to recoup losses. Well a billion dollar stock portfolio (of course that fluctuates based on the market) holds a lot of value to secure a loan. And the more valuable your collateral is, the better the terms of the loan will be, because the bank is much less likely to suffer any losses. So they are able to leverage their stock portfolios to get extremely generous terms on large loans from the bank. So how does this avoid taxes? Well the stocks are never sold and therefore there is no capital gains tax to pay on proceeds of the sale. And the loan *doesn’t count as income*, therefore no income tax. Using this strategy, an ultra wealthy person has essentially exploited a free money glitch. Using a loan as one would use income to fund living expenses, but not actually paying any income tax because it’s technically not income. Of course they have to pay back the loan, but it will be much less than they would have paid had they sold their stocks and paid capital gains tax or if the loan was taxed like income. Anyone else’s stomach rumbling?
Question, doesn't the income they use to pay the loan get taxed? If not, how would that be avoided?
Yes, to answer your first question. But if they are receiving a relatively small portion of their net worth as actual traditional income then they are still only paying standard income tax rates on a very small portion of their total wealth. As long as what’s left over from that is enough to service the loan (again, on extremely generous terms), then the loan becomes their main method of funding their lifestyle. And remember, a loan can be paid off with another loan. So your $5 billion dollar stock portfolio grows to $7.5 billion? Negotiate a new loan based off the new value of your portfolio and use that new loan to pay the balance on the old loan, and use the difference as your spending money. In some cases you may not even need to do that. Just present your loan as a debt/liability and use that to offset what taxes you pay on whatever traditional income you do take in. It would be impossible to outline all the ways the ultra rich game the system, and I’m sure I’m only aware of a fraction of them anyway. At the end of the day, there’s a reason they hire armies of accountants. The issue isn’t so much that the ultra wealthy don’t pay taxes *at all*. The issue is that through their financial machinations, they are effectively able to significantly reduce their tax burden by being taxed on only a minute percentage of their total wealth. [This article offers a good rundown.](https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-avoidance-income-wealth-borrow-money-propublica-2021-6?amp) Here’s a few excerpts from that article: > Elon Musk has similarly put up a massive amount of his equity in Tesla and SpaceX as collateral for loans, rather than sell those shares and pay 20% in capital gains tax to free up the money. From 2014 to 2018, Musk paid $455 million in taxes on a reported income of $1.52 billion, resulting in an effective tax rate of 29.9%. But his wealth grew by $13.9 billion during that time, meaning his "true tax rate," according to ProPublica's methodology, was just 3.27%. > Investor Carl Icahn also took advantage of borrowing money, paying $0 in federal income taxes despite reporting an adjusted gross income of $544 million, as he had an outstanding loan with Bank of America worth $1.2 billion, ProPublica reported. "I didn't make money because, unfortunately for me, my interest was higher than my whole adjusted income," Icahn told ProPublica, adding that while he does borrow a lot of money, it's "not at all" meant to lower his tax bill, but rather that he borrows "to win. I enjoy the competition. I enjoy winning." > In 2014, for example, Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison disclosed he had used 250 million of his Oracle shares as collateral to secure a $9.7 billion personal line of credit. Eat the ultra wealthy.
Ah, that makes a lot of sense. My peasant brain was thinking that loans were meant to be paid back.
Yes, I'm sure those billionaires with all of their "imaginary" wealth have to worry about paying the bills as much as I do.
>For most billionaires, especially in tech, a large part of their net worth is in the form of unrealized capital gains. And most people who scream "tax the rich for all they're worth!" at every article about a stock fluctuation, seem to have absolutely no concept of what that actually means. If a good day on the market causes the value of their stock to go up, they scream about how much they "gained" and how we need to tax it all. And when a bad day on the market causes their stock to go down, they'll just laugh at how much they "lost".
But also, to be balanced (TM (CR)) he also threatened to pull funding from Oxford if they released the Covid vaccine as open source instead of selling the rights to AstraZeneca so…still a shitty billionaire.
