Lets test the theory
Lets test the theory
148 comments
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It's also not one or two billion, it's multiple hundreds of billion owned by one person. I don't think you can overstress the difference in scale between millions, hundred millions, billions, and hundred billions.
There used to be taxes assessed by total asset valuation that focused more on wealthy individuals because they don't earn as much from income it's mostly assets increasing in value like property or ownership shares, that was stopped when they introduced the income tax that mostly targets low and middle class people who almost exclusively earn by income.
Loopholes like offshore accounts used to dodge income taxes by higher earners should be illegal, but the whole system is backwards forcing the least prosperous to shoulder the largest tax burden instead of the wealthiest who benefit from society the most.
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What's stopping the wealthy from just up and leaving? They could liquidate their assets and invest in somewhere with tax laws more favourable to them.
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Liquidate to who? Are those assets things they can take with them, or are they things like buildings that stay right where they are?
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The fact that you already confiscated them. Since we're talking hypotheticals though, you could confiscate those assets at the border. Or set up international treaties with a look-back provision.
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If that were to happen, my cream would rise to the top.
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You know what else rises to the top of liquid?
A turd.
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Uh.. my turds sink. Is there a problem with my diet?
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To be fair, stones also usually sink but those red volcanic ones have so much air in them they will float in enough water. And how else would you describe most of these billionaires besides turds full of hot air?
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If they float, it typically means the person is consuming too much fat in their diet. Not always but moat times.
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Normal turds slowly sink. If they sink like a stone, you are eating too much fiber, if they float you ate too much fat or have an irritated bowel.
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Randy Savage?
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Who do I vote for to make this happen?
\ Or is that French shortening device the only way at this point?-
Vote in favor of the union at your workplace
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Billionaires hold a tiny percentage of their wealth in money, so taking all their money away wouldn't even make them stop being a billionaire.
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Let's remove their control of all that wealth, then. If they're so good, they'll soon be in control of more.
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That would be fascinating to find out. It would be such a badass move, too, if one of them were to give everything away to show they could do it again. I think it actually would be fine for quite a few of them. Their reputation would get them in so many doors and get them so many investors for whatever they get into after the big giveaway. To really do this experiment well, they would need to get plastic surgery and change their identity so they can really have a fresh start.
It would also be interesting to see the effect it would have on whatever they were doing before their exit. I guess it really depends on who gets their shares/power. If it goes to the government, then in most cases, things would probably get worse, I'd imagine. If it somehow gets evenly distributed amongst the world's population, that could be interesting. How would amazon fair if we all got 1/8B of Bezos shares? That would be quite interesting.
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I’ll take some Amazon shares from Bezos.
I would honestly hold them and demand more ethics from the company that I now “own a part of”.
If enough people do this…
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What you're describing would amount to either eminent domain or civil asset forfeiture, both things that you really shouldn't be resorting to for money unless you've run out of all other options to cover a budget and have a spectacular plan to get the country back onto regular revenue with that money already in place, because that window can only be broken into once.
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A millionaire tried doing this and gave up
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This was tested...sort of. He didn't give away his money he just supposedly didn't make use of it essentially hitting the road as a fake homeless and making money by selling stuff he bought on facebook market.
The fellow was a millionaire not a billionaire and I think he went from nothing to ~50k in nearly a year. He called it off early because he was basically destroying his health.
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Yeah, with friends housing him and hiring him 🤡
Not to mention that actually poor people don't have a cheat code to get them out when their health suffers. Which then makes them less able to keep working at maximum mental and physical capacity.
So this was nothing but a demonstration that nepotism and money is what one really needs.
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He could also take higher risks, since he knew that there was a security net to catch him. Much easier to make high risk/reward decisions, if the risk (e.g. going broke) isn't actually real. He presumably also had an above average education and many other benefits. This is also why many rich people might end up building successful businesses. The average person might get one shot and either makes it or goes broke. The rich person can roll the dice multiple times (and might have learned something from the last try).
Also disregarding everything even, if he had succeded: That would still only have been a sample size of one. I doubt anyone is saying that you can't under any circumstances pull yourself out of poverty, but on average the cards are just stacked against you in many ways.
Also i doubt that reselling second hand stuff is a viable business model for a larger group. Like sure in a large city a few people might be able to carve out a niche for themself, but the more people do it or the smaller the market, the less it works.
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So you have a link? That sounds interesting as.
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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13332399/Millionaire-Mike-Black-homeless-broke-purpose-ends-bizarre-social-experiment.html He made 64,000 before he tapped out. His trajectory is also not entirely kosher
Eventually, a man with an RV allowed him to stay for several nights in his van. Black started off small and managed to make his first $300 by selling furniture online.
Nobody lets a homeless stay in their van to bootstrap their buy and sell craigslist furniture business
Three months into the challenge, Black's entrepreneurial spirit appeared to shine through having set himself up as a social media manager, managing to land clients - while even coming up with his own brand of coffee.
Most people who were homeless 90 days prior is going to be in a position to be appointed someone's social media manager or else they likely wouldn't even be homeless in the first place.
Even with obvious cheat codes he couldn't get more than 64k starting from "zero" wherein zero means being homeless in nice gear with your $1000 phone and unlimited internet plan with a health plan and a GP and specialists
Throughout the entire project, we haven't shared it with you, but I've been in and out of the doctor's office.'
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100% It will work.
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I say tax rates should be decided based on wealth shares.
Break it down like this, brackets set at the 20th, 40th, 60th, 80th, 95th, and 99th percentiles of household incomes.
