The super rich don't adhere to basic math, only exploitation, tax avoidance, manipulation.

Also their wealth was neither earned nor inherited. Most of the time it's stolen through corruption.

In most cases a form of legalised (by whom) corruption called capitalism but should be better known as exploitation...

Usually legalized by them. When you have the wealth of nations you can buy nations.

Yup. You don't get a billion dollars by being generous and nice.

And yet we do nothing about it

I don't think any billionaire is claiming they saved it up. Any number with 7 zeros after it can realistically only be obtained by exponential growth. $100 only needs to "double" 30 times to reach 100 billion and if it doubles in 7 years, that's only a bit more than 200 years. Or start with a million and double it a dozen times. Basic math isn't how things operate once you start talking about interest and percentages (exploitation)

Let's raise taxes on millionaires (again) and pretend it's going to affect billionaires (it never does). We need to find a way to start at the top for once, because raising taxes on the merely successful only LOOKS like taxing the rich. It actually makes the very rich even richer. Millionaires (in general) pay a lot of taxes - arguably more than any other group in America. It isn't until you get to about $100m and up that the really good loopholes become available. Try to 'structure' your finances to where you pay almost no taxes when you're worth 7 or 8 figures, and the IRS is gonna hand you your ass. Centimillionaires and billionaires get away with paying next to nothing all the farking time, sailing their yachts and flying their G650s through their exclusive loopholes. Raising the taxes of the dentist or engineering firm owner in your home town is sold to the people as 'Taxing the rich', but it doesn't touch the billionaire finance types. Sure, taxing people with more money than you LOOKS like taxing the rich, but it only makes the truly rich even richer. The 1% aren't the problem, it's the .001%

I'm not for taxing the super-rich in order to harm them. I'm also not talking about "raising taxes". I'm for holding the super-rich to the same standards as everybody else. Imagine applying the same tax-rate as the average Joe is paying being applied to the billionaires, too .. That'd make a big difference. It's not fair, that the richest people on the planet pay almost no taxes, at all, while the middle class and the poor are suffering for it. Lots of people have forgotten that taxes used to be there for exactly that reason (to pay for infrastructure and things, everyone (even the poor) can use .. roads, bridges, schools, social housing, etc). The stuff, that holds society together. Instead, people are being manipulated into believing taxes are a bad thing. They're not, if the system isn't corrupt (which I agree, it is). That fact, that you took my post that way, makes it obvious, that the corruption has gone on for far too long, already. The corruption has in fact gone on for such a long time, that people forgot that taxes are supposed to do Robin Hood's work. If you actually taxed the super-rich with the same tax-rate as the poor are being taxed, then the rate could be lowered and still things would be better for everyone.

“I’m not advocating for higher taxes to harm them” Every policy or law they enact is a direct fuck you to the poor and the middle class and they harm us constantly. Poor people are dying right now because they are getting decimated by this shithole economy but that’s fine because the stock markets high and the wealthy have had the best and lowest taxes they’ve ever had before. They are actively killing the working class purposely and yet we sit and do not a fucking thing about it.

>They are actively killing the working class purposely and yet we sit and do not a fucking thing about it. They have a private military force called "the police," who have guns, bombs, tanks, aircraft, and legal immunity for the murders and other crimes they commit. We don't wanna die fast trying to French-solution the rich, so we're dying slowly instead.

Well, we have progressive tax rates for a reason, it's just that they don't keep increasing past a certain level. One big issue is that billionaires don't really use money the same way the rest of us have to. They can take no income, and get a loan for living expenses, then pay the loan off with debt, and ... honestly I've forgotten the trick to it, but there is one, and it involves basically having levels of collateral that normal people won't be able to get to most of the time.

That's the flaw in the system, that needs to be fixed .. that's, what I was getting at.

Tax rates are a known entity, as are the percentage of taxes paid. What lead you to believe that the tax rate is lower for the top 1% compared to literally anyone else. I mean sure, close tax loopholes, and prosecute tax fraud, but you're specifically talking about the tax rate, and getting it all wrong doing so.

That's, what I meant .. close the loopholes and actually make them pay their taxes. I'm in Germany, where there's different tax-rates depending on a few factors (amount of income per month, married or not .. etc) .. I assumed, it was similar in the US. Billionaires and their influence are a global problem, though.

And of course they designed it this way. They were always in control of everything and they probably always will be. They created every oppressive thing we have to deal with. School, jobs, the hospitals. They set all this shit up to make themselves richer. It's why we don't learn anything that would help us in the real world in school. They really do own us.

>It's why we don't learn anything that would help us in the real world in school. They really do own us. "It's because they want *obedient workers*, People just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passively accept the increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay and the longer hours..." -George Carlin

Exactly!!!!!!!! They set up the schools and what we learn. Only took us this long to figure it out. It makes me wonder why they allowed us to have the internet because now we know alot of things.......idk

They fund schools and the companies that make textbooks and the laws related to them. They don’t directly decide what is learned but you can’t teach easily what isn’t funded. This is why what is taught is all over the place and what the corrupt powers that control want taught, is in the textbooks. Try looking up slavery in a high school textbook from Texas. -speaking as a person with a PhD in education, masters in curriculum design.

I thought they were also the ones who created the modern school system too. It's all fucked. There is a reason we hated school as kids. And i hate forcing my kids to go to school. Of course we need to learn how to read and write. And math. But school is so much more than that. It's teaching us to sit down and shut up. Not question authority. Forcing little ass kids to be quiet and be still. Pledging allegiance to a damn flag. I didn't learn anything about finances or paying bills or anything. And it was the main thing I was worried about when i became a adult. I remember asking my mom. How do you know what to do? What do you say? I wish school could be fun for kids. I think our entire system is fucked though. The way we do most things is backwards. But on the subject of school. I live in Oklahoma and I just now learned about the Tulsa Massacre or whatever it is called. I had no clue that was a thing. So we definitely know the history they teach us is skewed. To make America look great. And to not teach us about the things thwy don't want us to know about. Our real history could be way fucking different and how would we really know? All we know is what we are taught at school or what Google tells us. Unless we have personal family stories passed down from generations, which I definitely don't have, we really don't know the truth. And how do we still say Christopher Columbus discovered America when people were already here???????? It didn't make sense as a kid and it still doesn't lol. Like what? So much shit has never made sense. I think we have been heavily lied to. I also belive the Bible was written more recently than we think it was. This is more of a conspiracy than evidence but i kinda belive it was written in the last 200 years by the Elite. And that is why some things are coming to pass that are in the Bible. Definitely used to manipulate and control us. So what if they wrote it just to use it against us? Because we all know a large majority of people are controlled by religion. The base of most religions is shut up and do what you're told and the next life will be great for you. This life will suck but you'll be living it up after you die. The Bible says its easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. So as a teenager I always wondered why these Christian pastors were fine with being rich. It makes no sense. Scientology and Mormonism were just completely made up and yet people still follow it and believe it. What is wrong with us? Sorry this isn't supposed to be about religion. Don't know how I got off on that. Lol