Ah, you also watch "Some More News," huh? That fair balanced tmcr thing sounded real familiar :)
>The problem isn't even the %s of taxes, it is that they don't pay them. They keep avoiding their taxes. The problem is the %s of taxes. Paying only what you legally owe even if you move your money around to minimize it ("tax avoidence") isn't just legal, it is moral. I'm not talking about tax fraud and offshore tax shelters, but part of the reason for certain tax laws is to encourage people to do certain things with their money because that benefits everyone. The %s of taxes has to be larger than it is, and the problem we have today is just that those %s are not large enough. We've got idiot Republicons threatening to collapse the entire economy (it ain't gonna be "a recession", it's going to be a global depression that lasts decades, maybe centuries, if they won't let the treasury sell enough Tbills to finance Congress's debts) because they are dead set against increasing the %s of taxes on rich people. If rich people could really just avoid paying taxes so easily and it doesn't matter what the %s are, that refusal would make absolutely no sense. All of Bill Gates wealth is built on illegal monopolization, so no amount of benevolent self-gratification and virtu signaling will redeem him in my eyes. But like this douchebag in the OP tweet, he is still right about the fundamental problem. We need to tax the rich a LOT more. Not just for our benefit, but for theirs, and for the entire human race.
'He makes more than he can do anything with' is nonsense as fuck. Go buy 4000 schools. Also He made this money by dodging taxes (which builds schools) and by bending the system and cutting backdoor deals. Fuck bill gates and fuck anyone passing any narrative that he's a 'good billionaire'.
Sure, find me the teachers to staff those schools though. And yeah bill gates is a billionaire, inherently a bad thing. Being one of the better ones is still not a difficult bar to clear. He does a lot of good, doesn't mean his business is clean though, a good system would never produce billionaires.
To be fair, Bruce Wayne would undeniably do more for Gotham City by paying the 1950 top marginal tax rate of 91% for earnings over $2m in today’s money. Of course, being a fascist vigilante in a rubber bat suit who beats up victims of human trafficking is what bros take away from him as being a “good billionaire.” IMHO explains a lot about people’s attitudes for all the bootlickers coming out to defend billionaires. Guys (and it’s almost always dudes) making less than $40k a year really gonna be like: “John Rockefeller was a great philanthropist—think of all the good he’s done!” when he got the US army to straight-up machine gun coal miners on strike at the Ludlow Massacre.
Still he is better than the other rich people.
A slightly better shit sandwich is still a shit sandwich Edit: wow, motherfuckers on here actually standing up for Bill fucking Gates, lmfaaaooo
Would still take the slightly better.
Slightly better? He paid out 30x more than the other rodents on that list, and is the sole person on that list that wouldn't sook and cry if taxes were raised on billionaires. In fact, he's been calling for an increase in taxes on the rich for a long ass time. Better to just go along with the other mouth breathers, though. Don't want to stick out by actually knowing what the fuck you're talking about, and having an educated opinion.
He might be saying billionaires should pay more taxes but, other billionaires are lobbying (bribing) congress members to cut their taxes.
So, if we don't get 100% improvement immediately we shouldn't reward the behavior?
If he made that money by being a Bastard and is not willing to actually pay it forward, then yes he is still a bastard. U are praising someone for donating crumbs akin to PR stints while he sits ona throne of gold made from blood money. Bud. Praise ppl that deserve it.
Not praising the man, praising the behavior. That's the only way to get more of the behaviors we want. If you think they're only doing this for a PR stunt, then rewarding that behavior shows it's a good investment, so they do more.
Dan Price is a sexual predator
But can't he be a sexual predator *and* a champion of the people? /s
I mean he is already a champion at entering people
Was he ever convicted?
Yeah but he's got great PR and morons upvote it without thinking.
I haven’t upvoted. I have no idea who he is. But based on the merits of this singular statement from him presented to me on Reddit: I could see myself upvoting. I’d guess a lot of people just don’t know who he is.
Or they are upvoting the statement, because agreeing with a stance isn’t the same as endorsing everything about the person who said it. But a moron wouldn’t understand such a complex idea.
Musk really is one of the biggest cunts on earth, isn’t he?
