New York real estate titan likens the phrase ‘tax the rich’ to racial slurs
The phrase “tax the rich” can be “just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs”, according to the New York City billionaire Steve Roth, who said that the top 1% should be “praised and thanked”.
Speaking on his company’s quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Roth, the CEO of Vornado Realty Trust, expressed his support for fellow billionaire and the CEO of Citadel, Ken Griffin, who was singled out in the 15 April announcement by New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, of the state’s first “pied-à-terre” tax on second homes valued at more than $5m. In a video, Mamdani announced the policy in front of Griffin’s penthouse, which he said was purchased for $238m.
“We are all shocked that our young mayor would pull this stunt in front of Ken’s home and single him out for ridicule,” Roth said. “This was both irresponsible and dangerous.”
Edit: Mamdani's video that sparked this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLKZnVB4F9k
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/may/06/tax-the-rich-racial-slurs-new-york-real-estateOpen linkView original on sh.itjust.works
Bitch, taxing the rich is the humane option
I get the feeling we’re getting closer to starting to spit roast them.
Eww. Nobody want to put their dick in that, surely?
I actually meant it in the literal sense, but these days I’m sure there’s a few people who would. 🤮
I figured that out, it was just that my brain went in the other direction for the first couple of seconds :-/
my dude it's been like 500, 600 years. there are better ways to get things doner
I'd be willing to accept the... Alternative
Yeah, heading towards just taking it all, and leaving them destitute, and if they don't like it, they can think about it in prison, if they're lucky to survive that long.
They enjoy their wealth at the pleasure of the Citizens, and those who don't handle their wealth responsibly, will have it removed.
Leaving them destitute is much more polite than the alternative too. That basically requires them to comply, which I assume they won't. If it comes down to other actions being taken, because the systems aren't doing their job, it'll require some level of violence.
How easy or violent it has to be is entirely up to them. If they want violence, we can oblige them, but they'll still lose their money, and their family may not survive it.
Because of…..the implication.
In france this would not work out
Guillotine the rich
I’d vote for you
Shittydwarf for comptroller!
Ooh, he's definitely not gonna like that one.
I feel like Mr. Roth has forgotten that being taxed is the alternative we came up with to beheadings for the upper class when they got too rich and powerful.
Yeah.. tax the rich is the nicest thing we could be saying.. they’ve definitely forgotten…
Waaah wahh
These people are lucky. No ones eaten them yet.
Perhaps he would prefer “Eradicate the rich.”
(Through even more taxation, of course.)
Or guillitines. Or Luigi. Look, I'm not really picky on how we make the streets flow with a river of their blood. Dealers choice really.
Yesss
I just said this in another thread but I'll repair it here.
Once no one is rich, everyone will be.
Translation: "we're still working on finding ways to make him do our bidding"
Just to highlight that as a real estate magnate, his entire empire is built on rent-seeking, i.e. accumulating wealth by the hoarding of a limited resource, without having created anything of value.
This billionaire did not create a billion dollars of value for society, even indirectly; he only took it from others.
“I’m afraid of the poors!”
Boys, we have them right where we want them.
we’re gonna eat you, you rich motherfuckers
He views the Rich as a separate ethnic group.
from wiki:
He's mostly right, but that doesn't invalidate criticisms of the Rich.
Finally, a morally and ethically acceptable group to do ethnic cleansing on!
I was against genocide....
Arguably it is immoral to NOT cleanse them.
That’s like admitting they live in a completely different world. That’s what blows my mind. By implication, he’s admitting the wealthy exist in a completely separate reality. That the shadow economy is real, and that the average person is effectively a second-class citizen. It’s an acknowledgment that it is, and maybe always has been, us versus them. I've always said they exist in a completely different world, one that operates on different rules than the rest of us. More than just the obvious. Everything you posted, culture, norms, ancestry, history. They will never change to help you. They will always operate from a place of exploitation. It's their culture. They made it so.
For all intents and purposes, they have become Battlefield Earth aliens or Morlocks.
The old vampire metaphor still works too.
Dragons.
I think it's more that he views anyone not rich as not human. Only him and his rich friends are actually people and the plebeian masses should defer to them as such.
I've met some people with this mindset of "i dont give a single fuk if it is not good for me". They also tend to praise billionares and bad dictators. Makes me really curios how their brain works
Oh, I think he'll like this inevitable outcome then.
"TAX" is going to be the softest, most palateable verb that will be done to them, the alternatives are a little less polite.
“Oh, would you prefer ‘torture and execute’ then?” Lmao
My favourite phrase, or at least one that's given me a glimmer of hope for the future is "They will have to invent a new word for what the people are going to do to those responsible."
Torture And eXecute
... "Torcute"?
Needs an x to sound scary
"Execure"?
"We want you to pay your fair share of taxes to maintain the system you enjoy the benefits and protection of." = slur?
Eat all of my shit and hair, Steve Roth. You sound like a real turd of a human being.
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.
Corporations are the only ‘persons’ which should be subjected to capital punishment, but billionaires should be euthanised through taxation.