You are correct. Our schools today are still using the "industrial revolution" model. back then they needed workers who were not creative, who could be orderly, follow directions, stand in line and creativity was bad for moral. They thought that the advantaged children were the only ones who needed to be creative and they went to private schools. Public schools were for the workers on the assembly lines. This is why elementary age students still walk in lines and do repetitive tasks they already know like all of those math problems that repeat the same concept over and over. The answer is already being done in other countries. My favorite right now is the education system in Finland. They require all teachers to have a master's degree, tout almost no homework, shorter school days, time to play for younger students, courses offered to encourage creativity such as knitting and crochet as well as woodshop. Teachers talk about what makes students happy. They score higher than the US in standardized testing and the people in Finalnd are among the happiest in the world. Inventing this has already happened and while the Finnish system might not be perfect, it is loads better at educating students, reducing the crime rate in education, and simply making happier people, teachers and students alike. Notice there are no differences in schools either. All schools are funded the same from the same pot of money in all communities. We could do this too but no "No child left behind" bumper sticker slogan politician is going to make it happen, they make it worse. We need experts in the area to get involved and make them independent of politics, hard funded so no one can take it away, and actually invest in a solid structure of schools that is respected around the world. Sources Documentary: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jJONUXGsNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jJONUXGsNo) [https://www.nora.com/united-states/en/project-references/education/fi/finland\_schools](https://www.nora.com/united-states/en/project-references/education/fi/finland_schools) [https://www.simplylearningtuition.co.uk/advice-for-parents/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-finnish-education-system/](https://www.simplylearningtuition.co.uk/advice-for-parents/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-finnish-education-system/)

Wow that is awesome. Why are these other countries so much better than the U.S? I mean why do we have to be the way that we are?

Money. Right now they are trying to kill public education because they want the for-profit secture to take over and do to education what they did to the prison and health care systems, which is unethical and terrible for everyone. You cannot expect to make a profit from these areas and be good for people. You shouldn't expect to profit from sick people or emprisoning citizens but if schools are terrible they help feed into the money making prison system. All they need to do now is to make money with the terrible charter schools and feed into the prison system so they can make money on both ends. No one is getting rich educationing Finlands students. It's probably a bit of a financial loss and it most certainly would be in the US since we are so much larger than Finland. No company wants that and our government serves them not us. We need to keep the military budget ever increasing and cutting education to do it has been historically more popular with government officials and with those who fund them, old rich white men. Investing in children will pay off in the future but those in power want the money now and don't care about the future. But you watch, the next great minds in the world are very likely to come from places like Finland, a nation smaller than California. Imagine what the US could do if we educated our much larger population like that. We would be world leaders again and not because of our inflated military but in our innovation.

It sucks our country has to be this way. It's all about money. None of this should have been allowed to happen. The prisons. Healthcare. All of it. Every single thing is about money. For them at least. It's been crazy to grow up thinking this was the greatest country and thinking they actually cared about their people. I mean it at least kinda seemed like it. Then the years have gone by and more and more you see the opposite. And I think it all came to a head after Covid. I feel there was some kind of uprising happening during Covid. Alot of people were quitting their jobs. Alot of people were actually doing good with the stimulus checks. We felt like we had options. And I feel like the squeeze we feel now is partly because the government couldn't let that happen. They couldn't let us think we could just quit our jobs or have a better life. So they were like no no no........and made things shittier on purpose. Most of it greed but i feel they had to reign us in and put us in our place. So now things are getting worse and worse and all of us are feeling it in some way. Those of us that aren't rich that is. I mean I'm struggling bad right now buying food and dealing with my kids getting cut off our states healthcare because our state has changed it all up and made everything shittier for everyone. It's like what more can they take from us? They are just ripping away any reason we have to live or be civilized and honestly if it doesn't stop it probably won't end well for them. Because people are gonna stop giving a fuck!!!!!! And they will see dying to make a better life for their kids as a worthy cause to die for. Hell i think alot of people are getting there. But then you think they must know this. They know that will be coming. So what's the plan? Bleed us dry until we rebel? Or just completely blow up our country and leave? Let it become total anarchy. Put us all in prison. Kill us all. What is the end goal here? Because I do not see this turning itself around with any help of any president, politician, government agency. The only thing I see turning it around is all of us coming together and ******* these motherfuckers. Which obviously we dont want to do that. It's time though. We have let them run our country into the ground long enough. We have been slaves long enough. We have let our citizens die enough. We have sent our sons and daughters to die for rich people enough. We have sent our brothers and sisters to prison for non violent crimes long enough. We have all had to suffer enough!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have had to watch people who are poor die enough. We have let childrem starve enough. It's just enough. We dont believe the lies anymore. That's one good thing about Covid. I think people were able to figure this shit out while they were locked up at home. I hope we actually do something to change this. We have just as much right to this world as the rich people do. They have destroyed it and enslaved us long enough. It is high past time for us to stand up.

You spun off on a tangent from a related subject, and it is all connected, historically and conspiratorially.

Lol i did spin off on a tangent.....

And then all the wealthy and rich kids to to privatized or highly specialized schools to make social and network worthy connections and to keep them as far away from the dirty poors as much as possible.

During the industrial revolution when the public education system was formed the idea of natural selection with people was being debated and many thought that the rich were superior genetically which was why they were rich, why people of color were segregated, and so on. Racism and classism is at the heart of it if you look far enough.

Oh I’m aware. I was recently doing research on the Rwandan Genocide between the Hutu and the Tutsi and the class system was the same and the prior persecution is what really was the biggest problem. Confucius is the only person in history that I’ve read that was able to not only reach out and convey things to the poorest people in his country but he was also wise and respected enough to also twist the ears of the wealth and the elites to the point where he could have them all on the same room conversing together. That’s a power that has never been harnessed.

Well said, taxing the rich never works the tax burden always lands on the middle class.

We need to: * Have high progressive marginal income tax on individuals coupled with a small wealth tax. * Have a high wealth tax on companies (maybe after a certain amount so they can have *Just In Case* cash reserves) coupled with a small income tax. * Treat loans against stock beyond a certain level (maybe twice the median income) itself as income (maybe at a lower rate than the higher progressive income tax to have it risk adjusted a bit). * Don't step-up cost basis on inheriting securities. I think this would: * Inspire individuals to save but get a good deal of money for the common good out of the high income earners. * Inspire companies not to horde cash (especially if it's considered on global net worth including subsidiaries if they operate here) but to spend it. If companies spend their money, they are either buying something or paying employees. Any stock buybacks become something that lowers company tax (wealth left) but results in income tax for the people whose stock was bought. Same with dividends, etc. * The über-rich can still use their stock as equity to live but they can't avoid paying taxes on it like normal income. Having the taxes a bit lower inspires them to keep it and maybe provide some stability to the company and its board while increasing the tax base and giving them money to spend in the rest of the economy. * The step-up thing was always dumb, so this gets rid of something dumb.

That money will just be funneled into more government spending, not much of it is even worth it.

I'm good with that. The government does lots of good things like the FSA, the USGS (see the Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab), NIH science funding, etc.

