Zohran Mamdani says 'I don't think we should have billionaires'
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/zohran-mamdani-says-dont-think-billionaires-rcna215821Open linkView original on lemmy.world2151
Comments416https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/zohran-mamdani-says-dont-think-billionaires-rcna215821Open linkView original on lemmy.world
..and I agree
He’s absolutely right. Billionaires should not exist.
Wealth concentration is bad for everyone but the wealthy. https://inequality.org/facts/
IDK even they don't seem happy. Elon seems fucking miserable. I mean, I don't feel bad for them, but knowing that literally everyone thinks the world would be a better place without you can't feel great.
And one of the reasons why there's so much more wealth inequality now is what conservatives have done to the tax code. Take a loot at this chart on the highest tax bracket over time.
Nobody asked me, but I agree with him.
Do you think we should have billionaires?
Now he can add “Endorsed by PoopSpiderman” on his campaign website.
Not a common endorsement.
Case in point.
And how did he get those billions? How many peoples necks did he have to step on to climb his way up. It's not so much what you do with your billions, it's how you got them that makes you evil. The only exception to this is probably Bezos ex wife, maybe.
"Employees are the rungs on the ladder of success. Don't hesitate to step on them." -Rule of acquisition #211
Grand Nagus Rom: "We invented elevators for a reason."
She was working for a hedge fund when she met him and they were married for 26 years. She may have given away $19 billion of her fortune, but her net worth is still $36 billion, the same as the original divorce settlement.
lol. I don't think she is as innocent as you make it seem 😂
Hence the maybe at the end. I always use qualifiers MOST of the time so I can weasel out of any statement I make.
So you just make sweeping nonsense statements, maybe.
This might induce me to donate to Mamdani’s campaign. I live in fucking Illinois btw.
I absolutely am
I live nowhere near NYC and I donated.
Tbf, that's one of the better states on workers rights issues.
Honestly, even if you think billionaires should exist, it’s still the most logical action for Mamdani to oppose them as billionaires will do everything to stop him.
They should have one of these next to each city-owned grocery store.
BBQ?
https://youtu.be/QWODiNSiAr8
Wholly agreed. There are no ethical billionaires. Fight me.
Nope! What you said is perfectly acceptable in polite society and in fact I agree. We should hang out sometime maybe.
guillotine and chill?
No.
ethics should mean infants are innocent until they perform actions, yet if the infants parents were billionaires and died the infant would be a billionaire without performing any action.
Imagine life was a game. You lived for 2025 years. You worked 260 days / year. You made the median US salary.
You would need to relive that process 3,145 times to match an Oligarch.
That amount of wealth is unethical while humanity suffers. No one can really fathom “1b dollars.”
Centrists already hated him, and now he said their gods shouldn't exist.
"Centrist" is just a masquerade for Republicrats to pretend to still be on the left.
Just because the US has only 2 real options to vote for doesn't mean people can have different opinions. It isn't for nothing that in a country like The Netherlands we have like 40 parties, including centre parties.
I'm pro LGBTQ, anti-israel, against consumerism/capitalism, pro socialism. Pro government control on key infrastructure (water, gas, electricity) and better housing and support services. Pro climate policies, pro taxing the rich.
But I'm also against fossil fuel bans, against bans on firearms, pro military for defence, pro free-speech, pro strict immigration, against 'PC' culture, against trans-women in women's sports, pro merit success.
Am I left or right? ...Or centrist?
Right
In women's sport, I just don't think it's fair to women to compete against trans-women* who are stronger than them. I only beleive that out of fairness, but I think people have every right to do what they want with their bodies and be accepted for who they are.
Where another person's rights begin, another's ends type of thing.
** EDIT: Clarifycation of 'trans-women' at the astrick, was just 'women' before
You're right, it's completely unfair for women to compete against women who are stronger than them. For the weightlifting they should test every woman's strength, and only the weakest woman competes. That's fair.
::: spoiler and, We definitely shouldn't let trans women compete in women's chess, because of the biological advantage/s :::
That is not what I am saying. You're trying to make an enemy out of me when I am not, it's almost a strawmans argument you just made.
https://womeninsport.org/transgender-inclusion-womens-sport/
What is your opinion on this, truely? This organisation literally supports trans-women being in sport but has to admit that they are uniquely stronger and faster than born-women. It's an unfortunate reality but I personally believe that we can support transgender women without disenfranchising born-women. I'm just being pragmatic about it.
And for clarifycation, I don't think there should be classes in chess.
There are a number of other genes linked to athletic outcomes that are way more influential than "12% above average". Steroid usage is rampant in top teir sports for instance and people with like genetic kidney conditions that overproduce some hormones have a far greater advantage.
The people doing the sports should be making the rules about sports, not a bunch of armchair theorists with calipers. Most the guys who have A LOT OF OPINIONS on how to gatekeep womens sports don't actually watch any women's sports.
No, it is what you said. It's just not what you mean. It's not my fault the two are separate. It's your responsibility to speak clearly if you don't want the silly things you say to be mocked.
No, you're not pro lgbtq. You're a TERF at best
??? Do you understand what any of those words mean? "Pro merit success" directly contradicts each of the social policies you claim to support.
You're either lying about one of these or you somehow think we can stop climate change without stopping the most significant cause of climate change?
Does the complete lack of internal consistency in your worldview not bother you at all? You have no defined political leaning, you have a bunch of emotionally driven contradictory political opinions that you clearly have little to no understanding of.
Given that description, I'd guess you probably call yourself a centrist and vote conservative.
Or some people just have nuanced opinions and see that topics can be multiple shades of grey instead of either white or black.
Contradiction isn't nuance
There is no contradiction.
