Billionaires should (not) exist?

[djm]

Should taxes be higher for billionaires, probably.

Should we prevent anyone for achieving billionaire levels. I don't know. What is the different between a 100 Millionaire and a Billionaire.

An extra 0

[jyng1]

Corruption also doesn't detract from my point. In fact I'd postulate the major reason why Socialism fails is due to corruption.

Corruption is "built in" to Capitalism hence the average worker in the U.S. being $65,000 per annum worse off than they would be if wages had kept pace with GDP growth.

Wages have stayed the same for doing the same job, big deal. Don't like the job and think you can do better move. Thankfully living in the free world it is possible to do so, unlike in a socialist country.

Like I said, corruption is built in to a capitalist society.

[djm]

Like I said, corruption is built in to a capitalist society.

It's far worse in socialist ones, and your solution is to take a system that you claim is inherently corrupt (I disagree) and add in more from a system that is more prone to corruption. I have never seen a socialist country yet that did not become hopelessly corrupt. On the other hand most capitalist ones are far better to live in regards freedom, security, standard of living, and environment.

[starla]

Bezos and Musk are only billionaires on paper. Most of their wealth is tied up in their companies, and if they were to try to liquidate it, it would plummet. So it's kind of not even real money. Who knows what their actual liquid net worth is. I don't even know if there are billionaires whose wealth wouldn't nosedive if they were to try to spend it, maybe Warren Buffet?

Bill Gates only became a philanthropist because he got bored with making money. He's basically autistic in his focus on goals (probably is autistic, literally). For a long time it was making Microsoft dominant. Now that he's done that and can't really do much more with it, he's focusing on philanthropy.

I don't have a huge problem with billionaire founders, but Amazon is notorious for difficult working conditions amongst the lowest paid tier of employees, while management types make bank mostly off stock (but still have terrible working conditions). Tesla pays engineers piss in terms of salary ($80k for a PhD in the bay area, this is a real offer that the wife of one of rhinosaur's coworkers got) and have to tolerate Musk's infamous mood swings, but people work there hoping that their stock awards will make up for it. The philosophy at Apple in the Jobs era was "you get to work on the coolest shit in the world so shut the fuck up and do your job" which of course most people were happy to do in exchange for the high salary and stock awards. I cannot comment on whether this is still the philosophy or not as I don't talk to anyone that works there anymore.

I have a much bigger problem though, with corporate CEOs who bring nothing to the table but make the company financials look good by squeezing employees. This is pretty much every non-founder CEO these days, and why they are worth so much money when they have not a single original thought much less any capacity to innovate is beyond me. Corporate executives are nothing but leaches making money off the backs of the engineers, assemblers, etc. who create actual value, and they can eat a bag of dicks. And even if they drive a company into the ground, they somehow get hired again to drive another company into the ground. I don't get it.

[ashi]

Bezos and Musk are only billionaires on paper. Most of their wealth is tied up in their companies, and if they were to try to liquidate it, it would plummet. So it's kind of not even real money. Who knows what their actual liquid net worth is. I don't even know if there are billionaires whose wealth wouldn't nosedive if they were to try to spend it, maybe Warren Buffet?

Bill Gates only became a philanthropist because he got bored with making money. He's basically autistic in his focus on goals (probably is autistic, literally). For a long time it was making Microsoft dominant. Now that he's done that and can't really do much more with it, he's focusing on philanthropy.

I don't have a huge problem with billionaire founders, but Amazon is notorious for difficult working conditions amongst the lowest paid tier of employees, while management types make bank mostly off stock (but still have terrible working conditions). Tesla pays engineers piss in terms of salary ($80k for a PhD in the bay area, this is a real offer that the wife of one of rhinosaur's coworkers got) and have to tolerate Musk's infamous mood swings, but people work there hoping that their stock awards will make up for it. The philosophy at Apple in the Jobs era was "you get to work on the coolest shit in the world so shut the fuck up and do your job" which of course most people were happy to do in exchange for the high salary and stock awards. I cannot comment on whether this is still the philosophy or not as I don't talk to anyone that works there anymore.

I have a much bigger problem though, with corporate CEOs who bring nothing to the table but make the company financials look good by squeezing employees. This is pretty much every non-founder CEO these days, and why they are worth so much money when they have not a single original thought much less any capacity to innovate is beyond me. Corporate executives are nothing but leaches making money off the backs of the engineers, assemblers, etc. who create actual value, and they can eat a bag of dicks. And even if they drive a company into the ground, they somehow get hired again to drive another company into the ground. I don't get it.

The only thing I have to add to this is that MacKenzie Scott helped start and run Amazon in the early days and, like Bill Gates, when she tired of that she turned to a life of philanthropy. Sure, she was married to Jeff Bezos, but they had no prenup and rather than claim half their wealth she took only what was hers which made her only the third wealthiest woman because it is hard to beat inherited wealth.