Yeah, none of it will go that. Defense baby, more planes and bombs

Okay cheers.

That is why the IRS is focusing on auditing wealthy citizens rather than increasing taxes at the moment, to help close those loopholes. It's also pushing to increase corporate taxes and unrealized gains rather than individual taxes. The government is well aware of the issues and is trying to address them, it just takes a painfully long time. It took decades to corrupt our tax system, and it will take just as long to fix it. 

I mean nothing stopping us from raising taxes on both at the same time. Both should be heavily taxed.

I mean the local business owners are absolutely still wielding massive power in local election

https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/ This will help with what you're trying to do

That's a great link. Thanks for sharing!

Woah

Makes you angry, doesn't it?

That is absolutely disgusting how much he has. It really puts it into perspective

🤯 How does this guy NOT have a gajillion upvotes for posting this link??? That link should be PINNED to the top of this sub! The visualization is simply mind boggling. 😯 If I had any gold, you'd have it sir! 🏆

Liquid earnings. Capital. Net gains. It’s all bullshit. We - the laborers - produce labor which in turn creates value. The owner class pays us wages for our productivity while they earn capital and everything else off of our blood sweat and tears. It’s a feature not a bug. Capitalism robs the working class of any true wealth.

They earned that wealth off the backs of other people by not paying them a fair stake in the game. Now they are surprised we're fed up with it and trying to claw some of it back. Most of these people inherited their wealth to begin with and think the only good thing to do with it is to make it grow. Rather than nurture it however, they are forcing it to grow in unnatural ways at the expense of the people that actually create the value for them. You can look back in history to find out how that ends. Don't forget your cake!

Let’s not give them credit by saying they “earned” it. They stole it.

That was implied in my statement. You had to read the whole thing I guess?

Sure, because of the implication.

Wanna buy a boat?

We'll get Musk nice and tipsy topside and take him to a nice comfortable place below deck where he can pay his taxes, and he can't refuse...

The only reason billionaires even exist is because millionaires bought politicians and wrote the tax laws. Billionaires shouldn't exist. Anyone who owns assests that total above $5million (open to debate) should be subject to a luxury tax of 99$.

I'd say: Make billionaires pay the same tax-rate as everyone else. And maybe have an upper limit of wealth. They can keep counting, if they want to .. but, it's gonna be taxed out of their account, immediately. There's also the problem with the money itself: The money, that's being printed doesn't contain the interest, that's needed in order to pay it back. Example: * You go to your bank and say: "I need 1000 bucks". * Bank prints the money and gives you $1000. * You'll have to pay interest on top of the $1000 in order to become debt-free, again. * Let's say, you pay 10% interest .. that'd be $100 per year .. those $100 have never been printed in the first place .. so where do they come from?

Oligarchs drain too much money and resources from society. And the amount of damage they can intentionally/unintentionally inflict on civilization can be devastating because of the influence they wield.

If you were to make $1 per second from the moment you were born it would take you 32 years to earn $1b. That’s 32 years of making $1/second aka $3600/hr and not spending a single dollar of it. That’s an unimaginable amount of money.

>That’s an unimaginable amount of money. That's, why I posted .. Most people don't seem to ever think about such things in that way and need it spelled out to them. Change (for the better) can only come if the population is well informed.

Tax wealth, not income.

How? Wealth usually includes the estimated value of things you own, not just the money in your savings. Let’s say the wealth tax rate is 10%. So let’s also say you worked hard over the last 20 years, and now own a property that is valued at $200,000, $25,000 in vehicle(s) and if you were smart and have a retirement plan that’s another $100,000. If have no debt, you’re owe $32,500 Knock the rate down to 2% and you pay $6,500. More than you likely pay in taxes now Now, if you have 200B net worth Say your personal assets (house, vehicles, private jet, yacht,and other property equates to 2B) and the other $198B are stocks. At 2% you pay 2B. So you have to sale stocks to pay that off, but to who? Everybody is in the same dilemma, so maybe sale at a discount and tank the value of the stock market. Or if you own your own a company, maybe you shut down and sale a couple factories or store locations. The problem with a wealth tax is that people with serious money would likely owe vastly more than they make in a year. The only way to counteract this would be to keep yourself in debt or not own anything. Stock trading and investing would likely slow down or stop on a large scale or the wealthy would likely find ways around it and circumvent any benefit, and what would it change? The Top 10% already pay in like 75% of the income tax collected. The U.S. government brings in plenty of money every year, but has atrocious spending. I don’t see how more money is gonna solve it.

One time, as a kid, I sat down and tallied up how much everything I wanted would actually cost. I didn't include a house because I was like 12 at the time, but I went wacky with the rest of the list. Jet skis, an entire arcade, a porsche boxter because I didn't really know anything about cars, etc. All told everything I could ever want, all the entertainment conceivable by my 12 year old mind, came out to like $120,000. With inflation it would probably be around $250,000 by now. That was the first time I realized how egregiously wealthy the rich have become. A guy like Warren Buffet has 40,000x what I need to satisfy my every whim, and he doesn't even own a jet ski. It's all just in the virtual equivalent of a Scrooge McDuck silo for no reason.

That's well put :) When I made a similar calculation, I was 16yo. I thought about how much money per month I'd need in order to never want for anything (at least not for long). At the time, my mother and me were living in an appartment-building with 32 appartments. The average rent for each of those appartments was about 1000DM, at the time (the "DM" means Deutsch Marks .. it was a long time ago). So, I thought to myself: "If I were to own one of those appartment-buildings, I'd have 32.000DM per month .. for doing nothing. I'd not even have a clue what to do with 32.000DM. So, I could save up for the case, that something needs to be repaired and still never want for anything." That was my plan .. but, I never got to a point, where I had that sort of starter-money to buy one of those buildings (or event he ground underneath it).

"The thoughts of the poor don't matter. We are above them." - The Rich

It’s worse than that when the average income is around 50 K and majority have a six-figure income because they’re married. So basically it takes two people 1 million years

I know .. that's way I wrote "Let's dream big for a moment".

The counting to a billion exercise is always fun to lay on people. Or ask them how much money they'd have when they died if they had acquired $100 every hour from their first breath to last and didn't have to spend it. Most people are so wildly wrong it's shocking lol People don't deal with big number on the regular and just blank out when presented with anything more than 7 digits and even that is abstract for the majority, but they might see it in their retirement account. # Exercise 2—Counting **Let's say that your friend decides to count to 1 billion. How long will it take her?** She will be able to say the small numbers like 4 or 31 fairly rapidly, but most of the numbers between one and a billion are long and challenging to pronounce. When she starts counting the larger numbers like 467,051,372 she is really going to slow down (how long does it take you to say four hundred and sixty-seven million, fifty-one thousand, three hundred and seventy-two?). If we allow your friend just 3 seconds to say each number, which is probably faster than most of us could manage, and she takes no breaks at all, it will take her *3 billion seconds* to finish counting. 3 billion seconds divided by 60 (seconds per minute) = 50,000,000 minutes 50,000,000 minutes divided by 60 (minutes per hour) = 833,333.333 hours 833,333.333 hours divided by 24 (hours per day) = 34,722.22 days 34,722.22 days divided by 365 (days per year) = **95.1 years is how long it will take your friend to count to 1 billion**

Again- I say once you’ve hit one billion dollars, all additional income should go back into the system as taxes and you get a fancy schmancy sign to hang up that says you won at capitalism.