Not wanting trans-women in sports doesn't make you not support LGBT. T is only one letter of 4+. And trans-women is only half of T. And athlete trans women is a small subset of that. And athlete trans women that want to play in women's leagues are a subset of that.
You can reward people based on accomplishments and also tax the rich. You can also have social programs while still rewarding them.
You can improve the environment without a complete ban of fossil fuels.
Wow that's revealing more than you probably wanted.
Nah, this is just a contrarian contest.
Contrarian about what? Who are the contestants? I don't understand your comment.
Thank you for understanding!
Dead wrong, I've always voted left. And yes, I do consider myself a centrist, that's exactly why I commented because I think the 'you're either with us or against us' mentality is doing more damage than it helps.
I'm only against trans-women competing against women because they would have a competitive advantage. I'm even for athletes using hormones, stereroids and drugs in sport (in seperate divisions perhaps) and then the rules on who is in who's class can really be thought out properly, but currently most trans-women have a clear advantage based on current sport (and biological) evidence. I don't think it's fair competition is all. I know some pretty cool trans people and one of them even admits to similar feelings of it being unfair.
I'm pro social policies because I think everyone deserves a roof over their head, food, water and basic amenities. But I'm also pro merit purely to reward people to achieve more and be better. Some people will never be as capable as others are but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have a basic living standard. Something like UBI would be a perfect solution to my understanding. I'm not American but when Bernie Sanders was a candidate I was rooting for him.
Pro climate because we need to fix it and fast, we do way to much damage to the environment. Against outright bans on fossil fuels because we simply are not there yet. My country is unfortunately nowhere near renewable and our outback has hardly any electricity, we need fuels to do anything out there. Trucks, trains and ships sometimes can't work without it. Not to mention that lithium although amazing is causing more greenhouse gases mining and refining it than what electric cars are offsetting. Electric cars literally aren't doing anything because the batteries die before they make up for their production. Carbon batteries are coming but mass production is difficult to scale. Cargo ships emit around a quater of all green house gasses and I personally think thats where we could really cut down on it by either fitting cargo ships with nuclear reactors which some military vessels have or just reducing consumerism. Currently most CO2 emissions is from electricity of which in most countries (such as mine) residential makes up only about 10%. The onous is not so much on the individual person but on companies and business, we need more incentives/punishments for corporations to be more considerate.
Almost no issue is black or white. I do have defined political beliefs, I think most people oversimplify or don't research topics before forming an opinion. And there there are people like the one I originally commented to who have turned politics and world issues into binary division, where instead of educating they attack and insult.
What is emotionally driven here?
And what do I have little understanding of?
You’re in the wrong place to present nuanced opinion in long form. I love the independence of Lemmy from the large corporations (likely astroturfing aside), but this place swings the Overton window back to the left so hard it breaks without any acceptance of different nuanced ideas. It’s as though the life you’ve lived and the subtleties that governed it are irrelevant.
Of course this develops the mindset that trying to engage is mostly pointless, which I’ve adopted, because ultimately these are all just words on a screen with no real connection to the person behind them either way. You can’t sway them and they don’t respect your attention to minutiae.
Yeah I'm really starting to notice this exactly. It's sad to think that you either disengage or get unwarranted abuse hurlded towards you from every direction.
Maybe just getting off the internet entirely is the better option.
I liked your reference of the Overton window though haha
Gonna be honest, I'm not reading that slop. You open by telling me that I'm dead wrong, then immediately confirming that my guess as to your political leaning was half correct, which sets a very clear tone that you're here to mudwrestle on the internet rather than engage in a discussion. If you want to try again I'll talk to you, but I'm not interested in trading novels high on insults and low on reading comprehension with you.
Of all the things in your comment, getting right the "you probably call yourself a centrist" is the least significant part. You're wrong in all the rest of your comment, which is the actually important part.
Whether someone calls themselves left, right or center is way less important than the policies they support.
Because guess what. You can't fit the entire world in 3 political buckets and expect everyone in each bucket to have the same opinion as everyone else on that bucket.
As I said in another comment. The world is not black and white. There's lots of shades of grey.
And each person has a different combination of shades of grey for each political topic.
I assumed being centrist was already clear.
Mudwrestle? I'm here to make a point, that not everything is back and white, left or right. But if you don't want to discuss, fine by me. I didn't insult you once so your insult is quite hypocritical and immature infact.
It sort of looks like you're broadly supportive of progressive causes, but don't support progressives in the actual "battles" that are being "fought". The clearest example is you being "Pro climate policies", but "against fossil fuel bans". Basically, you want things to get better, but you don't want things to be done to make them better. You want peace and quiet more than you progress, and you're willing to cede basically all current issues to regressives in order get it. Of course, if regressives win, they'll just want something else. And you'll cede that to them too.
In summary: you're pathetic.
Let's take the obvious "Pro military for defense" first since that's the most insane thing to think is a contentious political issue.
There are 30% of people in the US that think aliens are real and have visited their asshole but you will not find 5% of people in america that oppose the military as a concept.
What you're doing here is being manipulated by people who want you to think some of these things are Important Issues(tm)
The trans women in sports is a great example of propaganda. It was cooked up by a conservative think tank. How many people are affected by this "problem"? Maybe 200? And in most cases sports organizations themselves often have rules in place like "how long you'd have to have been on hormone therapy to qualify." That is already more or less a solved problem for most the people it actually affects. People playing sports didnt come up with the "trans people in sports issue", a think tank did.
So what you are ..is manipulated by think tanks and propaganda and in a way that causes you to oppose people who otherwise have common interests with you.
