I mean you could even take the bottom number and leave them with the top number and they could still live in unimaginable luxury forever. Or just take the lot because fuck em lol.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
2007 points (96.5% liked)
Lefty Memes
3772 readers
2627 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, upvoting good contributions and downvoting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such, as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries. That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry. The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals. Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.
load more comments
(43 replies)
If they are self-made millionaires/billionaires as they claim, take everything they have/own and tell them to start the quest again, no glitches, DLC, or saved progress.
load more comments
(23 replies)
Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires
It's really insane that we legally treat the tenth billion dollars at the same level as a working persons house or car.
Everything is legally just "property".
No, fuck that.
The law should protect the first million of every citizen with ferver. (and when we tackle wealth inequality, most people will have this level of wealth at the end of their working life. The fact that most currently don't is due to inequality. )
Up until 100 million, it should be taxed at a reasonable level. Because at some level, it's fair that people prefer watching Taylor Swift instead of me sing on a stage.
Above that it should be taxed heavily.
And above a billion, it should be just confiscated. As in, oopsie, our system malfunctioned, you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a whole lifetime of work, so we are taking it back.
you weren't supposed to end up with more wealth than what a thousand normal people would save up after a while lifetime of work
I actively try to cheat at every single-player game that I play. I still don't think I've accumulated a billion anything other than self-criticisms. Even that's questionable.
load more comments
(111 replies)
Sad day when "billionaires should pay taxes" is considered a far left position.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Do billionaires actually have billions in real money sitting around? I've always thought the billions were in stocks and couldn't be taxed until they cashed it out and they could technically lose everything if the stock price falls. That's really fucked up if true
Nobody keeps that amount of cash. Even below a million, most people have most of their wealth in either real estate (their own house) or financial securities (stocks, ETFs, bonds).
Yet, we all gotta pay property tax and capital gains.
The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds.
The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds. <
Isnt that then bigger problem than generally tax the rich?
Is there a difference?
Closing loopholes = taxing the rich
If the tax code lost all the loopholes, there probably would be no billionaires.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Wealth taxes are stupid. That said, nobody needs multiple hundreds of billions of dollars.
The solution is to have regulations and laws in place that prevent them getting this large in the first place. The fact that Amazon and Google own 90% of the internet is absolutely fucked.
I agree, no one should be able to hold such an obscene amount of wealth. Right now they do, though. How do you propose this be remedied?
load more comments
(2 replies)
Right, let's go back in time and fix it.
load more comments
(10 replies)
Yeah and maybe also cutting down on their non-profit organisations scheme to avoid taxes would be nice..
Wealth taxes actually work, that's why the rich attack them so vehemently.
load more comments
(7 replies)
Wealth tax should absolutely be a priority. In my state, MA, we voted in a "millionaires tax". One thing it will cover is state wide free school lunch.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Counterpoint: But they don't wanna pay taxes! They don't wannaaaaaaaaaaa.... why are you being so mean to the precious billionaires?
So there are irreconcilable issues on this issue and Congress is currently too busy trying to impeach Biden because his son had dick pics on his laptop.
load more comments
(4 replies)
I'd be willing to be taxed into oblivion if I knew it'd mean everyone else could lead full lives. And I make nothing.
Now imagine the good their excess wealth could do.
Fuck it, I'm willing to die if it came down to it to ensure the safety and prosperity of my countrymen. And I actually hate most of my countrymen.
If we ask and freely give such sacrifices from the working class, then asking the elite to stop hoarding gold like a dragon really shouldn't be a big deal.
I do respect Warren Buffet for being honest about it. It's up to us (the public) and the politicians who work for us to change the system to make it more fair.
There was also another billionaire who gave his money away and is no longer a billionaire. Mad respect for the guy, but he is a rare breed. We have to fix the system, not depend on charity.
Here's the basic idea of what I'd think is fair
You have a basic rate for income below the 20th percentile of all incomes
Multiply that by 1.5 for income between that and the 40th percentile
Multiply that by 1.25 for income between that and the 60th percentile
Multiply that by 1.125 for income between that and the 80th percentile
Multiply that by 1.0625 for income between that and the 95th percentile
Multiply that by 1.03125 for income between that and the 99th percentile
Multiply that by 1.015625 for all income above the 99th percentile, with the additional caveat that people who top this bracket even once cannot hold public office, donate to political campaigns, or hire lobbyists and lobbying firms for ten years following them topping out.
Imagine something similar for taxes on units of housing owned, dividends earned, and so on and so forth.
The idea being that the highest rate can't be adjusted without significantly reducing the tax burden of the poorest, basically erasing the only way conservatives have been able to balance the books whenever they try that shit.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Fuck the billionaires, tax them all by 100% of their income beyond 1 billion.
None of these guys has income anywhere near a billion in yearly income. They have stock and other assets that are worth billions but it is not income per se. If anything they go to extreme lengths to minimize their income.
load more comments
(6 replies)
3% is a fair share?
3% annually would be really huge, and probably shrink a lot of personal wealth out there. 3% one time is not as big of a deal, but it also doesn't raise so much revenue. The problem with a one time wealth tax is it incentivizes a future government to try a second one-time wealth tax, and then maybe a third. Soon enough it's not really a one-time tax any more.
In the United States there would also be a serious question on whether wealth tax was constitutional. The income tax was not raised until the 16th amendment explicitly gave Congress the power. It's possible the court will say there's no power to levy a national wealth tax absent an amendment.
load more comments
(1 replies)
When do we start burning things.
Uhhh is the ask to liquidate their assets? They will just sell a Picaso painting that they 'value' at 60% of their gross income.
Why do you guys fetishize these billionaires and not the giant hedge fund pools that make these guys rich in the first place?
load more comments
(1 replies)
As a temporarily embarrassed billionaire myself, I have reservations about this
As of this point every wealth tax that has been implemented ends up getting abandoned because if how inefficient they are. It's like rent control, it sounds great on paper bu historically never works out like it was planned.
load more comments
(1 replies)
view more: next ›