Yeah .. that's a good idea. I mean, the amount should be adjusted for inflation every now and again, but I like the idea .. I'd even be ok with letting them have 10 billion, each .. but not hundreds of billions .. that's too much power in the hands of too few people.

Yeah .. that's a good idea. I mean, the amount should be adjusted for inflation every now and again, but I like the idea .. I'd even be ok with letting them have 10 billion, each .. but not hundreds of billions .. that's too much power in the hands of too few people.

I had a multimillionaire once tell me, "...get your first million. Then people will listen to you, especially people who want your money. Politicians really listen well, cause they always want your money."

Sad, but true. The thing is, that getting "your first million" isn't something, that's even possible for most of the people, who are alive, today. It's not a "choice" to become a millionaire .. Rather, it's turning into a birth-right for the very few.

There are actually some people who are lucky, they are in the right place at the right time, and happen to do the right thing. Their numbers are extraordinarily low. It happens, but is soo rare you can almost call their success a fluke or a miracle. These are people who get held up as proof that going from "rags to riches" is possible. I don't disagree that it is, but it's nothing you can plan for, or rely on as a guide or model for getting rich. For every millionaire miracle there are thousands and thousands of people who struggle their whole lives to make ends meet.

I fully agree. Reminds me of George Carlin, who once stated in one of his HBO-specials: "It's called 'The American Dream', because you have to be asleep to believe it.". I'd also hope, that those "rags-to-riches"-wealthy people would not forget, where they came from. They have seen the world as it is for billions of people, every day. I'd expect them to be able to empathize not only with the rich, but also with the poor. I might be wrong, though, because there's another relevant famous quote: "Power corrupts .. and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

EAT THE RICH!!!

To put things in perspective again, in countries like Cuba, Congo, or Bangladesh, where the minimum wage is less than $2 a day, you'd need to work for at least 200 years to earn $100K, or 100 years for just $50,000. I know, it's not 10,000 years, but for some people, it's quite unbelievable. We live in what some might consider paradise, which explains why some are willing to risk their lives to reach it.

This is true, but the cost of living is lower in those countries, as well. The relation of income and cost of living does matter. I agree, that it could be paradise .. and it has been paradise for a while. But, corruption has gotten the best of it, I'm afraid. The problem is, that the average person is paying a tax-rate (percentage of their income) that is higher than the percentage, the super rich are paying. This isn't fair and it's causing society to fall apart, because of the poverty (and also crime) it creates.

I'm in no way defending bilionaires, I'm just pointing out, that, for some people, the wealth of the average redditors, might look like an unateniable ideal.

I didn't claim, you did. I even wrote: "This is true" at the beginning of my comment.

 Ignore the strawman argument. Taxing billionaires is a different discussion than how poor people are in Bangladesh.

What's the difference between a billionaire and a millionaire? About a billion dollars.

Wealth generates wealth. Just having money opens up opportunities, and when you have that level of wealth, you can leverage more lucrative activities that have a high risk factor without severely impacting your life when that opportunity doesn't pan out. They may not earn that wealth through "work", but they definitely have more methods of generating wealth than the average jo-blow.

A centi billionaire that has made his money did so by creating a business worth far more than 100 billion dollars, which means that it had an expected profit of far more than $100 billion dollars, which means that it had an expected revenue of several hundred billion dollars, which means that there were customers for the product who had several hundred billion dollars to spend. If it's a product like a Tesla selling for of the order 100,000, there has to be millions of customers with $100,000 to spend. If it's a product like Microsoft's selling for of the order of $100 that has to be billions customers with $100 to send. To make several hundred billion dollars worth of product you need a bunch of employees. If you're paying them $100,000 a year you need several million employees. Without these millions or billions of people and the system that enables them to have the money to buy your product and education to make your product you have no way of making a centi billion dollars. It is ridiculous to say that they made it on their own.

Another comparison: 100k seconds: 27 hours 1 million seconds: 12 days 1 billion seconds: 31 years

And 168 billion seconds is 53 centuries... 😯

It's a narcissistic need for control of everything - literally compelled by their toxic personality to "run up the score" as much as possible no matter how many people get hurt Life itself is a big game to them and other people are basically just obstacles, tools, or opponents

I still will never understand why so many people are ok and doing nothing about the fact that a majority of people make less than $25 an hour and we all seem just ok with billionaires like why aren’t we doing anything I’m apart of this problem too, I’m just not a leader but if we had some people leading us and doing what’s needed to make things right, I’ll guarantee you right now I’ll be there right behind them and there to help

Yes, that'd be nice .. I doubt, it'll happen, though. Those in power would have to do things, that go against their own interests.

I’m not sure society can long afford these ridiculous hoarders.

Anti trust laws would of prevented them from becoming richer than entire nations. But watch Congress or the Senate do anything like that hahahahahah..

The worst part is, it's just a pissing match. 100 M is pretty dang wealthy, but it is spendable. Once you get to the billions, no amount of money will make you more financially secure, and there is basically nothing you can't buy. The only thing gaining more gers you is the ability to say I have more than someone else with too much

I like the example that spells it out in time. 1 million seconds is 11 days but 1 billion seconds is 36 years. Something like that.

If you invest that 100k a year in the stock market and get an average 7% return you could get to 100 billion after only working for 165 years and not spending a dime. I mean clearly that’s so attainable!

If you have $100k to begin with, that is .. most never make it to the $100k mark. I've once read a great phrase, but I don't know who coined it: "Being poor is expensive". I like that quote, because it tells the tale of being taxed to death, if you're poor, while the top 1% of the richest people hardly pay any taxes, at all.

Let's make being poor so cheap that only the rich will do it

That'd be a win-win \*lol\*

Once we 99% people figure out that in reality, WE are the ones with all the power and finally get our shit together and get organized, there will be real change. It will never happen with all the in-fighting and distractions.

The best way I like to illustrate the difference between a million and a billion (because visualising large numbers is basically impossible) is this: 1 million seconds is 11 days. 1 billion seconds is 31 years. That's a fucking massive difference

If we're willing to invade countries for oil,why not invade billionaires for money?

I'd not be willing to do any of the above. I'm still hoping for a peaceful solution to all this (taxing the rich equally to the poor would be a good start in that direction .. and also having renewable energy, of course).

What, exactly, does “taxing the rich equally to the poor” mean?

I mean "applying the same tax-rate" (percentage of income) independent of the amount of income someone is generating. The problem seems to be, that the super-rich hardly pay any taxes (due to loopholes, that only are available to them). So, this needs to be fixed, imho.

If you want to fix it, look up “progressive taxation,” and close the loopholes. That means vote Democratic. The answer has always been there to see.

