The Briefing Room
General Category => Editorial/Opinion/Blogs => Topic started by: mystery-ak on February 07, 2019, 03:33:00 pm
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Abolish Billionaires
A radical idea is gaining adherents on the left. It’s the perfect way to blunt tech-driven inequality.
By Farhad Manjoo
Opinion Columnist
Feb. 6, 2019
Last fall, Tom Scocca, editor of the essential blog Hmm Daily, wrote a tiny, searing post that has been rattling around my head ever since.
“Some ideas about how to make the world better require careful, nuanced thinking about how best to balance competing interests,†he began. “Others don’t: Billionaires are bad. We should presumptively get rid of billionaires. All of them.â€
Mr. Scocca — a longtime writer at Gawker until that site was muffled by a billionaire — offered a straightforward argument for kneecapping the wealthiest among us. A billion dollars is wildly more than anyone needs, even accounting for life’s most excessive lavishes. It’s far more than anyone might reasonably claim to deserve, however much he believes he has contributed to society.
At some level of extreme wealth, money inevitably corrupts. On the left and the right, it buys political power, it silences dissent, it serves primarily to perpetuate ever-greater wealth, often unrelated to any reciprocal social good. For Mr. Scocca, that level is self-evidently somewhere around one billion dollars; beyond that, you’re irredeemable.
more
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionaires-tax.html (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/06/opinion/abolish-billionaires-tax.html)
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Considering most of the Billionaires in the country are Marxists, I have no problem with this. Let's see how quickly they change their attitudes after capitol gains are taxed at 95%.
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So people like Farthead Manjoo thinks there should be no billionaires? I wonder if he'd think that if somehow he came to acquire a billion simoleons?
Then I'll bet he'd think he was perfectly right and just that he has a billion....just not all those others who didn't build it and didn't deserve their wealth.
Many of the comments below are ridiculously moronic. One commenter said Howard Schultz just got lucky with Starbucks...he didn't earn that money. Other comments are similarly insipid.
Sure, we don't need no stinkin' entrepreneurs. They don't deserve their filthy lucre. :whistle:
Is it time for The Great Split yet?
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Wealth doesn't corrupt politics. Politics corrupts wealth.
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Ayn Rand wrote a book about this. It didn't end well.
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Abolish Billionaires
No thanks! I want to be one of them and wish I had the opportunity!
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No thanks! I want to be one of them and wish I had the opportunity!
You want to become a Marxist who funds the destruction of the country?
(https://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed_tablet/public/2018/02/22/billionaires-intro.jpg)
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How would they do this? Executions? Re education camps?
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Dear Farhad,
It is not your money and it is none of your business.
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You want to become a Marxist who funds the destruction of the country?
(https://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed_tablet/public/2018/02/22/billionaires-intro.jpg)
Nope! Those guys are the very ones doing everything possible to prevent ME from becoming a billionaire! I guess I would have to get past millionaire first huh!
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Wealth doesn't corrupt politics. Politics corrupts wealth.
∆ This
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You want to become a Marxist who funds the destruction of the country?
(https://s.newsweek.com/sites/www.newsweek.com/files/styles/embed_tablet/public/2018/02/22/billionaires-intro.jpg)
Just because you don't like someone's politics doesn't give you the right to take what they have.
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Just because you don't like someone's politics doesn't give you the right to take what they have.
Why? They make no bones about taking what I have. Each and every one of them has called on raising income taxes on the high earners. I am calling for a 90%+ tax on capitol gains.
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Why? They make no bones about taking what I have. Each and every one of them has called on raising income taxes on the high earners. I am calling for a 90%+ tax on capitol gains.
And YOU have the nerve to call someone else a Marxist???
All of those people calling for higher income tax rates are doing so because they have the ability (bought and paid for) to arrange their affairs in such a way that they have very little to no "income" as defined by the current MARXIST income tax code!
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Just because you don't like someone's politics doesn't give you the right to take what they have.
^This
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Why? They make no bones about taking what I have. Each and every one of them has called on raising income taxes on the high earners. I am calling for a 90%+ tax on capitol gains.
..and there we have it folks, the Alexandra Ocasio-Cortiz OF GOPBR.
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And YOU have the nerve to call someone else a Marxist???
All of those people calling for higher income tax rates are doing so because they have the ability (bought and paid for) to arrange their affairs in such a way that they have very little to no "income" as defined by the current MARXIST income tax code!
Sorry. If you think this battle was won on taxes you are probably also under the mistaken assumption that Obamacare will be gotten rid of. We are going to get taxed no matter what high minded ideas you have. I see little or no real push from the weak GOP on the issue. I am going to make sure it is them first since they are funding the efforts for me to get taxed first.