There's only two real political philosophies and they can be summed up as "fuck you, I got mine" and "we're all in this together." I will tell you right now only the "fuck you, I got mine" group has any real interest in dehumanizing people by say, having the government ban trans people from public spaces and public activities like sports.
Thats just your speculation. And do you mean people oppose the US having any military at all? 90% of the countries have a standing army, and the ones that dont are mostly small island countries.
Why is that the line you draw?
And yet the comments and downvotes shows how contentious it is which I knew it would be when I wrote it.
I know the trans-women in sport issue is almost non-existent but it's probably the biggest talking point in the comments it seems.
Personally I agree with you. I always vote left and am more of a "we're in in together" mindset.
Either way, thank you for you insight!
Not to surprising, since it is a standpoint that lays the foundation for oppressing and dehumanising one of the most vulnerable groups if society.
First it was just Trans people in sport, then it is trans people in bathrooms and the next step is eradicating trans peoples existence from public spaces.
Which is very sad and I'm not for that.
The only point I was making was for fair competition in women's sport, and broader still that centrist exist with non black and white opinions.
I believe we are as a society, getting better at accepting people. In my country we're decently accepting I think, although there is still the intolerant person here and there. Overall I do hope one day everyone is accepting of everyone else.
Thanks for your thoughts though.
On the internet?! Impossible!|
Which you don't seem to have researched, or you would have known about the standards already in place to keep competition fair.
Probably extra contentious because it's trans discrimination on Pride weekend. And there's the fact that some research (backed by the International Olympic Committee) suggests that trans-women may perform worse than cis-women.
Even if more research comes out that shows otherwise (entirely possible considering that it's hard to get a decent sample population of elite trans athletes as there are so few), discrimination is not a solution. The simplest solution would be to get rid of gendered leagues and group athletes by measureable athletic abilities. Probably would make most people with an actual vested interest happy, with exception of those who want to keep paying women less.
Oh wow, I did not know that! For both points. It's great to see more research, I skimmed a little but I'll read it right after this comment.
I like the idea of athletes competing against one another purely to see who is best overall. But I'd be worried that could possibly be more discriminatory. Such as in bouldering there was recently a controversial issue with a short climber not being able to compete in some climbs due to certain starting holds being too far apart. So something like weight classes but that considers a lot more depending on the sport?
Thanks so much for your reply and your linked study! I'm really happy for comments like yours.
Says the person who brought it up.
It was simpily an argument for me being centrist and therefore legitimate centrist existing.
It clearly worked in demonstrating what a centrists opinions are like and no one has so far argued I fall on one side or the other.
Sure. just bring up divisive right wing talking points. And then call yourself a centrist.
It tracks.
Judging by the down-votes : not-left.
On trans athletes: it's a non-issue.
On guns: these three videos always spring to mind.
Can you substantiate the remainder of your last paragraph a bit?
Those are some great linked videos.
I agree with a lot of points in the video on trans-athletes. I wonder if the meta-study that I've been refering to was one of the studies mentioned, and there certainly needs to be more research into the topic to settle the matter for good. I think social and low stake competition should most certainly be non restricted especially for kids, the fact they are restricted in some places is obscene. But I'm still on the fence with professional and Olympic level sports. The part that currently holds me back from changing stance, is how many Olympic sports have either banned or heavily restricted participation. Perhaps they are in the wrong themselves but I suspect they are being cautious until more studies have confirmed one way or the other. Overall, I certainly don't hold my view in high regard and I'm just waiting for more evidence, but like I said, anything other than professional or Olympic shouldn't be restricted at all, any strength difference there is negligible.
With the guns part I agree with everything mentioned. I don't think a free gun ownership system like what America has, is a smart idea. My country is very restrictive which is why I dislike the idea of completely banning them. Where I am, even the plastic toy guns were made illegal. Only if you live on a farm and need to protect livestock or produce, then you're allowed to own some. Good thing is, no mass shootings here and only some gun crime. It would be nice if tough but fair licensing was more-so available, but nothing like America.
I'll try substantiating the last paragraph without it getting too long. Fossil fuel bans are just not possible at the moment and even when it is, there will likely be some things we will never replace, even backup generators when black outs happen for hospitals. Making it really expensive and hard to acquire should be all that's needed. Military for defence because I don't think the world will be truely at peace for a while longer. Free-speech so ideas don't go suppressed, but that doesn't mean people have to respect that free-speech. Strict immigration to bring in valuable skills not just people (pronounced problem where I am). 'PC' culture ties into free speech but also reducing diversity hires (not requiring names and personal information in hiring to make such decisions truely unbias would be a better solution). Keeping some merit success with a socialist system to reward people to achieve more.
At that level you have lots of money involved, which means, among other things, steroids, corruption and lack of sportsmanship (oh gee maybe it's sportspersonship now...). So, really, not what i would consider sport so i don't give a damn; they can all "compete" with llamas for all i care.
On everything else, it's a sport, you're doing it for sport, so who cares?
Of course some cultures are more competitive than others.
Good point.
All that ever does is limit access to the rich.
Bare in mind that in english (especially murican english culture), "free-speech" is often used as "i can say whatever i want, including bigoted shit". I do see a significant increase in the number of easily-offended people in the last decade, must be a generational thing.
No such thing, there's always a bias, but trying to minimize it is indeed a good goal imho.
I'd say places where merit is actually and properly valued are few and far between.
And "socialist" red-scares muricans.
You sound like a bog standard social conservative.
Please name the trans women athletes who have won Olympic medals during the many years they've been allowed to compete. They have a clear advantage, right, so it should be easy to find.
