6 ms·

Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth if you then expect them to give it back to poor people? Why not limit the wealth in the first

Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth if you then expect them to give it back to poor people? Why not limit the wealth in the first place to ensure that everyone get its share? And do you really expect every millionaire / billionaire to do this? I'm afraid numbers are against you, that's why this appears in a newspaper: it's a rare event. Finally, why let a few rich guys decide where the money goes? I think it would be better if the money was given to the government, so that the people can decide where the money will be useful. I'm not sure all of this guy's money went to good causes (you can check his Wikipedia page).

foota 9y ago
Not that I think low taxation would be a net transfer to the poor, but many disagree with how the government spends tax money.
- mcny 9y ago
  > Not that I think low taxation would be a net transfer to the poor, but many disagree with how the government spends tax money. Pretty sure a worker at Mercedes or at VW will oppose free of cost public transit in Germany. I have met old people whose only income is their Social Security check advocate for "small government" that does away with all the safety nets in the US. Of course, we disagree with how governments spend money. If we all agreed, we wouldn't need a government. All in all, a charity cannot replace government safety net.
  - candu 9y ago
    The reverse is also (somewhat) true - this is at least part of the reason that governments effectively subsidize charitable donations, usually through some sort of tax exemption / deduction. It's a form of outsourcing aid.
- fsloth 9y ago
  "many disagree with how the government spends tax money" I suppose that's as good definition of democracy as any. The whole purpose of democratic governance is to deal with a political situation where most people disagree.
ckinnan 9y ago
Imagine if you'd limited Elon Musk's PayPal wealth with such confiscation taxes. We'd literally have no SpaceX or Tesla. Why should society put so much trust that politicians can allocate resources in a fair and economically beneficial manner?
- cdancette 9y ago
  But how many Elon Musks did we miss because some people didn't get the opportunity to try their ideas due to lack of ressources ?
  - lawlessone 9y ago
    Did musk really come up with all these ideas? He's the paypal guy, its rocket engineers doing all the rest.
    - wdn 9y ago
      He is the one who ask the right questions. Yes, there are smarter people than him but how many of those people have Vision he has plus the ability to execute it?
    - snovv_crash 9y ago
      He is also Chief Engineer. So yes, he is coming up with these ideas.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - tooltalk 9y ago
    and are you saying that gov't would be better at allocating resources to those with greater talents, and/or ideas that would succeed?
- notahacker 9y ago
  We'd certainly have no SpaceX if the government didn't have a large budget for subsidising space companies and paying for their services (which was an order of magnitude larger again during the Space Race when there wasn't any market for any kind of space launch). As far as I'm aware, Musk can and does pay tax on his earnings
eeZah7Ux 9y ago
> Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth It's sad to see many people cheering at "philanthropist" billionaires while thousands or millions of unknowns people in the world ran their business while letting go of the opportunity to become rich by paying fair wages, or not patenting drugs or technologies or not adopting other aggressive tactics like cornering markets & so on.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
aje403 9y ago