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Sorry. If you think this battle was won on taxes you are probably also under the mistaken assumption that Obamacare will be gotten rid of. We are going to get taxed no matter what high minded ideas you have. I see little or no real push from the weak GOP on the issue. I am going to make sure it is them first since they are funding the efforts for me to get taxed first.
I'm under no illusions @AmbFrank. And neither am I going to be a part of the "if you can't beat them join them" crowd as you seem to be advocating for.
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I'm under no illusions @AmbFrank. And neither am I going to be a part of the "if you can't beat them join them" crowd as you seem to be advocating for.
The problem with this country is that not enough people are feeling any pain no matter how bad it gets. The Free Shit Army didn't even have a clue we had a devastating recession because they are cared for cradle to grave and the shitbags on Wall Street who caused the damn thing through greed and Govt' sponsored recklessness not only got passes but the Establishments set up a whole new system to abuse and get rich off of. Now we have a 22 trillion debt. May be manageable if these economic numbers keep putting out, but at some point they won't. Who do we take from them to pay for it when things go south? The Free Shit Army or the sons of bitches that rigged the game? I got a nickle it ain't going to be the Free Shit Army.
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The problem with this country is that not enough people are feeling any pain no matter how bad it gets. The Free Shit Army didn't even have a clue we had a devastating recession because they are cared for cradle to grave and the shitbags on Wall Street who caused the damn thing through greed and Govt' sponsored recklessness not only got passes but the Establishments set up a whole new system to abuse and get rich off of. Now we have a 22 trillion debt. May be manageable if these economic numbers keep putting out, but at some point they won't. Who do we take from them to pay for it when things go south? The Free Shit Army or the sons of bitches that rigged the game? I got a nickle it ain't going to be the Free Shit Army.
I've repeatedly offered a solution. Let's hear yors.
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I've repeatedly offered a solution. Let's hear yors.
Yours and my ideal solutions are meaningless. The reality on the street is that we have a massive class of people who are 5th and 6th generation deadbeat Welfare Queens who want to maintain their lifestyles and we have a ruling class controlled by rich Socialists who want to maintain their lifestyles. Only people left to soak are the people like me in the middle who are too civilized to revolt and too poor to buy politicians. My only real option right now is to see that one of the two other groups takes it in the ass. Otherwise I am screwed. Since the Rich are currently populated with jerks most people don't like I will foment more hatred towards them.
It's called self preservation. The days of noble causes and high minded ideals has sadly passed.
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BKMK
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There's an easy way to abolish most billionaires in America without harming one iota of their net worth.
Revalue the dollar. Move all money amounts one decimal place to the left, and boom. Anybody with a net worth under $10 billion is no longer a billionaire... and you'd still have a dollar with only half the value of the pre-Federal Reserve era average.
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There's an easy way to abolish most billionaires in America without harming one iota of their net worth.
Revalue the dollar. Move all money amounts one decimal place to the left, and boom. Anybody with a net worth under $10 billion is no longer a billionaire... and you'd still have a dollar with only half the value of the pre-Federal Reserve era average.
That is usually the second step down the collapse road right after hyperinflation.
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This is why I keep silver buried in my back yard.
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This is why I keep silver buried in my back yard.
I don't believe you. Give me your address so I can verify.
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I don't believe you. Give me your address so I can verify.
1100 S Ocean Blvd.
Palm Beach, FL
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1100 S Ocean Blvd.
Palm Beach, FL
Wow. That's quite a back yard. Since it is so late, I am not going to knock and wake you up when I get there. I'll check around on my own. Don't worry about me. I have a flashlight.
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Little people pulling stupid crap are going to accomplish one thing.
The financial elite in this world will introduce their own currency. A new global currency that removes the U.S. dollar from its status as being the current leader in global currency.
The U.S. dollar won't be worth the paper it is printed on.
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Wow. That's quite a back yard. Since it is so late, I am not going to knock and wake you up when I get there. I'll check around on my own. Don't worry about me. I have a flashlight.
Take a shovel too so you can bury yourself in the sand to wait until Melania shows up.
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(http://www.ranger.riverviewparkdsm.com/silvbow3.jpg)
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jmyrle wrote:
"Revalue the dollar. Move all money amounts one decimal place to the left, and boom. Anybody with a net worth under $10 billion is no longer a billionaire... and you'd still have a dollar with only half the value of the pre-Federal Reserve era average."
Ever read Matt Bracken's "Enemies, Foreign & Domestic" trilogy?
This is "blue bucks", right out of his novel...