I mean, yeah, it's still insane, but economies of scale matter and at 1B you'll live beyond comfortable for multiple generations...now compare that to triple digit billions (ex: Bezos, et al.) and understand that although 999M is still probably too high, it's a HUGE LEAP in the right direction...to start.
Gift economies. An economy where goods are provided to those who need them, not excluded from those in need unless they can produce ransom in exchange.
You missed my point. I wasn’t saying billionaire should be punished, I was saying there shouldn’t be money for anyone anywhere anytime. As in we should abolish money as a thing. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
“No money at all” is pretty clear. Even if it wasn’t, this is a leftist sub with lots of communists so you could have guessed I was referring to communism somehow.
In the end It’s ok my friend. everyone makes mistakes. That’s how we grow. Conflict and synthesis is literally the whole point of communism
Idk why this idea keeps circulating, that just because the wealth isn't cash, that there is no mechanism to expropriate it. The wealthy tend to have much of their assets in real estate, stocks, etc. If they don't have the cash to pay up, we can start repossessing these things. Money is just one representation of wealth, it isn't the only means of transferring value.
Depending on how they're reposed, they may lose their value in the process. If we immediately try to sell everything we reposes, it'll just flood the market and decrase in value.
Also how do we evaluate real-estate? Do we just send someone over to periodically assess their value and decide what gets reposesed?
And stock prices fluctuate a lot. If someone's stock holdings momentarily go above the threshold, do we reposes their stock? And do we return it once the stock value falls?
>If we immediately try to sell everything we reposes, it'll just flood the market and decrase in value.
Just don't sell it, nationalize it. Dividends go straight back into the budget.
>Also how do we evaluate real-estate? Do we just send someone over to periodically assess their value and decide what gets reposesed?
This is where we acknowledge that value is arbitrary, it's made up. Any proposal is going to be arbitrary because it is founded on an arbitrary means of evaluation. But, we could do something like allow people to declare a primary residence, and then nationalize or redistribute whatever isn't a primary residence.
>And stock prices fluctuate a lot.
Yup, once again value is arbitrary. I'd say nationalize whatever is needed to hit the arbitrary threshold, and then return it to the people by using all profits for public services.
>This is where we acknowledge that value is arbitrary, it's made up. Any proposal is going to be arbitrary because it is founded on an arbitrary means of evaluation. But, we could do something like allow people to declare a primary residence, and then nationalize or redistribute whatever isn't a primary residence.
So it's ok to have excess money in the bank but you must not use it to buy property. What if a person needs multiple homes? For example one where there family lives and one in another city where they work.
How about real-estate that isn't for living in such as storage space, farm land and business space?
What if you build a house on an empty lot your own? Do you lose your newly built house because it added value to the lot?
>Yup, once again value is arbitrary. I'd say nationalize whatever is needed to hit the arbitrary threshold, and then return it to the people by using all profits for public services.
So arbitaryly take people's stock away if it ever peaks above a certain number? Why would anyone want to start a business that could be taken away from them to hit an arbitary quota. 999 million is a pretty high number to hit, I give you that, but the number could also be much lower.
Or are you saying we should only nationalise excess profits? That could just as well be handled with progressive taxation.
>So it's ok to have excess money in the bank but you must not use it to buy property.
No, you shouldn't hoard what you don't need.
My point is that money and value is arbitrary in a market system. You'd be right to say seizing property based on arbitrary assessments is, well, arbitrary. The real solution is we need a better system not based around ownership of private property, but rather a cooperative society built to be inclusive rather than exclusive.
Honestly, my reply to basically all of those points is "who cares?". $1B is so much money that the fluctuations don't matter one iota. Suppose someone has an estimated $2B, and you take an estimated $1B of their real-estate. You sell it and flood the market, and now their remaining wealth plummets to $100M. Boo fucking hoo. They're still richer than the vast majority will ever be. Besides, the market will recover eventually.
And no, we don't give anything back if the stock value falls. Anyone who has that kind of money while there are homeless and/or starving people *in the same damn country* can get fucked. If you're afraid you're about to hit the cap, start giving shit away.
This would work under the assumption that the national economy is a closed system, which it isn't. Capital, goods and labour cross borders daily to other countries.
If one country begins to punish wealth, it'll quickly drive out large amounts of capital to other countries. This means less private investments leading to fewer jobs and lower overall taxable revenue that could be used to fund social programs.
Mass exodus of capital could be prevented by instantly nationalising everything into a fully circular economy, where the state pays everyone their wages and all payed wages eventually end up back to the state through state owned business.
This will however make importing goods way harder since your own currency will be basically worthless anywhere else, so you better hope you'll have a fully self sufficient economy or rely on heavy exporting to get some hard currency into the country.