Strangely, I see none of this deranged hostility directed toward Laurene Powell who had no hand in the success of Apple, Inc. or Pixar/Disney yet, through marriage to Steve Jobs, is now worth 20 billion. (Which is not to suggest she deserves it either.)

But if we want to talk about good guy billionaires, we should talk about Jimmy Lai who is probably going to spend the rest of his life in prison for speaking out against the Chinese government.

[jyng1]

Like I said, corruption is built in to a capitalist society.

It's far worse in socialist ones, and your solution is to take a system that you claim is inherently corrupt (I disagree) and add in more from a system that is more prone to corruption. I have never seen a socialist country yet that did not become hopelessly corrupt. On the other hand most capitalist ones are far better to live in regards freedom, security, standard of living, and environment.

It's kinda like a kid making the excuse "but he did it first".

I think one of the best examples of what is wrong with capitalism is Kenneth Copeland Ministries. Worth something between $300 and $760 million and he sells essentially nothing to people who can get the same product elsewhere for free.

Corruption is probably a polite term for someone who insists followers should continue to tithe in a pandemic even though they've lost their jobs.

[djm]

It's kinda like a kid making the excuse "but he did it first".

I think one of the best examples of what is wrong with capitalism is Kenneth Copeland Ministries. Worth something between $300 and $760 million and he sells essentially nothing to people who can get the same product elsewhere for free.

Corruption is probably a polite term for someone who insists followers should continue to tithe in a pandemic even though they've lost their jobs.

I am not making excuses for bad behaviour, just pointing out that both systems have bad behaviour and the one wont fix the other. The examples of corruption in socialist economies are legion. Applying socialist governance to capitalist systems is not a good way of removing it. Good regulation and law is not the sole preserve of socialism it can exist in both systems.

I don't think in either case that 'corruption is baked in' I just think there are plenty of bad people in the world and most systems end up with problems caused by them.

I am not someone who believes in politics as a transformative power for good, most good in the world has little to do with politics and is the result of good individuals not the system they are living in. The converse is true also.

However on balance I look at what happens in communist states, I look at what happens in dictatorships and then when I observe liberal western democracies running a largely capitalist system they generate less poverty, less environmental damage and more opportunities for people. Yes they also have big wealth gaps, but people at the bottom have more than people at the bottom of more 'egalitarian' socialist states.

Furthermore the OP referenced wage gap in the US, but the US is clearly a mixed economy. Over the 40 year period in question large amounts of time had the democrats in charge. Going back to that OP I do not see it as evidence of corruption anyway. Over 40 years living standards have remained stable for people in the same jobs. They haven't collapsed. Meanwhile most US citizens have things that would have inconceivable 40 years ago. Mobile phones, computers, better cars, better environment, so it isn't really honest to say lives are not better.

I also do not believe that a company should as it increases profits just divvy them up amongst workers equally. The people that invested, that innovated, that put in the effort deserve to have a larger part of that pie. A jobs value doesn't go up in sync with a companies profits.

[djm]

I am changing my vote after last nights events. Billionaires that want to ruin football should not exist, other billionaires can carry on as they were.

[Buttrock as zen]

I think the question we need to be asking is "what is the relationship between the wealth gap and climate change?"

This probably boils down to how well any government system can influence global business to pump the brakes and reduce emissions, which on the surface seems like it has nothing to do with billionaires, but likely has everything to do with billionaires. For plenty of industries, emission reduction is an existential issue, which in turn is an existential issue for their investors, who are disproportionately wealthy. Energy/automobiles/travel, three of the largest industries in the world, are directly related to climate change- in the interest of keeping the system of wealth intact, they continue to be encouraged to take token measures to climate, largely in part to the effects in the US of allowing so much lobbying money to flood politicians and ruin representation for the majority.

The pessimistic flip side of this is that socialist systems also probably won't be able to convince the population at large that we need to give up our 400 years of industrial convenience for something as abstract as a few degrees of warming over 100 years.

[starjots]

Should taxes be higher for billionaires, probably.

Should we prevent anyone for achieving billionaire levels. I don't know. What is the different between a 100 Millionaire and a Billionaire.

Interesting thought, isn't it? Mitt Romney is a hundred millionaire (200?), Trump is a few billionaire. The heavy hitters, and there are lots of them, have 10x that wealth or more. Romney is a bug to these people, we are protozoa.

Money does a lot of things, but basically it give you power - the power to get people to do stuff for you or buy things, like politicians or islands. And that power is generic raw power, not specific to whatever industry or thing-a-ma-jig one used to make their money in the first place.