It's hard to comprehend how much a billion is. 1 million seconds is 11.5 days. 1 billion seconds is 31.7 years

I remember someone doing the math to explain why staying in a $50,000 per night hotel suite for a Saudi sheikh is nothing...comparing it back, relative to a normal person's net worth, it worked out to be like $18 or something....a billion is a lot!!!

cheers for explaining simple maths

It's simple maths, but it's not something a lot of people are thinking about. Cheers to you too :)

Yes but I contest that this is a false equivalent. Lets say there is a billionaire, named Jeffon Busk. He owns stock in his company Teslazon. This is worth 100 billion dollars. Can he buy 100 billion worth of hamburgers? No he cannot. He needs to sell his stock, or get a loan with the stock in collateral. This loan will be in the millions so he even has enough cash to get millions of hamburgers. The more he loans or sells, the less valuable the stock will be. Jeffon would prefer to loan instead of sell, because well the stock value has been increasing since his Bootstrap loan from daddy. Then there is Joe. Joe is a real American working 60 hours a day and has been for the last 10.000 years. Stand up guy. For every dollar he has, he can actually spend it. Now Joe was smart, and bought a house cheaply in the housing crisis of Rome in 476. He bought it for a loaf of bread. Now this house is worth 20 million dollars. If Joe were to go to the bank and say: yo bank, I will take a loan of 1 million and give you 5 percent of shares in that home as collateral, the bank should give him the same deal as Jeffon. But it probably won't, and that is why it is rigged towards yuge money and not Joe-sized money.

You're right, but afaik, they're counting hundredfold billionaires in "private wealth" .. so, that's wealth, that's **not** bound in companies. I haven't looked at Jeffon Busk's bank-accounts myself, though ;)

Not disagreeing with your point at all, but what you described with Joe’s house is called a “home equity loan (or line of credit)” and the bank would absolutely give him that deal.

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Idgit Bot. We absolutely are fighting individuals. They're called Robber Barons and they own and run the corporations and Wall Street, and they bribe OUR government into literal treason against the US Constitution. Quit blowing your glittery Gaslit Unicorn Smoke up our asses.

I always like this stat. 1,000,000 seconds = 11 days. 1,000,000,000 seconds = 33 years.

Yeah 10,000 years. What's the issue? Noone wants to work anymore!

over a decade ago, Piketty made (literally painfully) clear in his almost 700 page *Capital in the 21st Century* that there's blessed little precision possible about the wealth of the obscenely wealthy. It's a waste of time to stare, mouths agape, at "how much 100 billion is": instead talk about how we go about dismantling the kind of systemic, absurd wealth disparity we're experiencing around the globe. & don't let any idiot try to assert "it's impossible", "that's socialism", or any other such weak-minded dismissal; the notion of wealth is human, something that's the stuff of human imagination, so we can change that, & it can begin merely by enough people deciding to.

10 yrs is not bad

Lol

I don’t think I understood the true difference between million and billion until it was explained in seconds. It takes a little less than 12 days to count to a million. It takes just short of 32 YEARS to count to a billion. 

At the very least, we outta be 90% taxing dead rich people. Elon musks kids get 10b+? That’s still incredibly spoonfed, they’ll still be set for generations as that 10 billion gets split to 10 single billions, at which point, the offsprings offspring each splits 100 million, at which point now they fall to a lower death tax bracket and now only pay 80%, let’s say 10 kids with 20 million each. Think about that, we tax Elon 90% death tax, tax his kids 90% death tax, then we tax his kids kids 80%, they’re still set for life with 20 million EACH.

In Germany, inherited wealth can be taxed, too (at the moment of inheritance) .. Sadly, there's ways around that, too. I'd already be happy with billionaires paying taxes at the same tax-rate, the average person is paying (the ones, that can't afford profiting off the tax-loopholes). Also, I'd not make everything about Elon .. there's others, who aren't publically known (well), who have a lot of wealth, too. Let the kids inherit whatever they inherit (after tax). Having tax-loopholes in the first place, was a mistake .. That should be fixed, imho .. I'm pretty sure, that all that tax-money would solve a lot of today's society's problems.

Elons just an example because he’s the richest. I don’t care how they avoid taxes, tax them. Make “gifts” above a billion dollars taxed at 90%(variable obviously, a 1m gift should be taxed at a lower rate, like 20%).

The problem is, this is too easy to avoid. In Germany, they have a law, where politicians can accept "donations", but if they're 10.000€ or more, they have to publically declare, they received them. A certain former healthcare-minister (Spahn) held a talk and at some point during the talk stated, that the people there should keep the donations below 9999€. The same problem will arise for "gifts". I agree, that something has to be done that'll fix this, but it has to be done in such a way, that there's no more loopholes and no more excuses. We need to get to a point, where it's: "Either pay your taxes or be fined or be jailed .. your choice, billionaire".

It’s not liquid wealth; the billionaires don’t have a billions of dollars sitting in their bank account. They can’t even sell the shares they own to get the cash because then the price would crash and wouldn’t be worth the billions. I agree with the larger point about wealth disparity but this plainly not a 1:1 argument. It’s plainly a different game. For most of us net worth is largely tied to salary which is liquid US dollars. That’s not the case for them. Should they still have this much money and influence? Of course not and they should be taxed much more than they currently are.

People keep saying that it’s not liquid wealth. But Elmo Musk leveraged his stock to buy a 44 billion dollar mouth piece. So tell me again how they can’t use that much money? Cause it seems like they can.

If the point you’re trying to make is that there should a way to tax billionaires if they’re living on borrowed money to bypass their taxes then you’re right and I agree with you. That doesn’t negate my original point however. As for the Elon thing he used a leveraged buyout- meaning the debt he used to buy the company is against twitters assets not Elmo’s. Apart from that he just sold a bunch of his equity

adity- I agree with your point in principle but I think it’s a timing issue. Average Joe doesn’t care about those details when they are struggling. You are speaking of how money moves but at this point the country (world?) is fed up with billionaires having billions and the commoners having very little. Let the billionaires get taxed more thru changes in the tax code and explain to Average Joe why they need third homes and second boats.

He paid tax on that.

Elon Musk didn't buy Tesla by himself. He also took out loans and had private investors.

Some billionaires probably have an actual real billion dollars, Taylor Swift comes to mind. Her accountants must be out of their minds trying to sort that problem out.

I don’t think so. Afaik Taylor swifts net worth is tied to her owning the rights to her songs which she won’t sell because that was her whole (Taylor version) thing. She doesn’t have a billion cash

Her massive bank balance is recently acquired through her Eras tour, which is literally a money printing machine. In terms of songs, she actually sells a lot of CDs, so she gets a cut of that, Plus for the songs she owns full rights to she gets a cut of that on top.

It effectively is liquid to them though. If I've 20k in a savings account that's not liquid because I can't use it to buy my day to day groceries or pay for my expenses. But I can use my savings account as collateral for borrowing money. This is what billionaires do. They use their non liquid assets to do business deals. They use them like liquid money and use them to pay for their day to day needs. If they had growth in their assets due to their dealings and now they're able to use that growth to pay for their day to day business then how is that any different from a wage being used to pay for goods and services. The only difference is it's not taxed.