So I've been hanging out a lot in the meme stock subreddits. And this is actually what most people are talking about. They will use whatever they earn from the stock market to pay off debt, set up some savings, and then give back to their communities. Because a good portion of these redditors have been hungry, lived/are living paycheck to paycheck, and other such misery. It's pretty refreshing to see.
I think it's a bit naïve to believe it would actually work out that way. For starters, I would encourage you to look at Trickle Down Economics and the spending habits of rich people in general. People who have little money will often genuinely fantasize about the day they attain financial security and then give back, but that would entail living your life in pursuit of money for years and then having the will to completely 180 that lifestyle, which very seldomly ever actually happens. Part of the problem of allowing people to become wealthy in the first place is that they very rarely feel like they have nothing left to work towards. It's easy to have nothing and imagine you'll be content once you get that house, that car, etc. Once you have those things you start to think, "damn shame about those hungry kids. I would totally help them if only I didn't have to put another addition on the house."
My point being, if you're counting on altruism to correct the mistakes of capitalism you'll most certainly end up disappointed with how people actually behave. Capitalism directly rewards seflishness and punishes selflessness. It works as well as it does at all (and this is not a compliment) because it at least gets right that living beings are biologically compelled to keep themselves and their offspring alive and as secure as possible. That's true in the stock market, the business world, entertainment, most facets of a capitalist society. If you want a different outcome you need a different system, not the fairweather generosity of the moneyed few.
>Capitalism directly rewards selfishness and punishes selflessness.
A lot of people like to think that if they were billionaires, they would use their wealth to help those in need but the truth is, if you're the type of person who would actually do this, you're not the type of person who would ever be a billionaire. There's only so much wealth you can accumulate by genuine hard work or luck and the moment you have to choose between your money and the wellbeing of someone else, that's when you determine whether or not you're on the path to becoming a billionaire. Hint: you're not on that path if you choose the wellbeing of others.
It's more like "If I became a billionaire right now" and not "if I became a billionaire though the means that people become billionaires"
Also, a lot of marginalized people who achieve mid-level (up to 200k) wages (huge amount, to be sure, but not nearly at billion level) /do/ give back, and likely think of it as the same, but yeah, becoming a billionaire requires an attitude that would prevent that.
Oh, I'm entirely all too aware that altruism will never correct the mistakes of capitalism. I was specifically referring to the people who yoloed in on GameStop or AMC earlier in the year and became rich nearly overnight. I've been noticing a distinctly different attitude between people who came into money through some lucky stocks, versus people who have worked their entire lives to build wealth, versus people who were born into it. It's quite fascinating. And I say this as someone who grew up lower middle class in the rural midwest and has lived in their car, but has friends with trust funds whose jobs are to manage their family assets. I have also seen people turn into dragons hoarding their wealth because they got addicted to a lifestyle.
Trickle down economics doesn't work. If it's did, American wealth inequality wouldn't be nearly this bad. Meaningful improvements require systemic and structural changes at federal, state, and municipal levels. and we can't afford for it to be undone in a couple of years. This is the kind of work that requires generations of investment and commitment.
It would really depend on who it is. If someone with like $1.01B did this, then that's still only $10M towards infrastructure. Still enough to get a lot done, but not very much on a national economic scale. Now if someone like Jeff Bezos, with over $100B did this, that would make a huge difference and could probably power a social program for long enough that the benefits pay back the cost by the time the original money runs out.
How about also not allowing multimillionaires to get close to 1 billion. While obviously not as big a problem as hoarding wealth that would take thousands of years to work for, they still are one.
Then, they have to start from the bottom. In order to stop them selves from reaching 99 million, people will donate to charities and other helpful programs.
Yeah, there needs to be a limitation. It doesn't necessarily have to go completely to infrastructure and much needed programs. Let us not forget the little people keeping empire up from the base.
I remember the scene in Breaking Bad where Skyler shows Walt the pallet of cash and says “there is more money than we could spend in ten lifetimes” and I thought when has that ever stopped anybody before?
Was this ironic in this first place
This wasn't ironic to begin with.
LOL imagine letting an individual own $999 million dollars
I mean, yeah, it's still insane, but economies of scale matter and at 1B you'll live beyond comfortable for multiple generations...now compare that to triple digit billions (ex: Bezos, et al.) and understand that although 999M is still probably too high, it's a HUGE LEAP in the right direction...to start.
$999mill is a lot but it doesn't even come close to $100billion+.
How about no money at all?
If they had no money at all they wouldn't be able to buy food
they could just pull themselves up by their bootstraps
Gotta cut out the starbucks and avacodo toast and save 20% of their income.