From the crowd that came up with gems as "bank accounts are citizenship", "transactions are free speech" and "attorney fees are justice". Comes the latest madness "tax is a hate crime".
"Tax the rich" is putting it very nicely.
They've dehumanized themselves with their monstrous exploitation.
Tax that peckerwood until he starts singing spirituals.
What a little pathetic bitch. Eat the rich
Just got a weird Clayton Bigsby feel from your comment, only instead of him saying 'white power' quietly at the end of his shouting, I thought of someone ranting about the harm rich people do continually ending their bellowing with a short, fast, calm, "Eat the rich" as a contrast at the end of any sentence. For example:
"BILLIONAIRES COULD BUILD A DOZEN STRAY ANIMAL SHELTERS FOR THE COST OF ONE OF THEIR YACHTS, BUT THEY'RE TOO SELFISH! THE ONLY ANIMAL THEY CARE ABOUT ... IS THEMSELVES! Eat the rich".
"NINE DOLLARS FOR A CUP OF COFFEE?! NINE DOLLARS COULD PAY FOR A STUDENT'S BREAKFAST AND LUNCH! Eat the rich".
"OW! I STUBBED MY GODDAMN TOE! Eat the rich".
The examples give a vibe of radio advertising, with a sped up text in the end telling you ‘we are not responsible for anything, terms and limitations
willmay apply, consult your therapist, your lawyer, your neighbour, and your dog’Bring back the tax brackets from the 1960's. That should solve the problems. Fucking Ronnie Reagan and his deregulation.
Citizens United also has to go.
"Tax the rich" is the 99% being nice. We could go the France in 1792 route.
There's only 700 billionaires in America, and I think we should kill every single one.
Probably the married ones too.
I think we can make an exception for Gaben
Eh...acceptable collateral
Someone could tip him off ahead of time so he can donate to charitable causes down to 900 million.
I hear what you're saying, but counterpoint:
I'd prefer Steam's helpdesk staff were paid more, and their janitors, and their contractors, and anyone else involved in making that business work. Gabe doesn't NEED a new yacht. Some of the people working for him do NEED healthcare.
Gabe is definitely on the not-a-monster side of the billionaire spectrum, but you don't get that much money with purely your output. You get lucky and have a good idea at the right time, inherit, or rent-seek. Two of those are stupid reasons to have immense wealth, and I don't think getting lucky is worth the vast gulf between billionaire and struggling-to-get-by.
I think if we could have a wealth cap... say 10 billion right now, an absurd sum, where it's almost impossible to even spend it all... and after you pass that amount you get fed to a wood chipper; then we would see a lot fewer billionaires and a better world.
It's been entirely too long since there's been a tarring and feathering in these parts.
A wealth tax a day keeps the guillotine away.
You're the best! Thank you so much for exploiting thousands of employees and customers to acquire a stupendous fortune!
He doesn't realize that this perspective proves exactly what he thinks of his employees and customers... to him they are nothing more than a despised, but necessary, resource to exploit ruthlessly.
Also, let's remember that his tax rate is much lower than that of an Arby's employee. Hateful and disgusting indeed
Man with more money than he could possibly use in his life is upset at the suggestion that some portion of the money he will never used could be used to help other people.
Being a billionaire is a sign of mental illness and needs to start being treated as such.
Financial obesity
Tax is the compromise
The French have a good historical case for what should happen if that fails
Something something cake
It's true. I am bigoted against the wealthy. Proudly.
We need actual slurs for rich people- that would be fun
Mamdani is choosing the lesser evil here my dear rich person... The other options is: we kill you.
sure fine whatever
here’s another
kill em all
Rich is not a race. It’s not a characteristic that you’re born with.
The worst often are born with it.
But it's a mutable attribute
I can see if we make this argument, they will then say the same thing about being poor. And then take it further to say the poor should not be a protected class and therefore should not receive extra benefits. (I know this is not what protected class typically refers to, but I can see them making these arguments.)
No need to hypothesize, they’ve been doing this since the New Deal
That's not a good argument, most of them ARE born into it.
I don’t understand why media prints stuff like this as if it’s a valid point that needs to be explored
It's because parasites like this jackass are paying them to.
Most media is spearheaded by people who own everything, ergo antilogical and demented shit like this.
off with his head
Eat himmmmm.
Is "guillotine" a softer word? We could and should just use that instead. I'm all about catering to the elites' baby soft thin skin.
It he prefers "eat the rich", I won't object.
Don’t eat shit.
Mulch the rich.
Quite unlikely that any of his ancestors worked the cotton fields. He probably thinks he's a self made man.
Of course he's self-made. His ancestors didn't even have those lucrative cotton field jobs. Probably had to survive off their capital and nothing else.
JFC, how out of touch can you be from reality?
lynch him
Won't someone think of poor Ken Griffin??
Kenneth Cordelle Griffin is the new leader of the Epstein class, and he lied under oath to Congress. May he find out.
