Billionaires Should Not Exist ...

[Dax]

... or should they?

Never have been and never will be a supporter of the Democratic Party. However the mantra made popular by Bernie Sanders and other so called “progressives” which goes: “ … billionaires should not exist ...” strikes a chord with me.

But I would like to add the following: “ … until the 9% of our population or 690 million people are no longer starving.”

Is it acceptable that any country can have billionaires while so many people the world over still live in abject poverty?

The richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, has sold all his fixed property and possessions. He sleeps in his office and when his kids visit he rents a house for them. He has one goal ... the coloization of Mars and wants to concentrate solely on that. Imagine, poor people strive to get enough to eat every day while Mr. Musk wants to colonize Mars.

Of course there are others with almost as much wealth as him … Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet et al.

If these gentlemen and another five of the richest each invested a billion dollars and received only 1% interest (they would get much more) they would each receive ten million dollars interest per year. In total 100 million dollars.

Of course a way would have to be found to channel this money to the poorest of the poor which wouldn’t be easy considering the amount of corruption that is rife throughout the planet today.

Still it can be done and at the end of each year these rich earthlings would be even richer.

Sigh! Just a dream … I know it will never happen.

[niftypebble21]

I think billionaires exist because that was their karmic astrological destiny : )

I'm not sure whether they should exist of not exist?

[Undies]

it's a tough one. i don't like the idea of punishing someone for being successful (although to get that kind of money, you pretty much have to be an unethical shitbag so i don't feel as bad about it). i've always had fairly libertarian leanings, but as i get older it becomes more obvious that human nature is too shitty for that to actually work.

we keep trying to pass these laws like instantly doubling the minimum wage, which sounds nice if you don't bother to think about what it means. but if you only address the one side, then you'll just have the billionaires finding new ways to cheat their employees out of their share, inflation will shoot sky high for a little while, and everything will end up exactly the same except with higher numbers for wages and costs.

i sure as hell don't have the answers; my hatred of schmoozing is only part of the reason i haven't gotten into politics. but i guess in general i would think the best solution would be to set some sort of regulations that don't necessarily disallow billionaires, but make it harder to get there.

[SpaceMan]

society needs them

they provide jobs for the little people

[niftypebble21]

society needs them

they provide jobs for the little people

Yup creating jobs for others is quite endearing helps keep giving them more good karmic blessings : )

[Sooz]

Always thought that the OP was salty of those who are rich

[SpaceMan]

maybe you should consider discussing thread topics instead of just personal attacks on people

[Audiogen]

The richest man on the planet, Elon Musk, has sold all his fixed property and possessions. He sleeps in his office and when his kids visit he rents a house for them. He has one goal ... the coloization of Mars and wants to concentrate solely on that. Imagine, poor people strive to get enough to eat every day while Mr. Musk wants to colonize Mars.

Of course there are others with almost as much wealth as him … Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffet et al.

Musk actually has a few different innovative endeavors. Electric vehicles with Tesla, private space exploration with SpaceX and brain-to-computer interfaces with Neuralink. All of those have the potential to help people and advance humanity.

I get the gist of what you're saying tho, I dunno, in a way I'm more concerned with the likes of Gates and Zuckerberg who seem more concerned with helping people by attempting to control people/society. Just because they have the means, I don't think they are necessarily the best people to tackle the social ills of society or the world.

I don't inherently have a problem with billionaires, given all the pet projects from the COVID relief packages in mind, I sure as hell don't trust the government to channel the money appropriately.

[lode]

Rich peoples money is in real estate or the market, not income from a job.Make the capital gains tax have more than three tiers and tie it to wealth.

Over 1million net net worth capital gains goes from 20 -21%.

Over 5 million 25%.

Over 10 million 30%.

over 20 million 35%

Over 50 million 40%

Taxation should be like leveling up in a video game. Harder the more you have.

It'll slow wealth from becoming too concentrated, but it's not an absurd communist wealth limit like Warren's absurd 2% of wealth tax per year.

[Dax]

society needs them

they provide jobs for the little people

So do the government.

[Dax]

Always thought that the OP was salty of those who are rich

you know nothing at all about the OP.

[Dax]

Elon Musk just dropped 15 billion dollars in wealth as some of his shares tumbled. Poor man.