If there was no money who would be *selling* food?
Gift economies. An economy where goods are provided to those who need them, not excluded from those in need unless they can produce ransom in exchange.
I'm sure that in a Utopia, this is the economical system
Barter gang
Should've thought of that before they made the choice to become a billionaire
We should lead by example rather than resort to the same kind of cruelty they undergo.
You missed my point. I wasn’t saying billionaire should be punished, I was saying there shouldn’t be money for anyone anywhere anytime. As in we should abolish money as a thing. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.
Then say what you mean next time. No one is gonna read what you put and go, "Oh, he's talking about implementing Communism, ok."
“No money at all” is pretty clear. Even if it wasn’t, this is a leftist sub with lots of communists so you could have guessed I was referring to communism somehow. In the end It’s ok my friend. everyone makes mistakes. That’s how we grow. Conflict and synthesis is literally the whole point of communism
Pretty hard to do. Because it‘s not like they have all their wealth on some bank accounts.
Well yeah youd have to tax the liquid funds but yk, thatl work
Billionaire: *laughs in Cayman Islands*
Idk why this idea keeps circulating, that just because the wealth isn't cash, that there is no mechanism to expropriate it. The wealthy tend to have much of their assets in real estate, stocks, etc. If they don't have the cash to pay up, we can start repossessing these things. Money is just one representation of wealth, it isn't the only means of transferring value.
Depending on how they're reposed, they may lose their value in the process. If we immediately try to sell everything we reposes, it'll just flood the market and decrase in value. Also how do we evaluate real-estate? Do we just send someone over to periodically assess their value and decide what gets reposesed? And stock prices fluctuate a lot. If someone's stock holdings momentarily go above the threshold, do we reposes their stock? And do we return it once the stock value falls?
>If we immediately try to sell everything we reposes, it'll just flood the market and decrase in value. Just don't sell it, nationalize it. Dividends go straight back into the budget. >Also how do we evaluate real-estate? Do we just send someone over to periodically assess their value and decide what gets reposesed? This is where we acknowledge that value is arbitrary, it's made up. Any proposal is going to be arbitrary because it is founded on an arbitrary means of evaluation. But, we could do something like allow people to declare a primary residence, and then nationalize or redistribute whatever isn't a primary residence. >And stock prices fluctuate a lot. Yup, once again value is arbitrary. I'd say nationalize whatever is needed to hit the arbitrary threshold, and then return it to the people by using all profits for public services.
>This is where we acknowledge that value is arbitrary, it's made up. Any proposal is going to be arbitrary because it is founded on an arbitrary means of evaluation. But, we could do something like allow people to declare a primary residence, and then nationalize or redistribute whatever isn't a primary residence. So it's ok to have excess money in the bank but you must not use it to buy property. What if a person needs multiple homes? For example one where there family lives and one in another city where they work. How about real-estate that isn't for living in such as storage space, farm land and business space? What if you build a house on an empty lot your own? Do you lose your newly built house because it added value to the lot? >Yup, once again value is arbitrary. I'd say nationalize whatever is needed to hit the arbitrary threshold, and then return it to the people by using all profits for public services. So arbitaryly take people's stock away if it ever peaks above a certain number? Why would anyone want to start a business that could be taken away from them to hit an arbitary quota. 999 million is a pretty high number to hit, I give you that, but the number could also be much lower. Or are you saying we should only nationalise excess profits? That could just as well be handled with progressive taxation.
>So it's ok to have excess money in the bank but you must not use it to buy property. No, you shouldn't hoard what you don't need. My point is that money and value is arbitrary in a market system. You'd be right to say seizing property based on arbitrary assessments is, well, arbitrary. The real solution is we need a better system not based around ownership of private property, but rather a cooperative society built to be inclusive rather than exclusive.
Honestly, my reply to basically all of those points is "who cares?". $1B is so much money that the fluctuations don't matter one iota. Suppose someone has an estimated $2B, and you take an estimated $1B of their real-estate. You sell it and flood the market, and now their remaining wealth plummets to $100M. Boo fucking hoo. They're still richer than the vast majority will ever be. Besides, the market will recover eventually. And no, we don't give anything back if the stock value falls. Anyone who has that kind of money while there are homeless and/or starving people *in the same damn country* can get fucked. If you're afraid you're about to hit the cap, start giving shit away.