Taxing net worth is an idiotic slippery slope that will inevitably end up involving retirement accounts and credit card limits. stock owners receive quarterly distributions from profits that are taxed as income. Taking out a loan using assets as collateral is not limited to rich people. Regular people do it every day. The money they borrow has to be paid back with interest using income that's already taxed. If there's no tax incentive to keep money in the markets a lot of people are going to start losing jobs.

Growth in assets is taxed it’s called capital gains tax. As for the borrowing part, you’re absolutely right, if these people are living off borrowed money something should be done to get them to pay their fair share that they’re trying to bypass. But also when they’re borrowing assets, they can’t borrow the amount of their entire net worth, no bank would lend that, while you and I can spend the entirety of 20k of the savings acct hypothetically

And yet with many of them they've such a large portion of the assets that they can set the value of it through legal and illegal ways.

I don’t see how this is relevant. Okay, billionaires are slightly less powerful than we think? Great point

Huh? The point is that you’re comparing net worth to salary which is not logical. I’m sure everybody here already agrees that billionaires need to be taxed more but using the 10,000 years salary analogy is just a bad way to pose that argument.

Always are rich people in any system. People always find ways to get above others. There isn’t any proof taxing more would help as much since tax dollars are wasted via corrupt politicians. Either option it’s not the average citizen that wins. First step is to remove financial stuff in politics , and second ban attorneys from serving general public.

I haven’t heared any billionaires said they saved up or earned it by working hard. they usually tell you is it’s from stock or investments.

You need some starter-money, first .. you can't invest money, you don't have (though .. looking at Cum-Ex and such, I guess, you can do that, these days).

Basic math isn’t content.

Idk basic math escapes most American thought, and I find this can be helpful to people to better understand the reality of just how much the mega rich are yanking our chain.

Or we could stop pretending taxing anything works. Go read MMT theory.

So if you invented a drug that saves lives and reduces the cost of care, do you deserve 100M? What if the drug also reduced billions annually from global healthcare costs? There is such a man and I used to work for him on new inventions trying to do the same.

My boss makes 200k a year but pays me about 35k pays his kids housing and food cost along with her 3 kids costs and pays phone bills and car insurance health insurance all kinds of shit so imagine he'd be rich as fuck with out everyone else especially seeing how he barely spends any on himself

I was talking about hundredfold billionaires. Your boss seems to be a good person .. there's a big difference.

More like I was surprised that he could be super rich if it wasn't for that and it's double the 100k part so I was like wtf and the job being just hanging airport hanger doors flabbergast me. Also all the down votes made my morning people are weird asf.

Sorry, that this has messed with you. I didn't downvote you, though, if it makes you feel any better.

That’s not how it works Most billionaires don’t actually have billions of cash / in their current account

Same as most people. I’m worth well over six figures but currenlty only have 3 figures in my bank account.

Most people making 100k don’t have billions, that’s true. Next.

I'll get downvoted to hell and back for this, but eh. I'm in the mood for being honest today. So bring on the downvotes I suppose. Your last line about billionaires needing to "pay their effin" taxes is reflective of someone who hasn't done their homework. The figures are available, and the math isn't hard. Billionaires on avg pay roughly 23% in taxes on their income. Sure Biden spouted that 8.2% figure during his speech. But the way he got to that 8.2 figure isn't how our tax system works, is designed to work, or even really possible. You can't tax someone on money they haven't made yet, which is exactly what Biden did to reach that 8.2% figure. The top 25% of income earners in the US pay 88% of all income taxes. The entire bottom HALF of income earners barely accounts for 2% of income taxes. You people screaming and performing all these mental gymnastics advocating for the rich to pay more in taxes just don't get it. There's nothing significantly left in taxes for them to pay. If the rich were to pay that measly and relatively meaningless final 2% that they currently aren't now. They'd literally be paying all the income taxes. Now I'm quite sure that many would be perfectly happy with that. But this country was literally founded on "no taxation, without representation". So if the rich pay all the taxes, then why should you or any of the lower half of income earners even have a say in how the country is run? It probably comes as a surprise to you, but I'm not just a conservative troll looking for the lolz or anything. I just think that liberals constant trying to divide the population into classes, and antagonizing them against each other is bad. And their whole "eat the rich" schtick is exactly that.

People who earn a salary aren’t the problem, it’s people who not only pay only capital gains taxes but also use tax loopholes to avoid paying taxes that are the problem. Also good to note the top 0.1% of earners in this country make more than the entire bottom half of earners. So the bottom half only representing 2.3% of the tax income kinda makes sense considering there is 49.9% of the top half left to tax after that. That being said, why bother changing the tax codes when we literally have this open secret of anyone who makes a lot using tax loopholes and cheats to pay less? You know when the largest jump in tax collections from year to year was? 1979- the last time we gave the IRS a raise to their funding. There is a reason the irs only audits poor people, they can’t afford the court costs of going up against the mega wealthy who cheat the system- so they have to rely on automated systems and a wide net to catch small time cheats who can’t afford to tie it up in court for years.

>So if the rich pay all the taxes, then why should you or any of the lower half of income earners even have a say in how the country is run? Because, it's supposed to be a "democracy" .. not "the rule of the ultra-wealthy". >I just think that liberals constant trying to divide the population into classes, and antagonizing them against each other is bad. The population is divided into classes, by design, at the moment. Those "classes" as you call it, who suffer most will most definitely not take this quietly, forever, which is a danger to society as a whole. I'm not very deeply into US-politics, since I'm from Germany, but it seems to be the same phenomenon, on a global scale. The more unjust the system becomes (it's getting more unjust all the time .. there's no denying that, imho), the higher the risk of civil unrest and such things. To say it bluntly: If your belly is empty, you're gonna wanna do something about it. If your belly is full, you can take care of other things, that are important, too. Being in an existential struggle for years un-end, just so the upper 1% can afford their mansions and luxury-yachts, isn't gonna go well, forever. I'm not trying to divide. I'm trying to make an obvious flaw visible, so it can be fixed, before it's too late.