I'll wait.
https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Beyond-the-Games/Human-Rights/IOC-Framework-Fairness-Inclusion-Non-discrimination-2021.pdf
Sports decide themselves, of which world rowing and boxing have blanket bans. Athletics, cycling, swimming, rugby and cricket are bans if the transition was after puberty. Triathlon, tennis and archery requires testosterone testing. And all other sporting bodies are on a case by case basis.
That's why we don't see them because the Olympics themselves have said:
I'm tired of replying to everyone, please put more effort into your argument
Please stop gobbling right wing propaganda and make a sensible argument yourself, and then we can have a discussion. "centrist".
You won't though. So don't waste people's time.
I didn't, I cited the literal Olympics. I have cited medical studies, and I have defended my position where everyone then returns to insults and statements like this.
Unless you have evidence that what I said was incorrect, you are infact wrong. One, only ONE person has cited one study that is inconclusive and I congratulated them because at least they showed there is some conflicting research but you haven't even bothered to try.
If you are going to throw your opinion around, at least back it up with weight. Cite studies, link articles, or form a proper argument, because if I can refute your claim before I've even had my morning coffee than you still have room to make a half decent point.
You never bothered to look into it. You decided that since trans people are banned now, they must always have been banned. They were allowed to play for a long time before the ban, in fact, and none of the scare mongering was true. There was no trans domination.
You don't really care though. That you care about the issue at all is evidence you've fallen for the conservative campaign against trans people, because it's an entirely invented issue. You listened to what the conservative pundits said, maybe you even read one of the Heritage Foundation's studies. But you have no fucking idea what you're talking about, and I've been having this argument with fucking "centrists" like you for over a decade who think we're a fine scapegoat for your socially acceptable bigotry.
You aren't a centrist. There is no center when one side wants the elimination of the other, and that's the ultimate end goal here. You think you're having a dandy little political discussion, but this is just a stepping stone on the campaign to convince the public that trans women are men and therefore trans people are sick, and need to be removed from society. When you run around and parrot their talking points on a subject you know little about its not a fun debate, it's plain bigotry and its not fucking welcome.
You are a National Socialist. Your kind joined the Nazis as street thugs, and were very useful until shortly before the Night of the Long Knives, when your demands for the socialist part of the platform would have seen you killed or otherwise purged.
You sound like an Idiot to me.
Not very helpful, why is that?
Because lemmy isn't reddit and as a result has little patience for anti-trans bigotry.
Huh!? This isn't a troll, I'm an example of a centrist. The term 'centrist' exists for a reason, and plenty of people such as myself think this way although I will admit, I have met very few unfortunately.
What makes me seem like a liar?
Yeah, it gives conservatives something to call themselves on dating sites.
"I only voted for trump for some of his policies, I'm actually in the center and not a conservative so please fuck me please please please please please"
So what else is new? I had an imaginary friend when I was little, I got over that. So can others.
no way. Kinda cool, and no judgement at all, tell us about the imaginary friend?
I think you may be misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm saying that centrists worship and obey billionaires.
Correct, my apologies.
It's a lot harder when it's part of their very identity.
Oooooh! He said the thing!
Damnit Zohran... I can only get sooo hard...
Good thing he's pro-universal healthcare, I'll need to get this hardon medically drained.
He's, ahem, straining the limits of my turgidity.
At this rate im gonna have to see my doctor.
Goddamn, this reads like a response that came from a real socialist playbook. Don't take the bait on the culture war bullshit, say it's distraction from helping workers. Wow.
His messaging is laser fucking focused
This needs to become the mainstream opinion. Billionaires and ultra wealthy shouldn't exist. There is no trickling down or any of that stolen wealth coming back into the hands of average people.
Here in the UK 78% of people support a 2% wealth tax on net assets worth more than £10 million yet our spineless neoliberal government is more focused on cutting disability benefits and bombing starving children.
You know what? I don't want it peaceful. They've stomped on people there entire lives, forced others to rely on social programs, dig through trash, and work to the bone.
I want a comeuppance, I want blood, and I want it to be that of every fucking billionaires' head rolling off the guillotine
And you'll have it. They have enough money to pay an army and you bet they will use that to stop you from taking their wealth. Understand that they have rationalized their immense wealth to the point where they trully believe they deserve it. You can see it sometimes in how they consider themselves hard working geniuses, or decide God somewhat chose them to be ridiculously rich.
Yes, they will resort to violence (but not themselves, of course). But they won't need to get their hands too dirty.
They'll fund campaigns, they'll own law enforcements and will wield it against the people, meanwhile they'll buy propaganda to convince as many people as they can it's all for the best. That's easy to predict because they already do exactly that.
Violent repression of demonstrations, violence and intimidation against activists and journalists. Owning of all the mainstream medias and a large share of the less mainstream ones. All of that is slowly normalized.
Agree. They had a choice. They shunned taxes and played at fake philanthropy. They have now dropped that and started playing like they are god. They are fragile mortals that need a reminder of revolution, I would like to see it done the French way but any way should do.
You have to ask yourself: Is fulfilling that desire for retribution worth the lives of the millions of vulnerable people who would be killed due to lack of medical treatment, potable water, food, etc?
????
You mean the ones who are already sick and dying from those exact things, caused by the greed of the aforementioned?
But could this really be done? As far as I've understood, billionaires typically don't have a billion liquidized and ready for spending. Rather, their value is distributed in ownership of several companies. How would the 100% taxes on ownership in companies be applied?
Don't get me wrong, I would love to see it work, but I feel like it's a lot more complicated than stated. And if a good way of applying those taxes would be introduced, I'm sure the billionaires would either find new ways to make the money untouchable or personally move to a country with looser tax laws.
That's what conservatives always claim. Most of them won't move and even if they do, good riddance. Simply tax their wealth beforehand.