This isn't how human society works. If you don't want to live in a world where individuals with considerably more ambition and intelligence than you who have built industries and consolidated empires and have been rewarded for doing so, get off your computer built by people who accumulated wealth and funded by people with wealth built from other inventions built and funded by wealthy individuals before that and return to the jungle to lick flies and learn what actual poverty is before you get eaten by something. In human history, when people like you attempt to force wealthy individuals to hand over their wealth, the country stagnates, and the ambition and intelligence move to other nations that have better social systems built by ambitious men, and the nation gradually rises. Finally, why do you think "the people" or the government is an efficient instrument for ensuring charitable interests are met? That's really silly
- subroutine 9y ago
  Do me a big favor and don't use any publicly funded or or tax payer subsidized utility or service ever again. Don't drive on roads, don't take public transit, don't ever call the police, don't do business with anyone with a government job or government contract, don't use products or medicines that have resulted from basic research at public universities or NASA, don't use public schools or libraries, if you have a degree from a public institution give it back or pay the difference. Im sure with all your ambition and intelligence you will make due just fine though. The rest of us here aren't exactly looking for handouts; on average I'd say HNs do pretty well. However we can appreciate the many ways income tax helps support a functioning society.
  - aje403 9y ago
    Your point is not relevant to what I am arguing. High income and high estate taxes exist in the same world as wealth and I think they should be higher than they are now - the wealthy use considerably higher resources than the rest of society, and it requires extreme stability in society to even keep and maintain wealth which people in the US take for granted. The comment did not say anything of that nature, he's describing a hard cap on wealth.. what would that number be? 1 million? 5? - "limit[ing] the wealth in the first place to ensure that everyone get its share" - this is the ignorance of a mob with torches. Phones to make 911 calls from and cars for the police to drive over in were built by American entrepreneurs who became wealthy. It's part of the system. They did not take value out of society to become rich at it's expense - they were not perfect, but there was a significant net gain. If Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg is forced to liquidate 99% of their ownership in their company tomorrow because the guy above me thinks "I want more money, it's not fair he has more than me" to himself and builds a set of quasi-logical ideals around that and those ideas take root, then we begin declining as a society. The system always needs to be re-balanced and kept in check, but having a maximum bank account is not the answer.
bernardlunn 9y ago
Communism was tried and it did not work well. Capitalism is bad but communism is worse. Why let a few politicians decide where the money goes?
- jamespo 9y ago
  it's almost like there's a massive space between the extremes of the two
  - dfee 9y ago
    Perhaps we can study the Russian Oligarchy and learn more about that space.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- thisiszilff 9y ago
  Communism hasn't every really happened. What we've had are bizarre dictatorships veiled in communist language that tap the masses discontent as a source of support, but these haven't resulted in communist states. Communism, in theory, comes after capitalism gets bad, but you need capitalism to come before it, otherwise you get the Soviet Union and China which try to be communist states without being industrialized states first.
dec0dedab0de 9y ago
Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth if you then expect them to give it back to poor people? Why not limit the wealth in the first place to ensure that everyone get its share? My thoughts on this change quite often, but if we were in a situation where we had a hard limit on wealth I think there should still be the chance to accumulate it, and the people who did the best that year get an award for it. Just to keep the incentive there. It's not like someone who has over 100 million in the bank is putting in the effort just because they want more things.

