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129 points

Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires

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83 points

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.

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-4 points
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The problem is that this wealth is ownership in companies they made. If you start a company and it becomes too successful, Is it right that we really just forcefully take that ownership away from you? Who wants to start or keep a company in a country that takes away your company from you if it’s too successful?

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22 points

“I won’t start a company because it may be worth over a billion one day and that would only leave me with hundreds of millions of dollars. That doesn’t seem worthwhile,” thought no one ever in your hypothetical.

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11 points

Yes, I’m sure if Jeff Bezos were worth 10 billion dollars less he would have just said forget it I’ll flip burgers instead. I don’t think you need to rip their company from them, you just need to tax them.

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8 points

True. But generally I think giant companies cause more systemic problems than they solve. So maybe we don’t really need them.

After we die back to a manageable level from climate change we should try to remember that and prohibit it happening again.

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4 points

All these people already sell the stock of their own companies to diversify their holdings or to buy a yacht, island or Twitter.

Selling stock on the market to pay the tax man is no different.

They still keep a billion dollars worth of stock, so its not like they end up poor.

And the government can “forcefully” take a third of a working mans income, which is way worse than taxing wealth. Go cry me a river.

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5 points

If the company becomes too successful, maybe there’s not just my effort that went into achieving that.

Somehow “you got paid, fuck off” is acceptable, but “you reaped the benefits, fuck off” is not.

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2 points

There are loopholes that can be closed, but won’t because the majority of American politicians are also rich assholes. I do think most of the ideas that get bandied out are dumb as sin, however.

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4 points

It’s actually taxes less if it’s earned from investments

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27 points

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.

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10 points
Removed by mod
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10 points

I’m cool with numbers past a billion being asymptotically possible. Let the money-addicts keep chasing N+1 dollars, if each +1 puts ten times more money into public funding.

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2 points

At a billion you get a small plaque that says ‘yay you won capitalism’, they name a park bench after you and you replay from scratch.

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