My experience is from Norway where the taxes on the rich is balancing on a line. A lot of rich Norwegians have already moved to Switzerland to avoid annual taxes on their wealth. I would expect to see something similar if USA introduced reasonable taxes, unfortunately.
Than they have to sell their stock or property to either not be above the threshold or to liquidate it. It's not untouchable.
or, here me out, they intentionally tank their assets value just before its value gets measured
.
... in the country with the tax. They'll just live somewhere else.
People have to stop believing that wealthy people will leave instantly once they begin getting taxed. This is just a lie.
They are wealthy because of their assets and connections. They have houses, appartements, offices and factories. They have a network of influencer in the country they live in, in the city they live in ! They have a big family, kids. It's actually harder for these people to move out than you and I.
The money is already escaping. They use any loopholes (fiscal optimization they call it) to pay much lower tax than anyone else proportionally.
They won't leave ! Let the tax begin ! The loopholes have to be eliminated so that they cannot convert their wealth to escape tax artificially.
Let them, they don't generate anything.
I'm getting downvoted like i i care they'd leave, just that it's not gonna bring tax revenue.
They are not doing it even today. If they are businessmen, they are not going to leave their businesses just because they are being taxed.
Fine by me, they weren't paying taxes anyway.
Ok great.
Even the billionaires would be better off without billinaires. It their relative ranking was the same they would still have more money than they could spend but it would now come with clean air, water, land, better infrastructure, a healthier world, happier people to interact with.
Yes! Let’s stop this modern day slavery.
I'm not against people having money, but to have a thousand times more than most people can make in their entire lifetime is just taking it too far. There should be a cap after which you pay 90% tax or something
Check the progressive taxation we had in the US after WW2 when, barring the racism/sexism/otherisms, the US actually thrived and single income families could manage being middle class, and owning a nice home. Reagan fucked us, but if it hadn't been him it would have been another terrible regressive.
All these conservative lapdogs continue to fuck us all with their single issue voting and sticking it to the libs.
I'm pretty judgy right now so imo anybody voting for GOP candidates in the US is either gullible, brainwashed, semi/fully mentally deficient, or is so racist or scared of other people's peepees that they will vote against their own best interests.
Problem is billionaires don't make "income" and it's quite difficult to even know what they own, let alone how to tax something like unrealized gains on stock holdings that they are using as leverage to get loans
At some point, somebody convinced people that unrealized gains were not actually income because you don't know for sure that you'd make that money, and I think that was a bad idea. Maybe unrealized gains aren't 1:1 the same thing as income, but the calculations of an income equivalent aren't going to be complicated.
Somehow property taxes are okay, though, even though we haven't realized the gains!
This exactly. At some threshold of worth, you should get taxed an amount based on your worth that will be big enough to force you to realize some gains in order to pay it.
The issue with realizing the gains is that you have to relinquish control of your company bit by bit. However, you could have the company (which you likely control) give out dividends, or you could use the stock as collateral for a loan. Or just pay yourself a bigger salary.
This is a good question: is it okay for you as a person to control a company that has grown that large? Maybe nudging people to give up control of entities that large is a good side effect.
Give up control to whom? Some megacorp with infinite money would just buy a majority stake (often referred to as a hostile takeover) and wind up owning everything to an even larger extent than today.
Try being rich you fucking idiot
It's a joke y'all, damn. Just pull up on your boots or whatever it is these rich people did to turn on the money
Lol this guy gets it
If only there was an entire federal agency whose sole job would be to track them down and tax them.
You can have a person be full-time managing the billionaire's case, still a very strong net win.
And even if hypothetically the cost of tracking their wealth outpaced the income generated by the tax, it's still a societal positive by reducing inequality, which is the root of most problems.
you don't tax the income. you tax luxury expenditure.
if they commission a yacht, they pay 200% tax on that. if they charter a jet, they pay 500% tax on that spend. if they retain a jet, they pay 800% tax on all its expenses from hangar parking to servicing to everything else.
the tax on any car above a guideline value should increase 1% for every 1% increase in value of the car. say, you pay 1% tax for a 1000 dollar car, 50% for a 1500 dollar car, 100% for a 2000 dollar car, 300% for a 4000 dollar car and so on. and not just on the sticker price, but on every service attached to that vehicle (insurance, maintenance, etc.) for its life.
similarly for luxury hotels, clothing, jewellery, watches, golf and ski resorts, and marriages in venice.
Yeah, cuz people obviously don't store wealth in bank accounts or investment properties and/or shell corporations.... That's why the Caymans are famous for their shellfish and local hospitality, and Bezos' ex-wife didn't end up getting much cash in their divorce.
It's also fortunate that these idiots haven't figured out that they could probably have a (few) companies that hold things (excuse my rough terminology for this concept I just now came up with) maybe even purchase them too - like jets, cars, maybe yachts even - and not have to pay any of those taxes!
Man, i hope word doesn't get out about this!
Oh buddy that's peanuts
the average person could probably earn $100,000,000 if they invested their money well and used all opportunities to make more. lawyers median annual wage is $145,760 which gets fairly close within 80 years of 4% interest.
Is this counting like, if I invested instead of using that money for rent and food??
yes, just grow your own on your farm your ancestors left you
Why not just have a cap? 90% still means that they can further accumulate wealth, and taxes means they will try to dodge them.
They used to dodge 90% taxes by reinvesting in their workers and their company's reputation. That way the company would last a hundred years and continue to pay out your family for generations, and all you've gotta do is hire people to keep it running.
It's been an archaic and backwards system for managing collective wealth for over a century.
We're living in an era of unprecedented surpluses. But we're still gatekeeping the most rudimentary essentials of daily life behind a paywall.