People in the 20th 40th and 60th percentile brackets pay a tax rate equal to how much wealth is controlled by households in each of those brackets.
People in the 80 and 95 brackets pay twice the share they control.
People in the 99 bracket pay three times, and also can't hold public office for ten years after the last time they peak this bracket because, objectively, they are doing just fine for themselves and don't need to be going ahead of others who have actual problems a nation should be focused on addressing.
Also, with very few exceptions like a mortgage on a primary residence or a car loan for a primary vehicle, loans collateralized on capital assets are treated as income for tax purposes.
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Division of labor would suggest the people that are best at hunting money, hunt the money for the tribe while the others do other stuff.
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What's fun is everytime something like this is tried, it fails spectacularly... and they know that.
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When in history did anybody take away billionaires' money?
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There was a recent case of a young billionaire who basically signed over everything to a family member to live on the street to prove he could "Make millions from nothing!" and that the poors "Were just being lazy"
It didn't end well for him and he begged mommy to give him his wealth back because going too long without his gold-plated jaquzzi was hard
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The French revolution and other related uprisings. See: Romanov family vs Bolsheviks.
Edit: it was a joke ffs
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I mean those who have a crap ton of money have it because they don't mind exploiting others in terrible ways to get it. So maybe the cream would rise back up to the top psychopaths.
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Naw, I'm down with exploiting others for personal gain but I simply lack the capital to do so in the same way as the ultra rich.
I'm not going to pretend every low income person is some ethical ideal, because I sure as fuck aren't.
And that's why like laws and shit are needed to prevent that exploitation or whatever.
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Don't forget, Nepotism and "net working" aka groups of sociopaths working together to shear the sheep...
If you take their money, they still have their connections, as long as the other wolves don't turn on them.
Edit: as another poster said "social capital" is a thing.
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Not gonna lie, had me in the first half
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Not me, but only because I've watched his videos on YouTube. The man is a brilliant comedian IMO.
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Same goes for a wealthy grifter. Take all his money away and he will steal more. Scum always rises to the top. No need to test that.
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Eat the rich.
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And get food poisoning
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148 comments
Wasn't there some guy who set themselves a challenge where they were going to make a living without using any of their money?
I believe he had to stop after 3 months because of health concerns.
They see being poor as entertainment.
It didn't end that quick, but he stopped after 9 months due to health concerns. The goal was to earn $1 million in a year, he had earned $62k.
And IIRC, he only did so through siphoning off the value of free facebook/craigslist furniture.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13332399/Millionaire-Mike-Black-homeless-broke-purpose-ends-bizarre-social-experiment.html
It sucks that the only reporting on this is shitty tabloids.
This video was such absolute bull crap lol. He randomly found some dude on like his SECOND night homeless that let him stay in a spare room for free.
Then he flipped free stuff on Craigslist and Facebook for cash which is... fine I guess. A little sleazy but whatever. Magically found transportation and the ability to store and haul this stuff all over town but never explained any of that.
Then he majestically found someone to cosign and provide initial payments to rent like a four bedroom house that he sublet to 3 other tenants... So he found some random guy to COSIGN for him which is crazy knowing how much liability that puts on you while ALSO finding a landlord that is allowing a guy with no job, no income, no credit, no prior residences, and no money to not only rent from him with a random co signer but also allowing him to sublet to three other random ass people the landlord will never even meet. This is possible... But EXTREMELY unlikely. Also, the fact that this dude tries to do a homeless challenge by immediately becoming a landlord is pretty funny ngl. Also it's worth noting that his final number ($64k or whatever) was revenue not profit. He said himself he was making about 50% profit so he made closer to around $30k on the year.
And on top of all that, the fact that he cites health issues as this unforeseen unfortunate issue that got in the way of his inevitable success is kinda rich. That's... kinda the deal with poverty. You fall on hard times. Health often falls apart. Unexpected expenses destroy you. It can and often does completely tear your world apart. Thems the breaks man lol. Dude just experienced life a little and quit.
Ah, so despite having tons of advantages, they were able to find themselves right smack dab at an average income. Nice.
I could be wrong but isn't that more than most people make in 12 months?
So it might not be possible to make millions, but for someone who has the loose ethics of millionaires it's still possible to make significant money starting from scratch. The issue being the unethical/exploitative behavior needed to get there.
0-62k in a year aint bad tbf
*chose to stop
*because of high health care prices
And as far as I know they have not used any of their privilege to do anything to change that situation for others who don't have that choice.
It's because the problem was being poor.
So...stop being poor.
It's easy. He just proved it!
(Massive /s but sadly, for the privileged guy, not sarcasm)
Omg you’re so right!
If the experiment was a success, shouldn’t he help others with that path?
Or maybe that path was overinflated as much as possible…
imagine the privilege to just quit being homeless for health concerns while a lot of people go homeless because of health complications. so he ended where homeless people frequently start. fuck that guy.
He wasn't homeless. He had free shelter by staying with a friend. Nothing luxurious, but he wasn't living on and from the streets. He also only made the money because he called in a "favor" from a business partner that let him sell some niche shit for more money lol
All in all it was a total failure, he realized how much of a failure it was and then backed out feigning "health concerns" to save face.
He made $62k and called that a success. Why not then use said $62k to fix his health issues? Wouldn’t that be much more realistic in terms of unplanned medical costs setting back a lot of Americans?
That's revenue not profit. He said he only made about 50% profit, so he made about 30k for the year.
Healthcare doesn't count , it's too rng based.
There's that guy, but there's also the whole trustafarian "subculture".