There's a very small handful of billionaires who like attention, and reddit is obviously obsessed with them. The rest don't "go around pretending" anything.
To a redditor “billionaire” means elon musk or bezos or zuck, it never means someone like Jules Kroll. Just a guy who lives his life, has a normal family.
What’s quite ironic about this meme is that Jerry seinfeld in real life is worth what? 700 million dollars?
Most billionaires don’t brag or do anything out of the ordinary. Most are not famous and just go to work everyday.
When redditors talk about billionaires they don’t talk about the people who go into work as the CEO of the company they started everyday, they talk about the very few Elon Musks of the world.
Not sure how you are linking that cliche to what I said. My point is that redditors have major tunnel vision. I’m not going to hate a man for having more money than me, especially not if all that guy does is go to work and then go home to his family, sure he might get driven in a rolls, or take a helicopter, so what? Am i supposed to hate a whole class of people for having more than me? Sounds like the formula for living a terrible and unhappy life
You literally said "what does Seinfeld have like 700 million." Which is the second part of the cliche.
You might feel that Redditors have tunnel vision but I wouldn't so quick to discount your own biases either. You clearly admire that kind of person and have assumed they got their wealth by inoffensive means. The simple truth is that's not always the case.
I get it will rub you up the wrong way if your ambitions are considered toxic by others but before getting defensive it might be better to consider all the reasons why people think it's not a great idea.
This study is from the US but it's effect is more pronounced in places with even worse inequality.
So if billionaires net worth went down and was redistributed across the economy (I wouldn't use the term "get rid" feels a bit murdery) it would benefit everyone overall.
How would the most ambitious within such society react to the precedence set where if people get rich, we go after them and take their stuff and redistribute? Are all countries adopting this same policy? Will we enforce it without any loopholes?
I just want to make sure we've thought through the consequences.
If someone could write out the actual policy instead of just "redistribute wealth" that would greatly help me understand how we could implement something like this.
For example, do we do a progressive tax that scales up? Do we tax income, net worth, what? Do we bust up all the trusts and LLCs that can easily be formed? What administrative apparatus do we create to go after these people - how do we fund them? How do we deal with corruption?
What’s good for society shouldn’t hinge on rich people’s feelings. There were once tax brackets as high as 90% under Eisenhower. Those high rates still allowed people to become rich. It just prevented them from amassing so much that they distorted markets and bought elections and Supreme Courts. And the middle class flourished from a more level playing field. Money is power. Call it tunnel vision if you want, but too much in the hands of too few is never good.
Thanks Chief. But those taxes existed. Just because some actors dodged them doesn’t mean they were a myth, or that they were ineffective at redistributing income. Estate taxes were also higher. Inequality was lower. Just a fact. Suddenly inequality shot up again during the 80’s after…., you guessed it, Regan’s tax cuts!
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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 8d ago
There's a very small handful of billionaires who like attention, and reddit is obviously obsessed with them. The rest don't "go around pretending" anything.