I am absolutely against people having money. All money causes is grief, anxiety, and depravation.
Fuck that, 99.99% and they'd still have more than we could earn in a lifetime, fuck that and fuck them.
Lmao that's because we shouldn't have billionaires
Once you go beyond $100,000,000, there is no measurable difference in lifestyle. However, power accumulates. That amount of power shouldn't be in the hands of so few.
He is right.
Imagine a "billionaire" in the wild: An animal sitting on a vast horde of food that it could never eat while others starved around it ... yea, it would not last long.
Imagine a "billionaire" in a living body. A corporate money making entity would basically be a cancer that had to be removed to save the life of the patient.
The wealth of the rich is still growing and it will continue to grow automatically until the middle class ceases to exist. If we do not take the assets back, it will become impossible for normal working people to ever buy a house, or have any economic power over their own lives at all - nevermind the political control or the media manipulation.
Extreme wealth concentration is THE biggest issue facing society. Mamdani is absolutely right.
He's going to be assassinated, isn't he?
Nah, the mainstream media will just stop reporting on him, the social media algorithms will be tweaked to hide him, and when it comes to the election, people will go "Ugh, who is that Muslim sounding guy? I'm voting for Barron Trump."
Mossad, Maga fascists, NYPD, All the billionaires all gonna be chomping at the bit to kill this guy to set an example.
Then do surprise-Pikachu-face.jpg when the same is done against them.
They're seeking the death penalty for luigi mangione
They can make him a martyr if they want to. Still have to prove it was him!
wtf
Popular American politician starts saying radical but good things tends to end in a certain way.
If you live in the past and your mindset got a little fucky. Off base.
Two US Democratic state* senators from Minnesota were just assassinated by a MAGAt impersonating a cop who carried with him a hit list of 50 other senators he was going to kill. This is not outside the realm of possibilities in this day and age.
Two officials did died recently. I totally forgot about that. Wasn’t thinking clearly this morning. Sorry.
Which Senators?
Edit: Looked it up, appears to be State Rep. Hortman (was confused as 'US Senator' means Senator to the federal Senate, not state-level House representative). Can't find a second assassination though.
Ah, yes, state senators, my bad. Here's the link.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdeden6r9ddo
Thank you. :)
"Hey, we may have assassinated non-white people in the past for saying communist things, but we've totally changed now!"
Totally? No changing? Yes. Be positive be real be changed for the better.
Umm, it's not a moral failing to highlight historical facts. A historian of WWII Nazism is not, in fact, a Nazi. There is real historical precedence for the idea that radical ideas for social change has been met with smears and, if unsuccessful, real violence against the leader(s) of that social change.
Whether his ideas are successful, or not, the powers that run the world will stop at nothing to prevent their loss of power. I fail to see how pointing out that fact, and hoping this time is different while acknowledging that history, is somehow some moral failing of the OP of this comment chain.
Yeah, that’s true. I don’t even remember why I respond like that lol. Sorry.
You have Donald Trump as a president and masked goons snatching people off the streets.
You're right it's changing, and it's not for the better.
Yeah that’s true. I wasn’t thinking clearly this morning.
Based as fuck. The fact that the establishment players disagree is extremely telling.
Preach!
Bring the Left back in this country finally!
That’s entirely up to us. We need to flood all primaries, just like we did the NYC mayoral primary.
I think the ballot reform really helped in this case. We need ballot reform.
He won first round. We also had a ranked choice primary in 2021 when we picked Adams. The biggest difference was the increase in attendance from 21% in 2021 to 30% in 2025.
With that being said, I still completely agree that we need to ditch FPTP.
Can we also bring back the classic left strategy of beating the opposition with our picket signs ? I feel like we need some of that energy rn
My sign doubles as a battle axe. There are many conservative mansions in dire need of barbarians to be visited upon them.
Hoarding = mental illness = billionaires
-Louis Antoine de Saint-Just, 1792
Or, put in modern terms: There is no such thing as an innocent billionaire.
No wealth above a certain amount should be inherited. There is no moral justification for absurd amounts of intergenerational wealth.
FTFY
Did you though
Dammit, missed a word, fixed it again lol
It's true yours is a far more civilized way of doing it. My version, if you really think about it puts a target on the back of the Dragons to be slain early so that their Hoard is redistributed to the Free Peoples. Your version ensures that no Dragon ever hoards up too much and we save ourselves all the Dragon slaying dramatics.
This guy sounds pretty based!
One of my favorite hypotheticals is that once someone gets to a billion money they get a trophy that says "I won capitalism" and anything over the limit goes to folk who need it.
Knowing greed, people would certainly find ways around it, but a gal can dream
In a fantasy world I'd go even further to say if you amass $1 billion in wealth you have it all taken away. So either you consistently give away your wealth to keep it below that level or pray that you helped build a society where losing it all isn't a death sentence.
Ah, the Pythagorean cup of economics
So they donate it to "charities" that spend that money privatizing education or whatever cause helps keep them and their kids in a privileged position.
Take it one step further. If you amass $1bn you’re then executed. Best get rid of that cash homie.
And they name a dog park after you. That part is crucial.
you could make money depreciate over time so it couldn't be hoarded.
I figure this is why Musk had so many kids; he can divide up his wealth “in trust” between all of them, with himself as the eternal executor.
Alright, now I HAVE to donate to his campaign.
Here's the link for those who need to do the same after hearing this: https://www.zohranfornyc.com/
It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to believe that's a controversial opinion. Most people will never meet a billionaire in their lifetime, let alone become one.
I have met two minor billionaires in my life. They were both clearly involved in some sort of organized crime activity. And both Trump supporters before it was cool.