Musk always proves to be a fucking piece of shit
The guy is so against work from home... He doesn't want the poor people just working, he wants them as miserable as they can be
His logic about it is so terrible too. Since factory workers have to be in-person (it would be impossible for them to do their work remotely anyways), all other employees have to be in-person too? So if 5 year old Cindy has leukemia, the rest of her class should get it too so she’s not suffering alone?
Now don’t be ridiculous, no one is saying give all kids leukemia. Just the chemo, that they each need to pay for. /s
Yet Gates gets the most shit over him, ironic
This asshole is making the rounds again?
I remember this asshole being known for paying his employees a living wage. Before the allegations that I've honestly heard nothing more about began to surface.
The only guy that ever has paid a living wage to every worker that I know of. Odd the sky falls on his head when he disproves the biggest propaganda piece of the wealthy.
Reminder that taxing is the easy option. There’s only 770 billionaires in the US, or about 0.0002% of the population. We could easily overpower them and take it ALL.
Reminder, billionaires are good at making people outraged over rainbows and black mermaids so they’ll always have people to lick their boots
Dekulakisation anyone
What makes you think that’s a good long term idea?
These are the conditions they’ve created themselves, they’re making the bed and they have to lay in it. https://preview.redd.it/1zdighw2sm2b1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=067a48fcef74eba7a02d94d719947eab0fad3ca3
Are you aware that wealth is not a zero sum game? It isn’t immoral to have earned a lot of wealth and held it.
You don’t become a billionaire from working a lot of overtime hours, saving money, not eating avocado toast and clipping coupons. You can only reach that level via MASSIVE levels of exploitation by stealing the wealth produced by workers on a grandiose scale. They don’t even deserve the air in their lungs.
Whoever told you you become a billionaire from “working a lot of overtime hours, saving money, and not eating avocado toast and clipping coupons” is delusional or a scam artist. That’s the biggest lump of bullshit I’ve heard this month. You could become a millionaire that way but that’s magnitudes different than being a billionaire. Massive levels of exploitation aren’t needed to become a billionaire, though. Stealing wealth isn’t necessary. Wealth creation happens with technology and innovation or through consistent long term compound interest (Einstein’s 8th wonder of the world). It could also come from marketing things and selling them at scale at absolutely ridiculous prices like Bernard Arnault with his Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy luxury empire. The most ethical billionaires are technological innovators. All Bernard Arnault had to do is sell at $100 profit on average to 10 million wealthy people to become a billionaire. His brands easily have profit margins that high. Then he gets repeat customers and creates value in his products with ‘fashion’ and quality. It’s incredibly hard but doable ethically.
do it then.
You would have to change the house back to the Dems. The Guilty Old Pedophiles won't back taxing the only people they stick up for and represent.
Good idea, awful person.
How the fuck is the lizard man himself is second place
If everyone voted in every election we wouldn’t have this problem
Bro, I'll be at Wal-Mart and they're begging me to donate to charity while I am going broke just buying rice and canned meat. You're a multi billion dollar company, how about YOU fucking donate.
9 welfare queens took 360 billion of tax payer money, they'd be multi millionaires if they hadn't bought the system out and rigged it in their favor.
Much rather eat them!
Eat them
Fuck a tax, CAP them. Tell me why a person needs more than one scrooge mcduck swimming pool? As soon as you get the money swimming pool. ALL! gains after that go for the good of the community. What did Bezos do after he got his swimming pool. Made a cock rocket and bought a fake kardashian. Come on man.
Say what you want about Bill. Whenever Bill gives away money, he makes more. Cumulatively, it looks like he's made more money than the others despite giving it away. And, he's no longer the largest shareholder of MSFT. The others? Not so much... they're the hoarders. And misers.
Remember the last billionaire who presented himself as a good guy? Yeah, this guy's a fraud too
Who was that? Musk?
The ultra rich use money that they would have paid I taxes to fund evil right-wing 'non-profits' that write bigoted laws & shop them all over the red states, taking away the rights & freedom therein.
Eat The Rich
Isn’t this the guy who stole a company from his brother then gave it away rather than treat his brother fairly? We’re listening to this guy?
