Do you automatically dislike billionaires? Why?

I don't think the average person realizes this to its fullest extent. These people can pay for literally anything. Humans are as valuable to them as any other mammal. We farm animals and let's be honest, more than half of us don't think about its ethical implications whatsoever. We keep pets that we love even if they will never contribute to our society like our peers. Some of us keep guard dogs around for a sense of security. We deal with pests with poison because it's the most effective and fast even though it might have some colateral damage. We step on a roach when we see it because it's dirty, gross and carry disease. Thats how they see us, and let's be honest it wasn't out of their own merits. Society as a whole built them and keeps them fed and it's too late to take it back.

They have been, you can see it in the unionization efforts at Amazon and other places. You can also see those places attempt to stop those efforts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_and_trade_unions

Oh of course he knows, that's the thing. None of this could be unintentional. His machine is design to grind people to a paste, it's built that way so he must know it's working as intended.

Drew Gooden put it best IMO. there's the joke about "if we make them pay decent wages, how will they afford their third yacht?" and that's really not the case. They could buy a hundred yachts easily. It's not about spending, it's about accruing. "It's the same obsession with 'number go up' that keeps me addicted to Runescape, but the only life that's ruining is my own" They could solve world hunger many times over but choose not to, because they just want the number to go up. They don't care about love because they're soulless, empty people. There's something fundamentally broken and/or missing inside of them that would otherwise make them human, but they lack all humanity.

We used to get the books in DC, but when we moved to NJ it stopped because it’s not offered there unfortunately.

Dolly Parton: Greatest Living American

Agree. But that's a low bar

I always say that if there is ever a selection for humanity’s spokesperson….she’s in the running.

Supply Side Jesus is all about responsibility.

Bbbbut I had to pay wate fees when I wuz a kid so Dey shud too. God I hate republican thinking

No they decided that kids that can read good are a threat to their hopes of clinging to power. Then they dressed it up in ‘responsibility.’

>Must be a busy woman I hear she works from 9 to 5.

People don't realize how much we benefitted from NASA. A lot of our everyday technology is a result of their work. And at least NASA allows licensing of their patents for downstream innovation…

> Let’s build rockets to space but also defund NASA and put it all in MY private corporations! Trust me! So let's get this straight... Musk directs DOGE to defund much of NASA, forcing the US Government to rely on SpaceX for satellites and other space activity, which greatly increases the value of SpaceX... Musk also defunds the agencies (FAA, DOJ, EPA and NLRB) that were all pursuing actions against Musk for various laws he broke or regulations he bypassed and the end of those suits also increases the value of SpaceX... And now Musk intends to [go public with SpaceX](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2k35lg92dpo) where he looks to make over a trillion dollars thanks to the value SpaceX gained when Musk defunded NASA. Sounds legit to me!

Dolly won't need a bunker. Dolly will have an army.

That's true. She is putting in tremendous effort, which is a lot more than could be said about most rich people.

Exactly.. have away billions.. yet still has more than the previous year. So.. really could give away even more. Tax the rich!!!

literally could end homelessness in the United States, builds another data center.

Elon: "I'm on it! Trillionaire it is."

Plus he has great business cards

You don't even get a billion dollars by "exploiting workers surplus value," you get a billion dollars by convincing bankers and finance bros you ought to be worth that. Seriously. Musk is "worth" almost a trillion dollars because Tesla is "worth" a trillion dollars. But Tesla's $1.14 Trillion is "market capitalization," which is the number of stock shares outstanding times the price of the last share sold. Tesla doesn't make a trillion dollars, they had an operating profit of $4 billion last year on $95 billion in revenue. They don't have a trillion dollars, they have $82 billion in net assets, of which the biggest piece is $30 billion in book value of facilities and equipment. If Tesla kept every cent of operating profit it made in cash, it would take more than 200 years to have a trillion dollars. But because a day trader paid $365 for one of over 3 billion shares just now, Tesla is "worth" one trillion dollars, and Musk is "worth" $700 billion or whatever. But the dirty secret of finance is that there is no way Musk could get $365 per share if he dumped his 12% stake. It's only worth that if he keeps it. So anybody whose "wealth" is tied to the valuation of large companies isn't participating in the same economy as the rest of us, their economy is based on a "just trust me bro" scorecard propped up by the mutual interest the billionaires and finance bros have in keeping it propped up.

I miss when billionaires were anonymous and we didn't have to hear their stupid opinions all the time

He wanted to be anonymous. My dad worked with him (in Australia) to build medical research institutes. He never wanted any recognition or his name on any buildings. They used to refer to him as "the American" because he didn't want the publicity, and he carried his stuff around in a plastic bag lol. Great guy by all accounts.

Interesting, never heard of it. I’ll take a look but do you have a TLDR? Also, would it be just for state-level elections, or also federal?

Can’t think of better philanthropy than paying your working class a living wage.

If they could only PAY TAXES instead of paying lobbyists to get them to PAY LESS TAXES they wouldn't have that f****** "problem." "I have too much money," whines the billionaire. "I could never give it all away!" "Well... you can't take it with you," someone reminds them. "But generational wealth!" "You don't have kids, idiot!"

The problem isn’t just amassing the wealth. The real issue is that the companies that generate this wealth don’t distribute it evenly amongst the people that worked to generate the wealth. The labor is effectively exploited and the ownership is concentrated to a few… many times to people who aren’t even involved in production! They should be giving away their wealth as chunks of ownership in their companies to the employees that are working at the companies.

Taxes can solve a lot of this And yes governments piss money away, but they do that now regardless of high tax on billionaires or not.

What about Bezos ex? Isn’t she the poster child for “good” billionaires?

I still remember that interview of the "philanthropist" Bill Gates saying that minimum wage is bad. Obviously because it makes him look bad, as you say, if there aren't poor people everywhere how can he make a show of being charitable?

And if you set up your own or keep it in your elite circle of pals, you get to employ your cronies and nepo-babies to run the philanthropic organization. And pay your board of trustees well for a couple hours of "work" a month.

Youre forgetting a key point of why those guys needed to rehab their image, namely being they were afraid their workers were gonna come and beat them to death.

100%. I actually hate philanthropy as a principle. I would prefer if you just pay your f****** taxes. And let the rest of us decide how the money gets allocated, through our elected officials.

"People stopped falling for propaganda" *Looks at the current state of the USA* Are you sure of that?

To put it in perspective - you could stand naked in the middle of a field with $0 and still be closer to having $1 million than a millionaire is to having a billion.

Thank you for this.

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