foota 9y ago

Not that I think low taxation would be a net transfer to the poor, but many disagree with how the government spends tax money.

mcny 9y ago
> Not that I think low taxation would be a net transfer to the poor, but many disagree with how the government spends tax money. Pretty sure a worker at Mercedes or at VW will oppose free of cost public transit in Germany. I have met old people whose only income is their Social Security check advocate for "small government" that does away with all the safety nets in the US. Of course, we disagree with how governments spend money. If we all agreed, we wouldn't need a government. All in all, a charity cannot replace government safety net.
- candu 9y ago
  The reverse is also (somewhat) true - this is at least part of the reason that governments effectively subsidize charitable donations, usually through some sort of tax exemption / deduction. It's a form of outsourcing aid.
fsloth 9y ago
"many disagree with how the government spends tax money" I suppose that's as good definition of democracy as any. The whole purpose of democratic governance is to deal with a political situation where most people disagree.

ckinnan 9y ago

Imagine if you'd limited Elon Musk's PayPal wealth with such confiscation taxes. We'd literally have no SpaceX or Tesla. Why should society put so much trust that politicians can allocate resources in a fair and economically beneficial manner?

cdancette 9y ago
But how many Elon Musks did we miss because some people didn't get the opportunity to try their ideas due to lack of ressources ?
- lawlessone 9y ago
  Did musk really come up with all these ideas? He's the paypal guy, its rocket engineers doing all the rest.
  - wdn 9y ago
    He is the one who ask the right questions. Yes, there are smarter people than him but how many of those people have Vision he has plus the ability to execute it?
  - snovv_crash 9y ago
    He is also Chief Engineer. So yes, he is coming up with these ideas.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tooltalk 9y ago
  and are you saying that gov't would be better at allocating resources to those with greater talents, and/or ideas that would succeed?
notahacker 9y ago
We'd certainly have no SpaceX if the government didn't have a large budget for subsidising space companies and paying for their services (which was an order of magnitude larger again during the Space Race when there wasn't any market for any kind of space launch). As far as I'm aware, Musk can and does pay tax on his earnings

eeZah7Ux 9y ago

> Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth It's sad to see many people cheering at "philanthropist" billionaires while thousands or millions of unknowns people in the world ran their business while letting go of the opportunity to become rich by paying fair wages, or not patenting drugs or technologies or not adopting other aggressive tactics like cornering markets & so on.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

aje403 9y ago

This isn't how human society works. If you don't want to live in a world where individuals with considerably more ambition and intelligence than you who have built industries and consolidated empires and have been rewarded for doing so, get off your computer built by people who accumulated wealth and funded by people with wealth built from other inventions built and funded by wealthy individuals before that and return to the jungle to lick flies and learn what actual poverty is before you get eaten by something. In human history, when people like you attempt to force wealthy individuals to hand over their wealth, the country stagnates, and the ambition and intelligence move to other nations that have better social systems built by ambitious men, and the nation gradually rises. Finally, why do you think "the people" or the government is an efficient instrument for ensuring charitable interests are met? That's really silly

subroutine 9y ago
Do me a big favor and don't use any publicly funded or or tax payer subsidized utility or service ever again. Don't drive on roads, don't take public transit, don't ever call the police, don't do business with anyone with a government job or government contract, don't use products or medicines that have resulted from basic research at public universities or NASA, don't use public schools or libraries, if you have a degree from a public institution give it back or pay the difference. Im sure with all your ambition and intelligence you will make due just fine though. The rest of us here aren't exactly looking for handouts; on average I'd say HNs do pretty well. However we can appreciate the many ways income tax helps support a functioning society.
- aje403 9y ago
  Your point is not relevant to what I am arguing. High income and high estate taxes exist in the same world as wealth and I think they should be higher than they are now - the wealthy use considerably higher resources than the rest of society, and it requires extreme stability in society to even keep and maintain wealth which people in the US take for granted. The comment did not say anything of that nature, he's describing a hard cap on wealth.. what would that number be? 1 million? 5? - "limit[ing] the wealth in the first place to ensure that everyone get its share" - this is the ignorance of a mob with torches. Phones to make 911 calls from and cars for the police to drive over in were built by American entrepreneurs who became wealthy. It's part of the system. They did not take value out of society to become rich at it's expense - they were not perfect, but there was a significant net gain. If Larry Page or Mark Zuckerberg is forced to liquidate 99% of their ownership in their company tomorrow because the guy above me thinks "I want more money, it's not fair he has more than me" to himself and builds a set of quasi-logical ideals around that and those ideas take root, then we begin declining as a society. The system always needs to be re-balanced and kept in check, but having a maximum bank account is not the answer.

bernardlunn 9y ago

Communism was tried and it did not work well. Capitalism is bad but communism is worse. Why let a few politicians decide where the money goes?

jamespo 9y ago
it's almost like there's a massive space between the extremes of the two
- dfee 9y ago
  Perhaps we can study the Russian Oligarchy and learn more about that space.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
thisiszilff 9y ago
Communism hasn't every really happened. What we've had are bizarre dictatorships veiled in communist language that tap the masses discontent as a source of support, but these haven't resulted in communist states. Communism, in theory, comes after capitalism gets bad, but you need capitalism to come before it, otherwise you get the Soviet Union and China which try to be communist states without being industrialized states first.

dec0dedab0de 9y ago

Why would you let them accumulate an unreasonable amount of wealth if you then expect them to give it back to poor people? Why not limit the wealth in the first place to ensure that everyone get its share? My thoughts on this change quite often, but if we were in a situation where we had a hard limit on wealth I think there should still be the chance to accumulate it, and the people who did the best that year get an award for it. Just to keep the incentive there. It's not like someone who has over 100 million in the bank is putting in the effort just because they want more things.