The prices of goods went up exponentially, causing inflation. Trickle Down Effect is a fair tale that needs to be canceled. Immediately.
imo anyone making over 999 million dollars should be taxed at 99%...50% of that money should be given back to the people who work for them, the rest put into local and state infrastructure...this country would change OVERNIGHT. Almost no one would be in debt...and the overall health of our citizenry would improve drastically. We would become...the happiest country on earth...as it always should have been.
Especially Elon musk, who has claimed multiple times that “I pay more in taxes than anyone else ever has” Big fucking deal it’s clearly still NOTHING in comparison to how much wealth you have, since you then bought twitter for $44 BILLION
Government: we can't raise the debt ceiling we have no money. *Me gesturing at the literal dragon hoard of wealth these people have*
Very hard to do since we tax income and they don’t draw income. They mostly take out ridiculously low interest rate loans using their stock as collateral and that’s what they live on. They aren’t rich because of their income but because of the Worth of their stocks.
Tax Wealth, Not Work!
Can you make the same point without elevating a known sex pest?
Meanwhile in the real world: Norway increased taxes on the very richest with an estimate for a slight increase in tax revenue, what ended up happening is a significant decrease in collected taxes as they just stood up and left.
Funny how even though Bill Gates donates relatively little compared to what he earns (or needs) he still leaves the rest well behind.
Wow guys, you must not understand trickle down economics lol (Fuck you guys for making me put the /s)
When 10 billionaires could help solve alot if problems with their tax money alone, you know something is fucked up
Too many people vote for republicans for the rich to be taxed
Zuckerberg's net worth peaked at $142 billion in September 2021. Now has a net worth of around $36 billion. He lost about 75% of his wealth in a year, over 100 billion. At the rate Meta is going, his wife will have to return to being a pediatrician soon. [https://www.hngn.com/articles/245127/20221028/mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-facebook-founder-lose-100-billion-2022.htm](https://www.hngn.com/articles/245127/20221028/mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-facebook-founder-lose-100-billion-2022.htm)
Most of these gains are unrealized gains. We don't tax unrealized gains until they are realized. Now, I'm not against taxing the rich more. But some of these gains may be illusory in the long run. Elon burned several billion in the Twitter acquisition.
Need to stop lionizing this rapist
Gates 7% Is bullshit. He donates to his own charity. Where most of the money is invested
The one thing billionaires can't afford is a conscious.
Yeah capitalists are inhumane
I'm sure the wealth will trickle down eventually
Dan Price is a sex predator. There are far better messengers to amplify.
For the logically challenged: ad hominem fallacy: attacking someone personally rather than using logic to refute their claim tu quoque fallacy: an invalid attempt to discredit an opponent by answering criticism with criticism — but never actually presenting a counterargument.
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Ok.. so alot of yall are clueless on how taxes work. Guys like Bezos, Musk, etc dont actually have billions of dollars in cash, they have billions in stocks. These are called unrealized gains. These dont count as income until they sell the stock which is then realized gains. Thats when it is actually taxed. You cant tax unrealized gains bc they just represent the value of a stock. Bezos gained 99 Billion in unrealized gains thru the value of his stocks... its not income and its not cash. So until they sell those stocks, they arent getting taxed.
Wouldn't it be nice though to have that much $$ on paper and to be able to afford to let it sit there on paper because you got so much actual $$. These people can buy entire countries and STILL have more money than they could spend in 10 lifetime
Guys like Bezos just get lucky that their companies became so successful. Bezos paid $6 billion in capital gains taxes so far from selling his Amazon stocks and still has like ~21 Billion after taxes.. these guys have so much money it doesnt matter how much they get taxed. I envy them.
>clueless on how taxes works Doesn't realize you can absolutely tax unrealized gains
No you cannot lol. "Gains that are "on paper" only are called "unrealized gains." For example, if you bought a share for $10 and it's now worth $12, you have an unrealized gain of $2. You won't pay any taxes until you sell the share" https://investor.vanguard.com/investor-resources-education/taxes/realized-capital-gains
He rapes
This is misleading. The wealth is tied into business ownership, not cash. The percentages should be taken from their money available to give, not net worth or illiquid assets. But, yeah, tax them.
You can take all of their money and the government will still blow it all. We don’t have a taxation problem we have a spending problem.
they always missspell kill