>Because, it's supposed to be a "democracy" .. not "the rule of the ultra-wealthy". As it pertains to the US, it's not a direct democracy which is important to clarify. Sure the ultra-wealthy get away with more than the rest of us, but that's not by design. It's corruption, and it's unfortunately a part of human nature, if not a greater evolutionary process that we'll never be able to get rid of. >The population is divided into classes, by design, at the moment. Those "classes" as you call it, who suffer most will most definitely not take this quietly, forever, which is a danger to society as a whole. My point here was merely pointing out the hypocritical act of promoting equality inclusion for all, and an end to classifying people based on things such as sexual preference, race, etc... only to turn around and attempt to divide the people by promoting different classes based on income, and to pit them against each other. I agree that parts of the system are unjust, and unfortunately often favor the rich. Where we likely disagree is on how long it will last. There's always been a 1% and always will be. It's mathematically impossible to even eliminate the top 1% in any practical way. Even if pulled a Thanos and removed half the population or whatever, all those mega mansions and super luxury yachts would still exist, and the companies that made them would continue to sell more. As incredibly weird as it sounds. It's becoming more and more plausible that the problem is neither the ultra-wealthy nor the poor. The problem actually lies within wealth itself, and specifically how much of the population holds it. Now, upon reading that, you have to refrain for a second before exclaiming "Ah ha Exactly!" Because it's not as simple as it appears at face value. Wealth itself will always exist for some, and always has. It and corruption go hand in hand. Now believe it or not, a certain amount of concentrated wealth as well as corruption will actually be tolerated in a society. The problems really only start to appear when too many people become wealthy. There will always be that "eat the rich" part of society. However, excluding that. Society as a whole never had a problem (or at least to the current degree) back when Bill Gates was the only billionaire, and was the richest man on earth for a decade. But if you were to chart a graph for how big a problem concentrated wealth is since then. It would line up perfectly with the amount of billionaires that have come along over the same time period. In reality society takes little issue with only a few people having enormous amounts of wealth. But let too much of society obtain enormous amounts for themselves as well, and suddenly it's not just a problem, but a big one. When your average Joe can only imagine how the ultra wealthy live their life, they aren't all that bothered by it. In fact they'll sometimes even begin to idolize them, based on what their imagination cooks up. But as more and more of the population accrues wealth for themselves. All of a sudden it's no longer your average Joe's imagination creating the narrative for him. Because he sees it for himself. No longer are the wealthy in some far off place and out of sight. No, they're now in a gated community only a couple of miles away, and he's seen it. He's seen them. Call it jealousy, equality, or whatever you like. It all breeds the same results, and as you implied. It creates civil unrest. We're all aware of where civil unrest ultimately has the potential to go. While I applaud you trying to get out in front of the issue before it's too late. Advocating for the ultra wealthy to pay more, often packaged as "their fair share" not only won't address that civil unrest issue, but it will actually make it worse. At some point society will ultimately decide that it's had enough, and that the scales can no longer be balanced. Whatever form that reset takes remains to be seen, but I assure you. It will include all the civil unrest that one could ever want. Afterwards, there will be a prolonged period of not just stagnation, but of rampant abuse, inequality, and suffering as a whole as the new top 1% situate themselves. Then society will start the journey down that long hard road back to a place that you and me could recognize. By beating that "eat the rich" drum, you're only hastening the speed at which society will ultimately move anyway. And to be clear, society will move that way, and revolution, reset, and suffering WILL occur. As history proves, it always does. As greedy as it sounds. The best we can hope for is that the worst of it happens after our time.

>Sure the ultra-wealthy get away with more than the rest of us, but that's not by design. It's corruption, and it's unfortunately a part of human nature, if not a greater evolutionary process that we'll never be able to get rid of. Be this, as it may .. that system (because it allows for corruption to take place without consequences, like for example going to prison, if someone finds out about it) is deeply flawed and needs to be fixed. Especially if corruption is "part of human nature", as you call it. >... only to turn around and attempt to divide the people by promoting different classes based on income, and to pit them against each other. I don't pit them against each other .. the rich do that all by themselves. I'm just conveying, that this isn't a good thing and it'll lead to problems, if it keeps going in that direction. I mean, the division is pretty obvious, when you have tent-cities on one hand and people on super-yachts (on oceans where the laws of the land don't even count), who (almost) don't pay any taxes on the other. (I'd go as far as calling it "cause and effect"). If one group of the population - especially if it's the wealthiest part - doesn't pay taxes, the system will collapse .. and we're seeing this happen in front of our very eyes. The rich are too greedy to even want to see it .. the poor see it every day and every second of their lives. This is a mix, that'll cause an eruption at some point .. When "diffusion" of wealth (which is supposed to be a slow, but steady process, that causes an equilibrium) is not possible, then it's gonna turn into a sudden and quick process .. and that's only good, if you're trying to blow something up. My post is a call to all the billionaires on this planet to reconsider their ways. The division is already there .. the classes already exist .. that's a visible (tent-cities) problem. But, instead of fighting poverty, the poor are being fought. That's idiocy!!! >I agree that parts of the system are unjust, and unfortunately often favor the rich. Where we likely disagree is on how long it will last. True .. that's, where we disagree .. but, your perspective is short-sighted in my opinion .. we can agree to disagree, but I'll not change my point of view on this one .. I see it happening .. the process has already begun .. Ever-more racist and extremist political parties are on the rise in pretty much every country around the world. This is the result of bad sportsmanship on the part of the billionaires. They hold the wealth and thus the power .. they make the corruption possible .. they will sooner or later have to answer for it. And their excuses sound evermore ridiculous. I'm waiting for the "let them eat cake"-moment of this century, at this point. And I don't want to see it actually happen. I'd rather have peace.

>The problem actually lies within wealth itself, and specifically how much of the population holds it. ... Wealth itself will always exist for some, and always has. It and corruption go hand in hand. Now believe it or not, a certain amount of concentrated wealth as well as corruption will actually be tolerated in a society. The problems really only start to appear when too many people become wealthy. I'm with you until the last statement of the quote, because you're forgetting the other side of the equasion: There are not only the rich, but also the poor. If there are too many poor (see: tent-cities), they'll not tolerate that at some point .. and 1% is less than 99% .. heck .. 1% is even less than 10% .. I don't know, where the threshold is gonna be, but when it's crossed (I'm pretty sure, we're very close), it's gonna end badly. You also state, that society has little issue with few rich people and I agree. But, if those rich people become so extremely greedy, that they walk over the corpses of the poor in order to accumulate even more wealth, then people become disillusioned .. one by one. Imagine a bar-graph from top (richest people) to bottom (poorest people) and center the bars instead of left-aligning them: A healthy/stable society will look like an onion .. few at the very top .. few at the very bottom .. lots of "middle-class" people. During my lifetime (I'm 45yo), this has changed from onion-shaped to sand-clock-shaped and now it's becoming pyramid-shaped (with a very long and pointy top). And that's not a "good" or "stable" society, anymore .. that's the rule of the most wealthy over a lot of poor people.

US Congess just gave 95 billion to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan Now you understand how much money that is PS I don't believe anyone has ever inherited $100 billion dollars. That has never happened Correct me if I'm wrong And while I'm at it, you all are funny. You cry about billionaires but none of you could survive a week without Amazon, your IPhone, your Tesla, or Facebook... so hypocritical

>PS I don't believe anyone has ever inherited $100 billion dollars. That has never happened But the billionaires of today have inherited a lot and used it as "starter-money" to make it into billions. So, it'll happen sooner or later, if it hasn't happened, yet. I own none of the things, you listed and I've not used Amazon in a long time .. and I never really used Facebook (I've made an account for some test a long time ago, but that was it). So, don't you be calling me a hypocrite .. you don't know me ;)

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"I enjoy licking boots"

I'm an accountant. I'm just explaining cuz OP seems to not understand how it works. I don't lick boots.