That's pretty funny because the phrase doesn't actually have a negative meaning. It's a policy proposal at face value and at depth and that's it. Doesn't say the rich or bad people, although many of them are, doesn't say that nobody should be rich, doesn't even say how much they should be taxed.
And certainly nobody should be thanking the top 1%. We all know that they got there by lying and cheating and stealing and inheriting wealth.
Maybe he should just go fuck himself
How about "eat the rich" then, motherfucker? With BBQ sauce.
yeah. he's right. what's the problem with that?
I'm also bigoted against Nazis, which I suspect he might also have a problem with...
Oh rich please.
This sack of shit is a caricature, it's vomit inducing just to look at him
Tax or eat, Steve, tax or eat!
Let's not get in a binary head space - there are tons of options in-between!
Yeah. Some of us don't mind taxing and eating the rich.
oh yeah? well some of us don't mind taxing, cooking, and eating, the rich and then turning their skin into a bunch of canoes
He looks like he enjoys a racial slur every now and then.
ok.
if "tax the rich" isn't enough, maybe this will send a stronger message.
is this loud enough you old rich fuck?
or maybe this is more your speed?
Just take about 10-15% right off the top of the billionaires.
Add him to The List.
We really should make a list. Not like in list format, something more durable like baking it into some type of meme.
how much proof do we need that the rich are a different species?
They aren't, they are just sick. As with any sick animal, they should be put down.
Let's make this Sociopathic Oligarch understand that his...sort...are the only group left for which BULLYING is totally allowed, and strongly encouraged.
Fuck these loser snowflakes, all the money in the world, and they're whining because we aren't nice enough to them, poor people get all the breaks, it's just not fair.
Good, it’s getting under his skin cause he feels threatened by it. His ilk will be kicking and screaming about it till the grave, and that makes me feel some petty joy
This is like misogynistic incels complaining about "equality" being a slur against them.
Well that's interesting because I liken billionaire real estate tycoons to war criminals that deserve to be brutally executed. What a coincidence.
makes sense, rich people are the only truly protected class
Throw the rich off a cliff and liquidate their assets and net worth. was a bit too harsh, but whatever we have to do.
“I must say that I consider the phrase ‘tax the rich’ – quote tax the rich – spit out with anger and contempt by politicians both here and across the country, to be just as hateful as some disgusting racial slurs, and even the phrase from the ‘river to the sea’,” he said, referring to the controversial pro-Palestinian slogan.
A LOT to unpack here.
motherfucker is a literal Skeksis
Dude is lucky we said tax the rich. That's the socially agreed option. If they stop respecting the plebs, well...
every day someone doesn't suck my trump its racism.
Lol chop chop, guoillo-bait
losing only 8% sounds fair
This is why the rich need to be taxed.
Ebenezer Scrooge, is that you?
Source: https://www.moralambition.org/stories/tax-fairness-explainer
Also, the above graph compares averages vs averages. The average of the top bracket is made up of some very rich people who accept that paying taxes is a fair thing to do, and some who try to contribute as little as possible by evading as much as possible. Because he'd prefer us to not talk about this, I have the suspicion that Mr Steve Roth falls into the 2nd category.
Gavin Belson
And much like racists using racial slurs to express how much they hate, we use “tax the rich” while hating you
I didn't know the rich were a race though at this point they've probably have been having their genes modified.
yeet the rich.
Gee, would've been a shame if that rich snob is taxed and his money is redistributed to the poor and pious.
eat the rich
The ultra-rich can be very ignorant.
To quote Tony Soprano: OH, POOR YOU!
One day the masses will take everything from Steve Roth or his heirs. That is a fact of life and nothing can stop it. You can be sure that it doesn't stop at a little wealth tax.
Eat the rich. This country is infested with wealthy parasites.
He's really not going like "Eat The Rich."
If that's true, then we are using it right. I'd only use a slur on beings that are less than human and ultra rich fit that pereftly. And as well read as the rich are, they know what happens when a being is considered less than human. >:D
wealth is not a racial sect.
Okay, here's the politically correct version then:
Well he's not wrong, it's definitely hateful. We don't say it because we think it's fair they get billions and we have to scrape by while doing the actual work.
That doesn’t make it hateful in the sense that it has been used recently. It’s just a normal response to someone’s horrible behaviour.
Are both of the following hateful?
Tax the rich - at 1%
Tax the rich - at 99%
Well,
He's a cunt then
I dont think it is a slur. To be rich is even to this day associated with good qualities.
in other words, the word rich doesnt reflect reality and we have to weed it out
I think grabber is more suitable, because they grab property away from the commons.
Release the grip!
There's nothing wrong with 'Tax the Rich'. It's no better or worse than the usual phrases 'Eat the Rich', or 'Suffocate the Rich by Stretching Their Scrotum Up Over Their Head'.
Alright. Normalize both then. And remember that "tax" is a euphemism.
For whom? The mayor? Isn't that a threat?
Ken Griffin should be taxed
He’s really not going to like what comes after “tax the rich,” then.
Vampires suck.
Something something if you're comparing the badness of two words - John Mulaney
People that say that aren’t even rich.