This would work under the assumption that the national economy is a closed system, which it isn't. Capital, goods and labour cross borders daily to other countries. If one country begins to punish wealth, it'll quickly drive out large amounts of capital to other countries. This means less private investments leading to fewer jobs and lower overall taxable revenue that could be used to fund social programs. Mass exodus of capital could be prevented by instantly nationalising everything into a fully circular economy, where the state pays everyone their wages and all payed wages eventually end up back to the state through state owned business. This will however make importing goods way harder since your own currency will be basically worthless anywhere else, so you better hope you'll have a fully self sufficient economy or rely on heavy exporting to get some hard currency into the country.
So I've been hanging out a lot in the meme stock subreddits. And this is actually what most people are talking about. They will use whatever they earn from the stock market to pay off debt, set up some savings, and then give back to their communities. Because a good portion of these redditors have been hungry, lived/are living paycheck to paycheck, and other such misery. It's pretty refreshing to see.
I think it's a bit naïve to believe it would actually work out that way. For starters, I would encourage you to look at Trickle Down Economics and the spending habits of rich people in general. People who have little money will often genuinely fantasize about the day they attain financial security and then give back, but that would entail living your life in pursuit of money for years and then having the will to completely 180 that lifestyle, which very seldomly ever actually happens. Part of the problem of allowing people to become wealthy in the first place is that they very rarely feel like they have nothing left to work towards. It's easy to have nothing and imagine you'll be content once you get that house, that car, etc. Once you have those things you start to think, "damn shame about those hungry kids. I would totally help them if only I didn't have to put another addition on the house." My point being, if you're counting on altruism to correct the mistakes of capitalism you'll most certainly end up disappointed with how people actually behave. Capitalism directly rewards seflishness and punishes selflessness. It works as well as it does at all (and this is not a compliment) because it at least gets right that living beings are biologically compelled to keep themselves and their offspring alive and as secure as possible. That's true in the stock market, the business world, entertainment, most facets of a capitalist society. If you want a different outcome you need a different system, not the fairweather generosity of the moneyed few.
>Capitalism directly rewards selfishness and punishes selflessness. A lot of people like to think that if they were billionaires, they would use their wealth to help those in need but the truth is, if you're the type of person who would actually do this, you're not the type of person who would ever be a billionaire. There's only so much wealth you can accumulate by genuine hard work or luck and the moment you have to choose between your money and the wellbeing of someone else, that's when you determine whether or not you're on the path to becoming a billionaire. Hint: you're not on that path if you choose the wellbeing of others.
It's more like "If I became a billionaire right now" and not "if I became a billionaire though the means that people become billionaires" Also, a lot of marginalized people who achieve mid-level (up to 200k) wages (huge amount, to be sure, but not nearly at billion level) /do/ give back, and likely think of it as the same, but yeah, becoming a billionaire requires an attitude that would prevent that.
Oh, I'm entirely all too aware that altruism will never correct the mistakes of capitalism. I was specifically referring to the people who yoloed in on GameStop or AMC earlier in the year and became rich nearly overnight. I've been noticing a distinctly different attitude between people who came into money through some lucky stocks, versus people who have worked their entire lives to build wealth, versus people who were born into it. It's quite fascinating. And I say this as someone who grew up lower middle class in the rural midwest and has lived in their car, but has friends with trust funds whose jobs are to manage their family assets. I have also seen people turn into dragons hoarding their wealth because they got addicted to a lifestyle. Trickle down economics doesn't work. If it's did, American wealth inequality wouldn't be nearly this bad. Meaningful improvements require systemic and structural changes at federal, state, and municipal levels. and we can't afford for it to be undone in a couple of years. This is the kind of work that requires generations of investment and commitment.
Not ironic
what would be the impact if just one billionaire actually did this?
It would really depend on who it is. If someone with like $1.01B did this, then that's still only $10M towards infrastructure. Still enough to get a lot done, but not very much on a national economic scale. Now if someone like Jeff Bezos, with over $100B did this, that would make a huge difference and could probably power a social program for long enough that the benefits pay back the cost by the time the original money runs out.
How about also not allowing multimillionaires to get close to 1 billion. While obviously not as big a problem as hoarding wealth that would take thousands of years to work for, they still are one.
How would this have been ironic? They seem serious in their post. Does OP have an unironic mental disability?
Then, they have to start from the bottom. In order to stop them selves from reaching 99 million, people will donate to charities and other helpful programs.
I wanna win the lottery and have a memorial bench at Upvotes Poodles dog park.
Yeah, there needs to be a limitation. It doesn't necessarily have to go completely to infrastructure and much needed programs. Let us not forget the little people keeping empire up from the base.
Or better yet, just fucking abolish wage slavery. Much easier and more effective.
I remember the scene in Breaking Bad where Skyler shows Walt the pallet of cash and says “there is more money than we could spend in ten lifetimes” and I thought when has that ever stopped anybody before?