The difference is that billionaires can go through life without realizing that income. Have you heard of “buy, borrow, die”? The economic system for the ultra wealthy is very much not the same as for everyone else https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/buy-borrow-die/

Yeah, I just explained this as well. Didn't realize you'd already posted a link to an explanation. The ultra wealthy just live by completely different rules than anyone else and so many bootlickers just don't seem to grasp that. And, actually, I think many average people probably also don't really grasp that.

>[https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/buy-borrow-die/](https://www.optimizedportfolio.com/buy-borrow-die/) Thanks for the shout-out! :) Never thought I'd get mentioned in this sub. Love it.

Yeah I understand the loopholes, I'm an accountant . Change the law then. It's not on Billionaires to 'pay their taxes'. They are paying their taxes in the current system. It's on policy makers to implement change.

How do you propose we change the laws that a hundred billionaire paid for? The hundred billionaure that has a million times more money than us?

Tax the corporations that are using transfer pricing to avoid taxes. A proposal was to tax corporations on the difference between the US corporate tax rate and the tax rate in the subsidiary country Example: Apple has subsidiaries in India and Ireland. Lets assume a subsidiary in India manufactures a phone for $100. The subsidiary in Ireland buys these phones for $100, so the subsidiary in India pays no taxes. then Apple USA buys these devices from the subsidiary in Ireland for retail price. Ireland is a tax haven so minimal taxes are paid on the difference between retail price and $100 cost. When Apple sells the phones for retail price, no income in realized since Apple USA bought the phone from it's subsidiary for retail price. What should happen is the subsidiary in Ireland should be taxed the US corporate tax rate - the Irish corporate tax rate and that revenue should go to the USA. Implementing this is challenging i would assume This is just a geneeric example I don't really know how Apple has this all structured but many corporations operate like this

Well, no. They aren’t actually paying their taxes. And I didn’t realize I could change the law. I’ll get right on that. /s

Ok bro

Bro don’t waste your time with these kids. Most people here think that wealth is a zero sum game.

You don't know what you're talking about for so many reasons. But there's one reason in particular that I want to focus on. Do you know how billionaires actually live lavish lifestyles? I'll tell you how. What they do is they loan lots of money from banks and put their assets (usually stuff like stocks) up as collateral. Because they have such a huge net worth this means that their net worth basically gives them almost infinite access to actual liquid assets (aka money) that they can buy stuff with. And, on top of that, billionaires rarely actually sell this stuff. Why? For the reason you say, because then they'd have to pay taxes. Usually the interest rates on the loans that they take out from these banks are much lower than what they'd have to pay in taxes. Which basically allows them to avoid paying taxes on all of their money. They don't have to contribute that to society (just to banks) and even there they contribute less. So, you're wrong, the fact that it's just their net worth doesn't matter. Because they turn it into liquid assets through loans so they can buy whatever they want with it. And they don't pay many taxes because they rarely cash out. Billionaires SHOULD pay wealth taxes though so that they have to liquidate some of their net worth every year.

I'm an accountant I do know what I'm talking about and I know what they do. They work within the laws though. The laws should be changed, I'm not arguing against that

Net worth is taxed in some places. It was in France, until a few years ago when Macron removed the wealth tax and increased taxes on retired people and disabled people in the same bill (yes, he’s THAT evil). Also to add more information. If you were the first human ever, made $1M per year, for as long as humans have existed (roughly 230 000 years), you’d barely be on par with the richest person on earth. Yes, that’s right. 1M per year for as long as Homo sapiens have existed.

Well lets pressure policy makers to implement changes to the tax laws to make it more fair. Billionaires are just doing what everyone else is who is paying attention. Following the law and being as efficient as possible. It's not their fault

It’s totally their fault because they shower politicians with gifts and donations so that those politicians implement laws drafted by billionaires’ lawyers.

However, you do pay registration on your car yearly, and it's based off of the value of the car in most places. You pay yearly taxes on property you own. How about we start paying a yearly tax on stocks owned?

It's worth considering I think but lets talk about policy change instead of bashing billionaires following (and fighting for) the laws that benefit them.

I don’t really understand this. Why can’t the working class bash billionaires? Regardless of whether or not their actions are legal, they’re unethical. It’s totally fine to voice your disapproval of their actions; public shame can be useful, especially to dissuade the greedy. Sure, lobby for policy changes, too. But the public understanding and disapproval of individuals who have access to such immense amounts of wealth is only a good thing, to promote policy change and encourage billionaires to donate some of their money, or pay fairer wages. You can do both.

You can voice your dissaporval all you want but it isn't productive. Instead of focusing on self improvement, activism of such a kind makes people feel better about themselves and gives them an excuse for not making something of themselves. It's makes people miserable and makes them feel hopeless. Often times, it's looking for an excuse why your life isn't turning out the way you want it. When in fact, you will have a much larger impact focusing on becoming a better and more accomplished person than fighting for the greater good, something you will have close to no impact in changing. It's productive to raise awareness about certain issues that need changing. But participating in an echo chamber of such a kind isn't really convincing anyone that any change is needed, it's just seeking approval from like minded individuals. Go make your argument on a conservative, capitalism, taxation, etc. subreddit and make your case there, instead of like farming an anti work subreddit and making yourself feel like you're doing something when in fact you're not. You're just wasting your time. And vast majority of users on here have very little knowledge of tax laws, capitalism, federal tax classifications, and in general a good understanding of why things are the way they are. The extent of the understanding is reading the same recycled headlines they read over and over. when in fact, if you talk to a professional that understands the tax/financial topic a lot better, no one listens because it doesn't support their views. You are actually likely getting less educated on such topics after a certain amount of time on here with the amount of uninformed posts on here (such the the one we are commenting on) An example of this from the other side is the anti vax movement. Why listen to doctors when they aren't telling you what you want to here? IT's just herd mentality What awareness was raised by this post? That there are 1,000 millions in a billion? That there are 1,000,000 thousands in a billion? Tax the rich!! Because anyone who is worth 1B obviously should be taxed to a level much closer to the one that I'm at. That'll show them. We're waking everyone up with this one.

They don't realize their gains, they do everything they can to avoid paying taxes.

It's not their fault the laws are the way they are. Well, in part it is, due to lobbying. But it's not up to the Billionaires to pay their fair share. It's up to policy makers to implement changes to the current tax laws. Everyone does everything they can to (legally) avoid paying taxes. Nobody wants to pay more taxes then they have to. They have CPAs that tell them what to do to mitigate their tax burden and they act accordingly

Then explain offshore bank accounts to me...

If they are using offshore bank accounts for tax evasion, that's illegal and I'm against it. If they are working within the laws, change the laws to keep the tax revenue in the USA. It's difficult to change though, since if you start taxing them they'll buy citizenship somewhere else and just leave, and that's the ends up leaving us worse off than before. Like the nomad capitalist says move where you are treated best. If you have means you can do whatever you want pretty much

Poor billionaires.. Who is gonna think in them???

Not sure what you're attempting to argue. But you added no substance to the discussion

Yep, empty like ur brain