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I assume we should take 'ultra wealthy' as 'billionaire' in this context. We're not talking about the people that retire with < $10m or even $50m. We're talkin

I assume we should take 'ultra wealthy' as 'billionaire' in this context. We're not talking about the people that retire with < $10m or even $50m. We're talking about these people that have extracted billions or hundreds of billions from the economy and have systemically changed the rules to extract it from the middle class. Freedom to be a billionaire at the expense of a well balanced and healthy middle class, fully funded services (health, infrastructure, education, fire, police, etc) and not having to work two or three jobs to afford housing? No thanks. I want bridges that don't collapse. I want to pay our teachers what their value to society is. I want sick people to not go bankrupt (even with insurance), or to rely on GoFundMe to pay medical bills.. But most of all, I don't want my kids, parents, or myself to have to work when we're 80. Billionaires are a failure of society.

Blackstrat 4y ago
Envy parading as policy objectives isn’t pretty. Billionaires aren’t the problem. Government is the problem. When people/society look to the government for solutions instead of pursuing their own interests and desires, it leads to a serious misallocation of capital and an eradication of liberty. None of these issues you raised will be solved by government. Period.
credit_guy 4y ago
Musk did not "extract hundreds of billions" from the economy. I did buy a few shares of Tesla. Millions, or maybe tens of millions of other people did the same. Those people made the Tesla stock go up in value. Many, many times over. Nobody forced me, or them to buy Tesla shares. Should we benefit from the Tesla stock appreciation, but Musk not? Should we confiscate his shares? Because he's "a failure of society" ? "Sick people going bankrupt", is that Musk's fault? Or Bezos's fault? Or Zuckerberg's or Gates'? Musk, Bezos, Gates, Page, Schmidt, Zuckerberg created millions of high paying jobs. How many people are vying to get a job at a FAANG? Do you have a gmail account, or a Facebook account, or do you own an iPhone, or iPad, or watch Netflix? Did anyone force you to do any of these things? Then how did these people "extract wealth" from you?
- bananabiscuit 4y ago
  It’s not easy to point to a single instance of “how” but that is not proof that it does not happen. Empirically, wealth is becoming ever more concentrated in an increasingly smaller amount of the population. This is what un-fettered capitalism leads to and it is clearly a failure in the sense that the flow of money inaccurately captures “value”. Would you argue that the masses are becoming ever more useless and that an ever more tiny percentage of the world deserves to increase their share until they own everything? Are they really providing that much value that the world should be their reward? I think not, and it is government’s job to make amends to the system in order to reverse this run-away accumulation of capital. Instead the wealthy just exert their influence on this system to make the positive feedback loop even stronger. This is not a stable system.
  - credit_guy 4y ago
    > but that is not proof that it does not happen There is not proof that it did happen either. And absent a proof either way, this country has long ago decided to function on the presumption of innocence. Maybe you think it's a good idea to change that?
    - bananabiscuit 4y ago
      I’m not sure what you mean, the concentration of wealth is well documented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
      - netizen-936824 4y ago
        People like wearing blinders because it makes them feel better about wanting to keep the status quo while it actively harms hundreds of millions, if not billions of human lives
      - credit_guy 4y ago
        > that is not proof that it does not happen. Next time you should be clearer in your statements. What exactly is “it” here? In the context where you are answering my comment about the alleged wealth extraction, “it” can only mean wealth extraction Now you are saying it means wealth concentration. That’s moving the goalposts.
deleted 4y ago
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Blackstrat 4y ago

Envy parading as policy objectives isn’t pretty. Billionaires aren’t the problem. Government is the problem. When people/society look to the government for solutions instead of pursuing their own interests and desires, it leads to a serious misallocation of capital and an eradication of liberty. None of these issues you raised will be solved by government. Period.

credit_guy 4y ago

Musk did not "extract hundreds of billions" from the economy. I did buy a few shares of Tesla. Millions, or maybe tens of millions of other people did the same. Those people made the Tesla stock go up in value. Many, many times over. Nobody forced me, or them to buy Tesla shares. Should we benefit from the Tesla stock appreciation, but Musk not? Should we confiscate his shares? Because he's "a failure of society" ? "Sick people going bankrupt", is that Musk's fault? Or Bezos's fault? Or Zuckerberg's or Gates'? Musk, Bezos, Gates, Page, Schmidt, Zuckerberg created millions of high paying jobs. How many people are vying to get a job at a FAANG? Do you have a gmail account, or a Facebook account, or do you own an iPhone, or iPad, or watch Netflix? Did anyone force you to do any of these things? Then how did these people "extract wealth" from you?

bananabiscuit 4y ago
It’s not easy to point to a single instance of “how” but that is not proof that it does not happen. Empirically, wealth is becoming ever more concentrated in an increasingly smaller amount of the population. This is what un-fettered capitalism leads to and it is clearly a failure in the sense that the flow of money inaccurately captures “value”. Would you argue that the masses are becoming ever more useless and that an ever more tiny percentage of the world deserves to increase their share until they own everything? Are they really providing that much value that the world should be their reward? I think not, and it is government’s job to make amends to the system in order to reverse this run-away accumulation of capital. Instead the wealthy just exert their influence on this system to make the positive feedback loop even stronger. This is not a stable system.
- credit_guy 4y ago
  > but that is not proof that it does not happen There is not proof that it did happen either. And absent a proof either way, this country has long ago decided to function on the presumption of innocence. Maybe you think it's a good idea to change that?
  - bananabiscuit 4y ago
    I’m not sure what you mean, the concentration of wealth is well documented. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_of_wealth
    - netizen-936824 4y ago
      People like wearing blinders because it makes them feel better about wanting to keep the status quo while it actively harms hundreds of millions, if not billions of human lives
    - credit_guy 4y ago
      > that is not proof that it does not happen. Next time you should be clearer in your statements. What exactly is “it” here? In the context where you are answering my comment about the alleged wealth extraction, “it” can only mean wealth extraction Now you are saying it means wealth concentration. That’s moving the goalposts.

deleted 4y ago

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