Ok... so... who here thinks he'll end up shot sooner or later?
NYC Mayor is his top track, he wasn't born in the USA so that should limit his exposure nationally. He's a convenient strawman for the right so I'd say that keeps him safe but there are guns everywhere so who really knows.
All these guys just say what the public wants to hear before election.
Behind the scenes, this guy wants to be a billionarie, and the way there is to make a political career, saying whatever is popular with the voters.
There is no risk of being shot because all this guy is doing is trying to get popular, just like every other political guy before him. He wont be able to get rid of billionaries even if he wanted to.
Possible, but we'll happily take that chance. Candidates like this are rare and you will face the same worry about anyone. I dont think we can just give up. Theres nothing down the road of letting the cynicism win, except maybe fleeing to another country.
They could just stop impeding progress and let the working class have things like healthcare and a living wage. Guess that's too much to ask and they would prefer guillotines?
Nobody should have a right to more than, say, 10 million dollars. Any worth over that, tax it at 100%.
Similarly for companies, tax them dynamically. Ybr bigger the company, the higher the tax. At, say, over a billion dollars, tax it 100%. Limit company sizes to 1000 employees.
This way, nobody is too big, nobody is too powerful, nobody is too rich
10 million seems low only because there are realistic things that can cost more than that. Nothing an individual could buy costs a billion. That’s the heinous part of billionaires in my opinion—it is just numbers on a screen for them to measure their dicks with. No realistic change of lifestyle is happening after the first billion, yet they continue to inhale dollars out of greed and habit.
Bezos is halfway there; his yacht cost 500 million:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koru_(yacht)
Give it a few more years and I bet one of them will buy a a billion dollar yacht. But in an ideal world, such absurdities wouldn't exist.
wrong.
you can buy a lot of political favors
Musk just spent 250 million to buy an entire presidential election. Is there any history of someone spending a whole billion on one?
But he paid $40B for twitter. $250M is the kind of bargain you only get after prior investment.
(And I guess I found something an individual can buy for >$1B, which is even more reason to prohibit anyone from having this much money.)
I don't like the idea of limiting company size - there are a lot of advantages of scale. Instead let's say any company over 1000 employees must be fully employee owned
Nah, 1000.is good. Have different companies work together to do the same sized production. Why not?
Crazy inefficiencies is why not. If you've ever worked a large infrastructure or construction project you'd see why this doesn't work. There are advantages of scale. A single company being able to handle the land acquisition, and all engineering alone for a large project is going to be like 10000 people, and that's without construction. If I had to work with 15 other companies to get a thing built I'll tell you right now that things never gonna get built. Big companies aren't the problem, small ownership is the problem. Employee owned (socialist) companies are the solution. It's not about not scaling, it's about ensuring that the workers own the means of production. If you want renewable energy, high speed rail, and sustainable district engineering we need to leverage economies of scale. It's just that we need to set up economic systems that distribute the profits to those doing the work.
At that point you might as well just go full socialism; 1000 people is just a mid-sized factory.
Uh huh. Fidsized factory is fine. Also, different employees from different companies. Cleaning? Other company. Transport? Different company
Yeah but what about Elon?
Make the tax scale into an exponential multiplier. Two companies? Double taxed. Three companies? Your taxes are now cubed. So on and so forth.
Maybe subsidiaries of larger conglomerates should be taxed this way as well, take giants like Nestle and Unilever down a few pegs.
I agree there is no reason why an individual should have that much economic power. There is no justification for that amount of wealth in so few hands.
He's right. Let's see if people could live off 999 million in assets.
Financial obesity is an existential threat to any society that tolerates it, and needs to cease being celebrated, rewarded, and positioned as an aspirational goal.
It's not that we shouldn't have billionaires. Its that we have billionaires when we have people living on the streets because the rent is so ridiculous. Its that we have people dying on the streets because they cannot afford health insurance. The gravy on the shit-fest is that billionaires are actively bribing the politicians to prevent those policies from being implemented. That is the textbook recipe for guillotines.
And he's right.
By any measure, the exidtence of that great of a disparity in wealth in a society is evidence of the failure of the systems on which that society is built.
It's akin to if you were responsible for caring for a field of crops, and you ended up with a field in which two or three plants were enormous, bloated and overgrown. a few were more or less healthy, snd the rest were weak and shriveled and starving.
That rather obviously would mean you'd failed.
What is the other sides' argument for why we SHOULD have billionaires?
Genuinely asking if they have anything tough to contend with or is it just another critical avoidance of theirs?
I usually get some variation of “They worked hard and deserve the reward. We shouldn’t take that away from them, they earned it fairly.” Yes, it’s infuriating.
The argument for billionaires is "why should the government be allowed to set arbitrary caps on the amount of wealth you can accumulate" which I generally agree with, but it's clear that wealth hoarding has become a problem. Maybe we say that the most you can keep is 1 billion. Once per year, any personal wealth over 1 billion is surrendered. So you can earn as much money as you want, but you need to spend it or surrender it.
I'd imagine it's just the argument for capitalism. You know, profit incentive increasing efficiency and productivity and all that. Now this stuff is true to an extent (though a lot of politically active Lemmy likes to pretend otherwise), but all the good stuff happens before a single person reaches a billion dollars so if that's the idea it would pretty much fall flat on its face.
I can imagine an argument for certain artists that are so beloved that their art sells globally or they entertain at a massive scale. Think Taylor Swift, or LeBron James. You can wrangle over the specifics of any individual, of course, but in theory that seems reasonable to me on the face of it. I can also imagine a persuasive argument for a business tycoon that builds up his workforce along with his own coffers and keeps them wanting for nothing. But the circumstances around that are pretty far fetched as far as the typical sociopathic billionaire tycoon goes.
