4 ms·

All 5 of the billionaires in the article have almost all their wealth in shares of companies, usually ones they run. Is this hoarding? Like how is zuckerberg h

by zpeti 3y ago

All 5 of the billionaires in the article have almost all their wealth in shares of companies, usually ones they run. Is this hoarding? Like how is zuckerberg hoarding by owning shares in the company he founded and runs? What exactly should he do? Sell all his shares? What happens then? What does Mark zuckerberg do with 100bn in cash? Do you tax it? What does the government do with 100bn in tax revenue? Would they spend it better than Zuckerberg? Also - the people who bought the shares from Zuckerberg, what do they do? They just paid 100bn for shares in facebook, are they hoarders now? Are they more evil or less evil than zuckerberg for hoarding? I just don't understand the conversation around these topics. What exactly should we do, apart from complaining about entepreneurs? These 5 people have approx $1trn in wealth, do you know how long it would take the US government to spend that? 2 months. Do you think congress is actually competent in spending that money? Can they even decide how to spend it? And it's a one off, remember that! Would that actually make a different to anything? 2 months of larger spending? Can someone please explain to me what exactly we should be doing? Like exactly? "wealth tax" has serious consequences, how do you deal with those? Are there examples in history where this actually worked? Like actually, taking 50% of people's wealth, and redistributing it? What happens once these 5 billionaires just leave the USA and go live in new zealand? Or Singapore, or whatever? What happens if the richest 1000 people in the USA leave? What happens to all the 18 year old entreprneurs who are going to build the next big companies? Will they stay in the USA? Please, someone, explain to me how this works in practice.

probably_wrong 3y ago
Imagine you found a bug in your codebase. For the sake of the example, let's say that every 100th uploaded file gets deleted forever. The questions you are posing are mostly the equivalent of asking "but what if someone was using this feature as their Recycling bin? How will the time spent fixing it fit within the project's budget? And what if the developer who committed that code leaves the company because he doesn't like being told he writes faulty code?" The answer to those questions, of course, is "somehow". And maybe not all hours will be properly budgeted. But any mildly reasonable efforts towards fixing the obvious problem that's causing real harm to your users right now is better than opening a committee to discuss a framework for fixing integrity-related bugs in a proactive manner.
chillingeffect 3y ago
> Like how is zuckerberg hoarding Buying up 500 acres of native land in Hawaii for a start. not sharing meta's wealth w employees, supporting Thiel and Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica. Massive layoffs.
ragebol 3y ago
> What does the government do with 100bn in tax revenue? Would they spend it better than Zuckerberg? I don't think they'd spend it on macadamia nuts for wagyu cows, that's for sure. Your government is supposed to be elected democratically, so you have some say over it. Also, the 100bn doesn't even need to be an extra, taxes on other things/ppl could be lowered to have the exact same tax income.
- zpeti 3y ago
  > I don't think they'd spend it on macadamia nuts for wagyu cows, that's for sure. I'm not sure you want to cherrypick this way. I can think of A LOT of stupid things government spends money on, and that's over senators, congresspeople, and lots of government employees. I don't think you should play this game. Zuckerberg and facebook's personal silly spending is most likely WAY below the stupid things government spends on.
  - ragebol 3y ago
    > senators, congresspeople, and lots of government employees. I don't think you want to cherry-pick this way either. A government does infrastructure, military (talk about a moneysink...), space exploration, science, halthcare to some level.
- westhanover 3y ago
  Do you have any idea how many brown people we can blow up with 100bn? The US government would be a much better steward of that money.
weatherlite 3y ago
> What does the government do with 100bn in tax revenue? Would they spend it better than Zuckerberg? Are you asking this seriously? As dysfunctional as you believe your government is, they still provide running water, roads, police, hospitals, public schools. Would Zuckerberg take care of all that from the goodness of his heart? Maybe and maybe not. And as for your question yes - shares can be taxed just like other types of wealth can be taxed.

by zpeti 3y ago

probably_wrong 3y ago

Imagine you found a bug in your codebase. For the sake of the example, let's say that every 100th uploaded file gets deleted forever. The questions you are posing are mostly the equivalent of asking "but what if someone was using this feature as their Recycling bin? How will the time spent fixing it fit within the project's budget? And what if the developer who committed that code leaves the company because he doesn't like being told he writes faulty code?" The answer to those questions, of course, is "somehow". And maybe not all hours will be properly budgeted. But any mildly reasonable efforts towards fixing the obvious problem that's causing real harm to your users right now is better than opening a committee to discuss a framework for fixing integrity-related bugs in a proactive manner.

chillingeffect 3y ago

> Like how is zuckerberg hoarding Buying up 500 acres of native land in Hawaii for a start. not sharing meta's wealth w employees, supporting Thiel and Bannon, and Cambridge Analytica. Massive layoffs.

ragebol 3y ago

> What does the government do with 100bn in tax revenue? Would they spend it better than Zuckerberg? I don't think they'd spend it on macadamia nuts for wagyu cows, that's for sure. Your government is supposed to be elected democratically, so you have some say over it. Also, the 100bn doesn't even need to be an extra, taxes on other things/ppl could be lowered to have the exact same tax income.

zpeti 3y ago
> I don't think they'd spend it on macadamia nuts for wagyu cows, that's for sure. I'm not sure you want to cherrypick this way. I can think of A LOT of stupid things government spends money on, and that's over senators, congresspeople, and lots of government employees. I don't think you should play this game. Zuckerberg and facebook's personal silly spending is most likely WAY below the stupid things government spends on.
- ragebol 3y ago
  > senators, congresspeople, and lots of government employees. I don't think you want to cherry-pick this way either. A government does infrastructure, military (talk about a moneysink...), space exploration, science, halthcare to some level.
westhanover 3y ago
Do you have any idea how many brown people we can blow up with 100bn? The US government would be a much better steward of that money.

weatherlite 3y ago

> What does the government do with 100bn in tax revenue? Would they spend it better than Zuckerberg? Are you asking this seriously? As dysfunctional as you believe your government is, they still provide running water, roads, police, hospitals, public schools. Would Zuckerberg take care of all that from the goodness of his heart? Maybe and maybe not. And as for your question yes - shares can be taxed just like other types of wealth can be taxed.