4 ms·

It's mind boggling that you view the solution to this as so counter to the interests of the capital class that you can't even speak it aloud You tax them. Weal

It's mind boggling that you view the solution to this as so counter to the interests of the capital class that you can't even speak it aloud You tax them. Wealth inequality of this magnitude is toxic to democracy. It's simply too much power. These men aren't gods, they are just flesh and blood and usually really terrible people. We are not staff at their resort. Let them live in luxury for the rest of their life, great. But they don't get to have more political power than half a million people put together.

taffer 4mo ago
> It's mind boggling that you Please don't do this. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
nfw2 4mo ago
So you're saying the obvious solution is to force founders to liquidate all shares necessary every year to keep their wealth under 100M? How to keep short sellers from feasting on this? Who will the buyers be if everyone is selling around tax season? If the stock crashes because there is government-mandated short interest and no long interest are they off the hook? On the point of democracy, none of the candidates who spend the most on major elections seem to be winning much lately, Bloomberg, Harris, Cuomo, Steyer, etc.
- esseph 4mo ago
  > On the point of democracy, none of the candidates who spend the most on major elections seem to be winning much lately, Thomas Massie was just ousted in the most expensive house primary in US history. The difference between 1-2 mil that is normally spent and the $30+ million spent on that election alone.
  - nfw2 4mo ago
    Tom steyer spent half a billion to not even make it onto the final ca ballot
    - 420official 4mo ago
      I think you'd find more examples of people spending much much less money to influence elections, or buy certain positions than you will people spending money to make the public vote for them. The money influences policies, regulations, wars, etc. The problem isn’t necessarily that some one can buy a seat for themselves (though some people out there could spend 1000x as much as half a billion and still have 500 billion to spend), it's that for less than half a billion, someone can buy 20 house or senate seats for more conventional candidates that are willing to vote the way the financier wants.
      - ModernMech 4mo ago
        Buying senate seats is for chumps. For $300 million, Musk got his own executive branch agency, a pseudo cabinet level position, and carte blanche to take a machete to all the programs he personally disliked including investigations into himself and his companies.
- bluecheese452 4mo ago
  Maybe if you suck them off hard enough they will give you a few crumbs after you are done.
  - nfw2 4mo ago
    Beats sucking off a communist in order to not starve when there is a food shortage
    - ModernMech 4mo ago
      Speaking of hunger, capitalist utopia is worse than a global pandemic: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836441/food-insecurity-economy-new-york-fed https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836441/food-insecurity...
      - nfw2 4mo ago
        ok now compare it to food insecurity in north korea or venezuela
        ModernMech 4mo ago
        No one is advocating America to be more like North Korea or Venezuela. Democratic Socialism is what young people are asking for today. These cold war era dichotomies will die with the boomer generation.
- deaux 4mo ago
  No, the shares can be directly transferred to a government-held portfolio. Come on, think for 2 seconds, my god. If you're going to rage like this at least don't come up with strawman issues that can be trivially resolved in 2 seconds of thinking.
  - Difwif 4mo ago
    Of course the government should own everything! How stupid of us for assuming that's a bad idea.
    - deaux 4mo ago
      How stupid of you for assuming they'd have to keep it, rather than slowly selling it off, indeed exactly like Mackenzie Bezos might do. You could easily mandate this. Not to mention that the Norwegian Pension Funds holds $2 trillion in assets. UAE and KSA have ones over $1 trillion each. And that's ignoring that currently an even smaller group of people owns everything, who don't even represent the public on paper. Quite stupid to assume that this is a better idea.
- Turneyboy 4mo ago
  How about the doesn't need to be paid in cash? The government claims a percentage of the company over time...as always only above some level of valuation
- idiotsecant 4mo ago
  It's so weird that taxing my property is straightforward but taxing the property of the capital class is so incredibly Byzantine and unexplainably impossible
anon291 4mo ago
Elon musk was unceremoniously kicked out of the white house. To say he has some great power is ridiculous. Whatever power he has aside from his companies is in his mind
- olleromam91 4mo ago
  Think for a second… If money doesn’t give people power… then what’s all the fuss about??

taffer 4mo ago

> It's mind boggling that you Please don't do this. > When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

nfw2 4mo ago

So you're saying the obvious solution is to force founders to liquidate all shares necessary every year to keep their wealth under 100M? How to keep short sellers from feasting on this? Who will the buyers be if everyone is selling around tax season? If the stock crashes because there is government-mandated short interest and no long interest are they off the hook? On the point of democracy, none of the candidates who spend the most on major elections seem to be winning much lately, Bloomberg, Harris, Cuomo, Steyer, etc.

esseph 4mo ago
> On the point of democracy, none of the candidates who spend the most on major elections seem to be winning much lately, Thomas Massie was just ousted in the most expensive house primary in US history. The difference between 1-2 mil that is normally spent and the $30+ million spent on that election alone.
- nfw2 4mo ago
  Tom steyer spent half a billion to not even make it onto the final ca ballot
  - 420official 4mo ago
    I think you'd find more examples of people spending much much less money to influence elections, or buy certain positions than you will people spending money to make the public vote for them. The money influences policies, regulations, wars, etc. The problem isn’t necessarily that some one can buy a seat for themselves (though some people out there could spend 1000x as much as half a billion and still have 500 billion to spend), it's that for less than half a billion, someone can buy 20 house or senate seats for more conventional candidates that are willing to vote the way the financier wants.
    - ModernMech 4mo ago
      Buying senate seats is for chumps. For $300 million, Musk got his own executive branch agency, a pseudo cabinet level position, and carte blanche to take a machete to all the programs he personally disliked including investigations into himself and his companies.
bluecheese452 4mo ago
Maybe if you suck them off hard enough they will give you a few crumbs after you are done.
- nfw2 4mo ago
  Beats sucking off a communist in order to not starve when there is a food shortage
  - ModernMech 4mo ago
    Speaking of hunger, capitalist utopia is worse than a global pandemic: https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836441/food-insecurity-economy-new-york-fed https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5836441/food-insecurity...
    - nfw2 4mo ago
      ok now compare it to food insecurity in north korea or venezuela
      - ModernMech 4mo ago
        No one is advocating America to be more like North Korea or Venezuela. Democratic Socialism is what young people are asking for today. These cold war era dichotomies will die with the boomer generation.
deaux 4mo ago
No, the shares can be directly transferred to a government-held portfolio. Come on, think for 2 seconds, my god. If you're going to rage like this at least don't come up with strawman issues that can be trivially resolved in 2 seconds of thinking.
- Difwif 4mo ago
  Of course the government should own everything! How stupid of us for assuming that's a bad idea.
  - deaux 4mo ago
    How stupid of you for assuming they'd have to keep it, rather than slowly selling it off, indeed exactly like Mackenzie Bezos might do. You could easily mandate this. Not to mention that the Norwegian Pension Funds holds $2 trillion in assets. UAE and KSA have ones over $1 trillion each. And that's ignoring that currently an even smaller group of people owns everything, who don't even represent the public on paper. Quite stupid to assume that this is a better idea.
Turneyboy 4mo ago
How about the doesn't need to be paid in cash? The government claims a percentage of the company over time...as always only above some level of valuation
idiotsecant 4mo ago
It's so weird that taxing my property is straightforward but taxing the property of the capital class is so incredibly Byzantine and unexplainably impossible

anon291 4mo ago

Elon musk was unceremoniously kicked out of the white house. To say he has some great power is ridiculous. Whatever power he has aside from his companies is in his mind

olleromam91 4mo ago
Think for a second… If money doesn’t give people power… then what’s all the fuss about??