AFAIK even seemingly successful musicians often don't really make out with much cash. They incur a lot of costs even under the most "honest" industry contracts. Then there are cases of getting blatantly scammed like the Backstreet Boys or George Clinton.
They think they'll get a chance to bootstrap themselves into being one.
because
The whole billionaire thing is completely arbitrary. It used to be that being a millionaire was a big deal. With inflation, in a couple more years we'll have trillionaires, if Mohammed bin Salman hasn't become the first one already.
If you make more than most people, regardless of how much that is, you should be heavily taxed.
Billionaire says 'I don't think we should have Zohran Mamdani '
He's going to send so many right-wing working poors into hysterics over that.
god he's so hot
We shouldn't. And he thinks that too. Cool.
not surprised considering his other views but glad to see his courage in sticking to his principles against a very biased media landscape. even his rap was fun af. this guy never misses.
Great idea. You only need enough money for one lifetime. Not 100000
a hundred thousand is only enough for a few years, not a lifetime
Not a strong stance to be anti-thief. I'll take it though! We all need to speak plain sense more often.
Zohran the destroyer of billionaires
I worry the billionaires will send assassins after him. It would cost them so much less than what he's suggesting.
This is an illustration of why it's a problem in the first place.
BREAKING: Worlds most based man strikes again
So happy to finally find a politician who agrees with me
Yeah, we probably shouldn't have people who horde so much wealth it negatively affects the economy.
I don't think we should have the situations and lack of regulation that leads to billionaires, especially as it will likely continue to drain/erode the quality-of-life for everyone else to eventually lead to trillionaires...
He's going to get killed... Isn't he...
Not if they want to keep order on this continent
Duh, dude is a socialist.
Aye. No way this would fly in a country where capitalism is the culture.
I like this guy
If a Billionaire turned comic book EVIL and decided to go rogue.... What exactly would stop him. Most countries don't have the money or desire to do anything
Never heard of him. He's apparently going to be the next Mayor of NYC, if you haven't either.
There should be a tax that ramps up more and more the closer you are to be worth 1 billion dollars. If you are worth 999.999 million 100% of your income is taxed so you never reach 1 billion. And guess what? Your quality of life will not be affected in any way whatsoever.
We can give them "would have been dollars" so they can still do their pathetic dick measuring contests
Tax wealth, not income.
Taxes can, and should go over 100% of income. Billionaires have enough assets to live without income.
It's inspiring to see Americans are still fighting the good fight.
I agree with him. there's no morally good reason to be hoarding that much money
Keep this man alive!
He fuckin better, at the very least.
Based
The super-wealthy are a cancer on society, and just like cancer, they suck up all of the resources while killing the patient.
Trump-the dems are socialists!
Some dems-i mean were were not, but thank for the idea.
Trump-.....
Good, I agree.
He has painted a target on his own back though and he should be careful, lest he gets JFK'd or RFK'd.
I like this guy.
Had anyone ever said yet... Lin Manuel Mayoranda
I hope he goes far and makes a lot of people uncomfortable. Brave man in a moment that needs brave people.
Order to eliminate all billionaires confirmed! To the Priuses, we ride!
*lift sword out window
*slowly pull away from curb with loud prius humming noise
/s I dont advicate violence and I agree billionaire level accrual of wealth shouldnt happen. When it does it should be taxed like FDR did it. We've never done so well as a country than when we had real progressive taxation. When Maga people talk about making america great agin, thats the era they are thinking about, when a single worker could support a whole family and buy a house and raise kids with a normal job, and a normal job was respected and dignified.
Yes, that is the word I like.
I don't think we should have any sort of criminal. Murderers, rapists, billionaires.
I think we should have billionaires.
Because they wouldn't miss a 90% tax on their highest bracket, and they aren't going away, so why not turn them into the resource they should have stayed.
I mean there's lots of other problems that have gotten far worse in the past decades to make the wealth inequality ridiculous, but a good starting point is MAGA. Bring back the high taxes on those who can afford it, to fund helping those in need.
He's gonna die, calling it now he's gonna have a tragic accident or sudden 'suicide'.
They're calling for his citizenship to be stripped and for him to be deported to El Salvador. If anything happens it'll be right out in the open.
wtf is wrong with you?
harsh truth
They are already proving the rule of law they claim to adore means nothing to them on many fronts, and on this specific topic of Mamdani have already gone from 0-100. When a court blocks their attempt to revoke his citizenship, then what? "Accidental" ICE abduction I guess, but that might be a little risky even for them with such a high profile and beloved politician.
Well now they're definitely got to pull all the stuff out to try and prevent him from winning. I mean they already were but now they're going to try even harder I guess?
Regardless I'm totally here for it
Mera bhai <3
I hope nobody tries to assassinate him. Seems like there’s A LOT of money involved in this race.
I am looking forward to rewatching the action mockumentary film about your future president, "Zohran the Destroyer", 30 years from now. The part with him using a morningstar to tear down Mar-a-Lago is great!
Agreed.
I heard a rumor once that something called 'greed' was considered a sin.
There might be others that are relevant too.
These 'sins' and their opposing 'virtures' where considered such because of how they effected the communities influenced by them.
No shit
Well too late and they control the government and most of society so whaddaya wanna do about it?
Billionaires are a byproduct of the capitalist system. People will always try to hoard money. What governments should try is to appropriately tax people according to their wealth, material possessions, assets etc and not merely because they earn money beyond a certain arbitrary threshold. In order to do this governments have to spy on their own people. And this will make many people mad.
He’s going for the martyr angle already. Shame…