I mean you could even take the bottom number and leave them with the top number and they could still live in unimaginable luxury forever. Or just take the lot because fuck em lol.
this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
2112 points (96.6% liked)
Lefty Memes
4263 readers
1318 users here now
An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
Serious posts, news, and discussion go in c/Socialism.
If you are new to socialism, you can ask questions and find resources over on c/Socialism101.
Please don't forget to help keep this community clean by reporting rule violations, updooting good contributions and downdooting those of low-quality!
Rules
0. Only post socialist memes
That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
1. Socialist Unity in the form of mutual respect and good faith interactions is enforced here
Try to keep an open mind, other schools of thought may offer points of view and analyses you haven't considered yet. Also: This is not a place for the Idealism vs. Materialism or rather Anarchism vs. Marxism debate(s), for that please visit c/AnarchismVsMarxism.
2. Anti-Imperialism means recognizing capitalist states like Russia and China as such,
as well as condemning (their) imperialism, even if it is of the "anti-USA" flavor.
3. No liberalism, (right-wing) revisionism or reactionaries.
That includes so called: Social Democracy, Democratic Socialism, Dengism, Market Socialism, Patriotic Socialism, National Bolshevism, Anarcho-Capitalism etc. . Anti-Socialist people and content have no place here, as well as the variety of "Marxist"-"Leninists" seen on lemmygrad and more specifically GenZedong (actual ML's are welcome as long as they agree to the rules and don't just copy paste/larp about stuff from a hundred years ago).
4. No Bigotry.
The only dangerous minority is the rich.
5. Don't demonize previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
We must constructively learn from their mistakes, while acknowledging their achievements and recognizing when they have strayed away from socialist principles.
(if you are reading the rules to apply for modding this community, mention "Mantic Minotaur" when answering question 2)
6. Don't idolize/glorify previous and current socialist experiments or (leading) individuals.
Notable achievements in all spheres of society were made by various socialist/people's/democratic republics around the world. Mistakes, however, were made as well: bureaucratic castes of parasitic elites - as well as reactionary cults of personality - were established, many things were mismanaged and prejudice and bigotry sometimes replaced internationalism and progressiveness.
7. Absolutely no posts or comments meant to relativize(/apologize for), advocate, promote or defend:
- Racism
- Sexism
- Queerphobia
- Ableism
- Classism
- Rape or assault
- Genocide/ethnic cleansing or (mass) deportations
- Fascism
- (National) chauvinism
- Orientalism
- Colonialism or Imperialism (and their neo- counterparts)
- Zionism
- Religious fundamentalism of any kind
(This is not a definitive list, the spirit of the other rules still counts! Eventual duplicates with other rules are for emphasis.)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.
The difference between someone with $1000 and a million dollars is the same between a millionaire and billionaire.
A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 years.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(146 replies)
If they are self-made millionaires/billionaires as they claim, take everything they have/own and tell them to start the quest again, no glitches, DLC, or saved progress.
load more comments
(37 replies)
Tax billionaires until there are no more billionaires
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.
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.
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(112 replies)
Do billionaires actually have billions in real money sitting around? I've always thought the billions were in stocks and couldn't be taxed until they cashed it out and they could technically lose everything if the stock price falls. That's really fucked up if true
Nobody keeps that amount of cash. Even below a million, most people have most of their wealth in either real estate (their own house) or financial securities (stocks, ETFs, bonds).
Yet, we all gotta pay property tax and capital gains.
The billionaires just have loopholes that they use to never realize gains with loan schemes and trust funds.
load more comments
(4 replies)
That is actually the case. Billionaires aren't swimming in a room full of cash and they don't some some secret mega vault that holds $100 billion. Most of these guys are founders of very successful corporations, and so they naturally have a larger than average share. Bezos has most of his wealth in Amazon stocks, Zuckerberg in Meta, Musk in Tesla and SpaceX, Gates in Microsoft, and so on. Their wealth goes up and down depending on how well the company they're most tied to is doing. In the US and most other places, stocks aren't taxed until they're sold. Once a transaction happens, there will be a tax. Usually tax rates go up with profits and income, and there are deductions for losses (to a degree). It's an okay system, the issue is that it isn't being enforced. Our system is full of loopholes that these billionaires exploit to pay way less than they should. But billionaires not paying taxes are nothing compared to corporations not paying ANY taxes on billions in annual profits. That's what we should go after.
load more comments
(13 replies)
Sad day when "billionaires should pay taxes" is considered a far left position.
load more comments
(4 replies)
Take the inverse of that and you're getting closer to what actually needs to happen.
Well-behaved oligarchs gets the Pu Yi treatment, the rest gets the Romanov treatment.
load more comments
(3 replies)
This is why we must abolish Capitalism. Taxes will not, and cannot fix this.
load more comments
(17 replies)
Wealth taxes are stupid. That said, nobody needs multiple hundreds of billions of dollars.
The solution is to have regulations and laws in place that prevent them getting this large in the first place. The fact that Amazon and Google own 90% of the internet is absolutely fucked.
I agree, no one should be able to hold such an obscene amount of wealth. Right now they do, though. How do you propose this be remedied?
load more comments
(2 replies)
load more comments
(11 replies)
The tax should be even higher. No one needs $100 billion.
No one needs $1 billion
God the insanity of that wealth is hard to fathom.
Nobody needs $100m, which is itself a totally insignificant amount compared to $1b… and we’re talking people with hundreds of billions :/
load more comments
(1 replies)
load more comments
(5 replies)
I'd be willing to be taxed into oblivion if I knew it'd mean everyone else could lead full lives. And I make nothing.
Now imagine the good their excess wealth could do.
load more comments
(1 replies)
Uhhh is the ask to liquidate their assets? They will just sell a Picaso painting that they 'value' at 60% of their gross income.
Why do you guys fetishize these billionaires and not the giant hedge fund pools that make these guys rich in the first place?
load more comments
(1 replies)
Yeah and maybe also cutting down on their non-profit organisations scheme to avoid taxes would be nice..
I wont consider these billionaires getting their "fair share" until they've been publicly flogged, tarred, feathered, and their wealth redistributed.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Chump change lmfao, Eisenhower was taxing 90% of J. Paul Getty’s yearly earnings
Wealth taxes actually work, that's why the rich attack them so vehemently.
load more comments
(7 replies)
view more: next ›